Preliminary news regarding AMD’s upcoming 45nm Phenom processors has been trickling out for the last few months, but other than some basic information about the manufacturing process, code names, and socket, concrete details about the processors themselves has been scarce.  Just the other day, however, a post in a Chinese discussion forum–itocp.com–shed some light on the stock performance and overclockability of an early 45nm Phenom sample.If the information in the post turns out to be true, and all indicators

Every once in a while we like to roll up a list of short-sighted or otherwise ridiculous comments and predictions regarding technology that underscore just how far mankind has come over the years, sometimes in spite of ourselves.  There’s no question that the possibilities are virtually limitless when it comes to technology but it’s always fun to poke a snarky finger at some folks that took a long reach at the future that shouldn’t have been made or provided commentary on technology that

WindowsForDevices has posted an interesting article comparing the number of iPhones and Windows Mobile devices sold in Q1 2008, and the numbers prove Windows Mobile the winner by a mile. Windows Mobile, with approximately 4.5 million units sold in Q1, clearly beat the iPhone, which sold 1.7 million. In fact, WinMo sales grew by a larger number in Q1 2008 over 2007’s first quarter (selling about 1.8 million more units) than the total number of iPhones sold between January and March ‘08. 

This is certainly interesting, given the relentless iPhone hype we’ve seen since the handheld was announced in early 2007.  Of course, one must consider that all major wireless service providers have at least one Windows Mobile offering, while the iPhone has been limited to a dedicated carrier wherever it’s sold.  And there are other considerations which have benefited WinMo including third-party software support, Exchange syncing, hardware keyboards, lower prices, etc. 

But most of these advantages have been rendered obsolete with this morning’s release of the iPhone 3G, and Apple is moving quickly to address each disadvantage of its hatchling phone when compared to Windows Mobile, RIM and Palm.  Windows Mobile still has advantages over the iPhone, but they aren’t significant enough to save Windows Mobile on a large scale.  Microsoft must deliver wide, sweeping changes to the way the OS looks, works and interoperates with the Cloud in order to survive the iPhone.

Microsoft can breathe a sigh of relief for now, but it had better not last long.  Windows Mobile 7, it’s game time.

We’re overstating the obvious here, but there is a reason why the face of so many vlogs is a pretty, young woman. You don’t need an in-depth study of Social Technographics to figure it out either: This is an admittedly oversimplification, but simply put, Straight men want to be with her and women just want to be her. By catering to prurient interests and role modeling (did we happen to mention that many of these women vloggers are also wicked smart?), a large portion of the online community is a ready-made audience.

Yes, Virginia, there is cellular phone news that doesn’t involve the iPhone. That doesn’t mean we won’t mention it at least once – or twice. AT&T and Palm have lowered the price of the Centro to $69.99. This is part of a back-to-school promotion, running from 7/11 to 9/20. We have to point out to Palm that they need to update their website. At the time of this writing it still says “as low as $99.99.” Once you click “Buy” and select AT&T, you can see the offer, which involves a mail-in rebate. And with

The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor X9000 is the flagship mobile processor and we got a chance to take it for a test drive in the Dell XPS M1730 notebook. We took the time to overclock the 2.8GHz processor in the notebook and was able to get 3.4GHz out of this killer 45nm processor. If you are looking for the ultimate gaming notebook processor look no further!

When we reviewed the AMD Phenom X4 9950 processor a couple weeks ago we told you that AMD was going to lower the price on the Phenom X4 9850 'Black Edition' Processor and it seems that the price drop has finally happened. Newegg has the Phemon X4 9850 priced at $205 with free shipping. The next best price we could find was on PriceGrabber for $209.99 with free shipping. When the AMD Phenom X4 9850 was announced on April 7th, 2008 it was priced at $235 in quantities of 1,000.

Realize new possibilities for connecting with friends, family, and digital entertainment with the phenomenal performance of the AMD Phenom 9000 series quad-core processor. Built from the ground up for true quad-core performance, AMD Phenom processors speed through advanced multitasking, critical business productivity, advanced visual design and modeling, serious gaming, and visually stunning digital media and entertainment.

Last night we attended the Digital Life Press Preview event in New York City. One product that caught our attention was AOC’s new 2230Fm display. As a 22-inch, HD flat-panel display there is nothing necessarily earth-shattering about its design. But what tripped us up was the marketing tag for the device: “No PC Required.” Huh? It turns out that the 2230Fm has a neat little trick up its sleeve. In addition to being a traditional flat-screen LCD with a native resolution of 1680×1050 and VGA (D-Sub 15), DVI-D,

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will take an $880 million writedown on the value of its handheld and digital television units in the second quarter, plus several other charges, the chipmaker said in a regulatory filing Friday. Not all is bad news though as AMD said it will record a $190 million gain related to the sale of certain 200-millimeter wafer fabrication tools.

The company also expects to take $32 million in restructuring charges in the second quarter for employee severance. AMD also said it will record $36 million in impairment charges related to the company's short-term investments in flash memory chipmaker Spansion Inc. and auction-rate securities.

Rambus Inc today announced it has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against NVIDIA Corporation for patent infringement. The lawsuit alleges that a number of NVIDIA products with memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3 SDRAM infringe 17 Rambus patents. The accused products in the complaint include chipsets, graphics processors, media communication processors, multimedia applications processors and other products from at least six NVIDIA product lines. Rambus is seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe the Rambus patents, as well as monetary damages. July has been a rough month for NVIDIA! First they lower their financial outlook and get hit with ~$200 million dollar bill on faulty mobile parts and now this! Shares of NVIDIA are down nearly 40% this month alone!

“For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with NVIDIA, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail,” said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. “Graphics and multimedia products require leading-edge memory performance, and as NVIDIA advances its product portfolio, it infringes more and more of our patents. We are left with no other recourse than litigation to protect and seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions. Nevertheless, we hope to continue discussions with NVIDIA to reach a negotiated settlement.”