Acer has unveiled its latest ultrabook with the Aspire S5, an ultra-slim device that measures only 15mm at the maximal point. It weighs less than 1.35kg (less than 3 lbs) and is built with a 13.3-inch LCD panel. In addition, it features the Acer Green Instant On technology for fast boot and resume, and Acer Always Connect, which lets users manage their multimedia and data on all their devices.Acer Always Connect gets users online faster than conventional connections, the vendor said. With their Facebook, Twitter and Outlook email accounts open, users can see updates instantly upon resuming. Furthermore, Acer Always Connect can wake up the Aspire S5 from a remote device like a smartphone. Access to all documents, music, pictures and video files is fast and always available.Adorned with a curved chassis in Onyx Black, the Aspire S5's cover rim wraps around the system body like a protective shell. A magnesium-aluminum alloy cover and palm rest provide a slimmer and sturdier form, while the metallic brushed detail presents subtle elegance.The Aspire S5 is Acer's first ultrabook to feature a smartly designed MagicFlip I/O port panel concealed just below the hinge. This design feature enhances the overall slenderness and streamlined form of the S5. When needed, a press of the MagicFlip key opens the panel to reveal a selection of I/O ports: HDMI, USB 3.0 and 20Gbps Thunderbolt.The Aspire S5 features an Intel Core processor, SSD storage for speed and increased shock resistance, professionally-tuned Dolby Home Theater v4, long battery life via the PowerSmart battery pack with a three times longer life cycle. The battery will hold up to 80% of its original capacity after as many as 1,000 recharges.The Aspire S5 will start shipping in the second quarter of 2012.Acer Aspire S5 ultrabookPhoto: Company

Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry's broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, has expanded its distribution relationship with Microsemi Corporation to include programmable logic solutions including the company's SmartFusion customizable system-on-chip (cSoC) products, low-power field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and related evaluation boards."Digi-Key is pleased to offer Microsemi's comprehensive portfolio of cSoCs and FPGA solutions to our global customer base," said Mark Zack, vice president of semiconductors, Digi-Key Corporation. "Microsemi has a legacy of innovation and leading edge programmable logic solutions. We're delighted to provide our customers top-of-line innovations essential to aerospace, defense and security, enterprise and communications, and industrial and alternative energy markets. SmartFusion and IGLOO are just a few of the products that Digi-Key will be stocking to support these markets.""Digi-Key's Internet-based distribution model provides engineers worldwide with quick access to our SoC solutions and online support information," said Michael G. Sivetts III, senior vice president of Distribution Sales for Microsemi. "This is extremely important when designing new products in applications where time-to-market is a gating success factor. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Digi-Key and enhancing the availability of our solutions to procurement professionals and engineers globally."Microsemi's products include individual components, integrated circuit solutions as well as low power FPGAs and mixed signal FPGAs that enhance customer designs by improving performance and reliability, battery optimization, reducing size or protecting circuits. The principal markets the company serves include implanted medical, defense/aerospace and satellite, notebook computers, monitors and LCD TVs, automotive and mobile connectivity applications.Microsemi SoC's product lines are available for purchase now on Digi-Key's Programmable Logic page and on Digi-Key's global websites: http://www.digikey.com/

TongSon Electronic Co., Ltd. launched brand-new CCTV accessory AV-Sender201. It can make your DVR having Audio Recording using simple way with lowest cost. AV-Sender201 is Coaxial Video & Audio Sender. It can be Transmitter, and also can be Receiver. When it is Transmitter, it would be Microphone. You just put it nearby the camera, it can receive sound of peripheral 10 Meters around the camera. The transmission distance of coaxial cable is around 400~500M. After test, AV-Sender201 also can be used for Fiber optics transmission, the distance can be 1.5KM~3KM. Even video is loss, audio will keep on recording. It adopts bandwidth management technology to transfer Video and Audio at the same time. Digital Transmission can reduce interference noise, and maintain good video and audio quality.In traditional CCTV system, most of DVR only have real-time video recording, it didn't record Audio. If you want to have Audio recording, you need to buy microphone separately, and must having another cable to transmit sound signal to DVR. Now, you can use One coaxial cable to transmit real-time Video and Audio through TongSon's AV-Sender201 simultaneously from camera to DVR. Furthermore, AV-Sender201 is built-in high sensitivity microphone. You don't have to purchase microphone for cameras. It's suitable for existing CCTV system to add Audio recording without extra cable construction. Therefore, TongSon's AV-Sender201 can make your Video Recording having sounds to be powerful evidence.

In 2004, Prolight Opto was founded with the goal of promoting solid-state lighting technologies and keeping our beloved Earth evergreen. As one of Taiwan's professional manufacturer in LED packaging, Prolight Opto dedicated its research, development and manufacturing towards producing high reliable middle and high power LED light source.In recent years, people have become more and more conscious of the environmental issues and carbon emissions, therefore the traditional lighting market is gradually accepting LED light source as an energy saving solution and have made the LED market growing at a rapid rate. In order to satisfy the future demand, Prolight Opto has recently invested billions of dollars to build a new plant. The new facility will not only boost the capacity and provide a more comfortable working environment, but it will also provide a better service to the customers.Prolight Opto is scheduled to move into the new plant in January, 2012. The capacity will then increase from 30kk to 60kk and about 100 new positions will be created. The new expansion demonstrates the company's confidence in meeting the enormous demand of the future LED market. In addition, Prolight Opto anticipates the new facility will elevate quality and standard in research, development and manufacturing to bring greater value to the customers.Prolight Opto will move into the new plant.

LSI Corporation announced that it is demonstrating to OEM customers the TrueStore RC5100 read channel for hard disk drives (HDD). The RC5100 is the industry's first 28nm read channel and features a new low-density parity check (LDPC) iterative decoding architecture, which enables HDD manufacturers to achieve increased areal density, higher yield and lower power consumption for HDDs.A critical piece of technology for increasing the capacity of hard drives, a read channel translates the magnetically encoded information on the hard disk drive to electronic signals that can be understood by the host computer."The amount of digital data being generated worldwide continues to grow at an exponential rate, creating new storage challenges for client and enterprise customers alike," said Phil Brace, senior vice president and general manager, Storage Peripherals Division, LSI. "We pride ourselves on being first to market with new process technology that extends HDD capacity, accelerates performance and provides our HDD OEM customers with a time-to-market advantage."The RC5100 is designed to support notebook, desktop and enterprise HDDs. It supports low power management features, which are critical to extending battery life in notebooks and to reducing energy costs in datacenters. The RC5100 also supports advanced new technologies such as shingled magnetic recording (SMR), a key technology for achieving next-generation areal density points."LSI has a consistent history of innovation," said Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America. "This 28nm collaboration with TSMC is a continuation of that proud lineage."The RC5100 is the latest addition to the LSI TrueStore family of ICs for hard disk, solid-state disk and tape devices, including highly integrated storage system-on-a-chip (SoC), read channels, preamplifiers, serial PHYs and hard disk drive controller IP. Together with TrueStore preamplifiers and serial PHYs, the RC5100 creates a complete data path solution for HDD manufacturers.The TrueStore RC5100 is expected to be available to OEM customers in the first calendar quarter of 2012.

VIA Technologies has announced the VIA VB7009 embedded Mini-ITX motherboard. Measuring only 17x17cm, the VIA VB7009 Mini-ITX is a flexible embedded board for POS and kiosks.The VIA VB7009 is a solution offering a range of power efficient VIA CPU choices, including the dual core VIA Nano X2 processor, providing superior flexibility to match customers' embedded computing needs. Paired with the VIA VX900 unified all-in-one media system processor, the VIA VB7009 Mini-ITX embedded board delivers a platform supporting video resolutions of up to 1080p.The VIA VB7009 Mini-ITX embedded board offers a variety of CPU choices ranging from a fanless 1.0GHz VIA C7 to either a 1.6GHz VIA C7-D or 1.2GHz dual core VIA Nano X2 processor. In addition to enabling support for up to 4GB of DDR3 system memory, the VIA VX900 MSP features the VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor.Rear I/O includes one VGA port, four USB 2.0 ports, one COM port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one PS/2 keyboard/mouse port and three audio jacks for line-in/out and mic-in. Onboard pin headers provide support for an additional four USB 2.0 ports, three COM pin headers, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, and LVDS. The VIA VB7009 is fully compatible with Microsoft and the most popular Linux operating systems and is available in a variety of configurations.VIA VB7009 embedded Mini-ITX motherboardPhoto: Company

MIPS Technologies, a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital home, networking and mobile applications, has announced that Android 4.0.3, the latest release of the Android 4.0 platform also known as "Ice Cream Sandwich," is now available for the MIPS architecture.The MIPS port was completed within 24 hours of being released by Google into open source on December 16. The Android 4.0.3 code for MIPS is available for download at http://developer.mips.com/.In January, an Android 4.0.3 over-the air (OTA) update will be available at http://www.ainovo.com/ for existing MIPS-Based Android tablets from Ainol Electronics and will also be pre-installed on tablets that begin shipping as of that time.In addition, the open source release of Android 4.0.3 from Google contains support for MIPS' LLVM technology. Over the past year, MIPS Technologies developed this technology based on its belief that the LLVM open source compiler infrastructure will continue to gain acceptance across the industry as a basis for application portability. Already, LLVM is an underpinning for key Android facilities such as the Renderscript applications programming interface (API). MIPS contributed its technology to the official Android source tree because of its strategic importance for application developers."Following our recent announcement with our customer Ingenic about availability of the world's first Android 4.0 tablet, we are pleased to enable all MIPS licensees to bring the latest release of Android to their consumer devices such as DTVs, set-top boxes, automotive infotainment and service gateways, as well as MIPS-Based smartphones and tablets," said Gideon Intrater, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies.

NTI announced today "NTI Cloud", a simple solution to establish a multifunctional online storage. NTI Cloud debuts intuitive GUIs on PC platform through a secured login domain (www.NTIcloud.com) and the App made available for Android and iOS devices. For as little as $4.99 a month, users can enjoy the fun and convenience of storing data in their own personal cloud and the peace of mind with access to their data anytime, anywhere they are internet connected."While personal cloud service is getting more popular today, the users would never get to find one that does it all." said Bill Yao, President/CEO of NTI. "What makes NTI Cloud outstanding from the competitions is not only the simplicity we were able to create for the users, but also our unique experience in backup methodology; our users can rest assured that their data is just as safe as stored in their own PC hard disks".Main features of NTI Cloud:• Ease of Use: NTI Cloud offers a simple and intuitive user interface in 27 different languages.• Platform Compatibility: NTI Cloud is compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and a wide range of mobile platforms and browsers.• Compatible with NTI Software: NTI Cloud works in conjunction with latest version of NTI Backup Now EZ, an award winning data backup software for PC. It is also currently featured as bundled utility software in Toshiba's Canvio 3.0 Portable HDD.• Access via Mobile Devices: NTI Cloud App is available free for Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad, and all Android OS compatible devices. Users are able to upload, download and share files, access to personal photo albums, play music or videos right at their fingertips.Pricing and availability:NTI Cloud starts online storage with a free 30-day trial with 1GB storage, and $4.99/month for 5GB or $7.99/month for 10GB. Users are offered the option to dynamically grow the online portion up to 1TB (1,024GB) as needed.NTI Cloud can be signed upfrom the web login domain (www.NTIcloud.com). For mobile users, NTI Cloud App can be downloaded from Android Market (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ntius.app) for Android devices and Apple App Store for iPhone, iPod or iPad.NTI Cloud is also available in 27 languages including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Chinese and many more.

AMD has launched the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card for desktop PCs, a GPU based on 28nm production technology. With the arrival of the AMD Radeon HD 7970, AMD has unleashed its new Graphics Core Next Architecture that enables new levels of gaming and compute capabilities - realizing an improvement of over 150% in performance/square mm over the prior generation.The AMD Radeon HD 7970, through AMD App Acceleration, enables high-definition video images and performance improvements for everyday applications. Advancements with AMD Eyefinity technology enable gamers and desktop enthusiasts to connect up to six displays to one graphics card, delivering 3D experiences and 16,000 x 16,000 display resolutions.It is also armed with the latest PCI Express 3.0 standard to enable image quality, and is additionally equipped with GDDR5 memory, enabling accelerated GPU performance. Through its AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power technologies, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 enables higher performance levels while maximizing power efficiencies, the vendor said.The AMD Radeon HD 7970 is available January 9, 2012 from retailers worldwide, with select models starting at US$549.AMD Radeon Photo: Company

MUZEE, leading cloud multimedia solution provider in Taiwan has just announced that its MUZEE.iRadio. Free app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad is currently available for free on the Apple App Store. With this new app, users will be able to tune into over 20,000 radio stations online, based on their genre or even language preference.The Muzee.iRadio app collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated music sources from various online radio stations. With MUZEE.iRadio, no need to waste time on searching music online. You will get the most comprehensive guide that quickly matches your needs. All the users can enjoy non-stop online entertainment and the service with lifetime updates.Key features•Listen to favorite real-time programs of celebrity interviews, world news, fashion updates, talk shows, etc….•Run this app in the background while checking e-mails, texting, chatting or running other apps•Able to connect with social networks, you can share the station you're listening with your friends via mailing them or posting on your Facebook•Unique Internet photo gallery allows you to enjoy watching pictures of your own and 100,000+ fantastic pictures from Internet while listening to the radio•Personalize your own list of favorite radio stations as "My favorites", never miss the hottest hits & new release songs•Check recently played radio stations in "Recent" page•Search for radio stations by simply key-in any word of a station name•Browse organized stations by "genre" or "region", the quickest way to learn new languages and cultures•Recommended local top hit stations•See what's playing right now•Top 100 stations recommended by all the listeners. You may rate stations and share your comments too•Support multitasking with iOS4.0 or above•View station schedules if available•Choose an alternative stream or bit rate if available•Works with either Wi-Fi or 3G networks•Automatically memorize your last playing station•Support iPad and iPhone 4 Retina display•Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPadFor more information and to download the MUZEE.iRadio. Free, please visit http://itunes.apple.com/app/muzee.iradio.free/id473186008?mt=8