IBM claims breakthrough in chip manufacture

IBM has announced that it has successfully developed a commercial technique for etching ever smaller circuits onto wafers. The claim means that etching techniques such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) could be replaced by a process known as immersion lithography down to 45nm and below. Immersion lithography means the gap between the lens and the wafer is filled with a liquid, thus exposing photographic images through liquid rather than air. ...more

New smaller faster mobile Intel chips, cheaper older ones

Intel is rolling out a fleet of seven new mobile processors based on its 0.13micron process. The new smaller scale process, which Intel is adopting across the board, is a boost to the company's efficiency drive as well as resulting in processors that are 30 per cent physically smaller, require 40 per cent less power to run and are 20 per cent faster. ...more

Seven UK cities and London areas go wireless

Wi-Fi operator The Cloud has announced plans to provide blanket wireless Net access across seven UK cities and three London boroughs. Hotspots will be installed in caf?s, pubs, shops and railway stations as well as street furniture such as lamp posts. They will support online gaming and VoIP phone calls as well as normal Net usage such as surfing and email. ...more

Contribute to your Web site

Web software specialist Macromedia has announced a new application that is designed to make it easy for anyone to edit and update a Web site. Contribute works with any HTMl Web site, allowing users to browse to the Web page they want to edit, make the changes and then publish them to the live site. Alternatively updates can be updated offline or emailed for checking, before being published on the live site. ...more

IBM and Lenovo recall 'fire hazard' Sony laptop batteries

Sony has announced a global replacement programme for laptop batteries after two more companies announced that they were recalling batteries manufactured by the Japanese company. Lenovo and IBM have recalled more than half a million batteries installed in ThinkPad portables after one of them caught fire at Los Angeles airport. Lenovo, which acquired the ThinkPad brand when it bought IBM's PC business in 2004, said that between five and 10 per cent of ThinkPad notebooks sold during the period of February 2005 to September 2006 are affected. ...more