Ultrawideband Bluetooth Peripheral Devices Finally Hitting Store Shelves!!!

After years of promises, Ultrawideband (UWB) devices are finally here. Based on a short-range, high data rate radio technology, most early UWB-enabled devices deliver in the range of 40Mbps to 100 Mbps, with future devices delivering much higher sppeds.

The first UWB device to hit the market was a Toshiba R400S4834 notebook PC and docking station. The two devices connect wirelessly using a UWB chip solution provided by start-up WiQuest. Lenovo also launched UWB in its T61 notebook, and Dell has recently launched UWB in its Inspiron line of notebooks. UWB backers hope that these PC design wins lead to a UWB ecosystem that encompasses not only PCs, but PC peripherals, consumer electronics and mobile devices.

While notebooks with embedded UWB solutions are great, what about the millions of PCs already in homes and businesses across the world without UWB? These devices can jump on the UWB bandwagon through hub and dongle solutions. The UWB dongle connects to the PC and USB port, and connects wirelessly to the UWB hub. The UWB hub, in turn, connect via USB cables to peripherals such as printers and multifunction devices, as well as CE devices, including digital cameras and portable media players.

UWB radio technology in turn can support a number of standards. UWB serves as the basis for the Certified Wireless USB and high data Bluetooth specifications. The certified Wireless USB standards has been approved and is the basis for the hub and dongle solutions hitting the market. The specification for high data rate Bluetooth, also referred to as Bluetooth 3.0 should be completed in 2008, with devices hitting the market by the second half of 2009. Other UWB standards and technologies include IP and UWB, and video over UWB.

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PSP Helps Re-Establish Sony Peripherals!!!

Sony's PlayStation hasn't met sales expectations, but its handheld cousin called the PlayStation Portable appears to be doing well. Sony Computer Entertainment, the unit responsible for the PlayStation brand, said it has sold 1 million units of the new PSP in Japan as of November 22, about two months after its September 20 launch.

Sony reached the milestone with the latest version of the handheld device two weeks earlier than when the company launched the original PSP in December 2004. The slimmer and lighter PSP has a 4.3-inch high-resolution liquid-crystal display (LCD) that has been popular with buyers, according to Sony. Also helping sales is the increasing number of games. More than 500 titles are available in Japan, and more games are set for release during the holiday shopping season.

Sony Computer Entertainment's Japanese studio plans to ship several PSP games during the holiday season, including "Everybody's Golf Portable 2," "Kick The Cheeky Hero," "TalkMan Travel," and "Patapon." In addition, SCE plans to release December 13 Japan PSP bundles that include accessories and peripherals.

Sony hopes the latest version of PSP will eventually help it surpass Nintendo, which leads the market with DS. PSP is second. While the new PSP appears to be doing well, Sony has had trouble meeting expectations for the PlayStation 3 console that the company launched a year ago.

Sony has been forced to cut prices on the PS3 in order to compete against the Nintendo Wii.

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Envision Peripherals Takes Advantage Of Media Center Peripherals!!!

Envision Peripherals reported that its Envision LCD monitor line experienced significant year-over-year sales growth at U.S. retail outlets in the third quarter of 2007, despite an overall downturn in LCD sales, according to data from market research firm Current Analysis West.

The research firm's data is the result of a poll of leading retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Radio Shack and Staples.

EPI said Current Analysis West data showed its third-quarter retail sales surged 91 percent in unit volume and 65 percent in revenue at leading retail outlets polled by market research firm Current Analysis West. Overall, Current Analysis West found that U.S. LCD display retail sales saw a year-to-year third quarter drop of 8 percent in unit sales and 11 percent in revenue.

Envision said the research firm's data for the third quarter showed it was one of only three brands that grew LCD monitor unit market share from 2006 to 2007 and that it was also the only standalone monitor brand to boost both unit shares and revenue share at retail.

Current Analysis West found via its market monitor share research that the Envision brand achieved 7 percent unit sales share and 6 percent revenue share of the U.S. retail market. According to a release, the only other manufacturers to experience year-to-year unit market share growth were Hewlett-Packard and Acer.

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Dell Launches All In One Desktop With Digital Peripheral Solutions!!!

Dell's new XPS One all-in-one desktop PC sports an Intel dual-core processor, the multimedia-enabled Home Premium edition of Windows Vista, up to 2 GB of RAM, a 16x CD/DVD burner, and the user's choice of hard drive configurations ranging from 250 to 500 GB. The Dell XPS One also offers a built-in 2 megapixel webcam and dual microphones.

Dell CEO Michael Dell teased Oracle OpenWorld attendees last week by providing a tantalizing first glimpse of the PC-maker's new all-in-one desktop that sports advanced multimedia capabilities. As of Monday, the Dell XPS One is now available for direct purchase from Dell in both the U.S. and Japan.

Like Apple's iconic iMac desktops, Dell's new XPS One follows a design approach that strives to exude elegance, as Dell has characterized it. "This is perhaps the most beautiful Dell ever," said Dell's chairman and CEO.

The simplicity of the XPS One setup likely will be a primary attraction. The only essential cable for connecting the machine is the AC power cord; the connections for peripherals, keyboard, and mouse all have been Bluetooth-enabled. With only one cord, the XPS One can be placed in any room in the home and became operational with a minimum of initial muss and fuss.

The XPS One sports an Intel dual-core microprocessor, the multimedia-enabled Home Premium edition of Windows Vista, up to 2 GB of RAM, a 16x CD/DVD burner, and the user's choice of hard drive configurations ranging from 250 to 500 GB. A 2-megapixel webcam and dual microphones have been integrated right into the front panel.

The XPS One is available from Dell at prices that range from $1,499 to $2,399, depending on the selected configuration. XPS One systems purchased directly from Dell include one year of online storage and backup.

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Mad Catz Acquires Saitek In Gamer Peripheral Takeover!!!

Mad Catz announced today that it's in the process of acquiring 100 percent of the shares of the holding company that owns PC peripheral manufacturer Saitek. Saitek is known for its flight-sim controls and keyboards, among other items, and generated more than $43 million in net sales in fiscal year ending February 28, 2007. Mad Catz has been busy on the acquisition front this year, purchasing another company, Joytech, several months ago.

"PC games peripherals is a category closely adjacent to our core console business and we are thrilled to be adding one of the world's leading providers to the Mad Catz family," said Darren Richardson, President and CEO of Mad Catz. "Saitek significantly enhances Mad Catz' position as one of the world's leading games peripherals companies and provides us an entry into the businesses of PC mice, keyboards and speakers and electronic chess and intelligent games."

"Joining Saitek with Mad Catz is a truly complementary step that leverages the strengths of each side, gives the combined business a new scale, and strengthens the relationship with both suppliers and customers. I am proud of what the Saitek team has achieved in its 28 years and I thank all those who made it possible," said Eric Winkler, Saitek's founder. "We look forward with confidence to the success of the combined team in the years ahead, and wish them the best of good fortune."

"Although we expect to achieve operational efficiencies due to the scale of the combined entity, we believe that the upside is inherent in the future growth potential and not on a cost cutting basis, " Richardson added. "We intend to identify opportunities to apply Saitek's brands, intellectual property, products and skills in the console market as well as identify opportunities to apply Mad Catz' brands, intellectual property, products and skills in the PC market."

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Bluetooth Peripheral Devices, Ultrawide Devices, Finally Hitting Store Shelves!!!

After years of promises, Ultra wide band (UWB) devices are finally here. Based on a short-range, high data rate radio technology, most early UWB-devices deliver in the range of 40Mbps to 100Mbps, with future devices delivering much higher speeds.

The first UWB device to hit the market was a Toshiba R400S4834 notebook PC and docking station. The two devices connect wireless using a UWB chip solution provided by a start-up WiQuest. Lenovo also launched UWB in its T61 notebook, and Dell has recently launched UWB in its Inspiron line of notebooks. UWB backers hope that these PC design wins lead to a UWB ecosystem that encompasses not only PCs, but PC peripherals consumer electronics and mobile devices.

While notebooks with embedded UWB solutions are great, what about the millions of PCs already in homes and businesses across the world without UWB? These devices can jump on the UWB bandwagon through hub and dongle solutions. The UWB dongle connects to the PCs USB port, and connects wireless to the UWB hub. The UWB hub, in turn, connects via USB cables to peripherals such as printers and multifunction devices, as well as CE devices, including digital still cameras and portable media players.

The future for UWB devices is fairly bright. The next few years will be spent seeding the PC and PC peripheral marketplace with UWB-enabled devices, with CE and mobile devices hitting the market in late 2009 and 2010. Overall, UWB-enabled devices should see abundant growth through 2001.

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It's The Computer Peripherals, Not The PC!!!

Peripherals are selling the PCs at Apple Computers, according to some industry watchers and insiders. Apple's wildly popular iPod and iPhone are luring former Microsoft Windows devotees to the Apple brand and Macintosh PCs.

"It is primarily the 'halo effect' driving the jump in Mac sales," said Van Baker, a research vice president at Gartner in San Jose, California, that is mainly "realized in the Apple stores," he added. "Consumers come in to buy an iPod and stop to check out the MacBook Pros while they are there."

iPod and iPhone sales were very strong in the third quarter, with the former seeing a 17 percent year-over-year growth, and the latter selling 1,119,000 units in the third quarter. "Apple continues to gain ground in the PC market and more and more people are drawn into the Apple stores due to their interest in iPods and iPhones," agreed Tim Bajarin, the president of Creative Strategies, based in Campbell, California.

"But the fact that 50 percent are new to the Mac suggests something bigger," Bajarin said. "It points to the fact that the Mac is viewed as an easier system than competitive operating systems and more and more people are feeling comfortable with the Mac for use as their own personal computer."

This quarter's numbers are impressive and shows that Apple is making the right technology and making decisions to help them become an even more powerful force in the PC market," Bajarin added.

"Apple's iPod business continues to generate profit," he said. "The innovative iPod Touch was not available until the last two days of the third quarter, and apparently did not affect iPod sales. iPod units increased 17 percent over last year, but revenues were up only 4 percent, a similar pattern to recent quarters. Technolgy Business Research believes the market for the more expensive iPod media players is mature, and Apple is benefiting from selling more the lower-price units, which appear to be more profitable. The iPod Touch is a different product, addressing a different market, and TBR believes it will be successful in the fourth quarter.

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Vendors Unite On Media Center Periphals Standard!!

System builders will be able to supervise peripherals more carefully following the launch of an industry standard for real-time monitoring and control of PC peripheral performance. An initiative led by NVIDIA in conjunction with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Coolermaster and Thermaltake, among others, has led to the Enthusiast System Architecture.

According to the companies, the standard is based on the current USB HIB (Human Interface Device) class specification and will support chassis, power supplies, and water and air cooling peripherals.

Previously there was no standard communication protocol that let peripherals report essential data such as temperature, thermal, voltage and air flow attributes to users, NVIDIA said. "Trying together information and control from disparate PC components has never been possible until ESA," said Kelt Reeves, CEO of Falcon Northwest, in a statement.

The ESA allows manufacturers to embed digital and analog sensors into their devices, which will communicate real-time data about PC operating conditions to users. The ESA's logging capabilities let system builders and manufacturers cheaply and easily identify any peripheral-related operating abnormalities and therefore resolve support issues, NVIDIA said.

ESA-complaint systems, including motherboards and components, will be available starting at the end of this month, the companies said.

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$199 Computer Could Crack "Digital Divide" On Peripheral Computers!!!

Scattered among the $500 to $1,000 desktop computers available at Walmart.com, one machine stands out. It does not have a unique design, but its price tag looks like a typo: $199.

Prices for consumer electronic goods, ranging from high-definition televisions to mobile phones, drop consistently, but few products have more potential to impact a person's ability to learn or find work than a computer.

The cheap computers will be sold beginning this week online and at the hundreds of Wal-Mart lactations. They are offered at a time when charitable efforts - such as the "One Laptop Per Child" program, intended to provide portable computers for $100 to children in developing countries - have struggled to achieve results. Those laptops now are to cost $200, but the program has yet to deliver a product.

The computer for sale at Wal-Mart, on the other hand, can put an affordable machine immediately into the hands of anyone, from students in low-income households to senior citizens on strict budgets, potentially addressing the critical social issue of so-called digital divide in the U.S. between those with access to computers and the Internet and those without.

The computers do not include a monitor, but those can be bought for less than $100, and the price could encourage more families to buy computers.

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Texas Instruments Unviels Periperal IC Supplies!!

Texas Instruments Incorporated recently announced a power conversion integrated circuit (IC) that supports power supply requirements for OMAPTM-based mobile handsets and XScale-based multimedia devices.

Texas Instruments' TPS65020 power management unit integrates high-performance analog building blocks to support multiple voltages in single-cell lithium-ion powered applications, such as smart phones, PDAs, digital still cameras, and portable audio and media players. The device incorporates three synchronous step-down DC/DC converters with integrated FETs, three linear regulators, and an I2C communications interface that allows full programmability and dynamic voltage scaling of the core voltage.

The TPS65020's three integrated converters are designed to efficiently transfer the core voltage, peripheral, I/O and memory rails of a PXA270, OMAP1610 or OMAP1710 processor-based system. A 1.2 A DC/DC steps down the system voltage with up to 97 percent efficiency at a 3.3 V output. A second 1-A converter supports system memory with up to 95 percent efficiency.

Texas Instruments continues to provide innovative analog and digital technologies focused on improving power and performance in three critical areas of the system. First, advanced battery management technology intelligently charges the battery and accurately measures its capacity. Second, switch-mode power conversion translates the battery power as efficiently as possible to supply system components. And third, advancement in Texas Instrument system power and performance management, such as SmartReflexTM technology, analyze and manage power consumption in the processor domain, while adaptively controlling the power supply through software to optimize the use of battery power.

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