Intel Opens Door for Army of MacBook Air Clones

Muffled by the cacophony of like a million netbooks and the wireless power that’ll power our cyborg brains at the Intel Developer Forum was the low-key introduction of Intel’s next-gen 45nm dual core chips for ultra-thin notebooks—i.e., the dwarven chips that made the MacBook Air possible. Now that everybody can snag them, expect a surge of similarly limber notebooks that can suck in their gut to fit into narrow pockets of ugly paper.
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Woz talks to developers at Intel Developer Forum

Steve “Woz” Wozniak is often considered the “God” of Apple. He was the designer of the first ever Apple computers (Apple / & Apple //). At a recent developer forum at Intel, Woz gave a bit of advice to the engineers. He told them that, “the right way of going through life” is pursuing a vision without compromise.

“If you have technical ideas, if you know what you’re good at, and you know what you’re doing is right … you have to shut them out,” Woz said, in reference to others telling you how to do something.

According to InformationWeek, Woz went on to discuss other topics. He talked about being a successful inventor. While on this topic, he admitted that not having money helps the creativity.

InformationWeek has the full details on the interview. [Read]

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MacBook Air to get ‘imminent’ speed bump?

PhoneNews claims they can “confirm” that Apple will speed-bump the MacBook Air with a Penryn-class Intel Core 2 Duo processor, increasing the clock speed to 2 GHz and up. The story also notes that, since the processor requires more power, the Air will ship with a higher-capacity battery and 60-watt power adapter.

Engadget goes further, noting that clock speeds could (theoretically) reach 3.06GHz. Also, they speculate that the Air could feature improved integrated graphics if it adopts the Intel Centrino 2 chipset.

Alternatively, Engadget notes that Intel plans to release several flavors of low-voltage Penryn chips in September, which might indeed be slated for the MacBook Air. Using these chips, however, would decrease the power requirements noted by PhoneNews, not increase them.

PhoneNews says national retailers have been alerted “to be prepared for the upgrade.” This may be part of several laptop announcements rumored to be happening in September.

[Via IGM.]

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Lenovo Olympics 2008 App

Do you want to keep up with Michael Phelps and his quest for Olympic gold? Are you Interested in seeing photographs of women beach volleyball players competing on the sand (nudge nudge, wink wink)?

Lenovo, the Chinese manufacturer of ThinkPad and IdeaPad notebook PCs and other electronic devices, is providing the free Lenovo Olympics 2008 App [iTunes link] in the App Store now. You can download it from your iPhone or iPod touch by going to the App Store and searching for Lenovo; the same app is available for Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices via lenovo.zumobi.com.

While the app is filled with advertising for Lenovo and Intel, it also provides you with photos taken at the Games, news (a bit behind the sports websites), profiles of random Olympic athletes, and blog entries by anonymous athletes. The latter is particularly frustrating, as the blog entries feature the sport and country of the athletes, but not their names!

The app will be available for the duration of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and was developed by Zumobi. Thanks to everyone who sent this in

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Why Apple Is Sticking With Intel Chipsets (Probably)

One of the more eyebrow-raising rumors in the scramble of them about Apple’s upcoming MacBooks is that they will switch from Intel chipsets to someone else’s. It seemed odd on its face, since Intel and Apple are fairly tight, and there’s not a very apparent reason to switch. Jon at Ars lays out a fairly solid case for why Apple is sticking with Intel though.

Namely, Intel’s upcoming Nehalem chips would require them to switch right back to Intel, since no one else has the license for their QuickPath interconnect. And the pros for moving to Nvidia (PC Perspective makes a good case why it would be them) are mostly about better graphics performance, ultimately. So this seems to fall in the unlikely column, for now. [Ars]

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