Intel Corporation today announced it will invest more than $40 million over the next 5 years in a worldwide network of university research communities called the Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI). The ICRI program is based on the successful U.S.-based Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTCs), and will bring together experts from academia and industry to help explore and invent in the next generation of technologies that could impact the lives of many in the future.

"The new Intel Collaborative Research Institute program underscores our commitment to establishing and funding collaborative university research to fuel global innovation in key areas and help address some of today's most challenging problems," said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel. "Forming a multidisciplinary community of Intel, faculty and graduate student researchers from around the world will lead to fundamental breakthroughs in some of the most difficult and vexing areas of computing technology."

Intel is working on a strange new processor model based on its new 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" silicon, the Core i5-3350P. This part is reported to lack integrated graphics, much like the Core i5-2380P and i5-2450P, from the previous generation. The new i5-3350P will be a quad-core chip, with 6 MB of L3 cache. It comes with a base clock speed of 3.10 GHz, and 3.30 GHz Turbo Boost speed. Like every other Core i5 quad-core processor, it lacks HyperThreading. The lack of integrated graphics also takes a toll on its TDP rating, which is down to 69W. The new Core i5-3350P is expected to be launched in Q3, 2012.

The annual event is approaching, computer gurus, enthusiasts and novices all alike prepare anxiously to cover the grounds of Computex 2012. Attendees seek for the most innovative technology available and exhibitors are kept on their toes to present eye-catching IT hardware and software. The time has come Computex 2012 is set for June 5th - 9th at Nangang Exhibition Hall, Taiwan. Visit Thecus at booth K0510 as new hardware and software will be presented to the public.

Thecus proudly exhibits:

• ThecusOS 5.0
• McAfee Antivirus
• TopTower Series
• Microsoft Windows Storage Servers: W Series
• V Series (Microsoft Windows 2008R2 Certified)
• Home & Small Office: Vision & EVO Series
• Thecus NVR, Visoguard

Known more for its VIA Nano and Intel Atom-powered fanless IPCs (industrial PCs), Habey is readying BIS-6763, a new IPC model that is driven by a robust Core i3 "Sandy Bridge" dual-core processor. Measuring 190 x 190 x 67 mm, the IPC is made of a metal chassis, a portion of which is ridged, to double up as a heatsink. Beneath it is a pair of cylindrical heat pipes that transport heat to the top panel (heatsink), which cool the Core i3-2367M processor (dual-core, 1.40 GHz, 3 MB L3, 17W TDP), and Intel HM65 Express PCH.

Sadly, the IPC does not take advantage of the processor's dual-channel DDR3 IMC, there's just the one DDR3 SO-DIMM slot, supporting up to 8 GB of DDR3-1333 MHz memory. For expansion, there are two mini-PCIe slots. The sole storage option is a 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s SSD/HDD bay. Connectivity includes one serial RS232 interface, six USB 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, and Intel HD 3000 graphics that gives out an HDMI, and a D-Sub display output. With 2 GB of DDR3 memory included, the BIS-6763 is expected to be priced at US $499. A variant that's powered by Intel Celeron 857 (dual-core, 1.20 GHz, 2 MB L3, 17W TDP), is also expected to be available, at US $299.

Intel Corporation today previewed its first DOCSIS 3.0 cable gateway solution that is capable of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). The Intel Puma 6 technology solution will help enable service providers to meet consumer demand and offer new services while extending their extensive network investments. A test program by South Korea's SKbroadband is targeting production deployment of 1 Gbps in 2013.

As the number of Internet-connected devices in the home grows, service providers are challenged to provide higher broadband speeds to more customers utilizing an existing cable network. A service provider's ability to scale up to this high level of bandwidth will help enable new high-bandwidth experiences for what the industry calls "TV Everywhere," an immersive blend of Internet, television, gaming and applications across multiple screens throughout the home.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers' market share for Q1'12. The news was not good. AMD was able to grow shipments over last quarter by 0.3%, in a down quarter. Intel slipped 1.3% and Nvidia declined 4.5% from the last quarter.

Although this did not shape up to be a great quarter for the suppliers, it actually wasn't as bad as it could have been. We found that shipments during the first quarter of 2012 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, declining from the previous quarter; however, this quarter's decline (of 0.8%) was less than the ten-year average of 3.1%. If we use graphics as an indicator, the industry seems to be recovering from the floods in Thailand.

Team Group Inc., one of the leading memory manufacturers in the world, continues to make breakthroughs in over-clocking memory modules. Not only the new Team Vulcan series is making its entrance into the increasingly diversified and complete over-clocking product line, but also new 8GB memory modules are rolling out as a member of Xtreem, Dark and Vulcan series. The high clock speed and low timing design improves system operation performance dramatically, making it the perfect choice for players looking for extreme performance.

Intel is ready to top off its Desktop Board Extreme Series 7-series "Panther Point" lineup with the DZ77RE-75K. Its most characteristic feature is Thunderbolt I/O. Along with a handful other high-end socket LGA1155 motherboards featuring the 10 Gb/s interconnect, the DZ77RE-75K will be launched early next week.

To a very large extant, the DZ77RE-75K resembles the DZ77GA-70K, which Intel topped its Desktop Board "Panther Point" lineup with. In fact, the two share the same PCB design. The only distinguishing feature of the DZ77RE-75K is the presence of a mini-DisplayPort+Thunderbolt connector, and a DSL3310 Thunderbolt controller driving it, in tandem with Intel FDI. The DSL3310, unfortunately, is a slim variant in Intel's Thunderbolt controller lineup, and only takes advantage of PCI-Express 2.0 x2, so Thunderbolt might not perform to its fullest.

Designed to meet the needs of SMB and SOHO for multi-task processing performance, efficiency and reliability, the new Acer TravelMate P243 add to the mix a pleasant yet practical design. All details have been fine-tuned by Acer to offer the optimal user experience whether at home or on the go.

The new TravelMate P243 series takes advantage of the third generation Intel Core processor with Intel Turbo Boost Technology ensuring smart performance that adapts to users' needs, giving a significantly faster performance to speed through demanding tasks and boost productivity, while saving energy. In addition, these processors provide built-in capabilities for enhanced multimedia creation and enjoyment.

"iQ by Intel," launched today as a public beta, is a new publishing platform curated by researchers, engineers and visionaries at Intel. The site, accessible here, is inspired by technology trends of how people discover and share content online. iQ is focused on the larger global impact of technology on our world.

Specifically, it serves as a discovery tool that narrates technology's influence and effect on "Media," "Life" and our "Planet." It's here to remind us of how fast we're moving as a global culture, to be cognizant of how far we've come as humankind and to reflect on where our planet is headed in the 21st century. The iQ platform was created to spotlight how people are using technology in inspiring ways, and its mission is simple: Share and source content that inspires, educates, entertains and helps all of us to better understand our modern world.

Dell announced today it is expanding its client virtualization solutions with the introduction of the first virtualized 2U rack workstation enabling up to four concurrent professional graphics users to work from a single workstation from virtually anywhere. The Dell Precision R5500 rack workstation is the first four-GPU (graphics processing unit) configuration to be certified by Citrix with GPU pass-through on Citrix XenServer 6 using Citrix XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro, and brings additional security, IT resource optimization and end user flexibility to high performance workloads. This new usage model is designed for customers running 3D workloads in the engineering, medical, media and entertainment, scientific, software development and economic and finance market segments looking to support additional users on a single workstation.

Today's IT managers face a range of challenges from complex business processes to sophisticated security threats. Additionally, a number of industries such as retail, healthcare and industrial are turning to technology to develop innovative solutions to solve the unique challenges facing them in an increasingly connected world. To address these challenges, Intel Corporation has announced the availability of its 3rd Generation Intel Core vPro processor-based platforms for business and intelligent systems.

The enhancements to the Intel Core vPro processor platform provide a more secure platform for business computing and drive the next wave of innovation in intelligent systems. The Intel Core vPro processor-based platforms address the realities of today's business climate, where data integrity and organizational efficiency create a competitive advantage. New capabilities embed security at every layer, including the silicon, without compromising performance. Software innovation allows IT managers to set up and configure systems within minutes to quickly implement compelling solutions. Additionally, the enhanced graphics and secure manageability help accelerate the transition and growth in intelligent systems for the retail, industrial, and healthcare industries.

Intel Corporation today announced the expansion of the Intel Xeon processor portfolio with new products designed to address a broad and emerging set of server requirements and provide IT managers with additional choice and flexibility.

To offer a range of energy-efficient and affordable solutions for server and workstation customers, the company introduced twenty-eight processors across three product families: eight processors from the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 product family and nine processors from the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 product family designed to complement the already available Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family. The company also announced availability of eleven processors from the Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v2 product family.

NVIDIA and Intellectual Ventures today announced that they have jointly acquired a set of patents developed and owned by IPWireless. The portfolio comprises approximately 500 patents granted and pending in the wireless communications area, including essential concepts in LTE, LTE-Advanced and 3G/4G technologies.

Terms of the acquisition, which closed on April 30, 2012, were not disclosed. Ownership of the patents was split between NVIDIA and IV, with NVIDIA licensing the rights to those patents that it did not acquire. As part of the acquisition, IPWireless retains perpetual, royalty-free access to these patents.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced its new additions for the high-end SMB market segment with two 16-drive 3U rackmount Turbo NAS models with up to 64TB storage capacity using 4 TB drives. The TS-EC1679U-RP and TS-1679U-RP, powered by the Intel Xeon processor and the Intel Core i3 processor respectively, are the highest capacity and highest performing NAS products ever developed by QNAP. Both models feature optional 10GbE networking and 6Gb/sec SATA interfaces, achieving incredible 2,000 MB/sec and 200,000 IOPS throughput; delivering sustained ultra-high performance suitable for demanding data center & high-end SMB environments. The new models feature cable-less disk drive backplanes, hot-swappable power supply, and cooling fan modules for maximum reliability and uptime.

Officially unveiled last month, Samsung's sleek and powerful 17-inch Series 7 CHRONOS Notebook has now begun to hit stores in the US. Priced at $1,500, this new mobile offering comes enclosed in a one inch thick brushed aluminum shell, and features a slim bezel Full HD (1920 x 1080) 300nit display, a Core i7-3615QM processor, 8 GB of RAM, a GeForce GT 650M 2 GB graphics card and a storage system made up of a 1 TB hard drive and 8 GB of ExpressCache NAND Flash memory.

The Series 7 laptop also has JBL stereo speakers, a subwoofer, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Intel WiDi (Wireless Display) support, and a battery enabling up to 8 hours of operation. The 17-inch Series 7 CHRONOS runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

HP today expanded its award-winning notebook portfolio with thin and light Ultrabook systems and Sleekbooks packed with the latest technologies for both consumer and business demands. "Building on the success of the HP Folio13 and HP ENVY14 Spectre, we are now offering the most comprehensive Ultrabook portfolio in the industry," said James Mouton, senior vice president and general manager, Personal Computer Global Business Unit, HP. "Our expanded portfolio of HP Ultrabook systems and HP Sleekbooks for both consumers and businesses delivers uncompromised performance, quality and entertainment experiences within distinctive designs."

NEC Japan updated the system configurations of two its ValueStar desktop and Lavie notebook models, the ValueStar L Series, and the Lavia L Series. The new ValueStar L is a conventional desktop, which is powered by Intel Core i7-3770S quad-core processor clocked at 3.10 GHz, with 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, and GeForce GT 435 graphics. Its storage subsystem includes a 2 TB hard drive. A 23-inch full-HD (1920x1080) monitor comes included.

The Lavie L Series, on the other hand, is a 15.6-incher powered by Intel Core i7-3610QM quad-core processor (2.30 GHz with 3.30 GHz Turbo Boost), 8 GB dual-channel DDR3 memory, and Intel HD Graphics. With storage, in packs a 1 TB hard drive, and a Blu-ray XL writer drive. Its 15.6-inch screen packs a resolution of 1366x768 pixels. A digital TV tuner module comes optional. Prices vary with configuration.

Dell today announced that customers such as Morphlabs and Vibrant Media are using Dell microserver technologies based on Intel Xeon processors to power business-critical web 2.0, cloud, and content delivery networks (CDN), as well as high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Driven by the emergence of a growing hardware and application ecosystem, x86-based microservers are rapidly evolving from a niche solution to one with widespread awareness and value.

"We're constantly inspired by the unique ways our customers are leveraging Dell microserver platforms to drive specialized web 2.0, HPC and cloud computing applications," said Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager, Dell Server Solutions. "As the microserver market and ecosystem have matured, customers like Vibrant Media have validated that microservers are a cost-effective, scalable platform in web 2.0 environments."

Lenovo today announced a new series of ThinkCentre M and Edge Series desktops and all-in-ones (AIOs) designed to fit the needs of today's demanding business environment via a range of models featuring a blend of essential features, powerful performance and affordable technology. The new desktops and AIOs not only include the latest generation of Intel Core processors for powerful performance, but also feature the latest in Lenovo design and performance innovations including blazing fast 15-second boot up times, intelligent cooling methods and productive multi-screen functionality.

"Business professionals working in highly productive and collaborative environments need PCs designed with their business needs in mind," said Tom Shell, vice president and general manager, Commercial Desktop Business Unit, Lenovo. "These new desktops give users and IT managers a more productive computing experience, whether it's better multi-tasking, powerful performance or space-saving design."

Intel released its first HD Graphics drivers for Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The drivers are Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.2 compliant, supports HD 4000 graphics, found in 3rd Generation Core processors, HD 3000 and HD 2000 graphics of 2nd Generation Core processors; complete with stereoscopic 3D, DirectX 11 (on compatible models), and flicker-free display rotation.DOWNLOAD: Intel HD Graphics Driver for Windows 8 Consumer Preview 64-bit, 32-bit

Intel Corporation today announced that its board of directors has approved a 7 percent increase in the quarterly cash dividend to 22.5 cents per share (90 cents per share on an annual basis), beginning with the dividend that will be declared in the third quarter of 2012.

Today's announcement is the third dividend increase in the past 18 months. Intel's dividend has increased every year over the past decade and was recently recognized as Dividend Channel's1 "Top Dividend Stock of the Nasdaq 100."

Intel unveiled its third socket LGA2011 Desktop Board driven by its X79 Express chipset, the DX79SR. This model is positioned a notch above the DX79SI, and a couple of notches above the DX79TO. It was first unsuspectingly revealed to the world not by Intel, but NVIDIA, in its GeForce GTX 690 press-shots. The DX79SR covers up a few design shortfalls of the DX79SI. It adds two additional SATA 6 Gb/s ports, driven by a Marvell SE9128 2-port controller, and two additional USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel. The total of four USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel are driven by an unknown 4-port USB 3.0 controller.

Apart from the two onboard connectivity additions, Intel will also include a USB add-on module which packs 802.11 b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth 3.0 interfaces. The package of the board itself will be beefed up a little, with the inclusion of a stylish mouse pad and a thermal probe. To accommodate these features, Intel made a few subtle changes to the board layout, the first and second PCI-Express x16 slots no longer have switches between them, and some capacitors appear changed. With all these, Intel believes it has a shot at capturing the US $299 price-point, which gives it a nice spread from the $249 DX79SI and the $199 DX79TO.

Intel released Intel Media SDK 2012 R2, now supporting Blu-ray MVC, stereoscopic (two-view) video. The new SDK also includes an Open CL sample, allowing developers to make the most of resources available on Intel platforms by supporting the newly released Intel SDK for OpenCL Applications 2012 on both Intel processors and Intel HD Graphics.

Providing developers with a simple API to create media applications using Intel Quick Sync Video, the SDK can enable hardware acceleration to significantly speed up media conversion on 3rd generation Intel Core processors. Developers can download a free copy of Intel Media SDK 2012 R2 here.

Foxconn's Channel brand introduced a new line of fanless compact PCs under the Nano PC brand. The two newly launched models include the AT-5300, which is driven by Intel Atom D2700, and the AT-5600, which is driven by by AMD E-450 "Brazos" APU. The two are barebones, and require at least one DDR3 SO-DIMM module (up to 4 GB) and a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD. Both models measure just 190 x 135 x 38 mm, and weigh about 600 g. Connectivity includes two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, an SD/SDHC/MS/MS Pro/MMC card reader, 802.11 b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, and display outputs that include D-Sub and HDMI. Available soon, the two Nano PC models will be priced under US $200.