It's a drama we've all seen play out before: a small, secretive start-up lays plans to come out with a chip that will compete against Intel in a hot market. Montalvo Systems is just hoping it has a different ending this time. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is designing a multicore, energy-efficient chip for ultraportables and notebooks that will be capable of running the same software that Intel chips run, according to sources. Venture and private equity firms such as CMEA, Bay Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, NEA-IndoUS Ventures, and Adams Street Partners have plunked more than $73 million into the company.

The company has filed several patents, say sources, but only a few applications have thus far become public through the World Intellectual Property Organization. The disclosed patent applications revolve around conserving energy while retrieving data from memory or caches. Although the company doesn't have chips yet, it is expected to make some sort of public announcement later this year about its progress. It has offices in Silicon Valley and Bangalore and has several employment requests open on job boards.

Yahoo! Inc., the world's second-most popular Internet search engine, said it's still examining a $44.6 billion unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft Corp. and evaluating other options.

The company has a 'wide range' of strategic alternatives, Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang said in an e-mailed message to employees. The message was included in a regulatory filing today. He urged employees to stay focused as Yahoo pursues its 'transformation strategy.' Microsoft made the $31-a-share offer last week, aiming to unite the second- and third-biggest Web search providers to take on rival Google Inc., which dominates Internet advertising sales. Microsoft predicts that the market for online ads will almost double to $80 billion by 2010.

WD JOINS THE GREEN GRID WD Committed to Pushing Leading-Edge Hard Drive Technology to Reduce Power Consumption in Data Centers LAKE FOREST, Calif. — Feb. 05, 2008 — As a leading hard drive supplier to major enterprise, surveillance, consumer electronics and computing manufacturers worldwide, Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC)  announced the company has joined The Green Grid, a nonprofit consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. The Green Grid seeks

Just in case you didn’t catch the new link at the top of the page, we’re writing to let you all know that we’ve just posted a mid-range workstation-class GPU round-up at HotHardware.  We look at three cards in particular – two from ATI and one from Nvidia.  From ATI, we’ve got the new FireGL V5600 512 MB card along with the low-end FireGL V3600 256 MB card.  And in the Nvidia camp, we’ve got the popular QuadroFX 1700 512 MB card.  All three of these cards are very tolerable in terms of size,

There’s been a lot of interest among users, the media, and potential investors about social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and others recently. But there seems to be one class of people losing interest very quickly in social networks: advertisers.There was a time when Mark Seremet considered MySpace one of the best things to happen to his business. Seremet, then-CEO of customized clothing company Spreadshirt, saw sales jump sixfold in late 2005 and early 2006 after he ran ads on the popular social networks

This is even worse than a pay toilet! In Finland, you’d better have a cell phone if nature calls. As a result of continued and endemic vandalism, the Finnish Road Administration has developed a system which allows travellers to open the doors to roadside toilets only by sending a SMS message to the number given by the Road Administration.The new system was introduced in January in the rest areas along Highway 1 in Paimio and Salo near Turku, following numerous breakages, arson attempts, and thefts in the buildings

Toshiba Enhances Satellite X205-SLi Gaming Notebooks with New Intel 45nm Processors for Greater Performance IRVINE, Calif., (Feb. 5, 2008) — Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the latest enhancements to the company’s flagship gaming notebook series — the Satellite X205 featuring the new Intel 45nm processors and NVIDIA SLI technology. The Intel 45nm technology produces a processor that generates less heat and provides a faster,

Since the 16 GB iPod Touch was announced in September we all knew it was only a matter of time until Apple slapped that 16 GB into its larger brother.   Here we go, and still more.Apple® today added new models of the iPhone™ and iPod® touch which have double the memory, doubling the amount of music, photos and videos that customers can carry with them wherever they go. The revolutionary iPhone now comes in a new 16GB model for $499, joining the 8GB model for $399. iPod touch now comes

The small Intel Core 2 Duo chip that allows Apple to make their MacBook Air so slender is not exclusively licensed for use by Apple. Newsfactor reports that both Lenovo and Fujitsu are interested in using the 65 nanometer scale chip in their own ultrathin notebook offerings. Earlier this month, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air at the annual Macworld conference. The new laptop is so thin — three-quarters of an inch at the thickest part — that it fits into a manila envelope. The svelteness is achieved

Put this in the rumor category. Unconfirmed reports show 3 new MacBook Pros showing up in Best Buy’s inventory.Last week, we’d heard an unconfirmed report that three new MacBook Pro models had appeared in Best Buy’s inventory tracking system. Some inventory screenshots (1, 2) we received today appear to confirm this earlier report, showing off the upcoming $1999 price point MacBook Pro (name cut off in image).Information found in early inventory tracking systems, however, is difficult to rely on, as many of