Intel, Asustek plan low-cost laptop
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SAN FRANCISCO/TAIPEI  - Intel Corp.  has  detailed plans to team up with Asustek Computer Inc. ,  the world's largest maker of computer motherboards, to make a  notebook PC that would cost as little as $200 and be aimed at  mass markets in developing countries.
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Chip company Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Thursday rolled out a low-cost Internet device aimed at underserved markets around the world.
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Intel Corp. said Tuesday its diminutive low-cost laptop will be evaluated in Brazil next year alongside a cheaper alternative from a nonprofit group seeking to bring computers to poor children worldwide.
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(InfoWorld) - Asustek ComputerÂ will begin selling its first ultra-mobile PC (UMPC), the R2H, worldwide by the end of this month, while Samsung Electronics is readying one that eschews Intel microprocessors in favor of Via Technologies chips. Asustek's UMPC is designed with all the functions of a laptop, including a folding typing pad, as well as other devices, such as a GPS (global positioning system) so it can sit on the dashboard of a users' car to map the way home. The R2H runs Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet Edition OS on a 900MHz Intel Celeron M microprocessor. It measures 23.4 centimeters by 13.3cm, about half the size of a laptop, and weighs 870 grams. The OS allows touch navigation with a stylus on its 7-inch screen, but the models on display Monday at a news conference in Taipei wereÂ difficult to use. Company representatives said the display models were for testing only, the reason for the sluggish performance. Like most UMPCs, the R2H is an Internet device, connecting through 802.11b/g WLAN (wireless LAN), and supports Bluetooth. For security, Asustek added an infrared fingerprint identification system to keep users' data safe from thieves. Although the suggested retail price of the R2H bound for the Taiwan market is NT$36,800 (US$1,117), it will come in different configurations users can choose from, so prices will be flexible. Asustek will offer models with different sized hard drives, ranging from 20GB to 60GB in capacity. The standard edition will also come with just a two-cell battery, for about two hours of use before needing a recharge. Users will be able to select a four-cell battery as well, at an added cost. The device is Windows Vista compatible. The company also launched a new tablet PC, the R1F, and expects to produce a total of 3,000 units of the two devices each month, said Benson Lin, head of sales in the Asia Pacific for Asustek, at a news conference in Taipei. Samsung Electronics, of South Korea, isÂ readying a new UMPCÂ with a 7-inch screen that uses a 1.0GHz Via C7 microprocessor, but hasn't set a launch date. The device, dubbed the Q1B, will come with 40GB of storage space, WLAN and Bluetooth, and will weigh 1.7 lbs, according to Samsung'sÂ Web site. The Q1B will come with a better battery than the R2H, a three-cell battery offering up to five hours of life before needing a recharge. Samsung is offering an upgrade to a six-cell battery at an additional charge. The company is also offering additional peripherals similar to Asustek's, such as an organizer bag, optical disc drive, and typing pad.
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Intel's new laptop dual-core chips don't match their desktop siblings' star performance.
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Taiwanese hardware maker Asustek Computer Inc. is working with Intel Corp. on a line of notebook PCs priced as low as US$199, according to one of the chipmaker&#39;s top executives.
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Faced with weak demand for PCs and technical limits on the speed of its products, Intel is betting on a future in which every chip it makes contains what amounts to two computers.
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A low-cost laptop, designed for children in developing countries, will go on sale in North America.
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Taiwan&#39;s Asustek Computer complained on Tuesday of a shortage of Intel central processing units (CPUs) for laptop PCs, but said it didn&#39;t expect the problem to affect its sales.&quot;The biggest shortage in notebook components is in CPUs, Intel CPUs. Intel isn&#39;t meeting demand,&quot; said Jerry Shen, president of Asustek, answering questions at an investors conference in Beitou, Taiwan.The statement highlights persistent problems laptop PC makers have faced this year in trying to procure certain parts. Strong demand for mobile computers has caused&#160;a shortage&#160;of small LCD (liquid crystal display) screens and small hard disc drives (HDD), laptop makers have complained. Therecall of around 10 million laptop batteries&#160;containing cells manufactured by Sony has also kept these vital parts in short supply since last year.Intel could not immediately be reached for comment.Back-to-school sales in September, and the run-up to the end-of-year holiday season are hot times for people to buy new laptop PCs, and hype around Microsoft&#39;s Windows Vista and&#160;Intel&#39;s Santa Rosa laptop chips&#160;has given an added spurt to demand this year. Laptop PC sales are expected to hit record highs, and some companies believe the market will grow by around 30 percent next year.Supplies of certain laptop parts could become more plentiful once the peak season ends and demand slows down.Meantime, laptop makers have had to keep up with suppliers by maintaining relationships and building inventory when they can.&quot;Our relationship with Intel is good so we don&#39;t have a big problem, but if it wasn&#39;t so good, our troubles might be worse,&quot; said Shen, of the CPU issue.Asustek forecasts it will ship between 4.2 million and 4.4 million of its own-brand laptops this year, not including its popular new Eee PC. The company has targeted shipments of up to 400,000&#160;Eee PCs&#160;this year.&#160;
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Advanced Micro Devices has started to ship the Sempron 3000+ chip for budget notebooks.
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Intel said it would join the board of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, which seeks to build inexpensive computers for the developing world.
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BOMBAY - US chip maker Advanced Micro Devices has unveiled a low-cost Internet access device that could cost just a few hundred dollars, aimed at first-time technology users in the developing world.
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(InfoWorld) - Taiwanese hardware maker Asustek Computer is working with IntelÂ on a line of notebook PCs priced as low as $199, according to one of the chip maker's top executives. The new line of notebooks is intended for users in emerging markets and education, said Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's sales and marketing group. He announced the initiative with Asustek Chairman Jonney Shih during a speech at the Computex exhibition, which started today in Taipei. "The entry level notebooks for that will start at $199, street price," Maloney said. The new notebooks are similar toÂ Intel's existing Classmate PC notebooks, a line of low-cost machines aimed at schools in developing markets. The notebooks will have an Intel processor and either a 7-inch or 10-inch screen. They will come with Wi-Fi, a solid-state hard disk, and run either Linux or Windows XP. "It's totally new. It's going to have the Classmate PC brand on it, but it will be sold and shipped by Asus," Maloney said, calling the notebooks a complement to Intel's current Classmate PC line, which is aimed at bringing more students in emerging markets online. "We're delighted there's another product here that can be used to address this problem," he said. The $199 price of the low-end version of Asustek's new laptop is not far from the current price of the One Laptop Per Child's (OLPC's) laptop. In April,Â OLPC raised the priceÂ of its upcoming XO laptop, commonly called the $100 laptop, to $175.
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According to Intel, the OLPC not only asked Intel to stop working on its own low-cost laptop projects that competed with the OLPC's XO laptop, it also asked Intel to stop supplying chips to other partners, like Asus, working on similar designs.
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(InfoWorld) - Discussions are under way to put an Intel microprocessor inside a version of theÂ One Laptop Per ChildÂ (OLPC) project's "$100 laptop" for children in developing countries, according to representatives from both parties. "Intel, like a lot of other people, is more than welcome to try to design great silicon for this project and this mission, and we've been working with them to help them do exactly that," said Walter Bender, OLPC's president, in a telephone interview. Despite its nickname, the OLPC's lime-green XO laptop actually costs $175. The first version of the machine runs on Advanced Micro Devices' 433MHz Geode LX-700, an x86-architecture chip that is slow by the standard of mainstream processors but consumes little power and costs less. OLPC is close to starting productionÂ of the XO. The group has already gone through four generations of test systems to refine the laptop's design. A production run of 300 machines was completed in August, a final preparatory step before the XO goes into mass production later this month or in early October. While OLPC has yet to decide whether or not to use Intel processors, Intel confirmed its engineers are developing a motherboard based on one of its chips for an OLPC laptop. That process required the engineers to start from scratch, since the current XO design isn't based on Intel's chips. "It requires a new design, a new product," said Leighton Phillips, the manager of Intel's World Ahead Program in Asia. The design, which Intel plans to submit for OLPC's consideration, will be based on either existing mobile chips, such as modified versions of the Celeron M called A100 and A110, or Silverthorne, an upcoming processor designed for small, mobile computers. The dual-coreÂ Silverthorne processorÂ will be made using a 45-nanometer production process and will be available early next year in different versions. Silverthorne's main advantages are lower power consumption and size. The chips are so small that Intel can fit 2,500 of them on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer, helping to keep unit production costs low enough for them to be used in handheld devices and low-cost computers. Whether Silverthorne is cheap enough to be used in laptops like the XO remains to be seen. "We're looking at ways to get there," Phillips said. If an Intel chip ends up inside an OLPC laptop, the laptop may be different from the existing XO design. That laptop was designed for use in harsh, rural environments with lots of dust and high humidity, but OLPC wants to develop laptops for use in urban areas where better infrastructure is available. "I can imagine there will be a family of laptops in terms of processor power and maybe there will be a larger form factor for older kids," Bender said. The discussions over an Intel-based laptop are part of wider talks on how Intel and OLPC can cooperate on technology and product development. Those talks started in July after Intel and OLPC signed an agreement that, among other things, gave Intel a seat on the group's board and prevents the two sides from disparaging each others' products. Besides putting an Intel processor inside a future OLPC laptop, the talks could see some of the technology developed by OLPC find its way into Intel's hands. For example, the chip maker is interested in the low-power screen technology developed by OLPC. Offering an OLPC laptop with an Intel processor doesn't mean the group will stop using AMD's chips, Bender said. "The Geode's been very easy to work with and hasn't been a limiting factor whatsoever," he said. As part of OLPC's desire to offer systems based on different processors, the group is looking to work with other vendors, in addition to Intel. One such company is Marvell Technology Group, which could see its Xscale processors, which the company acquired from Intel in 2006, also end up in future OLPC laptops, Bender said. "We want to have lots of choices, lots of people doing this, because there are lots of kids and lots of need," he said.
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Intel Corp.  said on Thursday it  plans to start shipping new processors for desktop and laptop  computers in August.
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(InfoWorld) - In an unexpected development, chip giant Intel has joined the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. The nonprofit project aims to equip children in developing countries with specially designed low-cost notebooks powered by chips from Intel rivalÂ AMD. Previously, Intel's efforts in the education market appeared at odds with those of OLPC. While OLPC expects toÂ finally begin delayed volume shipments of its XO laptopÂ in September,Â priced at $175, Intel has been selling itsÂ Classmate PC laptopÂ in bulk since March. Classmate currently costs around $225, but Intel hopes to lower that price to $200 by year-end. Intel has been selling Classmate primarily in Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan, while OLPC has beta copies of its laptops in use by schoolchildren in Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, and Uruguay. The governments of those seven nations have pledged to purchase the XO laptops in bulk when volume shipments begin. Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of OLPC, has previously said publicly that Intel's Classmate efforts have been adversely affecting his project, given the well-funded nature of the chip maker's initiative. Intel and OLPC had engaged in conversations on and off for a while but nailed down an agreement to work together in the last month, according to Will Swope, vice president and director of corporate affairs at Intel. "Our role here is one of how do we have the biggest impact on education and on children around the world?" he said. The chip maker has spent more than $1 billion in education initiatives since its founding and over the last five to six years has been investing annually around $100 million on such projects. "How could we make that more impactful and reach more children?" Swope asked. The answer, he said, was to join OLPC. "Collaboration with Intel means that the maximum number of laptops will reach children,â Negroponte agreed in a statement. Under the agreement, Intel and OLPC will look into collaborating on both the technology and educational fronts. Intel will also join the OLPC board. In the short term, Intel will effectively be supporting two different laptop programs -- OLPC and Classmate -- which will sometimes overlap, while retaining some unique capabilities, according to Swope. It will be up to governments to decide which machine they want to buy for their schools. Over time, the two lines will become "more complementary" and Intel and OLPC will partner a lot more, he said. As yet, it's too early for Intel to provide specifics on that area of the relationship between the two organizations and product lines, Swope added. The agreement doesn't have anything to do with Intel making chips for the XO laptop, although should the contract to provide silicon for the device be up for grabs, Intel would naturally be interested, Swope said. AMD, an OLPC board member, is supplying its Geode processors for the machine. "We're definitely excited by this change of heart [by Intel] and welcome their contributions," said Rebecca Gonzales, director of marketing communications at AMD. "We're happy to have them as part of the group." AMD has long said that the technology divide that OLPC is trying to bridge with its XO laptop can't be achieved by a single entity, Gonzales added. AMD has worked closely with the other corporate members of OLPC, which include Brightstar, eBay, Google, News, Nortel Networks, Quanta Computer, and Red Hat. The vendor is looking forward to Intel joining the board and providing a fresh take on the project, Gonzales said. Intel isn't disclosing all the conditions of its membership in OLPC. Swope noted that a number of other IT vendors are lining up to join the project under the same terms as Intel, and OLPC doesn't want to disclose those specifics until those other companies have also become members. Intel also isn't revealing how much it's investing in OLPC and that figure may remain undisclosed, Swope said. OLPC has struggled to bring its ambitious project to fruition. Initially, the organization had hoped to begin selling its laptop at $100, but that's proved impossible given spiraling production costs. The laptop is being manufactured by Quanta with the Taiwanese vendor hoping to produce 1 million computers by year-end. Negroponte continues to vacillate on whether OLPC will also make the notebooks available outside of the developing world, for instance, to U.S. states.