HP claims Memory Spot breakthrough

HP's Bristol Labs has announced a breakthrough in chip design: its Memory Spot research team has come up with a complete wireless system in a single chip about the size of a match tip. The Memory Spot chip is between 2mm and 4mm square with current data capacities of up to 4Mbit. Yet it also includes a wireless antenna, capable of transfers with a theoretical limit of 10Mbit/sec, putting it on a par with early WiFi standards. ...more

Open Source luminary joins Apple

Unix guru Jordan Hubbard has joined Apple to work on the Darwin core of Mac OS X. Hubbard was one of the co-founders of FreeBSD UNIX, which forms a large part of the foundations of OS X. In a letter to other FreeBSD developers, Hubbard was fulsome in his praise of OS X. ...more

Sony sends robot to nursery

A Sony robot is going to nursery school, mingling with the young children to learn how to interact with humans. This rather startling development is part of a study into artificial intelligence and human-machine interaction. The humanoid robot - dubbed Qrio (after Quest for Curiosity) and developed by the Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratories - has been conscientiously attending the school in San Diego California since March, reports Kyodo News. ...more

Novel idea of SMS novel

The e-book is a concept that has yet to take off. But a further experiment in this area is being tried in China, with the release of a novel in text message form. The story - which is a condensed version of the Chinese novel 'Outside the Fortress Besieged' - will be made available in instalments via SMS and WAP, courtesy of a Beijing-based wireless business operator reports Reuters. ...more

AMD takes the heat out of the Opteron

The AMD Opteron chip, principally aimed at high performance workstations and servers, is to get power management tools built in. AMD says the addition of the company's PowerNow! technology - currently used in its notebook offerings - is to allow for cooler running of blade servers and other high density environments where heat is an issue. The company says that not only will adding 'power on demand' technology improve the performance per watt ratio, but will also reduce the need for expensive air conditioning and ventilation in data centres. ...more