0500 28 0500

Every day, tech gear maker Logitech churns out an average of 376,000 computer mice in every conceivable color, shape and size. If the company is known for any one product, it's the mouse, the little PC navigator that's the hallmark of office desks all over the world.

But now, Logitech wants to be more dominant in the living room, courtesy of Google TV. It's partnering with the search giant on Google's initiative to bring the Web to the TV-viewing experience. A new Logitech set-top box, scheduled for release in the next few weeks, will bring Google and the complete Internet to your set. The idea is to mix in YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, AOL and other Web sites with CBS, NBC and ABC, and use Google search to find out what to watch.

Logitech already makes powerful, pricey TV remotes, and it leads the market for PC webcams. But its core product, the mouse, isn't selling as well as it used to, and the Swiss-based company, which has its U.S. headquarters here, needs a new hit. Hello, Google TV and Logitech Revue.

Much like the mobile Web before the iPhone, TV makers are only beginning to make the Internet available on television sets. The results to date: not good. They're "so lackluster that more than a third of people buy them, bring them home, and then ignore the connected features of the TV altogether," says James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Logitech says Google TV will be different. "This will be the first platform to bring seamless access to the complete Internet on TV," says Gerald Quindlen, Logitech's CEO. He believes consumers will respond to Google TV as they did to the iPhone. Apple's device proved consumers wanted access to the full Internet and wouldn't settle for partial access, he says.

Google TV will be...

With cloud computing and virtualization growing by leaps and bounds, industry heavyweight VMware announced Tuesday a variety of new cloud-computing products and services to support its "IT as a Service" vision. The announcement was made at its VMworld 2010 event, now taking place in San Francisco, Calif.

The company said it intends to move beyond "IT as cost center." President and CEO Paul Maritz said that, just as the company set out two years ago "a vision to modernize the data center and transform IT," so it will now take steps to "bring this new world of IT as a Service and hybrid cloud computing to reality."

More Apps on Virtual Than Physical Servers

He noted a report from industry research firm IDC that, in 2009, the number of server applications on virtualized infrastructures surpassed the number on physical servers, and that the growth rate for virtual machines is 28 percent annually, worldwide.

IT as a Service is focused on outcomes, such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response, by using VMware's cloud-infrastructure solutions that span resources. The emphasis, the company said, is to "focus on the features our customers need," rather than focusing on "technologies needed to support IT."

With the new infrastructure model, the company said, IT can produce service in a "self-service model." The new cloud-infrastructure products and service utilize a "hybrid cloud model" that combines aspects of private and public clouds.

vCloud Director enables IT to create "virtual data centers," or VDCs, which are logical pools of resources with specified management policies, service-level agreements, and pricing. IT can then offer the VDCs, along with application services such as virtual appliances, VMs and OS images, to its users through self-service. IT teams, in essence, act as service providers to their own businesses.

vShield, vCloud Datacenter Services

Three new products -- vShield Edge, vShield...

In a jam-packed event full of new product details, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled new versions of all three iPod devices on Wednesday, introduced operating-system updates, and demonstrated a new social-media network designed to encourage more downloading from iTunes. He also unveiled a leaner version of Apple's less-popular Apple TV set-top box.

Apple's Ping is "Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes," said Jobs as he demonstrated a feature of the 10th version of Apple's online music store. The network allows users to "follow" friends as well as artists, just like Twitter, and exchange updates and playlists with them.

iOS Updates

Apple streamed the event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, Calif., live (with a slight delay) via its web site, but the stream was available only to those using iPads, the latest iPods and iPhones, or Mac computers running the most recent Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system.

Jobs announced that Apple has sold 120 million devices that run the Apple portable operating system, now called iOS. "We couldn't be happier about the progress of iOS," said Jobs, in a shot across the bow to Google's fast-spreading Android OS. "There are 230,000 new activations per day."

The newest version, 4.01, will be available next week and will fix a glitch in the iPhone 4 involving the proximity sensor (but not the much-maligned antenna that can encounter signal problems from a user's touch).

The next iOS version, 4.2, which is intended to make the iPad's applications run more like those of the iPhone, is just around the corner in November. That update will also include a feature called AirPlay that allows users to send media to other devices via Wi-Fi. Jobs said Apple customers are downloading 200 apps every second.

iPods 'Gone Wild'

But the stars of Wednesday's show were the new iPods. Boasting that the company...

As the 3PAR bidding war rages on, Hewlett-Packard is taking a deep breath and turning its attention to Hynix Semiconductor -- at least for a moment. On Wednesday, HP announced a joint development agreement with the memory supplier for a new circuit element.

Called memristor, the new circuit element will be integrated into a future generation of memory products -- but there is plenty of work to do to develop new materials and process integration technology that will bring memristor technology from the research phase to the commercial market. The result of the partnership is expected to yield resistive random-access memory (ReRAM).

ReRAM is nonvolatile memory with low power consumption that some industry watchers say could be the successor to flash memory in mobile phones and MP3 players. ReRAM could also serve as a universal storage medium because it can behave as flash, DRAM or even a hard drive.

Flash's Successor?

"The memristor has storage-capacity abilities many times greater than what competing technologies offer," said Dr. S.W. Park, executive vice president and CTO at Hynix. "By adopting HP's memristor technology, we can deliver new, energy-efficient products to our customers more quickly."

According to HP, memristors require less energy to operate, are faster than present solid-state storage technologies, and can retain information even when power is off. The memristor, short for "memory resistor," was postulated to be the fourth basic circuit element by Prof. Leon Chua of the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 and was first intentionally reduced to practice by researchers in HP Labs in 2006.

"When you are talking about new-generation memory technology, the opportunities are huge," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "We are seeing memory expanding and becoming a critical element across a wide variety of IT products, including servers and storage. Enhancing memory has become an increasingly critical point...

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs announced a new line of iPods on Wednesday, including a Nano model that has a touch screen and lacks buttons.

Like previous versions, the Nano has a built-in FM tuner and can display photos. But instead of buttons, controls for playing, pausing and selecting music are right on the screen. It will cost $149 for the 8 gigabyte version and $179 for 16 gigabytes.

In a refresh to the iPod Touch, Apple is adding video-chat features similar to the newest iPhone. It has a front-facing camera for conducting video chats with other iPod Touch and iPhone users over Wi-Fi using Apple's FaceTime program. A camera on the back can be used for taking snapshots and recording video. Prices range from $229 to $399.

Jobs also introduced a new iPod Shuffle, the lowest-end music player in Apple's line. Like the past generation, it can speak the names of playlists and songs. But unlike the most recent of the tiny music players, the new $49 device brings back the square shape and buttons of Apple's second-generation Shuffle.

Apple, meanwhile, is adding social features to its iTunes software. Jobs said iTunes 10 brings new ways for people to learn what their friends are listening to. The feature, called Ping, is likely based on the technology Apple acquired with the purchase of Lala.com last year.

The Ping section in iTunes lets people "follow" friends, musicians and others, similar to the way Facebook and Twitter work. Ping builds custom top-10 lists based on what the people someone follows are listening to.

Earlier, Jobs also said iPhone users will be getting a software update that offers the ability to upload high-definition video over Wi-Fi. And when people take photos, the new software will save three slightly different copies that, when combined, make for a sharper image.

The new...

Amazon.com is readying a digital subscription service that would let consumers watch television shows and movies online, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Apple is alsolaunching a TV-show rental service, setting the stage for a showdown between the two consumer electronics giants.

According to the Journal, Amazon has been in talks with several major media companies, including NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp., and Viacom, about a web-based subscription service that would compete with Apple, Netflix and Google.

Amazon's Digital Target

Apple announced 99-cent TV-show rentals from ABC and Fox on Wednesday. Apple's model will make new shows available for rent starting the day after the original air date. The rental fee allows unlimited viewing for 48 hours.

The Journal reports Amazon's model is shaping up to look more like Netflix with a catalog of older content. The subscription service would make content viewable via a web browser or through Internet-connected devices, including televisions, Blu-ray players and the Xbox 360 video-game console.

Amazon also would also be competing in the same field as Hulu. In June, Hulu unveiled a subscription service that offers viewers access to full seasons of TV shows on a slew of devices. Dubbed Hulu Plus, consumers can tap into the service for $9.99 a month to watch shows whenever and wherever they want.

Cable's Decline

Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, called the rumored development significant, particularly when put in the context of statistics released in August that show cable-TV subscribers declined.

According to data from SNL Kagan, cable companies saw a dip in subscribers during the second quarter. The cable-TV industry, which has until now experienced consistent growth, shed 711,000 subscribers in the period. Cable's share of pay TV also dipped from 63.6 percent to 61 percent in the second quarter.

"Although it is tempting...

Facing competition from Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble, Sony on Wednesday released updated models of its of e-readers. But Sony is taking a different approach from its rivals with touchscreen technology on all three of its e-readers, wireless connectivity on only the higher-end model, and prices higher than market leader Amazon for two of the readers.

The new models are the five-inch Pocket Edition PRS-350, the six-inch Touch Edition PRS-650, and the seven-inch Daily Edition PRS-950. The 350 will retail for $179.99, the 650 for $229.99, and the 950 for an estimated $299.99.

Infrared Touch Technology

Only the 950 has wireless, both 3G and Wi-Fi, which is raising eyebrows among e-reader watchers. Both Amazon's Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook have models with built-in Wi-Fi and 3G, or just Wi-Fi. To download new books, the two lower-end Sony e-readers connect to a computer via USB.

In addition, the non-wireless Pocket Edition and Touch Edition cost more than the equivalent Kindle model. This also raises eyebrows, since the conventional wisdom has been that e-reader makers were competing to get the lowest cost, with some user surveys indicating the market would really take off when e-readers are available for under $100. The trade-off is the touch technology, with page turning by a finger swipe and a stylus, which all Sony's e-readers now have and which Amazon's do not. The Touch and Daily Edition models featured touchscreens in their earlier incarnations.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has told news media he is wary of capacitive touch technology because it adds another screen layer and increases glare. Sony is using infrared sensors on the edge to avoid adding another layer.

The Pocket Edition PRS-350, weighing 5.64 ounces, has 2GB of built-in memory, which can store up to 1,200 e-books. A single battery charge can handle two...

The stunning bidding war for 3Par seems poised to continue. Dell on Monday said that it was contemplating whether to match Hewlett-Packard's $2 billion bid to acquire the obscure data-storage company.

"We're assessing what our next step will be," Dell spokesman David Frink says.

Meanwhile, Intel on Monday announced the $1.4 billion acquisition of Infineon Technologies' wireless division. This comes two weeks after Intel announced it will acquire anti-virus provider McAfee for $7.7 billion. The common thread to all these deals: cloud computing.

Dell and HP are hot for 3Par's technology because it supplements the complex systems each sells that enable new services to be delivered, via the Internet cloud, to PCs, mobile devices and smart sensors.

Intel, for its part, hopes to supply the computing chips inside the devices and sensors. These include PCs, netbooks, tablet PCs, smartphones and sensors that can track electricity use, for instance. Intel also wants to supply new Internet-delivered services, akin to how McAfee pushes out security fixes in real time to millions of PCs inside corporate networks.

"These acquisitions reflect the growing importance of cloud computing solutions and strategies," says Charles King, Pund-IT principal analyst. "The opportunities seem almost limitless."

Dell initially bid $1.15 billion, or $18 a share, for 3Par. Several rounds of bidding culminated in HP's $2 billion, $30-a-share bid, conveyed late Friday. That's a 200% premium over 3Par's $10-a-share price prior to Dell's first offer.

3Par fits nicely into both tech giants' plans for boosting sales of cloud computing systems. "If HP is able to rapidly ramp up 3Par's sales, it can certainly justify the price they're offering to pay for it," says Stan Zaffos, research vice president at Gartner.

3Par's closing share price on Monday, $31.82, reflected sentiment that Dell may yet counter HP's standing offer, says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "There probably...

Computers need power -- and plenty of it. But if you're like many, you have reasons to be concerned about how much power your computer actually uses. You might want to lower your electricity bill or simply reduce the impact that your computing has on the environment. Or, if you frequently find yourself on the road, you no doubt want to reduce the amount of power that your notebook uses so that you can get longer life out of a single battery charge.

When it comes to energy use, the good news is that you have plenty of options available to reduce the power consumption of your PC. The bad news is that it's sometimes difficult to know which power saving options to use in which situation. Read on to find out.

Q: What's the difference between sleep mode and hibernate mode on Windows?

A: These are two power-saving options. Both are designed to allow you to resume work on your PC faster than if you shut your computer down entirely.

You can remember the difference between sleep and hibernate by remembering the difference between the words "sleep" and "hibernate" before computers came along. Essentially, when you sleep, you can wake up again pretty quickly. If you were to hibernate, you'd be unavailable for a bit longer.

The same goes for your Windows computer. Sleep mode shuts down some components of your PC, but everything that is active in memory (RAM) remains alive, so that when you "wake" your computer up by pressing a key or the power button, the machine returns to the state in which you left it almost immediately -- with applications, browser windows, and documents in exactly the same state.

As you might imagine, a computer in sleep mode continues to use some power, since the contents of RAM must be maintained....

MetroPCS Communications and Leap Wireless International, two of the top sellers of pay-as-you-go wireless calling plans for low-income consumers, are targeting more-affluent users to spur growth.

Leap announced a deal this month to use the network of bigger rival Sprint Nextel. The company is trying to get greater shelf space at big box retailers, including Best Buy. MetroPCS is upgrading its network to deliver faster download speeds. Both companies are ramping up efforts to court business customers and release costlier devices such as smartphones.

The moves are designed to widen the appeal of prepaid calling so Leap and MetroPCS can gain more of the $152.6 billion U.S. market for wireless services. The existing pay-as-you-go audience is almost saturated and new mobile users favor multifeature handsets sold by such top providers as Verizon Wireless and AT&T "Prepaid was always niche, very low-end," says Sam Simon, a scholar at New Millennium Research Council, a Washington-based think tank. "Now what competes with it is the smartphone."

MetroPCS is the third-largest provider of prepaid calling, which generates 10 percent of the industry's revenue, according to IDC, a research firm in Framingham, Mass. This indicates prepaid sales of about $15.3 billion. The market is led by TracFone Wireless, owned by America Movil SAB, Latin America's largest wireless provider. Sprint Nextel, based in Overland Park, Kan,, ranks second, with Leap at No. 6.

Leap Aims To Go Nationwide in 2011

Concern about Leap's growth sent its shares to a record low this month and added to pressure to renew merger talks it has sporadically held with MetroPCS for more than three years, says Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. "The prepaid market is not getting any bigger," says Moffett.

Leap plans to use the Sprint Nextel network to provide coverage nationwide starting mid-2011, compared with 36 markets now....