mobile Internet devices

Big things come in small packages for Seagate Technology, which has introduced what it says is the thinnest 2.5-inch hard drive on the market. The addition to its Momentus product line, the Momentus Thin, is seven millimeters high, according to Joni Clark, product marketing manger for notebook hard drives. The drive is aimed at laptops, netbooks, backup devices, and consumer electronics.

Intel is spreading its software wings with the $884 million acquisition of Wind River Systems, which develops operating systems, middleware and software design tools for a variety of embedded computing systems. Intel said the company will become part of its strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server markets and into embedded systems and mobile devices.

Michael Dell may have been speaking from halfway around the world, but the voice of the CEO for a $20 billion company carries a long way. The topic was small-screen devices and specifically smartphones, a market with which Dell has flirted with but never quite taken the plunge. But Dell said that may change.

"It is true that we are exploring smaller-screen devices," he said. "We don't have any announcements to share today, but stay tuned, as when we have new news we will share that with you."

Crowded Market

When Google and its partners first unveiled plans for the Android operating system, they billed it as software that would run mobile phones. That mission was accomplished the following year with the late 2008 release of T-Mobile's G1 phone. More Android-enabled handsets are on the way.

But before long, you may be seeing Android in a lot of other electronic devices.

The desktop computer is in decline, hurt by netbooks and a grim economy. But as demand for desktops and even notebooks falls, so do Nvidia's revenues. To keep growing sales, Nvidia is counting on scientific computing, mobility, and visual computing. It's proven it can grow sales on the scientific side [revenue for that division grew by 31 percent from the third quarter of fiscal 2009 to third-quarter fiscal 2008 -- even as sales for desktops and notebooks fell by 33 percent], and it won some big deals based on the increasingly visual nature of computing. But now it needs to get mobile.

How important is the Internet to you every day in uncertain economic times? If you're like most U.S. adults, it ranks higher than many other activities, according to a report from Harris Interactive and Intel.

Indeed, most U.S. adults find Internet access essential to daily life in today's economic climate. Some are choosing the Internet as a "must-have" over watching TV and having sex.

Nvidia Corp., a 5,000-employee company known for its graphics processing units, is gearing up for battle against giant chipmaker Intel. During the first day of the Nvision 2008 conference Monday, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsuan Huang said his Santa Clara, Calif.-based company plans to focus on the smartphone market.

He added that he expects smartphones to become the next personal computer and noted that today's smartphones are focused on the phone first and computing second. He said it should be the opposite.

A Fight Between Mobile Chips

Sales of Intel's Atom processor, designed for consumer electronics gadgets and super-slim personal computers, are topping company targets as the largest chipmaker in the world seeks to expand beyond a slowing PC market.

"Atom is off to a very, very rapid start, far exceeding our expectations when we started the year," the company's chief financial officer, Stacy Smith, said in an interview on Tuesday. "It's the perfect recession product to have in the marketplace."

Verizon Wireless and Alltel are merging in a $28.1 billion deal that analysts said could have a ripple effect through the U.S. wireless industry -- if the integration goes smoothly.

Verizon Wireless' acquisition crowns it king of the carriers in the U.S., dethroning AT&T and possibly signaling an eventual acquisition of Sprint Nextel, analysts said. Verizon will add 13 million clients in 34 states and save about $9 billion from the purchase. Synergies are expected to generate incremental cost savings of $1 billion in the second year after closing.

On Monday, Nvidia upped the ante on Intel. The company introduced the Tegra family of processors, a single-computer chip that promises rich high definition and Internet exploration consumers have grown accustomed to on PCs -- but on small mobile devices.

The Nvidia Tegra is a computer on a chip, smaller than a U.S. dime. Nvidia designed the chip from the ground up to enable the "visual PC experience" on a new generation of mobile-computing devices while consuming the smallest amount of power.