The Newer, Smaller MacBook Air: The Storage Is the Secret? [Rumor]

An intriguing detail from AppleInsider about the new, 11.6-inch MacBook Air that's expected to be revealed next week: It's not going to use a hard drive or an SSD for storage. It's going to use something else.

Instead, says AppleInsider's sources, it'll use "something described as an 'SSD Card'" for storage that's more like a stick of RAM than a traditional hard drive, a proprietary SSD alternative designed by Apple. It's almost like an SSD that's shed the bulk of a hard drive enclosure (since SSDs are basically just bundles of memory chips inside of a hard drive casing), but integrated, so it'll take up less room in the notebook.

It makes a lot sense, actually, to dump a hard drive enclosure's weight and bulk, particularly in a machine that's supposedly only 11.6 inches (and presumably even lighter than the original Air). It's a lot like when Apple ditched replaceable batteries in the MacBook Pros. Using only flash storage would also mean that the Air would be instant on, and more like an iPad in that regard. AI also thinks we could see this in other Macs in the future. (Though it wouldn't be user replaceable.)

The new MacBook Air may well be an interesting little machine, even if it's not the vanguard for new multitouch tech in OS 10.7. [AppleInsider]

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Belkin's Conserve Gateway checks in with the FCC, may be at your utility company

Belkin just got official with its Converse Gateway wireless energy monitoring system earlier this month, and already it looks to be making a beeline to your local utility company. As the temperatures drop and energy use skyrockets, this here setup is designed to attach to a smart meter on the exterior of your home and beam information about usage to your PC (in a nutshell, anyway). Any smart device that's connected in your home can be listed in the UI, giving you a heads-up as to what youngster is burnin' up the most juice when you leave on business for the weekend. Per usual, a stop by the FCC's database generally signals a near-term release in the US of A, with Wireless Goodness suggesting that these are already starting to pop up around the country. Though, you'll have to phone up your local energy company to inquire about a professional installation -- we don't get the impression that these are going to be stocked at Wally World.

Belkin's Conserve Gateway checks in with the FCC, may be at your utility company originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPad going on sale in Verizon Wireless and AT&T stores October 28 (update: Verizon data pricing)

It might not be the Apple-Verizon tie-in you are most anxious to see happen, but the big red network has gone official with its plans to offer the iPad in its brick-and-mortar stores starting on October 28. VZW will be bundling the WiFi-only iPads with its own MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot with pricing set at $630, $730 and $830 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants of Apple's tablet, respectively. There's only one access plan on offer for now, granting users 1GB of monthly data allowance in exchange for $20 and no contractual commitments. AT&T will match the release date and upfront prices for each model, although its iPads will be of the WiFi + 3G variety, eschewing the need for a bundled MiFi; plan pricing will continue at 200MB for $15 or 2GB for $25 monthly. Full press releases follow after the break.

Update: According to an FAQ on Verizon's website, spotted by AppleInsider, there are a pair of other service plans after all: $35 for 3GB and $50 for 5GB, each with penalties of $10 per gigabyte of overage. As the publication notes, these are pretty nifty deals compared to Verizon's usual data rates, however the FAQ also stipulates that "customers will only be eligible for the new bundle data plans when purchasing the iPad and MiFi 2200 promotional bundle."

Continue reading iPad going on sale in Verizon Wireless and AT&T stores October 28 (update: Verizon data pricing)

iPad going on sale in Verizon Wireless and AT&T stores October 28 (update: Verizon data pricing) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars

AMD told us that it wasn't terribly interested in the iPad market, and would wait and see if touchscreen slates took off, but CEO Dirk Meyer changed the company's tone on tablets slightly after reporting a $118 million net loss (on $1.62 billion in revenue) in a Q3 2010 earnings call this afternoon. First revealing his belief that tablets will indeed cannibalize the notebook and netbook markets, he later told investors that he actually expects AMD's netbook parts to start appearing in OEM slates in the next couple of years, and that AMD itself would "show up with a differentiated offering with great graphics and video technology" when the market becomes large enough to justify an R&D investment.

Elsewhere, AMD CTO of servers Donald Newell prognosticated that the number of individual CPUs on a chip won't go up forever: "There will come an end to the core-count wars," he told IDG News. Just as the megahertz race was eventually defeated by thermal restrictions, so too will the number of cores on a chip cease to increase. " I won't put an exact date on it, but I don't myself expect to see 128 cores on a full-sized server die by the end of this decade," he said. So much for our Crysis-squashing terascale superchip dreams, we suppose.

AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year

The attentive newshounds over at AnandTech have picked out a golden nugget of disclosure from AMD's earnings call last night, citing CEO Dirk Meyer as saying "we will be launching our second-generation DX11 graphics offerings next week." What he's talking about, of course, is the highly anticipated refresh of the Radeon HD 5000 series, which some recent spec leaks suggested would bring a healthy bump in performance. After announcing the new product line next week, AMD promises to flood the market with "hundreds of thousands of units," which will be shipping before the end of this quarter -- meaning you'll have a Radeon HD 6xxx in time for the holiday gaming craze if you really want it. Can't ask anymore than that, now can we?

AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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