Intel

Just as the bragging rights for dual-core chip supremacy are dying down, Intel gave the first glimpse of a quad-core chip coming next year.

Clovertown, a four-core processor, will start shipping to computer manufacturers late this year and hit the market in early 2007. Clovertown will be made for dual-processor servers, which means that these servers will essentially be eight-processor servers (two processors x four cores each).

The company will also come out with a previously announced version called Tigerton around the same time for servers with four or more processors.

Voice-over-IP is promising in no small part because it's an Internet phenomenon. Using the global network to route calls is a powerful way to improve telecommunications reach while reducing overall cost. Since it is built upon the IP protocol, VoIP could become a lot like e-mail: standardized, cross-platform, and easy to use. And as we showed with our guide to customizing Asterix, VoIP allows for some pretty powerful customizations, too.

While a cash flow of $10.2 Billion isn't small change, a mere .2 of that is what Intel missed their predictions by for Q4 2005, much to the chagrin of investors. Dual Core took off in the second half of 2005, but overall Intel experienced low CPU sales during the last bit of the year, which is what Intel is pointing at as the cause of the miss. Of course, that's not really bad news for Intel.

Intel has launched its first laptop platform with dual-core processor chips. The technology is designed to boost performance without compromising battery life, and will enable lighter laptops, Intel said.

INTEL HAS A naming problem again, and it is not one that is easy to pigeonhole. The problem is that if you buy a chip, it theoretically runs at a distinct clock rate, and that is that. If you want to save power, you can run it slower also, but that is an option. What happens when a chip automatically runs faster, briefly? How do you market it?

Chip maker, Intel, is giving mobile computing a boost in performance and much better power efficiency, with a goal of enabling eight-hour continuous battery life by 2008.

Intel's sequel to the Centrino mobile platform, code-named Napa, is equipped with its Yonah dual-core processor technology that promises to be nearly 40 percent faster than the current Sonoma Intel Pentium M 780 processor, director of mobile marketing programs for Intel, Karen Regis, said.

Potential computer users in the developing world will not want a basic $100 hand-cranked laptop due to be rolled out to millions, chip-maker Intel Corp. (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) chairman Craig Barrett said on Friday.

Schoolchildren in Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria will begin receiving the first few million textbook style computers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) media lab run by Nicholas Negroponte from early 2006.

Intel is working on a research project that would immediately notify PC users if they inadvertently download a rootkit like the XCP (extended copy protection) software found on certain music CDs shipped by Sony , researchers said Tuesday.

WiMax wireless broadband technology is gaining momentum worldwide with the announcement by Intel that carriers across the globe are deploying, or will soon be rolling out, fixed WiMax networks using the company's technology.

The operators are introducing commercial deployments in cities as well as suburban and rural communities, allowing broadband wireless networks to reach previously underserved locations.

ANDY BRYANT, Intel's CFO, confirmed in a conference call with analysts that it continues to have shortages of chipsets and is using other suppliers.

The shortage will continue into its fourth financial quarter, said Bryant, and likely for longer.

It is using third party suppliers for low end desktop systems. As we've reported before, ATI is one of Intel's third party suppliers.

The shortage is not caused by any type of manufacturing glitch at the factories, but because it's important for Intel to move its fabs to 300mm production, he said.