News Bits: DisplayPort Approved, Intel vPro for Notebooks, Acer tops in Canada

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VESA approves DisplayPort 1.1

Image courteousy Engadget

VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) has approved DisplayPort 1.1, the intended replacement for DVI and VGA ports. It will co-exist with HDMI, meant for HDTV connectivity. DisplayPort is about the size of a USB connector and offers roughly twice the performance of DVI. The small size of DisplayPort is good news for laptop users; most laptops today come with VGA ports because of DVI's size and expense. DisplayPort will solve this problem. Among other features, HDCP 1.3 content protection is built-in.

Read More (Engadget)

Seagate now shipping hardware-encrypted notebook drives

Seagate Technology has announced that it has begun to ship the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 (Full Data Encryption), an encrypted 2.5-inch notebook hard drive. The drives have a hardware-based AES encryption, SATA interface, and are available in capacities up to 160GB. Hardware-based encryption for notebook hard drives is a new technology and will grow over time as the demand for higher security increases.

Read More (The Register)

Intel vPro technology goes mobile

Intel announced on April 4 that it will start to offer the management and security features found in its desktop vPro platform with the upcoming Centrino Pro, or Santa Rosa platform. Intel has not released a specific date for Centrino Pro's release, but it will be in the first half of May, with May 9th as the rumored launch day.

Intel says including vPro technologies will boost security and make PC notebooks easier to manage.

Read More (eWeek)

LED backlighting to take 10% of notebook segments in 2007

According to Taiwan's Photonics Industry Technology &amp; Development Association (PIDA), LED backlighting should see a quicker adoption in the notebook market. Several notebook makers have already utilized LED backlighting in subnotebooks. LEDs should begin to penetrate the 10 to 12&quot; screen notebook market next. It is not likely to be picked up yet in larger notebooks due to cost. Retail prices for notebooks utilizing LED technology will carry a premium of roughly $300.

Read More (DigiTimes)

Acer takes top spot for notebook and display shipments in Canada

Acer announced on April 4 that it has achieved the number one position in both notebook and LCD monitor shipments in Canada. Acer is now the third-largest PC brand in Canada.

Acer Canada shipped 119,192 notebooks during Q4 2006, representing a 73% growth on-year. Acer shipped about 18% of the total number of notebooks sold in Canada in 2006, about 337,000 units.

Read More (Business Wire)

Asus XG Station opened up

At 4Gamer they got their hands on the Asus XG Station, an external graphics card solution for notebooks that connects via the ExpressCard slot. When opened up the insides reveal a full size PCI Express graphics card in the form of the Nvidia Go 7900 GS. This is mounted on board with an accessible PCI-E slot. This means there is possibility of upgrading the graphics card later on.

There is still no word on pricing or release date though. Find discussion on the Asus XG Station in our forums here.

 

DisplayPort is cool...and expected...although if HDMI comes in a lot of notebooks (like the new Asus on the NBR front page) then I don't see much of a future for the new standard & interface.

 

I just can't wait for LED technology. We once had a small (11 inch) Fujitsu Siemens with LED screen and it was sometimes brighter and better then my Crystalview screen!

I hope to see LED in 17" XPS notebooks.

By the way: the XG station seems too small for the 8800GTX or R600. It just fits a 7900.

 

I'm excited for the LED screens too. They seem like one of the most exciting new techologies, aside from SSD.

 

Does the Sony VAIO SZ Premium have LED LCD?

 

Yes it does.

 

300$ premium for a LED screen ? fine with me .

Can't wait to see the first 17"er LED and the quality of the screen in person .

 

Well, Display Port should be cheaper than HDMI. Some articles say it is not designed as a competitor for HDMI. Display port will have its own market, PC-s and PC displays.

 

is displayport atleast as fast as dual dvi?

 

I'd guess so; the article didn't define whether the below statement was referring to regular DVI or dual-link.