Tom Krazit

Dell Inc. rolled out the new Latitude D505 late last week as the latest edition to its line of laptops designed for mobile business users, the company said.

Wireless LAN (WLAN) access points using new software from Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) will be able to simultaneously support 802.11g and 802.11a connections using a single chipset, the company said.

The worldwide market for cell phones is outstripping even the most enthusiastic predictions from the beginning of 2003, as consumers continue to snap up handsets at a dizzying rate, according to research released in December by Gartner Inc.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) released a new Athlon 64 processor this week that is a little different than its older brother launched in September. But it comes at a price that will help AMD's 64-bit technology find its way into lower-priced desktops.

Any expectations that Intel Corp.'s next-generation Prescott processor will make an appearance in 2003 are fading fast as the year winds to a close. The chip had been expected to make its debut in the fourth quarter, but only a select number of PC manufacturers will get their hands on Intel's first 90-nanometer processor before 2004.

Intel Corp. has decided to combine its communications businesses into a single unit, one week after expressing concern over the long-term growth prospects for that business.

IBM Corp. has come up with a method of letting molecules assemble themselves inside chip structures to form nanoscale structures that add redundancy and performance improvements to chips, the company said.

The worldwide market for cell phones is outstripping even the most enthusiastic predictions from the beginning of the year, as consumers continue to snap up handsets at a dizzying rate, according to research released Monday by Gartner Inc.