News about what is happening in technology today!

Intel, intent on world domination, said it has created a working prototype of the next generation of super-thin processors. Perhaps that phrase in the headline above about curing all known diseases, a shameless attempt to attract your attention, was an exaggeration on the part of your humble narrator. Anyway, this new manufacturing process creates chips that are just 45nm (nanometer = one-billionth of a meter) thick. That’s a lot slimmer than the current state-of-the-art PC processors, which at 65nm will be the thickness at which more than half of Intel’s PC chips will be built by the third quarter of this year.

Who really cares about all this dorky shit? Well, we do, because when chips are thinner they run much faster and cooler, and use a lot less power. So, more than a billion transistors can be fit onto a chip that’s the same size as today’s processors (Moore’s Law lives!), or better yet, chips can be smaller and fit into even tinier devices, and be quieter and less battery-hogging. It’s all good. Expect to see these new gee-whiz processors rolling out sometime in the second half of 2007. Meanwhile, by then you can expect AMD to leap even further ahead of Intel, maybe even making steady progress on that “curing all known diseases” thing.

SAN FRANCISCO–Intel, Hewlett-Packard and seven other server companies will spend $10 billion through 2010 to try to increase adoption of the Itanium processor.

The money is coming from Intel and HP–Itanium’s co-developers and top backers–as well as from Unisys, Silicon Graphics Inc., NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens and Groupe Bull. The companies said Thursday that they will spend the money on research and development, marketing, and work to help software companies support the high-end processor.

“Itanium has been taking share from both IBM power and Sun Sparc. We’re on the right trajectory, but we want to go faster,” Tom Kilroy, general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, said at a press event here. “The $10 billion investment is a statement that we want to accelerate as a unified body.”

The companies are members of the Itanium Solutions Alliance, which includes Microsoft, Red Hat, Novell, Oracle and other software companies. The alliance also announced its Itanium Solutions Catalog, which describes various combinations of hardware and software for specific tasks.

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The software giant is mulling its own digital device that adds gaming to music and video, in an effort to compete with Apple’s iPod empire

After getting trounced for four years in the digital music business by Apple Computer (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) finally seems poised to do something about it. BusinessWeek has learned that the software giant is working on plans to develop its own portable digital media device to rival the iPod, rather than just providing technology to partners. Microsoft hasn’t decided if it will go ahead. But sources inside the company and at its partners say Microsoft has put together a team that’s considering the business end of such an initiative.

Going forward with it would be an acknowledgement that the current strategy isn’t working. Chairman William H. Gates III has argued that consumers would prefer a vast choice of devices to the limited selection from Apple. That’s why Microsoft has relied on dozens of partners to come up with sleek devices and clever online-music services that use its software

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Nintendo just emailed us the following announcement of the redesign of the Nintendo DS (dual screen) handheld.

“Nintendo President Satoru Iwata today announced Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer version of the best-selling Nintendo DS™. Also featuring brighter screens, Nintendo DS Lite will launch in Japan in March. Nintendo DS Lite will be less than two-thirds the size of the original Nintendo DS and more than 20 percent lighter.

Nintendo DS has enjoyed extremely strong sales in Japan and around the world, selling more than 14.4 million units worldwide. The Japanese sell-through of the existing Nintendo DS hardware exceeded 5 million within 13 months, which made Nintendo DS the fastest-selling video game system there.

Nintendo will announce more information about the availability of Nintendo DS Lite in North America and other territories in the future.”

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Blazing-fast Wi-Fi speeds with the kind of stability and range that will let audio and video (even HDTV signals) cut through the air like butter.

No more A/V cables. No more fuss. And no more stutters, pops or lost connections.

Sound like pie in the sky? Perhaps, but the folks over at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, are giving it their best shot.

On Jan. 19, an IEEE working group approved a proposal for the upcoming 802.11n wireless standard. The draft specifications will come out in March, after which engineers will work toward releasing a final standard in 2007. (IEEE is the organization that devised the existing 802.11x family of standards forming the basis of modern Wi-Fi networks).

The new “n” protocol was developed by IEEE’s Enhanced Wireless Consortium, a group that includes Intel, Apple Computer, Microsoft, Sony and several other major players. The new protocol aims to increase maximum Wi-Fi speeds roughly tenfold to throughputs of up to 600 Mbps.

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