WiMAX Technology

WiMAX is the next-generation of wireless technology designed to enable pervasive, high-speed mobile Internet access to the widest array of devices including notebook PCs, handsets, smartphones, and consumer electronics such as gaming devices, cameras, camcorders, music players, and more. As the fourth generation (4G) of wireless technology, WiMAX delivers low-cost, open networks and is the first all IP mobile Internet solution enabling efficient and scalable networks for data, video, and voice. As a major driver in the support and development of WiMAX, Intel has designed embedded WiMAX solutions for a variety of mobile devices supporting the future of high-speed broadband on-the-go.

Driving standards and global networks for WiMAX

Laying the foundation for broad, cost-effective deployments, Intel is working to easily integrate Intel® WiMAX technology into complex designs and global networks, providing a standards-based foundation for ongoing product innovation.

WiMAX: Connect in more places, more often

Built for the future, Intel® WiMAX technology will allow you to connect in more places, more often, without being restricted to hotspots. When built into notebooks and mobile devices, you'll be able to extend your connected experience beyond Wi-Fi.

Connecting notebooks of the future with WiMAX

Intel is providing advancements in wireless mobile technology for the future of notebooks and a wide range of consumer devices. Intel® Centrino® wireless products provide great coverage and reliable connectivity while consuming minimal power.

Facebook veterans in venture capital spotlight

As Wall Street eagerly awaits signs that Internet sensation Facebook will offer shares to the public, the venture capitalists
that prowl California's Silicon Valley are keeping close tabs on another hot commodity: the employees leaving Facebook.

A handful of start-up companies founded by Facebook alumni are attracting attention and generating a good amount of buzz within venture circles, where competition is fierce to get a stake in the web's next hit product. On Monday, Quora, a start-up founded by four ex-Facebook employees, including former Chief Technology Officer Adam D'Angelo, raised a Series A round of funding from Benchmark Capital that the technology blog TechCrunch said valued the company at $86 million, citing an unnamed source.

Benchmark partner and former Facebook product management vice president Matt Cohler will sit on Quora's board. Quora, which operates out of a small, college-dorm-like suite in downtown Palo Alto, California, with cardboard crates of water-bottles stacked waist-high against the walls, had not planned to raise money so early, said D'Angelo, who is the CEO of Quora. "We weren't really shopping it around, but there was a lot of interest" from VCs, he said in a phone interview with Reuters after the announcement of the funding on Monday.

The company was started in April 2009, and the product which was launched in January 2010, can currently be used only by people who have received a special invitation. D'Angelo declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal, but said the funding will help Quora hire more staff and focus on a wider set of technical challenges underlying the product - an online question and answer service based on people's social connections.

The proliferation of start-ups with Facebook veterans, and the investor interest in them, follows a time-tested Silicon Valley pattern in which tech superstars from Google Inc to Fairchild Semiconductor have spawned innovative start-up companies, said Nick Sturiale, a general partner at JAFCO Ventures. "Any enterpreneur spinning out of Facebook is going to get attention," said Sturiale. "They're at the vanguard of how the Web is emerging."

Facebook, which counts 400 million active users and is the world's No.1 Internet social network, has yet to announce any plans for an initial public offering -- the traditional payday that allows early company insiders to cash-out and move on to new projects.

But the active secondary market for Facebook shares -- including more than $100 million in officially-sanctioned stock purchases of employee shares by Facebook investor Digital Sky Technologies last year -- has allowed Facebook employees to decamp at an earlier stage, say some VCs. "We've seen loads of people leave Google and now we're seeing loads of people leave Facebook.

Either because they're vested, or because they think the company's gotten too big," said Spark Capital's Todd Dagres. Dagres said he's looking at several startups founded by ex-Facebook employees, but he notes that a Facebook connection is not enough. "You definitely pay attention if somebody is leaving Google or Facebook. But then you've got to make sure that they really have built a track record, that they didn't just work there," said Dagres. A number of Facebook-related start-ups have already passed muster.

Asana, whose founders include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, raised $9 million in December from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen-Horowitz. Cloudera, which features former Facebook, Google, Yahoo Inc and Oracle Corp veterans on its management team, raised $11 million from Greylock Partners and Accel Partners in two separate rounds of funding last year. Meanwhile, Path, a secretive project led by former Facebook employee Dave Morin and Shawn Fanning, the creator of music sharing service Napster, has piqued a lot of interest in tech circles though it's unclear if the company is looking to raise money.

Some entrepreneurs, like former Facebook director of international business development Net Jacobsson, say there's no overwhelming pressure to raise capital right away, thanks to the low cost with which Web start-ups can be created these days. Jacobsson, who advised social gaming firm Crowdstar after leaving Facebook in May 2009, recently set up his own social game start-up dubbed PlayHopper.

The game development is primarily taking place in China, he said, and the goal is to generate revenue as soon as the first game is released. Several VC firms have contacted him to check-in on his new project and in some cases to inquire about investing in the company, said Jacobsson, who noted that he was still thinking over whether he needed to take money from outside investors

Google searches trigger error messages in China

Searches on Google's Chinese-language site failed to return results on Tuesday from within China, but it was not immediately clear if
the site was blocked or if the problems were due to a service glitch.

Google last week said it would no longer bow to government censors in Beijing and effectively shut down its Chinese search engine, re-routing mainland users to its uncensored site in Hong Kong.

Searches for a range of non-sensitive terms on google.com.hk such as "China" and "America" in both Chinese and English resulted in error messages. The same searches had returned results in recent days.

The Google Maps section however appeared to be working, as was the music section of google.com.hk.

A Google spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

A page on Google's website summarizing service availability in mainland China says there are "no issues" with web searches.

Intel® Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition.¹ With faster, intelligent multi-core technology that accelerates performance to match your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance.

But performance doesn't stop at gaming. You'll multitask 25 percent faster and unleash incredible digital media creation with up to 79 percent faster video encoding and up to 46 percent faster image rendering, plus incredible performance for photo retouching and editing.¹

In fact, you'll experience maximum performance for whatever you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which activates full processing power exactly where and when you need it most.

Product information

3.20 GHz and 3.33GHz core speed
8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory


Features and benefits:
Get extreme with your gaming and advanced multimedia

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:
Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload-more performance when you need it the most.


Intel Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.³
Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.
Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.

Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.
Intel HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

The Dozens of Computers That Make Modern Cars Go (and Stop)

The electronic systems in modern cars and trucks — under new scrutiny as regulators continue to raise concerns about Toyota vehicles — are packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code, more than in some jet fighters.

“It would be easy to say the modern car is a computer on wheels, but it’s more like 30 or more computers on wheels,” said Bruce Emaus, the chairman of SAE International’s embedded software standards committee.

Even basic vehicles have at least 30 of these microprocessor-controlled devices, known as electronic control units, and some luxury cars have as many as 100.

These electronic brains control dozens of functions, including brake and cruise control and entertainment systems. Software in each unit is also made to work with others. So, for example, when a driver pushes a button on a key fob to unlock the doors, a module in the trunk might rouse separate computers to unlock all four doors.

The evolution of automotive control electronics has been rapid. IEEE Spectrum, an American technical publication, reported that electronics, as a percentage of vehicle costs, climbed to 15 percent in 2005 from 5 percent in the late 1970s — and would be higher today.

The 1977 Oldsmobile Toronado had a very simple computer unit that was used for spark-plug timing, and the next year the Cadillac Seville offered an optional trip computer that used a Motorola chip.

For Apple, iPad Said More Than Intended

Apple has generated a lot of chatter with its newiPad tablet. But it may not be quite the conversation it wanted.

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that “iPad,” in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from iPod,” Apple’s music player.

Then there are more serious conflicts. Two other high-tech companies already market products called iPad and are laying claim to the trademark.

In the hours after the iPad announcement on Wednesday, “iTampon” became one of the most popular trending topics onTwitter. Apple’s communication team fielded a wave of queries on the subject but characteristically declined to comment.

“I care about words and their connotations, but you don’t have to be in junior high to make this leap,” said Robin Bernstein, a corporate speech writer on Long Island, who addressed the issue on her Facebook page on Wednesday. “A lot of women when they hear the word ‘pad’ are going to think about feminine hygiene.”

Michael Cronan, a naming consultant in Berkeley, Calif., whose company has helped come up with brands like TiVo and Kindle, said many naming experiments show that women tend to reflexively relate words like “pad” and “flow” to bodily concerns.

He is not sure Apple could have found an alternative that ties in as perfectly to its famous brands. “I think we’re going to get over this fairly quickly and we’ll get on with enjoying the experience.”

But the folks at Fujitsu, the Japanese technology firm, may not be quite so eager to forgive and forget. The company has applied for the iPad trademark in the United States and already sells an iPad — a $2,000 hand-held device that shop clerks use to check inventory.

STMicroelectronics, the Swiss semiconductor company, owns the iPad trademark in Europe and uses it as an acronym for integrated passive and active devices — which sounds less fun than playing games on a tablet. (A third company, MagTek of Seal Beach, Calif., makes a portable magnetic card reader of the same name.)

These kinds of naming conflicts have not stopped Apple before. In 2007, on the eve of the introduction of the iPhone, the technology giant Cisco Systems pointed out that it already sold an Internet handset called the iPhone. Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, led the negotiation for the name, peppering Cisco executives with calls at all hours, and telling them he was prepared to claim that Cisco was underutilizing the trademark.

Microsoft and Yahoo Are Linked Up. Now What?

The bumpy, marathon mating dance between Microsoft and Yahoo finally concluded on Wednesday, when the two companies announced a partnership in Internet search and advertising to take on the industry powerhouse Google.


But there was plenty of skepticism about whether the new partners could make a serious dent in Google’s dominance.


Even with the deal, the Microsoft-Yahoo search operation will be dwarfed by Google — with a 28 percent market share in the United States, versus 65 percent — and will face an uphill struggle to try to wean people away from Google’s simple white search page.


If Yahoo and Microsoft cannot persuade people to switch, they will not build the larger audience that will bring in more revenue from ads tied to searches.


“This battle is won or lost as the user sits at the keyboard,” said Peter S. Fader, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of its Interactive Media Initiative. “Google is winning for good, consumer-friendly reasons. You can’t just buy that.”


The Microsoft-Yahoo pact represents a pragmatic division of duties between the two companies, instead of the blockbuster deal Microsoft, No. 3 in the search market, was shooting for last year when it bid $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo, No. 2 in search.


That hostile offer was ultimately withdrawn by Microsoft, and its collapse led to lots of soul-searching at Yahoo and the replacement of its co-founder Jerry Yang with an outsider, Carol Bartz, in the chief executive role.


Under the pact, Microsoft will provide the underlying search technology on Yahoo’s popular Web sites. The deal will give a lift to Microsoft’s search engine, which it recently overhauled and renamed Bing. Its search ads will have broader reach and become more lucrative.


Bing, which tries to put search results in better context than rivals, has won praise and favorable reviews, after Microsoft spent years falling farther and farther behind Google in search.


For Yahoo, the move furthers the strategy under Ms. Bartz to focus the company on its strengths as a publisher of Web media sites in areas like finance and sports, as a marketer and leader in online display advertising.


“This deal allows Yahoo to invest in what we should be investing in for the future — audience properties, display advertising and the mobile Internet experience,” Ms. Bartz said in an interview on Wednesday. “Our vision is to be the center of people’s lives online.”


The terms of the 10-year agreement give Microsoft access to Yahoo’s search technologies. Yahoo will receive a lucrative 88 percent of the search-generated ad revenue from its own sites for the first five years of the deal, much higher than is standard in the industry.


After the takeover bid failed, the companies renewed talks about a partnership last summer. The talks included discussion of a large upfront payment from Microsoft.


But when Ms. Bartz joined Yahoo at the start of this year, the interest on the Yahoo side shifted. Ms. Bartz was more interested in steady revenue to ensure the longer-term financial health of Yahoo instead of a big payment, she said in a conference call Wednesday.


Shares of Yahoo fell 12 percent, to $15.14, after the deal was announced, apparently reflecting investors’ disappointment in the lack of a payment. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly.


“It feels kind of like a stab in the chest,” said Darren Chervitz, the co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns about 100,000 shares of Yahoo. “It certainly feels like Yahoo is giving away their strong and hard-fought share of the search market for really a modest price.”


Now, Yahoo’s financial fate will be inextricably linked with Microsoft for years. “My sense is that Yahoo will regret making this move,” Mr. Chervitz said.


If the deal is completed next year as planned, and after the partnership is fully in place in three years, Yahoo estimates that its operating income will increase by $500 million a year, based on the anticipated higher search traffic and ad revenue, and a substantial drop in its investment in technology development.


Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in an interview that Ms. Bartz had driven a hard bargain. “Look,” he said, “she got 88 percent of the revenue and none of the cost.”


But there was plenty of skepticism about whether the new partners could make a serious dent in Google’s dominance.


Even with the deal, the Microsoft-Yahoo search operation will be dwarfed by Google — with a 28 percent market share in the United States, versus 65 percent — and will face an uphill struggle to try to wean people away from Google’s simple white search page.


If Yahoo and Microsoft cannot persuade people to switch, they will not build the larger audience that will bring in more revenue from ads tied to searches.


“This battle is won or lost as the user sits at the keyboard,” said Peter S. Fader, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of its Interactive Media Initiative. “Google is winning for good, consumer-friendly reasons. You can’t just buy that.”


The Microsoft-Yahoo pact represents a pragmatic division of duties between the two companies, instead of the blockbuster deal Microsoft, No. 3 in the search market, was shooting for last year when it bid $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo, No. 2 in search.


That hostile offer was ultimately withdrawn by Microsoft, and its collapse led to lots of soul-searching at Yahoo and the replacement of its co-founder Jerry Yang with an outsider, Carol Bartz, in the chief executive role.


Under the pact, Microsoft will provide the underlying search technology on Yahoo’s popular Web sites. The deal will give a lift to Microsoft’s search engine, which it recently overhauled and renamed Bing. Its search ads will have broader reach and become more lucrative.


Bing, which tries to put search results in better context than rivals, has won praise and favorable reviews, after Microsoft spent years falling farther and farther behind Google in search.


For Yahoo, the move furthers the strategy under Ms. Bartz to focus the company on its strengths as a publisher of Web media sites in areas like finance and sports, as a marketer and leader in online display advertising.


“This deal allows Yahoo to invest in what we should be investing in for the future — audience properties, display advertising and the mobile Internet experience,” Ms. Bartz said in an interview on Wednesday. “Our vision is to be the center of people’s lives online.”


The terms of the 10-year agreement give Microsoft access to Yahoo’s search technologies. Yahoo will receive a lucrative 88 percent of the search-generated ad revenue from its own sites for the first five years of the deal, much higher than is standard in the industry.


After the takeover bid failed, the companies renewed talks about a partnership last summer. The talks included discussion of a large upfront payment from Microsoft.


But when Ms. Bartz joined Yahoo at the start of this year, the interest on the Yahoo side shifted. Ms. Bartz was more interested in steady revenue to ensure the longer-term financial health of Yahoo instead of a big payment, she said in a conference call Wednesday.


Shares of Yahoo fell 12 percent, to $15.14, after the deal was announced, apparently reflecting investors’ disappointment in the lack of a payment. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly.


“It feels kind of like a stab in the chest,” said Darren Chervitz, the co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns about 100,000 shares of Yahoo. “It certainly feels like Yahoo is giving away their strong and hard-fought share of the search market for really a modest price.”


Now, Yahoo’s financial fate will be inextricably linked with Microsoft for years. “My sense is that Yahoo will regret making this move,” Mr. Chervitz said.


If the deal is completed next year as planned, and after the partnership is fully in place in three years, Yahoo estimates that its operating income will increase by $500 million a year, based on the anticipated higher search traffic and ad revenue, and a substantial drop in its investment in technology development.


Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in an interview that Ms. Bartz had driven a hard bargain. “Look,” he said, “she got 88 percent of the revenue and none of the cost.”


“If Microsoft and Yahoo are 30 percent and growing in search, then the dynamics of the market can shift,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.


Mr. Fader of Wharton said he was not sure the partners would be able to shake up the business. “Microsoft is buying some market share, but there is no evidence they are going to change the game in any fundamental way,” he said. “What the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership needs is real breakthroughs to deliver disruptive innovation in search.”


Advertisers and Web publishers say they will be looking to the combination to improve its search technology and service and put more pricing pressure on Google, which has turned the small text ads that appear next to search results into a multibillion-dollar business.


“It could be a more competitive marketplace, but that’s not certain,” said Bob Liodice, president of the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group. “Google still holds two-thirds of the market.”


Branding was one important consideration in the deal. Yahoo will still control the look of the search features on its sites and will determine how search technology may be tailored differently for, say, entertainment and finance sites. But Yahoo’s search will include a logo saying “Powered by Bing.”


And Yahoo will be able to tap into records of searches for its own purposes, like monitoring the online behavior of anonymous users to more efficiently place online display advertisements.


Throughout a conference call and the later interviews, Ms. Bartz and Mr. Ballmer emphasized that combining the No. 2 and No. 3 companies in search would not harm competition but enhance it. Google was rarely mentioned by name, but it was the subtext of the conversation and the deal itself.


Ms. Bartz pointedly said the partnership would “put choice back in the hands of consumers, advertisers and publishers,” all of whom, she said, were “increasingly concerned” about the rising power of Google.


Microsoft and Yahoo said they expected resistance from Google. But Microsoft’s general counsel, Bradford L. Smith, said he looked forward to explaining the details of the planned partnership to antitrust officials in Washington and Brussels.


The Microsoft-Yahoo stance, legal analysts noted, amounts to the assertion that Google is so dominant in Internet search and search advertising that the best way to foster competition and innovation is with a duopoly — with the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership creating a credible rival to Google.