Sources close to Intel have confirmed earlier reports that Intel’s Montevina notebook platform, referred to as Centrino 2, will see a substantial delay. Montevina will not make it to Computex next week and will miss its originally planned debut date later in June. Intel has decided to delay Centrino 2, providing AMD with an opportunity to pitch its Puma platform and Turion Ultra processor. Intel’s engineering and manufacturing engine has been running flawlessly over the past two years, taking away AMD’s room to breathe. But, of course, mistakes are bound to happen at some point and Intel is now being confronted with an issue serious enough to officially delay the launch of Centrino 2. Analyst Doug Freedman claimed that the company had a “mis-step in the completion of FCC certification” for the next-generation Centrino processor with support for the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. F
reedman said that 802.11n support may see a slower ramp as Montevina can only be shipped with support 802.11 a/b/g for now. Freedman also noted that Intel faces problems with its integrated graphics chipset, which is causing failures in OEM notebooks. “We believe the potential impact is to lower-end systems as higher-end notebooks are designed with discrete graphics cards. In fact, the impact on [Intel] is a possible improvement in mix within the chipset business; however, it is offset by the yield loss related to the functional issues.” Our sources at Intel told us that Centrino 2 is no scheduled for a July 14 launch with “some chipsets”. A “couple of weeks later” the company will be shipping the full line of chipsets, as the company needs “a few extra days” for tasks such as antenna testing.
Source: TG Daily, Martin
Microsoft’s next operating system (OS) will come with multi-touch features as an alternative to the mouse. It is hoped the successor will have a better reception than the much-maligned Vista OS, released last year. Scheduled for release in 2009 the new fingertip interface lets users enlarge and shrink photos, trace routes on maps, paint pictures or play the piano. “The way you interact with the system will change dramatically,” said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Speaking at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego, the Microsoft Chairman said Windows 7 would incorporate new forms of communication and interaction. “Today almost all the interaction is keyboard-mouse. Over years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink – all of those things – will be huge.” Chief executive Steve Ballmer described the limited demo of the multi touch screen at the conference as “a small snippet” of the next version of Windows after admitting he wants “to do better” than Vista.
Korean computer engineers are introducing a new digital music format that has a six-channel audio equalizer and separate controls on the sound volume for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice. The new format, which has a file extension format of MT9 and a commercial title of “Music 2.0″, is poised to replace the popular MP3 file format as the de-facto standard of the digital music source, its inventors say. The MT9 technology was selected as a candidate item for the new digital music standard at the last regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the international body of the digital music and video industry.
Samsung has released a one terabyte (TB) hard drive that’s capable of storing around 40 billion songs (or something near that number perhaps) for only $199, which is less than 100 English pounds. The desire for HD-quality programming and hard disk drive (HDD) recorders has led to an increase in storage capacity, and now the industry is talking about things in TBs rather than GBs. Although only an option for the PC, the EcoGreen F1 from Samsung offers a huge amount of storage for serial downloaders, or, as the Korean electronics company suggests, those with large surveillance capture needs.
Microsoft has decided that the best way to drive users to its search engine is to pay them a nice cheque. Turning Microsoft’s cash mountain into user clicks must have been agreed at the highest level in Redmond. According to the 
Microsoft has proposed a complex new deal with Yahoo that would involve collaboration between their online advertising businesses but would not involve a full takeover, Microsoft said on Sunday. Microsoft released a brief statement on Sunday disclosing the renewed talks, a surprising reversal just weeks after Microsoft withdrew its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo and said it had “moved on.” The statement hints that Microsoft may later seek to reenter merger negotiations. In the statement, Microsoft said it was “considering and has raised with Yahoo an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo.” Microsoft provided no additional details.
Napster Inc., the digital music service, on Tuesday opened the world’s biggest MP3 download store with more than 6 million songs in a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes store. The new Web-based music store will have digital songs from all major music labels as well as thousands of independent labels. The MP3-format songs will be compatible with the vast majority of digital media devices and mobile phones including Apple’s popular iPod as well as its iPhone. Before now Napster has focused on selling all-you-can-eat monthly streaming music subscription packages but has struggled to win over the majority of fans who want to be able to transfer songs they like on to a portable device such as the market-leading iPod.