Intel acquires Infineon's wireless group for $1.4B, picks up 2G, 3G, LTE tech
The world's largest chipmaker, Intel Corp. announced Monday morning that it will be acquiring the Wireless Solutions (WLS) business from German semiconductor company Infineon Technologies AG for approximately $1.4 billion. Last year, the division held about 11% of the global cellular baseband market.
"The global demand for wireless solutions continues to grow at an extraordinary rate," Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO said in a statement today. "The acquisition of Infineon's WLS business strengthens the second pillar of our computing strategy - Internet connectivity - and enables us to offer a portfolio of products that covers the full range of wireless options from WiFi and 3G to WiMAX and LTE."
Mobile phones in class: the next back to school accessory
As school districts across the country open their doors for the 2010-2011 school year, a remarkable shift in thought is taking place: cell phones, once regarded as distractions or liabilities are coming to be viewed as viable learning tools.
This fall, Wisconsin's Milwaukee Public School district will let students use their mobile phones in classrooms as long as it's for an approved educational purpose.
HP's $2 billion bid leads 3PAR to terminate agreement with Dell
Two weeks ago, Dell announced it would be acquiring virtualized storage company 3PAR for $1.5 billion. Dell's announcement, however, represented only a preliminary agreement between the companies, and HP wanted to acquire 3PAR as well.
Friday morning, just a matter of hours after 3PAR announced it had signed the second amendment to its merger agreement with Dell, competitor HP made its third bid for 3PAR, which upped the total value of the company to $2 billion.
Windows Live Sync to become Windows Live Mesh after beta
Microsoft's two sync offerings --Windows Live Sync and Windows Live Mesh-- were combined into a single program called Windows Live Sync beta for the beta of Windows Live Essentials. Today, Microsoft announced it's reversing that decision, and the combined program will be called Windows Live Mesh after the beta expires.
The decision to change the name was made because Microsoft felt that since the new program will do more than just sync files, it should have a name that reflects what it does.
Mozilla updates Fennec mobile browser, strengthens its ties to Firefox 4
Still in alpha after nearly two years, Mozila on Friday released the latest version of its mobile browser, Fennec for Android 2.0 and higher and Nokia N900.
Several improvements have been made in the Android version since the "Pre-alpha" build was released last April. In addition to interface and performance tweaks, the browser's integration with the desktop version of Firefox has improved, and tools for sharing content are taking a more prominent position.
HP ups the stakes to $2 Billion in 3PAR acquisition
It seems Dell cannot make an acquisition bid for virtualized storage company 3PAR without competitor HP making a bigger bid almost immediately afterward.
Just hours after Dell announced its revised offer to acquire memory company 3PAR for $1.6 billion on Thursday, HP announced a new counter-offer for $1.8 billion. HP's last counter-offer caused Dell to raise its bid by a little under 34%, and that offer raised it by another 11%.
Hulu Plus survey hints at ad-free premium content packages, HBO, Showtime integration
According to a survey given to Hulu Plus testers, the streaming web TV service might consider offering ad-free content packages on top of the existing Hulu Plus subscription.
The options Hulu is considering include: movie packages that feature classic movies, indie and foreign fims, documentaries or "back catalog" studio films; Premium Channel add-ons like HBO or Showtime; or On-demand premium TV with the option to rent or buy like Amazon On Demand.
Netgear's NeoTV set-top box revives first-gen Blu-Ray drives
Network hardware company Netgear has taken the wraps off of a new set-top media player called the NeoTV 550 Ultimate HD, which will go on sale in North America this October for $220.
Betanews first started paying attention to Netgear's set-top boxes in 2009, when it first unveiled a BitTorrent-enabled box called Digital Entertainer Live EVA2000. That device, while useful for connecting devices within the home network to the user's television, was only capable of 720p output, and had only moderate support for streaming video services. It received pretty mediocre reviews, and didn't stand out tremendously from the crowd of similar products from Netgear's competitors.
MIT lab creates giant robotic tadpoles for oil spill cleanup
The Sensable City lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is developing a solar-powered robot whose sole purpose is to clean up oil spilled into the water.
Seaswarm, as the robot design is called, is essentially a large robotic tadpole. The "head" of the robot consists of a solar collecting cell, which generates enough electricity to power the nanowire-covered conveyer belt "tail." The conveyor belt propels the robot, and the nanofabric on the surface of the belt can absorb 20 times its own weight in oil without becoming saturated with water. The oil sucked up onto the belt is then removed by heating it up and evaporating the oil into a container in the head of the robot.
Dell outbids HP for storage company 3PAR
Computer maker Dell will be acquiring virtualized storage company 3PAR for $1.6 billion, the companies announced Thursday. The announcement follows a bidding war for the company that took place between Dell and rival HP.
Dell increased its bid for 3PAR to $24.30 per share; considerably higher than the $18 per share offer it made one week prior. The bigger tender offer comes as an answer to a competing bid placed by HP just three days ago for $24 per share.
Introducing a new, more social Digg
Popular social link-sharing and bookmarking site Digg on Wednesday made its new, redesigned site available to all users after testing in an invitation-only mode for roughly four months.
"This redesign is a major revision of our platform -- front end to back end -- this is just phase one of what will be an on-going, iterative process, involving lots of input from all of you. We'll be pushing out features on a regular basis and tweaking often, "Digg founder and CEO Kevin Rose said on Wednesday. "Our goal has always been for Digg to be a place where people can discover and share content and conversations from anywhere on the web. With Digg v4, we are introducing a few things that will make discovering and discussing news a lot better."
Google unveils voice calling through Gmail
Wednesday, Google officially announced that North American Gmail users can place voice calls to any phone number directly from their Gmail interface. The feature will roll out to all users in the next few days.
Users will be able to place totally free calls within the U.S. and Canada for "at least the rest of this year," and international calls for comparatively low rates. All outgoing calls originate from the user's Google Voice number, and calls can even be received within the Gmail interface.
Adobe updates Web-based Photoshop, no longer demands membership
Now approaching its third year online, Adobe's Web-based photo editing suite Photoshop Express underwent a significant redesign which launched Wednesday. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor, Organizer, and Uploader are included in the refresh.
Firstly, a Photoshop.com account is no longer needed to use Photoshop Express Editor. Users can simply navigate to the Web app, upload photos directly from their local drive, edit and change the photos, and then save them back on their local storage. Previously, an account was necessary, and photos were uploaded to online storage first before they were edited. This is still an option, as Photoshop.com members can still store and share photos online as well as create albums, but it's no longer the only way to use the Editor.
Mozilla launches Firefox 4 beta 4, rolls in Sync, Panorama tab manager
Mozilla Tuesday updated Firefox 4 to its fourth beta release, adding two major new features: Firefox Sync and Panorama.
Firefox Sync lets users access browser history, password keychain, bookmarks, and open tabs across their different desktop computers, iOS, or Maemo-based mobile devices. Sync is available as an add-in for Firefox 3.5 and 3.6, but in Firefox 4, it is a built-in feature.
Samsung teases 7" Tablet for September 2
There has been a considerable amount of chatter about a potential contribution to the Android Tablet market from Samsung. Tuesday, the company started to mete out official teasers for the upcoming 7" Galaxy Tab and launched the device's official website at galaxytab.samsungmobile.com.
In Samsung's video today, the 7" tablet is briefly shown to include: Augmented Reality, Navigation, E-reading, HD Movie Playback, Flash support, full web browsing, "PC link web," video calling, Android 2.2, and what looks to be a rear-facing camera but no visible forward-facing one (though it's implied by "video calling".)
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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