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But with Intel’s new low-power and low-cost Atom CPU, the prices for these machines are coming down to almost reasonable levels. And many vendors, realizing that no standard mouse-and-keyboard-based UI is suitable for this form factor, are releasing their products with new,
iPhone-like interfaces that are a better for their touch screen displays.

Honestly, I don’t get the allure of ultramobile PCs. Neither small enough to be pocketable nor large enough to work on comfortably, most seem to me to be expensive toys. Although some serve needs in specific industries–medical, retail, automotive, and military applications–historically, these platypus PCs have had bizarre (but creative) keyboards and have squeezed the standard Windows interface onto screens really not designed for the desktop experience.

All the new ultramobiles come with wide-area networking technologies (either HSDPA, EVDO, or WiMax), which makes them potentially very interesting Web application platforms. To my knowledge, though, there are no HTML standards nor generally accepted guidelines for writing a Web app for a touch-screen interface, except for what Apple is doing. This will make using these products as Web clients frustrating at first.

Click here for full coverage of the Intel Developer Forum.

Several of these new devices were on display at the Intel Developer Forum. Many of the products are currently for sale in Asian countries, but some are coming to the U.S. later this year or early next. Click through to the embedded gallery for a tour.

Gizmodo picked up on a video produced by the iPhone Dev Team demonstrating that it has gained access to the baseband processor used by Apple in the iPhone 3G. The baseband chip is what controls the connection between the phone and the mobile phone network, meaning that a software download that could let you use your iPhone 3G on a carrier network other than the ones officially designated by Apple could be released soon.

There hasn’t been as much demand for unlocked iPhone 3Gs, given the much greater distribution of that phone around the world. However, there are still some countries, like China, that don’t carry the iPhone, and there are still some users who want to use their iPhones on a different carrier than the one designated for the iPhone in their country.

An easy way of unlocking your iPhone 3G could hit the Internet relatively soon.

An unlocked
iPhone 3G is a little closer to becoming reality, according to the iPhone Dev Team.

I’m sure you remember the fuss about the original iPhone and those who sought to unlock it from the four carriers that were Apple’s launch partners for the first iPhone. The iPhone 3G has proven a tougher nut to crack, because Apple apparently changed the baseband to make it more difficult to exploit than the baseband used on the original iPhone. You can unlock your iPhone 3G to use it on another carrier by modifying the SIM card, but what the iPhone Dev Team is trying to accomplish is a software-based unlock that you would just download and install.

(Credit:
CNET)

AppleInsider thinks Apple might have contracted with Advanced Micro Devices or Via for the new chipsets, but offers no details on what might actually be inside the new systems. Given Nvidia’s huge mobile chipset problem this summer, it is probably not in the running if Apple’s looking at other suppliers.

Intel has done an excellent job reinventing the company around mobile processors, starting with the original Pentium M design back in 2004 and carrying forward to today’s Core 2 Duo. But it has done a much less stellar job with the integrated graphics chipsets that connect those processors to the rest of the system, such as the memory chips and hard drives.

If it’s an internally designed chipset that Apple has in place for the new systems, history would be repeating itself at the company, which used to design much of the internal hardware that went along with IBM’s PowerPC chips back in the day. Apple recently acquired a passel of chip designers from P.A. Semi, but Steve Jobs has said those folks are working on future chips for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The new notebooks are expected to borrow design cues from the MacBook Air and bring the aluminum casing on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air to the MacBook.

The MacBook might be getting changes inside and out in the next several weeks.

Apple might have decided its partnership with Intel doesn’t mean it has to use all of Intel’s products.

Most notebooks use integrated graphics chipsets over discrete graphics chips to cut down on power consumption, but the graphics performance of Intel’s chipsets leave a lot to be desired. Microsoft was less-than-thrilled about the performance of the chipsets that were scheduled to arrive with
Windows Vista, and Intel has had problems getting other chipsets to live up to their promise.

AppleInsider reports that Apple could be using a chipset from a different company–or even an internally developed one–in the next iteration of the MacBook, expected to arrive in the next six or eight weeks. Like other notebook vendors, Apple had been using Intel’s mobile Centrino chipsets in its MacBook line ever since 2006 but it’s going to pass on the Montevina version of those chipsets this time around, according to the report.

(Credit:
Apple)

In other pending MacBook news, Computerworld reports that the new systems will arrive in September with glass touchpads, which seems a bit curious. Glass might allow for all kinds of trackpad-oriented multitouch goodness, but it seems like a warranty nightmare to me.

Nine other Samsung executives were indicted on charges similar to Lee’s.

The rioters are apparently angry with Kim, whose admission to prosecutors about the existence of a $215 million company slush fund used to bribe public officials touched off a high-profile investigation into South Korea’s largest company, which has long been a symbol of national pride.

We’re not allowed to run AP photos (we don’t pay for the service, but if anyone has their own photos, please send them my way at Erica dot Ogg at cnet.com), but Engadget has the image, so be sure to check it out.

The company’s former lawyer held the press conference to call for punishment of Samsung’s former chairman, Lee Kun-Hee, who stepped down Tuesday after being indicted on tax evasion charges.

Lee was cleared on charges related to the slush fund, but was also indicted on breach of trust for helping to arrange the sale of company stock to his son and unfairly low prices.

Now this is a passionate user base.

Protesters turned out to riot and burn photos at a press conference in Seoul Wednesday held by former Samsung top lawyer, Kim Yong-Chul, and the Associated Press got a great photo of the civil disobediance in action.

Six years later, the company’s conversion seems to have worked with vulnerabilities dropping by about half from Windows XP to
Windows Vista by 90 percent between SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

Microsoft has gone from being the vendor responsible for the greatest proportion of vulnerabilities to being third, with 2.5 percent share, the research shows. The lion’s share of the vulnerabilities come from start-ups racing to get their products to market. And 70 percent of them are doing the security testing and review after they release the product, Microsoft said.

So now Microsoft is trying to convert others to the cause, offering free tools that outside developers can use to assess their software development security practices and analyze their software designs to look for security weaknesses and threats.

Historically, Microsoft was bashed for security holes in its software that led to worm outbreaks on desktops and servers around the globe and other problems. In 2002, the company saw the light and launched its Trustworthy Computing initiative, elevating security to the top priority, and began designing and building products with security in mind.

“The SDL is working for them, but the question is, will it work for the majority of the companies writing software?” he said.

But the environment has changed–Web applications have eclipsed desktop applications as people move more and more of their computing online. Now, 60 percent of new vulnerabilities are in Web apps, and only 14 percent of them are from the top five independent software vendors, like Microsoft and its ilk, according to research from IBM’s X-Force.

The companies in the SDL Pro Network, which include IOActive, Cigital, and Verizon Business, will serve as contractors and set their own fees. The one-year pilot program begins in November.

Microsoft isn’t getting into the security consulting market–it’s just trying to help companies improve their software so computer users are protected and feel confident online, Lipner said.

The SDL Optimization Model serves as a sort of blueprint for changing processes and strategy related to building secure software. The SDL Threat Modeling Tool, which Microsoft has used internally for about a year, is designed to help analyze the security of software designs and to figure out how to mitigate threats in the development process.

Microsoft will offer free downloads in November of its Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) Optimization Model and its SDL Threat Modeling Tool 3.0, the company announced Tuesday. Also, Microsoft formed the SDL Pro Network composed of nine security consultants to help developers implement the SDL.

Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer of security firm Veracode, praised the announcements but wondered if Microsoft’s success can be duplicated at companies with very small developer teams.

“We’re not claiming we’re perfect,” he said. “But we have a lot of experience in this domain.”

“By helping other companies build more secure software, especially companies that develop on the Microsoft platform, we make the Internet more trustworthy,” said Steve Lipner, senior director of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft. “That’s good for our business.”

Mike Jennings from Google, who was giving the demonstration, covered up the phone’s branding with tape, but it seemed pretty obvious that it’s probably the HTC Dream. Not too much is revealed about the device itself, but we did get a sneak peek at what looks to be the final version of the Android OS. Consensus seems to be that it’s a lot more polished than previous demonstrations, and though we can’t tell too much from the blurry video, it looks to be true. It definitely got us ramped up again for the eventual release of the device. Check out this YouTube video someone captured of the demo, and see for yourself.

Journalists and developers at the Google Developer Day event in London Tuesday were treated to an unexpected demonstration of the upcoming Android handset.

(Via Gizmodo and TechRadar)

So, will Apple use Atom in a new multitouch whiz-bang gizmo? Apple is a pretty unique partner for Intel, who until recently was used to shoveling new technology down the eager throats of the PC industry. Apple does whatever the hell it wants, picking and choosing chips from Intel’s roadmap with no sense of obligation to support the chipmaker’s every single initiative.

Atom, the low-power processor formerly known as Silverthorne, is Intel’s latest attempt at cracking the mobile market. It will bring laptop-like performance (at least, your 5-year-old laptop) to handheld devices known as MIDs, which should start appearing from Intel’s partners this summer, according to the company’s press release.

Call me a skeptic, but doesn’t that seem like a lot for Apple’s engineers to tackle in a year, adding a whole new device category when iPhone 2.0 (both in software and hardware) is right around the corner? And when new iPod Touches and iPod Nanos are expected in September?

Such leaps of logic are easy to make when you need to construct an SEO-friendly headline, or to attach a news hook to an announcement of a chip that has already been announced five or six times but still won’t appear in any devices for another couple of months. Intel is talking up its Atom processor halfway around the world at its Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, prompting Forbes to resurrect the “Apple will use Silverthorne” rumor from a few months back.

So, if Apple is going to use Atom, it would be for a completely new category of device that would be larger than the iPhone. Perhaps The Return of Newton, or an Eee PC clone, or some type of iTablet. Basically, it would have to be about twice as big as the iPhone to deal with the power consumption.

If you’re Apple, it doesn’t seem to make much sense to do a “me-too” product–that could take attention away from the iPhone, iPod Touch, and MacBook rennassiance–when you’ve got so much else on your plate in 2008. But, believe it or not, Apple doesn’t consult me when making road map decisions.

I’ll go out on a limb: Apple is not going to use this generation of Atom in the
iPhone or
iPod Touch. Atom is a good stepping stone for Intel’s low-power design teams, but it’s still an order of magnitude away from the power consumption goals Apple requires for those products. Come Moorestown in 2009 or 2010, maybe that’s different, but we’re not there yet.

One of the Atom-based MIDs Intel is showing off in Shanghai. Will Apple really come out with their own version?

(Credit:
Intel)

Apple is an Intel customer. Intel has a new chip. Therefore, Apple will use Intel’s new chip.

They’d have to port OS X from ARM’s chips to Intel’s x86 instruction set, for one. Maybe that’s not that difficult a task, since
Mac OS X, of course, already runs on Intel’s chips. While Apple might indeed have a parallel OS X on x86 development path, like they did with Mac OS X in the years before they switched from Power PC to Intel, that’s a leap I haven’t seen made by many Apple followers as of today.

Click here for more stories on IDF Shanghai.

They’d also have to qualify a totally new hardware platform, at the same time they’re likely going through the same process with a 3G iPhone. Is that really worth the effort? Truth be told, few people are going to buy the MIDs Intel and its partners are hawking with Atom. They just aren’t that different from the UMPCs that nobody bought the last time around, in looks, capabilities, and price.

An interesting data point from the numbers is that later-stage deals accounted for 39 percent of the transactions. That means there were fewer seed fundings, a sign that start-ups are beginning to move closer to commercialization.

There were three deals over $100 million in the quarter, including three solar investments: solar thermal power plant makers eSolar and BrightSource, as well as SunEdison, which does financing and installation of large solar arrays.

“In a challenging market, investment in the clean-tech sector remains strong because these companies provide cross-sector solutions to economic and environmental challenges,” Joseph Muscat, Americas Director of Cleantech and Venture Capital, Ernst & Young, said a statement.

Energy efficiency was another strong category at $188 million in the second quarter. Companies that do efficiency products like LED lighting and smart grids tend to be less capital-intensive than biofuels, which was down 44 percent from the previous quarter, the study’s authors said.

An incumbent fuel company can invest in a biofuels start-up, for example, to get access to the technology and diversify its fuels mix. In another example, utility Duke Energy purchased a wind power developer.

Clean tech, or
green tech, is one of the most active–or some argue overheated–areas in venture investing, which was down 8 percent overall, according to the study.

Ernst & Young on Monday published a report based on data from Dow Jones VentureOne which shows that clean-tech venture investing shot up to $961.7 million in the second quarter.

The report notes that companies like Shell, Chevron, Danisco, Genencor, and DuPont have committed large sums of money to clean tech as part of their corporate strategies or to hedge against rising energy prices.

Buoyed by long-term trends, venture investing in clean-tech companies hit a record last quarter as the participation of corporate giants began to make a more pronounced impact.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones VentureOne study notes the growing presence of large corporations among the venture capitalists and start-ups.

That’s a 41 percent increase from the first quarter of this year and an 83 percent jump compared to the second quarter last year.

“Strategic investments,” where a large corporation partners with a smaller firm, are becoming more common.

The big numbers lie in the nature of energy-related investments.

TimesPeople is currently available only as a
Firefox browser plug-in, but software engineers told CNET News.com that it would eventually be more widely available and without a download required. New features will be added too, but don’t expect the venerable newspaper to try to compete with Mark Zuckerberg: Engineers stressed that the Times will always be an information source, not a social network. That’s why the TimesPeople application is extremely light and minimal–profiles are limited to locations and user icons, and content from the social feature is limited to a “news feed” page and a drop-down menu. However, at some point, a “Most Recommended” tab may join the popular “Most E-mailed” story list that the Times’ site displays.

But here’s the catch: while NYTimes.com content is free, it requires a log-in to read more than a story or two at a time. The Times, consequently, has millions of user accounts already on file.

Many print publications have been working on social-news projects, primarily by partnering with existing sites like Digg. Conde Nast’s Wired Digital went ahead and acquired Reddit. Critics might say that by building a social-news technology in-house, the Times is hurting itself by not tapping into the user base of an existing site.

The New York Times has added a new feature to its Web site that takes a few cues from Facebook and Digg: TimesPeople, now in beta.

(Credit:
NYTimes.com)

The TimesPeople iPhone interface.

This story was researched and reported in collaboration with Andy Plesser of Beet.tv, who produced the video.

(Credit:
NYTimes.com)

The TimesPeople drop-down menu, with a news feed and people search.

CNET News.com’s Caroline McCarthy interviews two NYTimes.com
software engineers for a video in collaboration with Beet.tv.
Note: The spelling of Derek Gottfrid has been corrected.
(Credit: Beet.tv)

Outside NYTimes.com, you can subscribe to a feed of an individual’s activity using RSS, or browse your friends’ updates with a specialized iPhone interface; TimesPeople members can also push their updates to their Facebook profiles by syncing the two. And if you’d rather just be an observer, you can subscribe to friends’ updates on NYTimes.com while leaving your own feed updates turned off.

TimesPeople users can build up friends lists and can see a “news feed” of which stories their friends are recommending, sharing, and commenting on. Times online readers have been able to comment on stories, as well as rate reviewed restaurants and movies, for some time now, but recommending is new.

And here’s evidence of Netbooks penetrating the consumer consciousness. Best Buy now has a separate category for Netbooks on its Web site. Right under laptop computers you’ll see “Netbooks”. Interestingly, the Netbooks category is ranked above desktops and most other “computer” categories.

And all the Netbooks at a Microsoft booth were running
Windows 7, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system due next year.

Netbooks were the big end-user gadget on display at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference that ended Friday.

A Microsoft person on the floor said that a lite version of Windows 7 will run on 1GB of memory and 16GB of (solid-state drive) storage. Higher-end Netbooks will have a 160GB hard disk drive, according to Microsoft “guidance.”

Netbook market share appears to be growing too. A little more than 5 million Atom processors shipped in the third quarter of 2008, according to Shane Rau of IDC, a market researcher. “Will it add to the total market or will it eat into the total market? Another question might be is Atom eating into another processor brand such as Celeron (Intel) or Sempron (AMD)?”

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

Beginning to sound more like a low-end notebook? I think so.

At 8 watts, the chip has a higher power envelope than single-core Atom processors, but 8 watts is still low compared with a mainstream Core 2 Duo processor. Other specifications for the Atom 330 include a core clock speed of 1.6GHz, 1MB of level-2 cache, and support for DDR2 667MHz memory.

So, I contacted Intel. There are no immediate plans for dual-core Atom chips designed specifically for Netbooks, according to Intel. But what’s stopping a netbook supplier from using a dual-core Atom 330 (designed for nettops) in a Netbook? Answer: nothing.

This person also said something surprising. Dual-core Atom processors will be used in Netbooks. I tried to disabuse him of the notion that netbooks would get dual-core Atom processors. No, I said, it was Nettops (Atom-based desktops) that would get dual-core. But he assured me that vendors were planning to bring out dual-core Netbooks.

Microsoft displayed Netbooks running Windows 7 at WinHEC

Looking for signs that netbooks are catching on? And even morphing into notebooks? Here’s a few.

Rau says that the total market can grow while Netbooks eat into notebook market share. “The TAM (Total Available Market) can grow even as Atom eats into another brand. But we don’t know how it’s shaking out yet,” he said.

Other signs. Dell has a 12-inch laptop, the Inspiron Mini 12 based on the Atom processor. Is this a Netbook or notebook? You tell me.