AMD Goes for Centrino's Neck, Unveils the Puma Platform - Rest assured, the Puma is fully functional

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Advanced Micro Devices paper-launched its Puma platform during yesterday's conference at the CeBit show in Hanover, Germany. The company's third-generation mobile platform is built around the RS780M chipset and the Griffin low-voltage processor.

The first rumors about the company's new mobile platform emerged last April, and included information about the Griffin CPU, along with the RS780M chipset. This is the chip
manufacturer's first attempt at creating a truly mobile platform, with nailed specifications. Until now, AMD's mobile platforms were flexible and would include a multiple options for its hardware requirements.

A mobile platform gets the "Puma" branding if it complies to some strict requirements, such as Griffin CPU, RS780M chipset and Wi-Fi adapter. The last component – a discrete graphics card – is currently optional and won't affect the final branding. There is a slight difference between Intel's Centrino requirements and those of Puma: Intel would require a Core 2 processor, GM965/PM965 chipset and an Intel wireless adapter, while AMD does not specify the nature of the wireless chip.

The Griffin CPU is commercially known as the Turion Ultra, and is available in dual-core version only. A quad-core counterpart is also possible to appear later on, but it is not included in AMD's current roadmap, as far as it has been disclosed. The chip packs 1MB of L2 cache per core and comes with support for DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 SO-DIMM memory. The CPU is using AMD's refurbished HyperTransport 3.0 interconnect.

Since it is a mobile processor, power efficiency is a critical aspect of the platform, and the Griffin processor can work on three different power planes that are assigned to the northbridge and to each of the cores, respectively. Moreover, each of the CPU's cores can run at its independent frequency, that can dynamically shift frequency levels while executing a thread.

The RS780M chipset comes with built-in support for Direct X 10 graphics, that is four to five times faster than Intel’s X3100 integrated graphics processor. It also features integrated support for HDMI and HDCP via the Universal Video Decoder.

A Puma-powered notebook was showcased yesterday at the conference, thus putting an end to the rumors regarding the technical difficulties the project might be facing. Recently, analyst Doug Freeman claimed that the platform might be crippled by several bugs and system manufacturers are looking for an alternative to it.

When the platform finally hits the market, the notebooks it powers cost between $699 to $2,500. They are expected to kick in starting with the end of the second quarter.

Samsung Plans to Roll Out 256 GB SSDs Next Year - They are still too expensive to penetrate the market

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Samsung is planning on delivering increased capacity hard-disk drives, and the company might release a 256 GB version in 2009. The new capacity will quadruple the company's current
offering that can offer as much as 64 GB per solid-state drive.

According to Jim Elliott, vice president of memory marketing for Samsung Semiconductor, the company has just implemented its 64 GB version in Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 ultra-portable laptops and will start sampling its first 128 GB units in the second half of the year.

"Lenovo’s use of a SATA II SSD as the only storage device for its premium ThinkPad X300 notebook underscores its commitment to performance excellence," said Elliott. "With the Samsung SATA II SSD, Lenovo is delivering the highest performance rates for rugged, ultra-light storage in an ultra-portable notebook," he added.

However, the device will first be addressed exclusively to system builders and hardware manufacturers, while the company will continue its research and development plans with PC vendors as Lenovo or Dell, in order to release SSD drives with capacities ranging from 64 GB to 128 GB.

The company official, however, did not comment upon whether Samsung would release the new drives on the market or keep them for system vendors only. At the same time, Elliott refused to detail upon the upcoming 256 GB drives.

Solid-state drives are now rare pieces of storage, given their increased price and low storage space provided, but things will change in the long term. Samsung claims that SSDs might replace older spinning platters, because they are lighter, more energy-efficient and faster than conventional hard-disks. For instance, Samsung's SSD drives come with a SATA-II interface, that can deliver three to five times the speed of a hard drive. At the same time, it only weighs 73 grams and takes up 30 percent less power.

The most important obstacle in SSDs' catching ground is their fabulous price, but things are about to change with the development of the multilevel cell technology that will be massively introduced on the market in the second half of the year. Single-level cell-based solid state drives come at a price of $600 per 64 GB of storage, but MLCs are far cheaper, although not as powerful as SLCs.

Lenovo Goes Green With The “Eco” ThinkCentre M57/M57P Desktop PC - The computer can be accessed even when it is powered off or has some non-functiona

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Lenovo has just announced the launch of the ThinkCentre M57/M57P "Eco" ultra small desktop PC, world's first workstation to receive the GREENGUARD certification. The device is quite a scrooge when it comes
to energy consumption and received the Gold rating in the EPEAT test, while ranking 4.0 points in the Energy Star benchmark.

"We are quite proud to say the ThinkCentre M57/M57P is the first desktop ever to meet our rigorous standards for chemical emissions," said Carl Smith, GREENGUARD Environmental Institute CEO. "Lenovo is leading the industry in its commitment to environmentally responsible computing."

The computer is built using recycled materials from consumer plastics, while being built with the quietest running hardware components offerings ever. The computer runs at just 4.0 bels or even lower, no matter how much workload it has to handle.

Under the recycled hood, you can opt for quite a few Intel Celeron / Core 2 Duo processors, up to 2GB of DDR2 system memory, integrated graphics, as well as an 80GB or 160GB hard drive.

"In addition to environmental responsibility our business customers have demanded more manageability and lower operating costs - all in a very small design," said Fran O'Sullivan, senior vice president of products, Lenovo. "With the M57/M57P we raised the bar by developing a small, compact offering that provides the highest levels of manageability and security while operating with less power consumption and noise. This is Lenovo's most energy efficient ThinkCentre ever!"

The computer is also data loss-proof. Thanks to Lenovo's full suite of ThinkVantage technologies, users can recover their systems from viruses with the touch of a single button. If there is a problem the regular user cannot solve, the built-in Intel vPro technology allows IT staff to remotely perform system maintenance, as well as to install security updates and setting energy policy options. The good part is yet to come: these options are available even when the system is powered down or if the BIOS or hard-drive are inoperative.

"Intel vPro Processor Technology provides hardware-assisted security and manageability that significantly improves IT's ability to protect their PCs from viruses and other threats," said Zane Ball, director of microprocessor product marketing, Intel. "In addition, because IT staff can power-on systems remotely, there's no longer a need to waste energy and dollars by leaving computers on all night to install security patches and conduct other maintenance."

Facebook Stealing People from Google - Again!

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Google’s Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations, Sheryl Sandberg, has been signed on by Facebook and will start as the social network’s COO on the 24th
of March. After having a good run with the Mountain View based company, she is now going after something a little more challenging, apparently. Time and again I’ve asked whether a managerial position at Google isn’t the apex of a career, and apparently more and more people are confirming it by their actions.

The International Herald Tribune quotes Sandberg as to her motivation for making the leap: "For me, that is part of the excitement. I've loved being part of the process of helping to build Google. The opportunity to help another young company to grow into a global leader is the opportunity of a lifetime." Among other attributions, Sandberg is on the board of Google.org / the Google Foundation and directs the Google Grants program.

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is very excited about the move and says that "Sheryl is a great manager who will help scale Facebook's operations globally. She has relevant experience and a track record of scaling business operations and building new kinds of advertising networks. Sheryl understands Facebook’s goal of connecting everyone in the world and is passionate about building a business that will enable us to realize this mission."

Her job will be to change the continuously growing fan base that Facebook has, into a profit making business, as simple as that. Sheryl Sandberg joins the numerous Googlers that have switched to Facebook because of the challenge of actually having to fight for something that isn’t already granted. After all, if you’ve got no point and no obstacles to overcome, making your work exciting, what else is there left? Plain routine.