INTEL TO SHOW CEDAR TRAIL-BASED ATOM PLATFORM AT IDC BEIJING

If you have read the announcement of the new Intel’s Oak Trail-based Atom processor platform earlier today, you might have been wondering whether Intel is changing Atom’s target market from netbooks to tablets and other embedded devices. Well, the answer is no. In fact, Intel is going to show off the next generation Atom processors platform - codenamed “Cedar Trail” - for netbooks, entry-level desktops and all-in-one designs this very week atIntel Developer Forum in Beijing, China.
No clock speed has been mentioned yet but the new platform which is based on Intel’s 32nm process technology will be equipped with quite a number of new features such as Intel Wireless Music, Intel Wireless Display, PC Synch and Fast Boot. The new Cedar Trail-based platform will also be supporting Blu-Ray 2.0, HDMI and DisplayPort together with dedicated media engine capable of full 1080p playback.
In addition to all the goodies above, Intel has also stated that the low-powered nature of the platform will enable manufacturers to come out with fanless design products and longer battery lifespan. Products based on the new Cedar Trail-based Intel Atom processor platform are expected to be available in the second half of this year.

INTEL ATOM’S OAK TRAIL IS OFFICIAL, COMING TO TABLETS NEAR YOU

Made its first appearance on Intel’s roadmap sometime last year, the chip giant has finally announced the official availability of their new Atom platform previously known as “Oak Trail”. While Intel Atom has always been associated with netbook form factor, this new platform is specifically designed for embedded devices such as tablets which make it a rather unique from other Intel Atom offerings.

Leading the release of the new Oak Trail-based platform would be the single-core dual-threaded 1.5GHz Intel Atom Z670 processor which features an integrated Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 600 as its graphics core together with a built-in memory controller that supports up to 2GB of single channel DDR2 memory. The low-powered processor - with a TDP of only 3 watts - also comes with supports for 1080p video playback and Adobe Flash-based contents as well as the ability to run on variety of operating system including Google Android, MeeGo and Windows. In addition to the Z670 processor, Intel is also offering the slightly slower single-core dual-threading 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z650 processor.

Meanwhile, the new platform also comes with a new chipset in the form of Intel SM35 Express. It provides the platform with SATA 3Gb/s capability as well as Hi-Speed USB 2.0 with up to 4 USB ports; integrated Intel High Definition Audio and HDMI 1.3a.

First wave of Oak Trail-based Intel Atom products are expected to be available in the market starting from next month onwards from manufacturers such as Fujitsu, Razer (yes, the gaming equipment outfit), Lenovo and many more. For further information about the new Intel Atom processor platform, lead your browser towww.intel.com.

SPECULATION: GOOGLE READYING CHROME OS FOR TABLETS?

Until today, we're still not sure what to think about Google Chrome OS, and if it has any place in the mobile computing ecosystem. Considering the only device using this in the wild is the CR-48, which only a handful of people around the world could get their hands on. While still in it's infancy, the Chrome OS could be great, but only as great as the connectivity around and the users embracing the cloud.

It looks like Google may be preparing Chrome OS for the tablet form factor. Hold up, you are probably thinking, what about the Android 3.0 Honeycomb which has been making waves in the tablet world? Well nothing's confirmed yet, but according to CNET, it has uncovered several changes to the Chrome and Chrome OS source code which nods towards a touch version of the OS as well as new touch-optimized features.

This may be an interesting direction that Google is taking with tablets, maybe integrating Chrome OS and Android somehow, or perhaps they are looking for Chrome to take over the tablet powering duties altogether. Alternatively, this could be a bored Google employees experiment and a potential "labs" implementation. Only time will tell. What do you think? Chrome OS replacing Android 3.0? Let us know in the comments!

(Source: Mashable & CNET)

FIBRE-OPTIC CABLE THEFT BY A 75-YEARS OLD CAUSES INTERNET DISRUPTIONS

Here in Malaysia, we would hear of electrical cable theft from time to time but I personally never heard such thing happened to fibre-optic cables. Well, that is exactly what happened in Georgia and check this out: the accused is a 75-years old woman.

According to a Georgian interior ministry spokesman, the woman was looking for scrap metals when she found and hacked the cable open which resulted in almost 12 hours of Internet downtime for majority of Internet users in Georgia and its neighboring country, Armenia. The woman has now been charged with damaging property and is now facing up to three years of jail time if convicted, even though she has been released from custody for the time being due to her age.

Meanwhile, now that our Internet infrastructures are slowly being replaced with fibre-optics, do you think such case will happen in Malaysia? I hope not because Internet downtime is seriously a pain in the...well, you know what I mean.

[Source: Yahoo via CNET. Image: Kenny Holston, used under Creative Commons license.]

HP ANNOUNCES NEW COST EFFECTIVE INK ADVANTAGE PRINTING SOLUTIONS

Everybody knows that inkjet printers are relatively cheap to own but expensive to maintain in a long run mainly due to the cost of replacement ink cartridges. Not for these new products from HP though. Designed to help home and small office users reduce their printing costs, the new HP Ink Advantage printing solutions line-up feature high-performing ink cartridges and all-in-one printers that are rather friendly to the wallet.

At only RM 27 per unit, the high-capacity HP 703 Black Deskjet Ink Cartridges is able to print up to 600 black pages which translate to only 4.5 sen per page. Its color counterpart - the 703 Tri-Color Deskjet Ink Cartridges - performs rather well too; at up to 250 color pages for the same RM 27 price tag. These cartridges are used in the new HP Deskjet Ink Advantage K209a All-in-One Printer that is capable of printing 29 pages per minute (ppm) in black and 23 ppm in color while keeping its price tag rather affordable at RM 319.

”Today’s announcement furthers HP’s leadership and commitment in offering our customers greater choice and quality and reliable printing at affordable prices. Home and small office customers can significantly reduce their printing costs when they choose HP Ink Advantage solutions,” - Bernard Chiang, Country General Manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Malaysia.

The new HP Ink Advantage printing solutions also features the new HP 704 Black and Tri-Color Deskjet Ink Cartridges that carry the same price tag as HP 703 cartridges but with a lower page yield. That being said, their performances are still not that far behind with a page yield of up to 480 black pages and 200 color pages respectively. These two cartridges are made for the new HP Deskjet Ink Advantage 2060 All-in-One Printer that is priced at RM 249.

The new HP Ink Advantage printers and ink cartridges are available in our market starting from this month onwards. To find out more about them, head on to www.hp.com.

Microsoft to issue a record 64 fixes

Of the 17 patches, nine are rated critical, and cover flaws in Windows, Office, IE and Visual Studio amongst others.

The update will also address a MHTML flaw uncovered in January.

"This is a huge update and system administrators should plan for deployment as all Windows systems including Server 2008 and Windows 7 are affected by critical bulletins," advised Amol Sarwate, manager of the vulnerability research lab for security firm Qualys. "Frequently used office applications like Excel 2003 through 2010 and PowerPoint 2002 through 2010 are also affected."

Paul Voss, senior response communications manager with Microsoft, said the software giant would also shut down several security alerts, including a critical one in Server Message Block Browser.

Story Source: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/366640/record-64-flaws-to-be-fixed-on-patch-tuesday

HP ADVANCES SCALABLE CLOUD COMPUTING WITH 3PAR UTILITY STORAGE

A couple of months ago, HP spent a whopping USD$2.4billion to purchase 3PAR. Since then, the company has already released several systems that uses 3PAR technology and now, the company has just announced the integration of 3PAR Utility Storage across the HP Converged Infrastructure portfolio to simplify scalable cloud computing as well as new storage solutions for virtualization and data duplication.

Managing an exploding amount of data within an enterprise is never an easy (or cheap) task especially if the data is structured and cannot share the same storage as other structured and unstructured data. With the integration, clients will be able to consolidate storage hardware to respond to explosive data growth to address with these challenges with converged block-and-file storage on a single storage array. They will also be able to enjoy automated storage tiering to improve performance and thin storage offerings to eliminate over-provisioning.

“Our clients tell us their journey to the cloud will be one of the most critical transitions for them this decade. HP 3PAR Utility Storage meets their demand for a new storage architecture specifically designed for IT as a Service. The integration of 3PAR with Converged Infrastructure is ahead of schedule and HP is poised to take clients to levels of agility and efficiency they’ve never experienced before.” – Mike Prieto, Vice President and General Manager, StorageWorks, HP Asia Pacific and Japan.

But SMEs and SMBs will not be able to afford such an expensive technology. True, but apart from having a portfolio of products that can reach out to large enterprises and governments, HP also have products catered for SMBs too. Additionally, as long as the cloud provider these small and medium businesses are equipped with HP 3PAR Utility Storage, they will get to enjoy the benefits too.

Hit the jump for more information.

Delivering utility-based storage resources for the cloud

Growing adoption of both public and private clouds has forced IT organizations and service providers to rethink their infrastructure design. Achieving the agility and performance demanded by cloud services requires the seamless integration of computing, storage and networking, as well as centralized management.

To automate and simplify the provisioning of multitenant storage for the cloud, HP 3PAR Utility Storage can now be fully managed as part of HP CloudSystem, the most complete, integrated system to build and deliver services across private, public and hybrid cloud environments. The combination of 3PAR with HP CloudSystem enables clients to reduce cloud application deployment time from days to minutes,(1) improve operational efficiency of storage management tenfold and cut storage costs by up to 50 percent.(2)

To provide clients a secure, multitenant block-and-file storage solution for both structured and unstructured data in the cloud, HP has qualified the HP X9300 Network Storage Gateway, built on IBRIX technology, for use with HP 3PAR Storage Systems. Combining the thin-storage capabilities of 3PAR Utility Storage with the tiering and data-migration capabilities of the X9300 Network Storage System can reduce capacity requirements by 50 percent.(3)

Converging storage, servers and networking for HP BladeSystem

To maximize companies’ return on investment in virtual servers and desktop PCs, HP has introduced the HP P4800 G2 SAN. Built inside an HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure, the P4800 eliminates the need for external storage networking, which reduces networking costs by up to 65 percent.(4) The use of common management across server, storage and networking results in a 40 percent increase in productivity.(5) The new HP P4800 G2 SAN runs SAN/IQ 9.0 software with enhanced support for VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI). This accelerates VMware functions such as cloning by up to 95 percent while cutting the load on VMware ESX servers by 94 percent, allowing clients to increase the density of virtual machines per storage unit by six times.(6)

“The HP P4800 SAN delivers the operational efficiencies, scalability and performance demanded by Insights’ virtualization project,” said Gareth Exell, head of IT Strategy at Insight Investment, an asset management company. “The integration of BladeSystem, VMware and HP storage provided a production-ready foundation with the reliability and disaster recovery features we required.”

Improving the efficiency of data protection

The rapid growth of digital data is driving the need for businesses to more efficiently manage information. Featuring StoreOnce deduplication technology developed in HP Labs, the company’s central research facility, the HP D2D4324 Backup System enables clients to back up as much as 1.4 petabytes of data with only 96 terabytes of raw disk capacity – reducing to the cost of storage for disk-based backup by 95 percent.(7)

Converging infrastructure and applications to speed deployment

Massive message volume, larger attachments and multimedia files impact an IT organization’s ability to provide messaging services to end-users. HP announced the immediate availability of the HP E5000 Messaging System for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010, which integrates servers, storage, operating system software and Exchange 2010 configuration wizards into a single, converged solution. This enables IT to speed deployment by 75 percent and support users with larger mailboxes at a lower cost per user.(8)

Pricing and availability(9)

The HP P4800 G2 SAN starts at $148,000 and is available immediately. The HP D2D4324 Backup System starts at $149,999 and is available immediately. The new E5000 series is available immediately. The E5300 with 500 mailboxes starts at $39,550. The E5500 with 1,000 mailboxes starts at $45,600 and the E5700 with 3,000 mailboxes starts at $73,850.