Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

The US has been having tough times lately on Wall Street.  Meanwhile, it’s rumored that the “tech giants” may not be following suit (that’s a good thing).  Google, Microsoft, and IBM are expected to report their second quarter (Q2) 2008 earnings later today.  How do you think they’ll do?

Read on for times and webcast information.

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A semiconductor plant producing precious IBM chips is set for business expansion. This chip plant is located in East Fishkill in New York, USA. IBM or the International Business Machines Corporation has spoke of its plans of investing $1 billion over the next three years. This is for the expansion of the said chip plant. IBM aims to maintain its mission to live for the chip-making business. The billions-worth of investment will be divided among the three projects related to chip nanotechnologies.

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Heat has long been a major problem for semiconductors.  Years of research produced technological leaps that have enabled computer chips to diminish in size, increase performance, and withstand the heat generated by packing circuits in impossibly cramped space.  Now, IBM is applying years of experience in semiconductors to cooling solar cells.

IBM said that its liquid-metal cooling technique, adapted from high-powered computers’ chips, could relieve roughly 75% of the heat generated by a concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) system. Through the use of lenses and mirrors, CPV arrays magnify light onto solar cells to convert light to electricity.  More light generates more electricity, and consequently – more heat. 

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Just when flash-based solid state drives are becoming the norm, IBM has developed a new type of solid state memory, dubbed “Racetrack”, that pretty much makes flash memory look obsolete. The new technology uses spintronics, which uses the spin of electrons to encode data rather than the electrons’ charge. The bits of data are stored in the magnetic domain walls along the silicon nanowire, or racetrack, thus allowing for super fast data transfers. The method allows for more energy efficient, faster, larger, and cheaper solid state memory—all while maintaining the same amount of “space” of current drives. In fact, according to IBM, the new Racetrack memory is capable of reading and writing data in less than a nanosecond and could provide up to 100x more storage than currently available drives on the market.

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It might seem like an oxymoron at first, but I assure you, there won’t be an ox (and certainly not a moron) in the following story. This is about a new data center built by IBM for GIB-Services, which uses innovative technology to heat a local public swimming pool. And they’re doing this by recycling the warm air the air conditioners in the vicinity. Pretty neat, and certainly helps all that precious warm air from going to waste.

In reality, the data center is a secure data storage facility that GIB will use to support its clients in Switzerland. However, they wanted to try something new and thus, this new energy-efficient and “green” data center was made in collaboration with IBM.

I’m not sure how many people would be thrilled by the fact that this data center has the ability to heat a public swimming pool (about 40? 50?) but I’m sure there will be more uses for this technology in the future. Because like a Christmas gift from a bitter ex, it’s the thought that counts.

Read [IBM Press Room]

Lenovo has officially unveiled and made their ultra-portable ThinkPad X300 available for order just about a week ago. With a lot of anticipation and speculation in the lead up to this release it seems that the X300 lives up to just about everything you could have hoped for. The new ultra-portable from Lenovo, the ThinkPad X300 features a 13.3-inch LED backlit display, a 1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB RAM, 64GB SSD, running Windows XP Professional and range in weight from 2.9 to 3.1 pounds with a variety of available connectivity options. Pricing will begin at $2,548 and go up depending on configuration.

Let’s get on with the reviews…

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Its always fun to see the inner workings of technology, its not always fun to take apart your brand new $3000 laptop. In this case we have to rely on those who are a little more brave than we may be. Courtesy of ThinkPads.com we can now have a good look at the inner workings of the ultra-portable Lenovo ThinkPad X300.

Click the read link below for some more great pictures…

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With an overall positive review, Walt Mossberg claims the X300 is “a solid, innovative laptop that will be perfect for many mobile PC users.” Making the obvious comparison to its rival, the X300 seems to have a little more to offer feature wise as compared to the MacBook Air, with a few downfalls coming from the operating system and battery life.

“I believe that both the Mac operating system and the software that comes with it are superior to the Windows operating system and built-in software offered on the ThinkPad.”

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After nearly 10 years off the show floor of the Consumer Electronics Show, IBM is making its big come-back this year.  Since their last appearance in Las Vegas, they have made quite a few accomplishments in the gaming and PC industries.  According to Download Squad, “IBM is said to be planning to demonstrate how its technology, components, and top level business partnerships with the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been used in many leading edge electronics like gaming systems and mobile devices.”

Who knows… maybe they want to get back into CES to form more partnerships, or maybe they just are ready to crank out the cash for the booth.  Whichever it is, I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it next week during the show.  Stay tuned for updates.

Read [eWeek] Via [Download Squad]

It all started with Dell. Mid August 2006, Dell finally announced that it will be re-calling 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries supplied by Sony, said to be “the largest safety recall in the history”. What followed after that move by Dell were beyond my wildest imagination even though any Tom Dick and Harry would have expected it but never really thought to be of this magnitude.

Apple, Toshiba, Lenovo/IBM, Fujitsu and Hitachi were also forced to join the party they wish their names were not on the invitation list. Poor Sony, just late Thursday announced that it would be recalling a total of 9.6 million batteries worldwide, 90,000 of which are for its Vaio batteries. The exercise so far has cost the Japanese giant total of ¥51 billion ($429 million) from July to September.

But the worst is not over. The Associated Press reports: “Sony spokesman Takashi Uehara said the 51 billion yen figure doesn’t include ‘provisions for possible lawsuits’,” speaking of which high-tech giants Toshiba and Fujitsu are considering demanding compensation from Sony over the fiasco. I am sure this is a party Apple, Toshiba, Lenovo/IBM would love their names to be on the invitation list. Anyone else wants to join the party?

Read [Australian IT]