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Dell’s refresh of the Mini 10 didn’t exactly knock our socks off when we got a chance to spend some quality time with it last month, but it did prove to be a solid performer and did as advertised, playing back 1080p content with aplomb — so long as you did it within a player that could make the most of a Broadcom’s Crystal HD accelerator. Now you have a chance to try it out for yourself, with Dell announcing the machine is shipping and, at $409 with a six-cell battery and a 250GB hard drive, it won’t break the bank either. Just steer clear of Quicktime for movie playback and get the most recent Flash beta on there pronto, yeah?

Dell’s Broadcom Crystal HD Mini 10 now shipping to beta Flashers worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netbooks for all! We’re convinced that’s the motivational saying plastered to the wall in the HP lab where the company births Minis for everyone but your pet fish. But of all the company’s Pine Trail offerings, we’re most excited about the $425 Mini 210, which has a 10.1-inch HD screen and a Broadcom Crystal Accelerator chip that promises decent HD video playback, even with Flash. With an attractive new thin design, improved chiclet keyboard and that promise to handle high-def content, the Mini 210 has the potential to kick the others to the curb. Given the issues we had with the Broadcom-powered Dell Mini 10 and HP’s newer touchpads, though, we had to put on the glasses and take a closer look. Join us past the break for the full review, will you?

Continue reading HP Mini 210 HD edition review

HP Mini 210 HD edition review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rejoice, owners of netbooks with Intel GMA 500 graphics: Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 is here, complete with hardware video acceleration for your machines. That should make Hulu and YouTube HD usable on machines like the Sony VAIO P and VAIO X, the Nokia Booklet 3G, and the previous-generation Dell Mini 10. The new build also bring support for the Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator found in Pine Trail Atom machines like the newest Dell Mini 10 and HP Mini 210 — support we found sorely lacking when we reviewed the Dell. We just tried it out on our review HP Mini 210 and it managed 720p YouTube just fine, although 1080p was a no-go — we’re waiting on some updated Broadcom drivers though, so don’t take that as gospel quite yet. We’ll have much more on that in our full Mini 210 review; for now you should all get downloading and let us know how it’s going in comments.

Update: Success! We updated the Broadcom drivers on our Dell Mini 10 and downloaded the fresh Flash 10.1 Beta 3, and as you can see in the video below 1080p YouTube HD content plays smoothly. It’s almost everything we’ve ever dreamed of for our netbooks. We are still having issues with the HP Mini 210 which uses the older BCM70012 Crystal HD card, but will have an update on that in our full review soon.

Continue reading Flash 10.1 beta 3 released, adds support for Intel GMA 500 and Broadcom Crystal HD chips (Update: 1080p Flash on a netbook!)

Flash 10.1 beta 3 released, adds support for Intel GMA 500 and Broadcom Crystal HD chips (Update: 1080p Flash on a netbook!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel is leading 24 venture capital firms and 17 technology companies in an effort to bring 10,500 new jobs and $3.5 billion dollars into American technology companies.

The initiative, called the Invest in America Alliance, is a project being spearheaded by Intel. It was announced on Tuesday by Intel CEO Paul Otellini in Washington, D.C.

The alliance has one overarching goal, two specific objectives and 42 different firms. The goal of the initiative is to keep the U.S. competitive in technology in a world that is increasingly catching up. From Mr. Otellini’s speech:

“Unfortunately, long-term investments in education, research, digital technology, and human capital have been steadily declining in the U.S. So, too, has the commitment to policies that made us such an entrepreneurial powerhouse for more than a century.”

He continued on to say that the U.S. can no longer boast the best students in math, science and engineering, as other nations, primarily Asia, have caught up and could even leave the U.S. behind if action isn’t taken.

The Objectives of the Invest in America Alliance

Intel’s Invest in America Alliance has two objectives: to invest $3.5 billion into technology startups over the next two years, specifically in clean technology, IT and biotech. To this end, Intel has brought together 24 venture capital firms to commit to this goal.

The following is an excerpt from a transcript of his speech:

“I’m pleased to announce the inception of the “Invest in America Alliance”, a group of leading VC companies committed to steer investments into technologies that will drive economic growth and job creation in the US. The members of this alliance have committed to invest $3.5 billion in promising clean technology, information technology, and bio technology companies over approximately two years. As part of the alliance, Intel Capital will participate with its own $200 million commitment.

“Intel has worked with 24 leading venture capital firms to join us with their own commitments in support of the alliance including: Advanced Technology Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, Bridgescale Partners, Canaan Partners, DCM, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Flywheel Ventures, Good Energies, Institutional Venture Partners, Investcorp Technology Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers, Menlo Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, New ENterprise Associates, North Bridge Venture Partners, QuestMark Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, Storm Ventures, Telesoft Partners, Updata Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock and Walden International.”

The second objective of the alliance is to create 10,500 new jobs for college graduates in the next year. Seventeen companies have joined Intel in this goal, including Accenture, Adobe, Autodesk, Broadcom, CDW, Cisco, Dell, eBay, EMC, GE, Google, HP, Liberty Mutual, Marvell Semiconductor, Microsoft and Yahoo.

A Worthy Goal, But More Has to Be Done

The new alliance is a recognition of two things: that the U.S. is in fact losing its once-dominant technology edge, and that something has to be done to reverse that trend.

As the NYT points out, less than 10% of U.S. college graduates have engineering degrees, while more than 33% do in India and China. This is a serious problem that can only lead to America being beaten in science, technology and innovation.

Intel’s initiative is a good step and commitment toward funding innovative ideas and giving them a chance to grow. It will promote more college students to become engineers as they see more job opportunities open in technology and science while creating even more jobs in the form of new startups. Three and a half billion dollars could help create the next Google, Facebook or Oracle.

Still, it doesn’t solve the root problem, which is American students choosing not to study technology-related majors. That requires more than money and commitments — it requires a shift in perceptions and education that has to start at the grade school level and continue all the way through college.

Acknowledging the problem and taking steps to combat it are the first steps, though. We look forward to seeing what comes of this new alliance.

Videos: Intel CEO Paul Otellini’s Speech in D.C.

Reviews: Facebook, Google

Tags: accenture, adobe, Autodesk, Broadcom, CDW, cisco, dell, ebay, GE, Google, HP, intel, Invest in America Alliance, Liberty Mutual, Marvell, microsoft, vc, venture capital, Yahoo

Chip maker Broadcom has unveiled no fewer than three new mobile-themed hunks of silicon this week in preparation for MWC in just a few days’ time. You ready for this? Alright, first up we’ve got the catchily-named BCM20751, which performs the rather ordinary tasks of GPS, Bluetooth, and FM radio management but also throws in an audio processor to offload some work from the phone’s primary CPU, which the company says can reduce battery consumption enough to improve playback time by up to 100 percent in some situations. Next up, we’ve got the BCM4751, a GPS receiver that Broadcom’s confident is going to set a new benchmark for mobile location-based services; a complete setup takes less than 30 square millimeters of precious board space and is claimed to be a guru at picking up weak signals all the while sipping power. Finally, the BCM2049 supports Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, FM (both transmitting and receiving), and Bluetooth Low Energy — something that was recently adopted for standardization in Bluetooth 4.0. All three should be on display at the show next week. That’s not all, though — the company is also announcing comprehensive support for Android across much of its product range, which seems like a pretty prudent business decision all things considered.

Broadcom announces Android support, three-pack of chips to make your phones more awesome originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Michael Dell may not be a fan of netbooks, but you wouldn’t know that from the newest Mini 10. Joining the current Mini 10v, Dell’s completely overhauled the chassis and added Intel’s new Pine Trail processor. But that’s not all: come February the little laptop will be available with Broadcom’s Crystal HD accelerator, which promises full HD playback on a high-res 1366 x 768 display. But does the $425 package rid us of our tireless complaints that Atom can’t handle HD, and does it rival netbooks based on NVIDIA’s Ion platform? And perhaps more importantly, can we count on the Mini 10 to be a valuable member of the growing Pine Trail netbook fraternity when it comes to battery life and ergonomics? Read on to find out!

Continue reading Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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