Intel has confirmed that there will be a delay in getting the Centrino 2 chipset (Montevina) rolled out as scheduled. “Minor issues” supposedly turned up in final testing resulting in a delay until August.

"There were two minor issues we found during final testing – one with our integrated graphic chipsets, which we have found a workaround for but need to re-screen our parts, and second around our wireless wi-fi chip, which was a paperwork and certification mistake we made," said Bill Kircos, a spokesman for Intel, in an email.

"Both of these led us to establishing a launch date for our mobile processors and discrete chipsets of the week of July 14th, and taking a couple of weeks to get the right readiness and volume for the rest of our components," Kircos added. "We're looking at early August for that."

Look for some changes in launch schedules from OEMs.

Via PCMag.com

Digitimes is reporting that Intel is getting ready to begin bundling larger size SSDs with the Centrino 2 platform in the third quarter this year. We’re looking at 80GB capacities in both 1.8 inch and 2.5 inch sizes. Looking beyond that Intel is planning to jump to a 160GB size by the end of the year and 250GB in 2009. Now what about those prices?

Via Engadget

DailyTech is reporting that Intel will face a shortage of the Atom chipset possibly extending into Q3 of 2008. Apparently demand from Asus with their Eee PC line and the “I want to be like Asus” club is quite heavy. Asus’ CEO is quoted in the article as saying,

“Unlike our competitors, we use both Intel Atom processors and Intel Celeron M processors, so this will give us a stronger advantage in guaranteeing shipments"

 

Of course the article mentions that this could be an opening for VIA and their Isiah chipset. The article also links to this info about Dell’s entry into the ULCPC market.

Steve “Chippy” Paine picked up some news from the IDF (Intel Developer’s Forum) that the 3^rd generation of Intel’s Classmate PC, due in late 2008, will offer touch capabilities. Running Intel’s Atom platform, we’re looking at prices in the $300–$450 range.

I’m curious how the evolution of these ultra-portables seems to be occuring. First they are released without touch capabilities, then we quickly hear about the possible addition of touch to the mix. I’m sure it is a cost factor in the rush to take on Asus’ first-out-of-the-chute market share, but I find it intriguing nonetheless. I wonder what would happen if an OEM came out with a first-gen touch ultra-portable?

Or is that a ULCPC?

One bit of juicy information in the latest Intel press release is the quiet announcement of a "new" category of device that Intel is tracking. Apparently Intel has decided that the small laptops like the ASUS Eee should be called "netbooks" to show that they are primarily designed for Internet access. The netbooks will get their own Intel processors codenamed Diamondville that will fall under the Atom branding.

Perlmutter also showcased two laptops called “netbooks” while articulating Intel’s strategy for this emerging class of affordable, easy-to-use computers. These simple, low-cost Internet-centric devices will be powered by Intel’s new purpose-built low power architecture, forthcoming “Diamondville” Intel Atom processors and unique transistor and manufacturing process that is perfectly suited for this new market opportunity.

I'll have to see what I can dig up on the Diamondville specs.

This week is the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, China. As per usual, Intel likes to make announcements at IDF. We've been hearing about the Intel Atom processor (code named Silverthorne) for a couple of months now and it appears that we're finally getting the real details on the processor and the chipset package. Today Intel announced 5 Atom processor and 3 controller hubs to work with those processors.

The press announcement included the usual rhetoric  about "best Internet experience in your pocket" and then got to the details. The Atom processor will ship by itself under the Atom brand name as well as part of the Centrino Atom brand name. The Intel Centrino Atom includes the Atom processor plus a single-chip with integrated graphics called the Intel System Controller Hub (formerly codenamed Menlow).

The SSD market is getting a new player, and one with some weight and money to throw around. Intel is joining Samsung, Toshiba, and SanDisk in producing SSD storage drives. According to an interview posted on CNet, Intel will offer 1.8" and 2.5" SSDs with a capacity of 80-160GB in the second quarter of this year. Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, also claims that the new Intel SSDs will outperform the current leader, Samsung, who produces SSDs with read rates approaching 100MB/second.

As if bigger and faster weren't enough, Intel will be offering both PATA and SATA versions. That means whatever type of hard drive your system uses, you ought to be able to slip in a new SSD. Finally, they're even addressing price. Although the initial products will doubtless be as price gouging as all of the other SSDs on the market, Winslow predicts a 50% price drop in 2009 and another in 2010. That should get SSDs down into the realm of regular usage.

Bigger, faster, cheaper, and more compatible. Sounds great to me! Now, we'll just have to see what is actually delivered when they start shipping...

GBM reader Alex has posted on his blog that the Willcom MID that was spotted at CES will indeed be based on the Intel Atom. Willcom, a Japanese cell phone carrier, is teaming with Sharp to develop and release this new MID based on the Intel Atom and running Windows Vista. Since the prototype was basically shaped like a large candy bar style cell phone, I'm not sure how well a Vista interface will work on that tiny screen. Should be interesting to see.

However, don't expect to see the Willcom device outside of Japan. It's supposed to be based on (yet another) proprietary Japanese wireless technology - the next-gen PHS network. While the technology share some features with WiMAX, I can't understand why Japan would once again move away from world standards to create their own network type. I used to get so frustrated because my cell phone wouldn't work in Japan. With UMTS, I finally have complete cell phone coverage worldwide. Hopefully that will last.

Willcom's press release is in Japanese. Here's the auto-translated version.

Read more on Pocketables, Akihabara News, and Alex's Japan's Cellphone Edge

Engadget has some information (even a video posted below) on a MID placing a rock-solid VOIP call.  And amazingly enough - they crashed the OS while on the call...  I am still waiting for these things to be released.  I really want to see if they fit in my lifestyle, or if it would be something like the N800 that I only use when I am doing some surfing... 

It's makes one think (like was said in the post) - when will we say good bye to cell phones and carriers and move to a VOIP only type of communication - I think that's one for Warner to expand on...  Check out the video to see the rest

Silverthorne and Menlow have officially been named Atom and Centrino Atom, respectively

Press Release:

The Intel® Atom™ processor will be the name for a new family of low-power processors designed specifically for mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and a new class of simple and affordable Internet-centric computers arriving later this year. Together, these new market segments represent a significant new opportunity to grow the overall market for Intel silicon, using the Intel Atom processor as the foundation. The company also announced the Intel® Centrino® Atom™ processor technology brand for MID platforms, consisting of multiple chips that enable the best Internet experience in a pocketable device.

Every once in a while I'm really surprised the response to a particular article. In this case, I quoted Dean Weber, President and CEO of One Voice Technologies, on the prediction of 90 million MIDs in 2012 (based on research from ABI Research). And I got an email the next day from Mr. Weber himself.

Over the next two years the size of the MID will become about the size of a current smartphone.  This is about as small as they will probably go while keeping a reasonable screen size for full Internet browsing.  One thing to keep in mind regarding the ABI Research prediction is that Apple has already shown the demand for a small fully functional web browser in their current iPhone.  The iPhone is very much like a MID although the iPhone lacks WiMAX, video camera, etc. - I'm sure Apple has this in the works.  You will see an overlap soon between the iPhone and MIDs and people will demand more functionality from their devices - like the functionality in a MID.

I was thinking about his statements when I posted about Intel's Silverthorne processor a few minutes ago and thought I should share his wisdom. I think he's on to something.  One thing I hear consistently from my friends with iPhones is that they loving having a full browser. Maybe MIDs will bring that to me too, and 90 million will sell by 2012. And if One Voice Technologies has their way, all 90 million will be voice-controllable.

Yes, the phrase is borrowed from Apple, but Intel also looks to put the Internet in your pocket with the introduction of the MIDs running on the Silverthorne processor. The Menlow platform is comprised of the Silverthorne processor and Poulsbo chipset. Wired has a provoking article that leads off with some great info on the Silverthorne, then moves into discussing MIDs in general.

This week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Intel revealed more technical details about its new low-power processor, codenamed Silverthorne, which consumes between 0.6 to 2 watts of power (compared with 35 watts from Intel's Core 2 Duo, a popular desktop and laptop CPU).

This is the first time I've seen solid power numbers for the Silverthorne and they're appropriately impressive. This should have a major impact on battery life, although obviously the devices that use the Silverthorne tend to have very small batteries and thus may still have a short power life overall.

After that bit of useful info, Wired starts talking about MIDs in general, and that's where the provoking part comes in. Declaring that consumers have "have already resoundingly rejected Intel's earlier ultramobile platform, the ultramobile PC (UMPC)", Wired then claims that the lower prices of the MID platforms will "combat consumer apathy". Even at lower prices, though, some analysts remain unconvinced of the potential market for MIDs.

"The challenge for these devices is that at the end of the day they're still too small to be productive, too big to be ultraportable," Martin says of MIDs. "Ultimately, the smartphone inevitably overtakes that market," he says, because people would rather have an all-purpose device that does everything adequately than fill out their gadget portfolios with more specialized devices to meet specific needs.

I'm still sitting on the fence with MIDs. I want to like them. I'm enthusiastic about the idea of the "internet in my pocket", but at the same time, I'm not sure what the convergence path is for these kinds of devices. It seems possible that in the 2009-2010 the MID may replace today's smartphone. Is it still a MID if it's also my cell phone? When I talked to Pankaj Kedia at CES, I got a preview of the Moorestown platform, the successor of the Menlow, targeted for 2009-2010 timeframe. It seems like Moorestown could just be the processor in my phone, at which point I'm still carrying one device, just a device significantly more processing power courtesy of Intel, not ARM.

And if I can get a 1-2GHz processor in my phone, do I need a secondary mobile device? Maybe I just need something like the Celio REDFLY that will give me a decent keyboard and screen to go with my phone. Interesting thoughts indeed.

via Wired

This is good news for all of us mobile pc toting folks - SSD drives five times the speed of current SSD drives.

Information Week:

Intel (NSDQ: INTC) and Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) on Friday said they have developed technology for a high-speed solid-state drive that's five times faster than current products used in consumer and professional devices ranging from handheld computers and notebooks to digital cameras and camcorders.

The NAND flash memory chips developed jointly by the two companies can reach speeds of up to 200 MB per second for reading data and 100 MB per second for writing data, the partners said. Current memory chips have maximum read-write speeds of 40 MB and 20 MB, respectively.

Thanks for the link, Mickey.

One of the ways that the MacBook Air achieves its svelte thinness is from changes that Intel did for the Core 2 Duo processor inside that package. Apple asked Intel to reduce the physical size of the processor, and Intel obliged, reducing the size by about 60% while also reducing power draw from about 35 watts to about 20 watts. That's a big size reduction, but there is a less obvious side effect - smaller processors with lower power draw typically generate less heat and therefore can get by with a smaller thermal solution (fan or heatsink). This too would help that unnatural thinness. And the lower power draw will also help to extend battery life, the bane of any mobile device.

On the good side, Intel doesn't just develop processors for the fun of it; they want to make money. So, those lovely small footprint Core 2 Duo's from the MacBook Air will soon be showing up in other laptops that probably won't be quite as flashy, but may have some mundane benefits like a user replaceable battery and a wired LAN connector. Or one can hope.

via InfoWorld

Yesterday, Sierra posted about our interview with Intel's Pankaj Kedia. Watch our video interview with Mr. Kedia, and take a look at several of the new MIDs, including one from Aigo featuring a qwerty keyboard.

Click To Play

Rob and I just got done talking with Pankaj Kedia with the Intel Ultra Mobility Group about the wealth of new MID devices being introduced at CES 2008. Intel has 10 partners who are announcing products here at CES, all based on the new Menlow low-power platform. In the Intel showcase there are MIDs from Aigo, ASUS, BenQ, Clarion, Compal, Digifriends, EB, Gigabyte, Lenovo, LG-E, LiteOn, Quanta, Toshiba, USI, and Willcom. We'll have a video up later which shows off the Aigo and the Lenovo devices, both aimed at the Chinese market, although the Aigo is identical to the Gigabyte which will have broader distribution. The Toshiba is pictured at the right in its docking station.

The devices on display are all very different from each other. Most include keyboards of some sort, but not all. Intel has provided samples and is working with 25 partners on new Menlow MIDs, so expect to be seeing a lot of new announcements as the year progresses. The goal is to have new announcements every month or so at events around the world. Intel is seeing the primary usage models for the new MIDs revolving around entertainment and location/GPS applications.

Intel is expecting MIDs based on the new Menlow platform to release in Q2 and Q3 of 2008. Price points will vary depending on the exact device and OEM options, but generally looking at about $500 and up for Linux based MIDs and about $600 and up for Windows based devices. (After all, Windows is decidedly not free.)

Intel also provided a sneak peak at the upcoming Moorestown platform launching in 2009-2010. Watch the upcoming video for more info on this new platform.

This just came in to my email box - Skype is announcing support for Intel's MID platform. We'll scope out there booth for more info

Update: here are some mock pics and more info from Skype, as well as a fact sheet pdf with more details:

At the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, Skype announced its plans to collaborate with Intel Corporation to develop a new mobile Skype™ experience for Mobile Internet Devices (MID) based on Intel low-power processors and chipsets. MIDs are a new category of small, truly mobile consumer devices enabling a PC-like Internet experience, coupled with the capability to communicate with others, enjoy entertainment, and access information on the go.

The collaboration builds on the familiarity and ease of use of Skype software and makes that experience mobile. MID users will be able to make Skype voice and video calls and send instant messages on the move, while harnessing the PC-like performance of Intel’s new ultra-mobile platform. MID devices with WiMAX and WiFi capabilities will enable free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls and cheap SkypeOut™ calls – calls from Skype to landline and mobile phone numbers anywhere in the world at low per-minute rates – to be made on open wireless networks.

“Many of the more than 246 million Skype users around the world are increasingly mobile and want to stay connected on the go,” said Gareth O’Loughlin, Skype's general manager of mobile and hardware devices. “Making the richer Skype experience available on mobile devices partly hinges on the need for more processing power, which in turn tends to shorten battery life. Intel’s focus on lowering power consumption helps us minimize that conundrum, underscoring our evolution beyond the desktop. And it‘s good news to anyone who has found themselves missing Skype on the road.”

As part of this effort, Skype will enable its software to run on the small, thin and light ultramobile MID devices with touch-screen LCDs, which are powered by Mobile Internet Linux. With the performance offered by Intel’s low-power processors and chipsets, some MID devices will even support mobile video calls over Skype.

A quick stop by the Intel booth yielded some hands and eyes on with a few of the 15 MIDs that will be available later this year. Intel is aiming for mid-year 2008. And about that Lenovo MID? Yep it exists and it is planned to be the first MID out of the chute, aimed at a launch around the Olympics. (side note on this–at the Lenovo booth the Lenovo rep couldnt’ comment, but at the Intel booth, comments galore, and of course the device itself, pictured below. More info on Intel’s MID rollout will be available in the morning.

There were a few other MIDs available to gander at, and you’ll see and here more in the video interview to be posted soon. For now enjoy the pictures and know that we wll be seeing more in the days to come.

This last one is a prototype and won’t be in the first generation of MIDs released this year.

In Podcast #43, Sierra and I chat about InkSeine, TabletKiosk's eo / Menlow announcement, what Menlow is, Sierra's upcoming cruise and what she's taking, the often-talked about Apple Ultra-Portable, and Macworld. That's right - I can't stand all this buzz any longer, and I'm going to attend my first Macworld conference in January. If anything is announced that will be of interest to GBM readers, we'll be bringing you the coverage.

• Download GBM Podcast #43 here ( MP3, 34:19, 31 mb )

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Here are the show notes:

• TabletKiosk announces an entirely new eo UMPC running on Menlow

• InkSeine

• Macworld

• CES Tablet PC Meetup

Word popped out last week that Intel had something tiiny and powerful in the works and now there are more details becoming available on the “smaller than a penny” Z-P140 PATA SSD flash drives. Of note is how little power these SSD’s will use, which bodes well for mobile devices. Here’s a link to a press release from Intel, and expect to hear much more on this in the coming months as these are targeted towards getting into devices by sometime in Spring 2008.