Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet Arrives Early
Good news for customers who have pre-ordered Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet: a Barnes & Noble spokesperson told CNET that they will receive it today, two days ahead of schedule. The customers who have pre-ordered the device for in-store pickup on the other hand will be able claim theirs as scheduled.
The Nook Tablet has also reportedly hit some of Barnes & Noble’s retail stores a day early, as well. The Nook Tablet is a follow-up to the company’s popular Nook Color and a direct competitor to Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire. Available at $249, features a 7-inch display, a 1 GHz dual-core CPU, 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage memory (further expandable via memory cards).
Intel unveils 50-Core MIC Chip, Xeon E5
Meanwhile at the SC supercomputing show in Seattle: Intel has unveiled the first of its MIC chips, the 50-plus-core Knights Corner and its Xeon E5 “Sandy Bridge” processor. Rajeeb Hazra, general manager of Intel’s Technical Computing Group, showed a Knights Corner chip and informed the audience at a press conference that the company has some chips running test systems. He also later showed off a test system running at the conference.Intel’s Many Integrated Cores (MIC) initiative—of which Knights Corner is a part—and the new Xeon E5 processor, a fast-ramping product that already has found its way into 10 of the systems on the list of the 500 most powerful supercomputers, is reportedly expected to help the company achieve their goal of reaching the exascale level by 2018.
Sony, EMI, And Universal in it for Google Music
It’s crunch time for the launching of Google Music and the company has continued to try and close licensing deals. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google will likely launch with Universal, EMI as well as Sony. Sources from the Music industry are reportedly saying that Google has worked tirelessly to close as many deals as possible in time for the service’s launch.Songs will reportedly cost 99 cents to $1.29, though Google may offer discounts. On Friday, Google was reported to have signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group but had yet to sign Warner Music Group or Sony Music Entertainment. Last week it was also reported that EMI had also penned an agreement. Even if Google will be unable to sign Warner, it will be able to launch the long-anticipated service with three of the top four record companies – a big deal if it plans to compete with Apple’s iTunes, the largest seller of songs on the Web.
