Thursday, November 5, 2009
Chip Industry Can Put Down the Mylanta Now
Worldwide chip sales have slipped deep into the mud over the past year and they’ll continue to do so until year’s end. But they’ll begin to improve after that.
Worldwide chip sales have slipped deep into the mud over the past year and they’ll continue to do so until year’s end. But they’ll begin to improve after that.
Looks like the worst is once again behind us. In remarks at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the PC industry is headed for recovery, albeit slowly.
If Intel’s latest earnings are truly an indication of how the tech industry is holding up in the econalypse, then the tech industry isn’t doing too badly (though, obviously, it has seen better days). After market close Tuesday, the chip behemoth posted second-quarter results far in excess of expectations.
The consumer electronics wizards at Dell who brought us the now defunct DJ Ditty MP3 player and the Axim handheld are hard at work on another gadget, a mobile Internet device.
Apple put some of the vast $28 billion in cash and short-term investments it has socked away to good use this week by raising its stake in Imagination Technologies. The $5.16 million investment nearly triples Apple’s original 3.6 percent stake, giving it 9.5 percent ownership of the British chip designer whose PowerVR graphics technology figures prominently in the iPhone and iPod touch.
So that mysterious media tablet Apple’s rumored to be developing? It exists, but it probably won’t ship until 2010. This according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who offers up a heaping pile of grist for the Apple rumor mill in a new research note today.
You know things are bad at AMD when the company’s schadenfreude over Intel’s European legal woes spills over into its brand messaging. Surf over to AMD’s Web site this morning and you’ll find foremost on its homepage not a message about Fusion, its next-generation microprocessor design, or branding for its various chips, but a gigantic European Union flag.
No big surprises here. The souring economy and related uncertainty in consumer and enterprise technology markets continue to drag the chip sector down into the mud. While world-wide sales of semiconductors in March rose 3.3 percent from February, they were down nearly 30 percent from last year.
As we head into the summer iPhone refresh cycle, the Mac rumor sites are fast pulling together a wire-and-string outline of what the device might look like. Last week brought with it reports that iPhone ’09, or whatever it might be called, will sport a 3.2 megapixel camera. Now comes news that it may support 802.11n wireless connectivity and video editing as well.

Next up, the new and expected 17-inch MacBook Pro. Before introducing it, Schiller notes that the MacBook has been the No. 1 notebook computer in the states.
The new machine is largely as predicted. It boasts Apple’s new unibody chassis and a glass touch trackpad. At 6.6 pounds, it’s the world’s lightest notebook. It has a hi-res backlit display. “The best display we’ve ever shipped in a notebook,” says Schiller, with a 60 percent greater color gamut than other machines.
Macworld 2009 is still about a month away and already, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry is frantically turning the hand crank on the rumor mill. In a note to clients today, Chowdhry claims Apple will debut an entirely new device category next year.
In a short video, senior designer Jon Ives and other members of Apple’s industrial design team explain the new unibody enclosure. Machining enables a level of precision unheard of in the industry, says Ives. In many ways, these notebooks are more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside.
There’s lots of emphasis at this unveiling on environmental concerns, reducing the footprint for manufacturing the new notebooks.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.