November 11, 2008
Dell kills music player plans, leaves the field clear for Apple
Network World
Priya Ganapati offers some insight around why Dell may have decided to forego its plans of launching a digital media player this year.
“Dell had planned to launch a MP3 player this year that could potentially compete with Apple’s iconic iPod line and Microsoft’s struggling Zune player. With Apple’s iPod and iTunes dominating the digital music landscape, rivals including Microsoft have failed to make a dent. Dell had planned for a fall launch of the MP3 player as part of its efforts to boost its consumer products division but now it seems like a no-go.”
More notebooks using two, and now three, GPUs
ZD Net
John Morris writes that notebooks using multiple GPUs are becoming even more commonplace now, than ever before.
“(Last) week AMD touted the first laptop ‘from a major manufacturer’ with two ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs, the Alienware M17. Nvidia announced…that it was powering the first three-GPU laptop, the Toshiba Qosmio X305 series, which uses both the integrated GeForce 9400M–the same chip found in new Apple MacBooks–and dual GeForce 9800M GTS GPUs. Ultimately both desktops and notebooks will probably have one or more general CPUs, as well as several co-processors for specific, compute-intensive tasks such as graphics, DVD and high-definition video playback, video transcoding and encryption.”
Study: iPhones twice as reliable as BlackBerries
TechCrunch
Erick Schonfeld looks at a study that measured the reliability of Apple’s iPhone versus RIM’s BlackBerry devices.
“The iPhone is twice as reliable as the Blackberry after one year of ownership, a new study by SquareTrade finds. SquareTrade, which sells extra warranties for cell phones and other devices, looked at the failure rates of 15,000 phones covered under its plans. The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 per cent, compared to 11.2 per cent for the Blackberry and 16.2 per cent for the Treo.”