Tech News

Koreans will be able to purchase feature-rich robots at reasonable prices _ between $1,000 and $2,000 _ beginning late next year.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) announced on Wednesday (Oct. 26) that it plans to market three types of network-based robots next October at prices they say won’t scare off customers.

“The robots can be that cheap because most of their software and programs are not incorporated into the machines,” Information-Communication Minister Chin Dae-je said.

“Instead, they come from outside _ the super computers that will provide software and programs to network robots through a high-speed Internet pipeline,” he added.

The wheeled robots will offer such various applications as cleaning rooms, health-care programs, Internet connections, home monitoring or reading books while kids are sleeping.

The always-on mechanical servants, some of which have the ability to re-charge electricity automatically, can also order Chinese food and pizza by connecting to the local information network.

The robots will be operated under the mobile Internet connection. Subscribers of the fixed-line high-speed Internet services can sign up for the wireless Web offerings for 10,000 won a month after installing an access point, which will cost 10,000 won.

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IBM has unveiled details of the unnamed processor that will slot into Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console due out on Nov. 22.

The processor, which is based on IBM’s 64-bit PowerPC architecture, comes with three cores, or calculating engines, that each run at clock speeds greater than 3GHz, IBM said.

The cores, based on the PowerPC design, connect into a shared 1MB L2 cache. Overall, the chip has 165m transistors, takes up 168 sq. mm of space and was built with a 90nm manufacturing process.

IBM and Microsoft engineers worked together over a two-year period beginning in 2003 to design the three-core processor specifically for high definition gaming and entertainment, the company said.

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Google Base

You may have seen stories today reporting on a new product that we’re testing, and speculating about our plans. Here’s what’s really going on. We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Sitemaps. We think it’s an exciting product, and we’ll let you know when there’s more news.

Google Blog