“We always work with all partners and look at their solutions. […] The benefits of Nvidia Ion are great including the ability to playback high-def content. You will see us looking at this technology much closer in our second half [of the year] products,” said Sumit Agnihotry, Acer’s vice president of product marketing, in an interview with Laptomag.com web-site.

The launch of Nvidia’s Ion platform for Intel Atom central processing units (CPUs) was not supported either by an actual product launch or an open commitment to use Nvidia’s GeForce 9-series core-logic sets inside Atom-based netbooks or nettops. However, a month after the announcement chief executive officer of the company said in an interview that all the system makers were designing products based on the Ion platform that consists on Intel Atom processor and Nvidia GeForce 9400M core-logic.

Nvidia Ion enables DirectX 10, hardware-accelerated high-definition vide playback as well as some other advantages over currently available Intel Atom-based platforms. However, Nvidia’s solution consumes more power and is more expensive compared to Intel’s platform, which is a reason why it has not gained much popularity. Another reason for lackluster welcome of Nvidia Ion are strategic partnerships between Intel and makers of netbooks or nettops.

“Our partnership with Intel has been from the beginning and we initiated this segment together so we will continue to be a strategic partner with them on the netbook,” said Mr. Sumit.

Nvidia GeForce 9400M is a single-chip core-logic with DirectX 10-compatible GeForce 9-class graphics processor inside that also supports dual-channel DDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0 x16 and x4 links, Serial ATA, USB, Gigabit Ethernet and so on. As all modern Nvidia GeForce integrated graphics processors, the novelty features hardware-accelerated high-definition video decoding and post-processing as well as supports various outputs, such as dual-link DVI-I, D-Sub, DisplayPort or HDMI.

When the hell did Dickens or Hemingway ever write in pidgin English? As a conscientious literary mind, I gasped in horror upon cracking the “LOL” code. Freshly evolved gray matter reverts to ooze. Mark Twain wants to see us all in Hell. There are neither “Xs” nor “Os” in “hugs and kisses.” Both forms of human contact are too much to bear, yet not enough to get me there. How does an intellectual pig write, “go die somewhere.”

Contrary to this vision of despair, however, there is a great deal of potential in this generation of network dwellers. What we now see emerging is not the end of civilization, but the triumph of the new literary that is by and for the people. A writing that develops form the ground up without the need to be imposed from above. A skill that children feel compelled to learn because they see it in constant use.

For instance, my nephew, who is only in 4th grade approaches the challenge of reading with enthusiasm because he knows that I won't help him to surf the net for whatever it is he wants - be it games, cheat codes or funny pictures. He understands from observation that knowing how to read is crucial, because it is so necessary to getting anything done.

Immersed in writing more than any previous generation; with text messages, forums, chat, and multiplayer video games, rudimentary reading and writing is becoming the minimum standard for having fun and engaging with friends. Such continuous exposure and practice can only make for better readers and writers.

And yet there is no shortage of reductionist pessimists who seem to believe that such competence will remain at the entry level. To quote Harris again:

We use money and technology when brainpower trumps them both. Thought is bypassed with acronyms and teenage girl-esque slang. Even a dog's bark is a language. Is alpha grunting the next hot fashion?

Elpida plans to integrate its operations with Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., ProMOS Technologies as well as Rexchip Electronics Corp., reports Nikkei business daily publication from Japan. According to the report, Powerchip and ProMOS “are expected to come under the umbrella of Rexchip”, which will become a subsidiary of Elpida by late March, 2009.

According to iSuppli market tracking agency, in Q4 2009 Elpida controlled 15.5% of the DRAM market in terms of revenue, whereas ProMOS’ and Powerchip’s market shares were 2.10% and 1.7%, respectively. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor had revenue shares of 30% and 20.8%, respectively. Once Elpida integrates all three Taiwan-based manufacturers, its portion of revenue on the global market will increase to about 19.3% or higher, which will transform it into as influential company as Hynix.

Elpida may sign an accord with Powerchip Rexchip Electronics, ProMOS Technologies and the Taiwanese government on Wednesday. Elpida’s alliance could be eligible for Taiwanese public funds worth about ¥100 billion ($1.056 billion), the report by Nikkei claims.

Taiwanese government, Elpida and Taiwan-based makers of DRAM have been working on consolidating the country’s memory industry for months now after the market conditions got considerably worse because of lowering demand despite of manufacturing at full capacity at many makers.

Since the information comes from an unofficial source, neither of the parties involved in talks has commented on the news.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Microsoft is getting ready to launch an online marketplace akin to Apple's App Store. In August, Microsoft had started looking for people to head up the new application store. Microsoft is also readying a more sophisticated version of its mobile operating system called Windows Mobile 6.5, the Journal reported.

Smartphones are sophisticated mobile phones that offer users access to the web and email, as well as phone calling and all kinds of other messaging options. This category of device is the hottest thing going in the mobile market and is seen as the biggest growth engine for mobile devices over the next few years.

Microsoft, which makes only the operating software for these devices, holds third place in terms of worldwide market share, according to research firm IDC. Symbian, which powers Nokia's smartphones, is by far the leader, followed by Research In Motion with its BlackBerry devices. Even though Apple seems to be the most talked-about smartphone on the market, it is only in fifth place in terms of overall market share for 2008, IDC said.

Catching Apple's growth rate
But Apple is quickly increasing market share and has become a serious threat to Microsoft and every other company competing in the smartphone market. With the release of the iPhone 3G last summer, Apple has tripled its market share from three percent in 2007 to nine percent in 2008, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Microsoft only grew from 11 percent market share in 2007 to 12.3 percent in 2008.

Microsoft is facing several challenges as it tries to catch Apple's growth rate. For one, the company's business model is based primarily on licensing software to hardware vendors. While this business model worked fine just a couple of years ago, it is difficult to justify now given that device makers can get free software from Symbian, Google Android and Linux.

The second problem Microsoft faces is that the company has been almost exclusively focused on business customers. Over the past year, smartphone users have gravitated towards more consumer applications. In addition to their work email, they want multimedia functionality and social-networking applications on their phones.

"Microsoft is in a really tough spot," said Ryan Reith, an analyst with IDC. "It has to change its value proposition. And a big part of that is refreshing its user interface and making the device more consumer-friendly."

Reith believes this is why it is critical for Microsoft to develop an application marketplace that can compete with Apple's App Store. The App Store went live last summer and offers thousands of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch music player. The store has been very successful with users downloading thousands of free and fee-based applications.

Not just for business users
Microsoft already has a developer community creating applications for Windows Mobile devices. But the problem is that many of these applications have been geared towards business users. And there is not a single destination that makes it easy for users to discover and download different applications.

"Clearly smartphones are not just for business users anymore," Reith said. "Microsoft needs to work with the developer community to get more consumer applications out there."

Microsoft's executives have understood that consumer functionality is key. And Andy Lees, head of Microsoft's mobile business unit, told the Journal that the company is about to put more emphasis on multimedia and other consumer functions such as music and photos.

Microsoft is expected to unveil its new offerings next week at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona. Chief executive Steve Ballmer will be delivering a keynote speech there on 16 February.

Competition on the increase
Yet even with these enhancements, Microsoft has a tough road ahead of it. Competition in the smartphone market is increasing. And several competitors, including Android and RIM, are launching their own version of an application store.

On the handset and operating system side, new devices are coming to market that could provide stiff competition for Windows Mobile devices. For example, smartphone pioneer Palm is coming out with new mobile software and a device called Pre later this year. And even though critics have been writing the company's obituary for the last year, the new device, which was unveiled last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, has been getting a lot of buzz.

But Microsoft thinks it has the right enhancements lined up to take on these competitors, especially Apple.

The Journal also reported that Microsoft is talking about a new synchronised data storage service called My Phone. This new service is supposed to make it easier for people to back up their mobile contacts, calendar appointments, photos and text messages to a website. The service is similar to Apple's MobileMe service. The biggest difference will be that Microsoft will offer My Phone for free, whereas Apple charges $99 (67) a year for MobileMe.

It's too soon to know how Microsoft's new software and application store will stack up against Apple's offering. But one thing is certain, Apple isn't sitting still either. And if Microsoft or any other competitors want to hasten Apple's rise in this market, they'll have to leap-frog Apple with something truly revolutionary.

• Windows 7: Mixed reviews from PDC attendees
• Microsoft floats clouds on Windows Azure
• Ozzie: Success of Azure comes down to trust
• Microsoft offers patch for unreleased software
• How Microsoft can make Windows 7 a success
• Windows 7: a first look
• Windows 7: screenshot gallery
• Microsoft sheds more light on Windows 7
• Microsoft announces browser-based Office apps
• Microsoft unveils Office apps in the browser
• Ballmer memo to customers: Ready for the revolution

“Securing extremely advanced technology and system/platform validated operability underscores our commitment as technology leader to deploying the most efficient means of producing DRAM in the marketplace,” said Kevin Lee, vice president of technical marketing at Samsung Semiconductor.

The first memory device to be produced on 40nm node by Samsung is 1Gb DDR2 chip capable of operating at 800MHz. Memory modules based on the new DRAMs have passed Intel Platform Validation program for use with the Intel GM45-series mobile chipsets.

The migration to 40nm class process technology is expected to accelerate the time-to-market cycle by 50% – to just one year, according to Samsung. Samsung plans to apply its 40nm class technology to also develop a 2Gb DDR3 device for mass production by the end of 2009.

Besides, the new 40nm fabrication process will drive further reductions in voltage against a 50nm class device, which Samsung expects to translate into about a 30% power savings. The finer DRAM technology node also delivers an approximately 60% increase in “productivity” over 50nm class process technology.

Thinner manufacturing technologies allow memory makers to produce more chips from a single silicon wafer, which makes chips considerably cheaper to build. Just days ago Qimonda, a struggling DRAM maker, said its 46nm process technology cuts production costs by up to 200% compared to 75nm fabrication process.

In addition, Samsung expects that its 40nm process node will mark a significant step toward the development of next generation, ultra-high performance DRAM technologies, such as DDR4.

Not familiar with Joomla!? Well Joomla! is an award-winning content management system (CMS) that makes it easy for you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Its ease-of-use and extensibility have made it one of the most popular Web site software packages available. Best of all, it is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

A CMS is a Web application that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site. It works kind of like your local public library which keeps track of books and stores them until someone calls them up to request some information. The content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. One of the major advantages of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage.

One of the cool things about Joomla! is that it uses a form of skinning technology that allows you to change your site by just changing the template. You do not have to do any additional coding or Web work. You simply select the preinstalled template and make it the default. When you refresh your browser, your site has changed, and incorporated your content.

Joomla! comes with a couple of installed templates, and with such a large community out there you can get templates from a growing number of sites. Some of these are free, but most of them are available for purchase. Sure you can create your own, but it can be time consuming and at times tedious.

The Joomla! Template Kit is a Dreamweaver add-on that allows you to develop templates for your Joomla! site much faster and easier than you could by hand. It has all of the things that you need built right in and it simply plugs into Adobe Dreamweaver, and will have you off and running.

In the survey carried out by ABI research, almost half of respondents did view mobile Internet devices as a substitute for cell-phones, lending support to models incorporating cellular voice, while 34% said they would continue to use a typical cellular handset.

“This is going to become a question for MID vendors and consumers alike. There will be little difference between a smartphone such as the Palm Pre which uses an OMAP 3 processor and a MID with cellular voice, except for screen size. Understanding of what consumers want from stand-alone MIDs without cellular voice will be important,” said Philip Solis, principal analyst at ABI Research.

ABI Research believes that some people will value a separate device with a bigger screen for the web browsing, that they can choose when to carry. The more interesting promise offered by MIDs without cellular voice will be their repackaging in the form of specialized Internet-connected consumer electronics devices such as media players or personal navigation devices.

Quite a lot of mobile Internet devices have been introduced in the recent years, but none has become truly popular. The vast majority of such devices feature about 7” touch-screen display with complex buttons to emulate mouse and are pretty bulky. As a result, those, who need Internet for business reasons choose to have notebooks, whereas those who want basic Internet browsing buy smartphones.

Nowadays MIDs are attacked by netbooks, which provide both browsing as well as additional services. That said, the MID category does have to transform into devices like Apple iPhone or T-Mobile G1, which are rather small, otherwise, MIDs will continue to be a very niche market aimed at small groups of users.