Legit Reviews News History
New Samsung Flash Memory Chip is 80 Percent Faster
Samsung Electronics has started mass producing flash memory chips that both hold more data and work at higher speeds than competing chips, it said on Sunday.
The new chips, each of which can hold 2GB of data, will likely increase competition in the already highly competitive flash market and maintain the pressure that has seen chip prices fall by more than half in the last year. The read speed has been increased from 17MBps to 30MBps for high capacity cards and the write speed is almost doubled from 4.4MBps to 8MBps, said Samsung.
Posted by | Mon, Apr 30, 2007 - 08:41 AM
ASRock applies for listing on TSE
Taiwan-based second-tier motherboard maker ASRock on April 27 applied for listing on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) with paid-in capital of NT$743.09 million (US$22.3 million). Congrats to ASRock for doing as well as they have over the years.
In 2006, the company, which was listed on the emerging stock market, recorded net profits before tax of NT$2.44 billion with earnings per share (EPS) of NT$23.94, according to the Chinese-language ETtoday. ASRock is predicted to have over 20% growth in first half 2007 year compared to 2006, says the Chinese-language Commercial Times citing market source
Posted by | Mon, Apr 30, 2007 - 08:38 AM
Microsoft Reports Record Profits
Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $14.40 billion for this quarter, a 32% increase over the same period of the prior year! This news comes as a big relief to those investors and Microsoft partners who heard constantly that Vista was too pricey and that sales of the new operating system were slow.
“This quarter marked the consumer launches of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and we are delighted with the positive customer response these products have received,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “We continue to deliver on our compelling product cycle and build upon strong field sales and marketing execution in order to drive revenue and profit growth for the company.”
Posted by | Sat, Apr 28, 2007 - 09:36 PM
Dell Set to Simplify To Bring Back Growth
Dell CEO Michael Dell has outlined his preliminary strategy for bringing back growth at the computer giant he founded: Make it simpler.
"The Direct Model has been a revolution, but is not a religion," Dell says in the memo, according to the Journal. "We will continue to improve our business model, and go beyond it, to give our customers what they need." Dell also plans to will launch new Inspiron brand PC models in June and products for small and medium business customers later this summer.
Posted by | Sat, Apr 28, 2007 - 07:20 AM
NVIDIA Releases nTune 5.05.38 For Windows XP and Vista
NVIDIA has released a new version of nTune, its GPU and platform overclocking utility, to NVIDIA.com. The version is 5.05.38 and supports Windows XP (32/64-bit) and Windows Vista (32/64-bit).
On Windows XP it fixed the issue in which radio control buttons on the GPU clock control page were not working with non-English language packs installed. Fixed problem with GPU overclocking while using the auto tuning feature, the service may fail to return on a restart and tuning will not complete. Note: Some GPU cards may not support auto tuning under Windows Vista until a future driver release. These cards may still be manually overclocked.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 02:09 PM
Nintendo Plans to Boost Wii Production
Finally acknowledging the shortage of Wii gaming systems, Nintendo promised production was being boosted to increase deliveries by next month. This, of course, is great news to those who have been stalking Walmart and Circuit City to get their hands on the hottest console out.
The Wii has pummeled its rivals in a head-to-head battle in next-generation video game consoles involving Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which has been plagued with production problems, and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360. Nintendo, which also makes Pokemon and Super Mario games, is planning to sell 14 million Wii machines for the current fiscal year through March 2008, having sold 5.84 million Wii consoles worldwide in the five months since its release late last year.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 09:17 AM
DRAM Market landscape altered in 1Q07
According to DRAMeXchange's report, the sales revenue of global DRAM brand makers for 1Q07 experienced an 11% sequential drop. Despite an 18% increase in the global output, the whopping 25% QoQ ASP decline brought forth a slowdown to the DRAM industry production value, which was last seen in 2Q05. The current market demand has apparently been unable to keep up with the increasing 12 inch fab output. It's amazing how the memory market has become this ugly. A 25% DRAM price decline in 1Q07 was noted, which is huge!
Revenue breakdown by regions shows Korean-based manufacturers enjoying a 46.26% market share, which was slightly higher than the preceding quarter. Taiwan makers, on the other hand, slid from 17.39% to 16.44% during the same period. This is mainly due to the ramp up from their Korean peers, and the fact that Taiwan makers are required to allocate a portion of their increased production to their respective joint venture partners.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 07:18 AM
Sony's 'Father of PlayStation' to step down
The architect of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, will step down on June 19, at a time when the Japanese company is fighting to reassert its lead in the video game market.
Known as the "Father of PlayStation," Kutaragi, 56, took a lead role in the invention of the Sony game console in 1994 and the PlayStation 2 in 2000. Known as a company black sheep, he bucked consensus to turn video games into a cash cow, but lately has seen his status diminish
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 07:14 AM
Asustek 2006 revenues up over 45% on year
Asustek has announced 2006 consolidated revenues of NT$560.24 billion (US$16.84 billion), a 45.5% boost compared to its 2005 figure of NT$357.84 billion.
Asustek's earnings per share (EPS) in 2006 were NT$5.65, a slight drop compared to NT$6.03 in 2005. The company plans to distribute a dividend per share of NT$2 with NT$1.5 in cash and NT$0.5 in stock. Asustek's 2006 net profits after tax were NT$19.22 billion, an 11.27% increase on year.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 07:12 AM
Sun eyes JavaScript rival to AJAX
Sun Microsystems is working on Web application development technology that presents an alternative to AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a Sun official said on Thursday.
"AJAX sort of deals with all of the old way of doing things. It makes it simpler, which is great, but underneath it’s still all this junky HTML, Document Object Model, CSS, all that stuff, where 30 years ago, we knew how to do that stuff cleanly with a dynamic programming language and a simple graphics model," Ingalls said.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 07:11 AM
Office 2003 to get security upgrade
Microsoft plans to make some of the security improvements and features it built into Office 2007 available for Office 2003, a company representative said Thursday.
Service Pack 3 for Office 2003 will be focused on security, said Joshua Edwards, a technical product manager for Office at Microsoft. "We're trying to take what we learned from building Office 2007 and bring as much as we can to Office 2003," Edwards said in an interview with CNET News.com.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 07:10 AM
AMD To Webcast Annual Meeting Of Stockholders
AMD will hold its Annual Meeting of Stockholders at 9:00 a.m. PDT (12:00 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, May 3, 2007 at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The web cast will last the normal two hours and is a must for those that invest in the tech industry.
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 07:09 AM
Asetek appoints new Vice President Marketing
Asetek, the market leader of thermal management solutions for semiconductors, announced today that it has further strengthened its management team with the addition of an experienced executive, TaShana Jett, as Vice President of Marketing. Based in our US office in Menlo Park, California and reporting to André Sloth Eriksen, Founder and CEO, TaShana Jett will be responsible for all aspects of product marketing and marketing communications.
“After an intense search for the right candidate based in the US, we are thrilled to finally have TaShana onboard,” says André Sloth Eriksen, CEO. “We believe that TaShana’s knowledge and experience along with proximity to our US customers will help steer Asetek’s business in the right direction and enable us to grow to the next level.”
Posted by | Fri, Apr 27, 2007 - 06:58 AM
Championship Gaming Series Announces $5 Million Annual Player Payroll
The Championship Gaming Series (CGS), the first global professional gaming league, announced today that worldwide salaries and bonuses for the 2007 season will exceed $5 million! Counter-Strike: Source, Dead or Alive 4, Project Gotham Racing 3, and FIFA 2007 we named as official games as well. Rumor has it that there will be a contingent from Legit Reviews trying to qualify later this week. Stay tuned!
"This is the moment the gaming world has been waiting for," said CGS Commissioner Andy Reif. "We will be paying salaries and bonuses to our players in excess of $5 million dollars during the 2007 season. The time has come for a new era of professional gaming as sports entertainment. Your chance to be a part of history starts on April 28."
Posted by | Thu, Apr 26, 2007 - 05:07 PM
Apriil 26th News From Around the Web
Today's Web Reviews
The Toughpower 1000W from Thermaltake is a real monster! And I mean that in a good way. With best-of-class specs and a generous feature set with configuration options and some future proofing, this baby is tough to beat. The Toughpower line represents Thermaltake's flagship PSU offerings, and the 1000W is a worthy addition, building on a tradition of power, stability and cutting edge features.
Posted by | Thu, Apr 26, 2007 - 05:06 PM
New Hynix Plant Under Construction in Korea
Memory chip maker Hynix has broken ground on a new US$4.1 billion plant in Korea. Korea plans to make NAND flash memory at the new facility. Seems that Hynix had some land development road-blocks that are now resolved and the new plant construction is now underway.
Trouble winning an environmental permit at one factory location and a huge markup in land prices near another Hynix plot had put the decision in doubt earlier this year. The South Korean memory chip maker ran into so much trouble that speculation arose it would build in China instead. But on Thursday, Hynix said it had already broken ground on the 12-inch (300 millimeter) chip factory in Chongju, Korea.
Posted by | Thu, Apr 26, 2007 - 09:06 AM
Sony to Launch YouTube Competition
Sony is launching their own video-sharing website in Japan on Friday. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to another YouTube. Sony hopes their site will be the first strong competition against Google's YouTube.
Sony also hopes to introduce its service, called eyeVio, abroad, but said it first wanted to gauge the reception at home before drawing up an overseas launch schedule. "This is part of Sony's quiet software revolution," CEO Howard Stringer said at a news conference.
Posted by | Thu, Apr 26, 2007 - 09:00 AM
Acer Recalls Unsafe Sony Notebook Batteries
Seems that even though no Acer notebooks have been caught shooting flames, Acer decided it would be best to go ahead and recall the infamous Sony batteries that are used in Acer products.
The batteries are manufactured by Sony and the CSPC said there are 16 reports of batteries overheating from different manufacturers. None of those batteries were in Acer products.
Posted by | Thu, Apr 26, 2007 - 08:53 AM
Adobe to Open-Source Flash Tool Flex
Adobe is starting a push to gain more developers using their products. After all, many developers know that if your company gets hooked on one product, chances are they will use another for easy integration. Adobe's latest tactic is to open-source one of their Flash tools!
Adobe Systems plans to open-source Flex, its development framework for building Flash and Apollo-based applications. The company on Wednesday is expected to announce the move, which will start when it releases a beta of the next version of Flex, code-named Moxie, in June.
Posted by | Thu, Apr 26, 2007 - 08:32 AM
April 25th News From Around the Web
Today's Web Reviews
"The S.W.A.T. performs as well as any other laser mouse on the market and has a lot to offer for a reasonable $30 US – switchable 800/1600 DPI modes, seven buttons, onboard memory to save preferences, sleek looks, and a comfortable shape. As great as it performs in games it will also serve well as a mouse to use while doing basic things such as web surfing."
Posted by | Wed, Apr 25, 2007 - 06:14 PM