As part of its keynote at Computex today, Intel unveiled a pair of new sleep-related technologies, though funnily enough, neither of them is particularly boring. Smart Connect checks up periodically on web apps you have open while your computer is in sleep mode — meaning that email clients and in-browser web apps like Twitter and Facebook will update themselves without the need for you to flip the computer on in full. Updates will be ready and waiting for you when you get back. Rapid Start is a new hibernation mode that can resume within 5 to 6 seconds and can remember your computer’s state with zero power. Though, admittedly, the zero-power operation doesn’t look like it can be maintained for too long, the hibernation itself can keep your computer going for up to 30 days. Pretty neat stuff. It’s all coming to Sandy Bridge laptops with Windows 7 soon, with widespread availability promised by the holidays.

Intel Smart Connect and Rapid Start technologies unveiled, coming by the holidays originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 02:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SanDisk has been pumping out press releases all day thanks to Computex-mania, so we shuffled past its stall to see what all the fuss is about. The biggest news is the U100 range of tiny SSDs for ultraportables, which crank data in and out at twice the speed of SanDisk’s previous generation P4 drives. We’re talking 450MB/s reads and 340MB/s writes thanks to the latest SATA III interface, plus a max capacity of 256GB — specs which have already enticed ASUS to use the U100 in its lightweight UX-series notebooks. Mass production is expected in Q3 of this year. Specs table and triple-shot of PR coming up after the break, plus a gallery showing size comparisons of the U100 SSD in its glorious mSATA and Mini mSATA varieties, stacked up against some common objects like a 2.5-inch SSD drive, an HP Veer, and a vaguely goth bracelet.

Meanwhile, SanDisk hasn’t forgotten about our desperate need for faster tablets. The company has doubled the speed of its existing iNAND embedded flash modules, and is also releasing a brand new SATA III drive, the i100, specifically for this form factor. The i100 maxes out at 128GB and achieves a significantly slower write speed (160MB/s) than the U100, but it has same impressive read speed (450MB/s) — which should mean nippier tablets in the not-too-distant future.

Continue reading SanDisk outs faster U100 and i100 SSDs for ultra-portables and tablets, we go hands-on

SanDisk outs faster U100 and i100 SSDs for ultra-portables and tablets, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 09:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pop over to iCloud.com today and you’ll see a doomed web page. The domain, which redirects to Xcerion’s CloudMe software, is sitting on some prime real estate, namely Apple’s new iCloud service.

In a short release, Apple confirmed the existence and name:

Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software – Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.

We’ve been hearing about the potential cloud services for months now and it seems the stars have finally aligned. The MobileMe service recently received some considerable upgrades to improve performance and stability and there has been oodles of talk about a potential music service in the cloud similar to Rdio or Spotify. That we now know it’s called iCloud, officially, is just icing on the cake.

What will iCloud include? It will probably be a considerable revamp of the Me.com services including calendar and email syncing. As TUAW notes, many parts of MobileMe will probably be available for free leaving us to wonder what the rest of the service will include.

We’ve also discovered that Apple is signing partners to offer what amounts to a mirrored version of your iTunes database, a service that will be considerably improved over current “locker”models used by Amazon and Google. However, there are currently plenty of those cloud-based sharing services on offer, which suggests Apple may have a trick or two up its sleeve.

This would probably also replace the nearly useless iDisk offering currently available with MobileMe. With competitors like Dropbox, the old ways just won’t cut it.

We’ll be there live on Monday June 6 but until then get out your prophesying hats and start prophesying in comments!

Continued here:
Apple’s Cloud Product Officially Official And It’s Called iCloud