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An Android demonstration took center stage this week at the Google I/O event in San Francisco attended by 2,900 developers. The latest version of the mobile platform was introduced amid nearly 100 in-depth technical sessions about Google's developer products and general Web application development.

"The demo was very impressive in terms of showing off yet again a completely new user interface than what we've seen previously," said Avi Greengart, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis. "There are some nice innovations, such as a bar at the top which could be expanded to give you control over the notifications. You can touch the notification bar and jump to whatever you were being notified about."

Speeding Up Smartphone Innovation

The Open Handset Alliance promises Android will deliver a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. The alliance's 34 companies first released an Android software development kit last November.

The alliance is betting Android will better position developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost. The end result, the group pledged, will be a mobile platform that makes way for wireless operators and manufacturers to give their customers better, more personal and more flexible mobile experiences.

One of the platform innovations that could live up to that promise is a new way to unlock phones by drawing a specific shape on the touchscreen. That would do away with the need to enter a password. Android also makes room for bookmarks for favorite Web sites on the device's home page. And a compass tool automatically roams with the phone's user.

"For all practical purposes they showed a live view of the mapping engine tied to what direction you are actually standing in, and that was really cool," Greengart said....

Via Technologies has introduced a new VIA Nano processor family that offers as much as four times the performance within the same power range over the company's previous-generation C7 processor lineup.

In particular, Nano paves the way for notebook manufacturers to deploy Via's chips in computer designs optimized for Blu-ray Disc video playback and more demanding PC games. Moreover, Nano offers aggressive power and thermal management capabilities that Via Technologies CEO Wenchi Chen said are critical requirements for OEMs designing thin and light laptops as well as mini-notebooks.

"'Small is Beautiful' is more than a design strategy; it's our vision of where the PC market is heading, and our new processors will help the market realize that dream," Chen said. "Via Nano processors represent the next generation of x86 technology, providing the fundamental building blocks for a new genre of optimized computing solutions."

Aimed at Emerging Markets

The new Nano processors are pin-compatible with existing VIA C7 processors, which means they will provide OEMs an easy upgrade path, noted Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at research firm iSuppli.

"That's certainly an advantage for OEMs in terms of the motherboard design and the layout," Wilkins noted. "It cuts down on the amount of effort that some of Via's OEM partners in Taiwan will have to make to bring new products more quickly to market."

Wilkins also said it is significant that Via is targeting lower power consumption with the launch of its latest chip family. "It fits in very well with the low-cost PCs that are getting a lot of attention right now," he said.

For example, Asus now offers a mobile computer called the Eee PC that is quite significantly lower in price than other similar products. "It has received enthusiastic reception with the press and tends to sell out very quickly in...

Intel and Micron Technology announced Thursday that they have developed the first under-40-nanometer NAND flash-memory device, which could make possible smaller, higher-capacity solid-state drives.

At 34nm, the 32-gigabit multilevel chip is the smallest NAND available. The companies said the new NAND chip is the only monolithic device of this density that will fit into a standard 48-lead thin, small-outline package (TSOP), which means it could provide higher densities for existing devices.

Smaller Than a Thumbnail

The new chips will be manufactured on 300-millimeter wafers, which each yield about 1.6 terabytes of NAND each. The chip was developed and will be manufactured by IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture of Micron and Intel. The two companies announced in February a new flash-memory technology that offered data-transfer speeds as much as 500 percent greater than conventional NAND technology.

Customer samples will begin shipping in June, and the chips will begin mass production later this year.

Pete Hazen, directory of marketing at Intel NAND Products, said the new chip and the introduction of 34nm technology "will expand the value proposition and accelerate the adoption of solid-state drive (SSD) solutions in computing platforms."

The new chip, less than the size of an average thumbnail, can enable high-density solid-state storage in small form factors. A 32Gbit chip, for instance, could hold more than 2,000 high-resolution digital photos or up to 1,000 songs on a portable music player. If utilized in two, eight-die stacked packages, the storage could reach 64GB, enough space to record up to 40 hours of high-definition, digital video.

SSDs Larger Than 256GB

The new chip was specifically designed for SSDs, whose disadvantages compared to conventional hard-disk drives have included a higher per-gigabyte cost and lower overall storage capacity.

With the 34nm 32Gbit chip, Intel and Micron said more cost-effective SSDs are possible, with storage capacities that could double the current...