Joe's Links

Toshiba denies that it has decided to pull the plug on HD DVD. DailyTech:

"We have not made any official decision yet," a Toshiba spokeswoman said, though acknowledged that Warner’s move to Blu-ray Disc did have a ripple effect. "We are cautiously assessing market movements as it is true that Warner Brother's decision to sell titles exclusively on Blu-rays affected our sales in January."

According to one unnamed source, "a complete withdrawal" is one of the options Toshiba is considering. If it were so, it would leave the format without any major maker of hardware, effectively terminating HD DVD quicker than through studio support loss.

Sony PlayStation 3 will outsell Nintendo's Wii in 2007. From TechOn:

iSuppli feels, however, that the PS3 will grow faster than the Wii, supported by core game fans. The company predicted PS3 sales will soar by an average of 39% every year from 2007 to 2011 to 38.4 million units in 2011. The PS3, Wii and Xbox will account for 35.4, 34.8 and 29.8%, respectively, of global sales in 2011, iSuppli said.

Toshiba shares climb in anticipation of Toshiba abandoning HD DVD. News.com reports:

Investors cheered an impending end to a format war for next-generation DVDs on Monday, pushing up shares of both Toshiba, on the verge of abandoning its HD DVD discs, and Sony, the leader of the rival Blu-ray camp.

More reports of scientists loving Sony PlayStation 3 for their research. This one from Telegraph.co.uk

Joe's links

Sony aims for its PlayStation 3 to be a money maker in fiscal 2008 which begins in March 2008. Sony had hoped that 2007 would be year the red ink vanished, but it was not to be. The cost of the Cell and RSX semiconductors, along with the optical pick-up are the likely culprits.

Sony sold a reported 1.2 million PlayStation 3s during the holiday season in North America.

More at DailyTech.

Sony & Qimonda venture

Sony Corporation and Qimonda AG announced that they have signed an agreement to found the joint venture Qreatic Design to be locatd in Tokyo, Japan. Initially, 30 specialists from Sony and Qimonda will focus on high-performance, low power, embedded and customer specific DRAMs for consumer and graphic applications. If all goes well, operations will begin before the end of 2007, with intentions to "substantially expand" capacities.

Joe's links

The Register (9/18/07) quoting Carole Handler on Microsoft losing the majority of its appeal against the European Commission anti-trust decision: "The court has upheld a requirement to hand over intellectual property. It suggests that that EU will take a tougher line on Rambus and Intel." Handler also said the decision could have an impact on strengthening US regulation, as could the upcoming US election.

Stronger regulation and who will benefit? Donkey prediction - He who is my President (you supply the acronym), will continue policies that allow foreign and domestic companies to steal intellectual property. The FTC is out of control and (acronym) is responsible . . . the buck stops at his desk.

More from The Register (9/18/07) mentioning that the US Justice Department is "cordially inviting them (Samsung & Toshiba) to a new market-wide price fixing investigation.

"Samsung will cooperate fully with the ongoing Department of Justice Antitrust Division investigation."

Just the cost of doing business. Thieves. Simple thieves.

(Acronym), please do not allow the DOJ settle for nickles and dimes.

And yet more from The Register (9/18/07) where it repeats rumors that Sony and Toshiba are in talks about Sony selling its semiconductor business to Toshiba.

And at IHUB a post about Micron playing politics:

Join me (Steve Appleton) in thanking congressman Mike Simpson and Bill Sali for standing up for Idaho's innovators and technology industry.

Would that be the same Micron as the all American conspiring price-fixing DRAM manufacturer? Thank you Mike and Bill. Your assistance is beyond mention . . . (Acronym), feel free to chime in.

Pinehurst Joe's Links

Sony has developed a prototype computer board based on the Cell processor and will show it at SIGGRAPH in San Diego, California August 7 - 9.

The "Cell Computing Board" prototype combines the Cell BE (Broadband Engine) with a RSX graphics processor and is small enough to be mounted into a 1U-size server for a 19-inch rack mount.

Read more at Digital Arts.

Read Sony's press release here.

Wired Blogs weighs in:

Alas, this doesn't mean that we'll see a new range of video cards wading in to the mascara-streaked bitch fight between NVidia and AMD—this is for hardcore scientific applications. Requiring a 1U rackmount enclosure and 400 watts of juice all to itself, it's not going to be a consumer toy. But seriously, will someone please check out how it handles Oblivion?

Read more about SIGGRAPH here.

Sony wants to rumble?

ars technica reports that Sony is exploring how to include Immersion's force-feedback and vibration technology, known in Sony lingo as "rumble" is its gamers' experience. This a reversal from Sony's position that the "rumble" was so yesterday.

HT to Sony for facing reality and reversing a bad decision.

The News

DigiTimes Bits+Chips:

With Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) new-generation game consoles priced below their component costs, the game console vendors are aggressively preparing to migrate chief components to 65nm production in order to help shrink the gap between retail prices and costs.

DigiTimes Bits + Chips:

Hynix Semiconductor pulled off a double upset in the DRAM market with a remarkable increase in shipments causing it to rise to the second rank for both the fourth quarter and for all of 2006, up from third previously, according to iSuppli.

EETimesUK Online:

Chip market growth in 2007 will be 7 percent according to Bruce Diesen, an analyst with Terra Securities ASA, who made his prediction after seeing relatively weak numbers for December from the Semiconductor Industry Association. There is a general consensus among analysts that the first half 0f 2007 will be weaker than normal seasonality would suggest and that growth is set to occur predominantly the second half. The timing of the turnaround from a mild dose of inventory burn-off is likely to have major effect on the growth numbers for 2007.

Ars Technica:

Sony's games division may have taken its hard knocks lately in the press and in sales figures, but the company is determined to turn things around. To that end, the company is planning a two-pronged attack: price cuts on the Playstation 3 console and a marketing surge promoting the Playstation Portable's Internet features.

HT Pinehurst Joe

Toshiba has plans to put a cell processor in your home

ComputerPartner reports that Toshiba expects to release Cell-based consumer products ahead of Sony - maybe early 2008.

Image: Trusted Reviews