Cold Open
This week we're in Germany where green's the theme at this year's Cebit, Microsoft says it hasn't forgotten about Yahoo, and some new and interesting gadgets are on display. All that news and more on this week's World Tech Update.
Intro
Nick Barber o/c
Guten Tag von Hannover, Deutschland und die grosste Technologie Messe der Welt, CeBIT. Ich heisse Nick Barber und wir haben viele Nachricht fur Sie.
We'll start this week with chip makers Intel and AMD and the new processors they had on display here at CeBIT. Earlier this week Intel announced that its Silverthorne and Diamondville chips will be called Atom. The processors are made using Intel's 45-nanometer process, and will run at clock speeds up to 1.8GHz. The chips are less than 25 square millimeters and are designed for mobile internet devices. Pricing has not been announced, but look for them in the second quarter of 2008.
Following Intel, AMD released its 780G new graphics chip set. It has nearly triple the amount of transistors, but the company claims energy consumption has been cut by 40 percent.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was here and with German electric company Yello Strom announced a hardware and software partnership that will let consumers monitor their energy consumption with their computers. Ballmer also talked about the company's rejected bid to buy Yahoo.
Steve Ballmer
CEO, Microsoft
A lot of value that could be created by putting the two companies together. Ultimately Yahoo management will have a perspective on that. Yahoo board will have a perspective on that and Yahoo shareholders will have a perspective on that. We're trying to have appropriate levels of engagement with all three of those constituencies as well as other industry participants...other publishers, other advertisers. And I sense that a lot of people see the value created-not just the value for shareholders-but the value for consumers, advertisers, and publishers for putting Microsoft and Yahoo together.
He wouldn't elaborate on what next steps Microsoft is preparing to take.
Asus is updating its low-cost Eee PC with a new model that has a larger screen. The "Eee PC 900" sports an 8.9-inch screen and more storage space. It has a 12G-bytes solid-state disk drive which is 50 percent greater than the largest drive available on current machines. Other features of the new computer include 1G-byte of memory, wired and wireless internet, and a 1.3-megapixel. About 3.5 hours of battery life is expected from the computer's 4-cell battery. The machine is due on sale in the middle of this year and will cost Euro 399, that's around US$600.
Greenpeace came to Hanover to highlight the issues surrounding electronic waste. The environmental group displayed a pile of discarded computers to give attendees an idea of the situation in places like China, where this video was taken. The group also published a new report that gave top honors to Sony Ericsson for the greenest IT product. But even the cell phone selected wasn't as green as it could be. The verdict: the electronics industry has a lot of room for imporovement.
AL HAJJ, Greenpeace International
There is a reality on the ground that all this e-waste being generated, up to 20-50 million tons per year, are ending up in somebody else's back yard contaminating it.
Some good news for Blackberry users. An executive with Research in Motion Germany hinted at a change to the devices' browsers.
Dean Pacey
Vice President, RIM Germany
The browsing experience that we will be offering later this year is a significant enhancement....its faster.
Galileo, Europe's version of the US global positioning system, was on display this week and could be tracked through space by Swiss GPS chip maker, Ublox. The system displays the satellite as number 209 and can only be tracked by computer for a few hours each day while its in view. Ublox makes chips that can receive both GPS and Galileo signals. The Galileo project will mostly likely be completed in the next several years and will give Europe independence from relying on the US-controlled GPS.
Vodafone showed off a new service that lets its customers search the internet with a picture rather than text. The service was launched earlier this week with Bild, Germany's top-selling newspaper. It offers readers the ability to view videos related to stories in the paper. Users can send a picture message to 42-42 and then receive a link to download the video.
JOCHEN HERTLE, Otello, Vodafone Germany
"Any newspaper can use the service. They tell us which pages of the newspaper they want to enable for Otello image-based search and that's what we do. So if the users then takes a photo of that particular article or photo in the newspaper the newspaper can send back appropriate responses like information or videos in realtime."
Vodafone has also populated a database with pictures of about 10,000 famous buildings in Germany. Users can take a picture of a building and get back a link to the respective Wikipedia page. Users pay only the price of the data transmission for this service.
Well that's our show from CeBIT 2008. Thanks for joining us here in Hanover. Next week I'll be back in Boston with all the news of the week, plus some Cebit gadgets that we didn't get to this time. As we head out, we'll leave you with some more sights of the show. For all of us at the IDG News Service, I'm Nick Barber. Auf Wiedersehen!
Produced by
IDG News Service
Nick Barber
Martyn Williams
Reporting
IDG News Service
Nick Barber
Sumner Lemon
Martyn Williams
Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US online)
Video
IDG News Service
Intel
Verizon Wireless
For next week
Two halls were dedicated to navigation devices at Cebit. On display at Garmin's booth was the company's new speech recognition device. Garmin's new nuvi 860 let's users keep their hands on the wheel while driving. With a push of a button mounted on the steering wheel, drivers can request directions.
[Audio of car GPS unit]
Speech recognition is available in 7 languages including English. The device has a 4.3-inch color touch screen display. It will be available in the second quarter of 2008 for about 800 dollars.
Across the way from Garmin was Navigon's 8110. The Navigon 8110 features lane assistant pro that will help drivers navigate through difficult junctions. The 8110 has a 4.8 inch widescreen LCD. It has an mp3 player and FM transmitter. It will be available in Europe for 449 Euro about 750 US.
TomTom also had several units on display, its latest and greatest being the 930T. It also features a lane guidance system, but also has enhanced positioning technology for uninterrupted navigation even in tunnels. It has a 4.3 inch widescreen LCD and will be available at the end of April in the UK and Ireland.
A team of engineers from a German university transformed a regular car into a highly intelligent machine that can driver itself. Called Caroline, this Volkswagon is outfitted with a variety of sensors and computers that helped it place 1st among European teams at the DARPA challenge last year. It competed against other autonomous cars in a competition sponsored by the US Department of Defense. The technology in this car costs well over half a million dollars.
That's some more news from Cebit. In Hanover, Germany, I'm Martyn Williams, back to you, Nick.
