U.S. computer chip giant Intel Corp. began on Saturday to build $2.5-bln chip plant in China. This is the first Intel chipset plant in Asia, which involves 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first stage investment. Intel's investment is part of growing foreign investment in China's computer and other technological fields. The project, which was announced in March this year, will go into production in 2010. The project is a part of Intel’s network of eight such facilities worldwide. The new factory, dubbed "Fab 68", will use 90-nanometer technology, an advanced chip-making method that measures its work 90 billionths of a meter, the most advanced technology that the U.S. government has licensed for export, Paul Otellini, Intel's president and chief executive officer, said at a press conference in Beijing in March.

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The Japanese government on Friday urged people to be careful while wearing the popular Crocs clogs or imitations on escalators after 40 people were said to have their shoes caught, with one little girl injured. A consumer safety group reported 40 incidents in which people, mostly children, had Crocs stuck on escalators from late August until early this month. One five-year-old girl broke her middle toe and three of her toenails were ripped off after her shoe was stuck on the moving stairs, said the group, the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation. Six other people were mildly injured including children as young as two, it said. The remaining 33 people reported that their shoes were damaged.

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The SiSM672/SiS968-based ESPRIMO Mobile V5515 laptop made by Fujitsu Siemens is considered a multi-functional laptop with the latest technologies. It comes with a 15.4-inch TFT LCD display and the whole system is only weighted 2.7kg. By supporting UMTS, it provides the ultimate mobility and the most efficiency to all the business users. The SiSM672/SiS968-based ESPRIMO Mobile V5515 supports Intel Core 2 Duo, Core Duo and Celeron M processors. It supports DDR2-667 memory up to 2GB. The SiS proprietary Mirage 3+ graphics engine, combining with Vertex Shader 2.0 and Pixel Shader 2.0 technologies, enables the ESPRIMO Mobile V5515 to support the visual effects of Windows Vista Business when playing video games or watching animation.

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Kyocera Corp. Japan has prototyped a module using polycrystalline Si solar cells that achieved a high 18.5% energy conversion efficiency. The company has displayed the 18.5% conversion cell before, but this is the first time that it ever exhibits a module, Kyocera said. The prototyped module uses the above mentioned back contact design cell. Inserting a black back sheet behind the cells and employing a thinner design for the wiring called busbar, Kyocera made the overall module look black. This is to meet the increasing needs for black modules, which give minimal impact to the appearance of houses, when installed, Kyocera said. The company did not reveal the energy conversion efficiency and the output of an overall module.

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Volvo today unveils the world's first plug in-and-go hybrid vehicle which can be charged from any household socket, then switched to its 1.6 litre petrol engine when the battery runs low. It will travel pollution-free for 62 miles for under $2 after a three-hour charge from the mains. The Volvo ReCharge has the advantage over standard electric cars of being switchable to petrol power. The Volvo ReCharge produces 66 per cent lower carbon emissions than the best hybrids available today and comes with a top speed of 100mph and acceleration of 0- 62mph in nine seconds. The petrol engine cuts in automatically when 70 per cent of the battery power has been used up, and immediately begins to recharge the battery cells as well as power the car. The driver has the option to switch to petrol earlier - for instance on a motorway - to save battery capacity for driving through the next town.

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OCZ Technology today announced the toughest and fastest additions to its award-winning lineup of flash drives. The all-new ATV and ATV Turbo flash drives from OCZ Technology are ruggedized storage solutions for professionals, students, and gamers on the go, and are built to handle whatever rough terrain you encounter. The shock-proof ATV features mainstream speeds offering consumers an affordable option and was designed to safely accommodate a wealth of important data and media files. The ATV Turbo takes speed to a whole new level for performance enthusiasts and boasts the fastest speeds on the market with read rates of up to 35MB/ per second and write rates of up to 30MB/per second! These premium are also optimized for Windows Vista Ready Boost, offering true performance advantages to this latest operating system.

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Siemens VDO Automotive AG and Microsoft Corp. will join forces to develop in-vehicle communication, information, entertainment and navigation products. This new generation of automotive products will be designed to meet the industry's growing demand for innovative, flexible and affordable solutions. Working together, Siemens VDO and Microsoft will be able to deliver these advanced solutions to market much faster than the typical automotive industry's product development cycle. The first milestone in the collaboration is a multimedia platform that Siemens VDO is developing based on Microsoft Auto. This platform will make it possible to integrate functions and portable devices from the field of consumer electronics more closely into the vehicle as soon as 2009.

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Olympus has announced its new model to the Olympus µ [mju:] - μ1200. Olympus μ1200 adopts the same weatherproof construction as recently launched Olympus μ780 and μ830 models. The new μ1200 includes a very cool and interesting feature ‘Smile shot’ mode that is able to detect your smiles automatically. The “face & back “function allows to capture the face and back ground of the subject clearly. The Face detection function and SAT (shadow adjustment technology) allows you to adjust the face as well as the back ground to a great extent. When using the ‘smile shot’ function the Olympus μ1200 records the image in 3 MP resolutions.

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Mitsubishi Motors Corporation is to introduce three concept cars at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show. Each car is a different expression of the three pillars of Mitsubishi Motor's vehicle strategy: driving pleasure, reassuring safety and environmental responsibility. Based on the i MiEV, the pinnacle of Mitsubishi Motors's environmental technology, the i MiEV SPORT maximizes the sporty possibilities of the zero-emissions electric vehicle. The high power and environmental performance of its electric motors make it an exhilarating drive that delivers superior environmental performance.

The Mitsubishi concept-ZT showcases an advanced level of driving pleasure, safety and environmental responsibility — Mitsubishi Motor's vehicle strategy — wrapped in a realistic package. Under the hood, a newly developed fuel-efficient, 2.2-liter clean diesel engine is mated to the new Twin Clutch SST (Sport Shift Transmission). Mitsubishi concept-ZT also features advanced active safety as well as passive safety technology, such as its pop-up hood.

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To cater to users who require high-performance optical drives that can enable high resolution movie playback and high capacity data backup, Asus has released the next generation high-speed DVD rewriter – the ASUS BC-1205PT Blu-ray Drive. The BC-1205PT is a BD-ROM/DVD±R/RW/CD-RW drive that is capable of reading data from and writing data at 12X DVD+/- write, 4X DVD+/-R (DL) and 5X DVD-RAM speeds. This innovative drive utilizes a with a SATA interface that provides users with five times faster data transfer rates when compared with current DMA33 standards.

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Vigor Gaming Computer which provides the ultimate adventurous and thrilling gaming experience to its customers has launched the Atlantis the most sophisticated and powerful notebook ever. Powered by dual Nvidia GeforceGO 7950 GTX graphics cards with discrete 1GB DDR-3 video memory employing SLI Technology, the Atlantis delivers ultra-high performance in games and brings stunning, high-definition, superb picture clarity. Depending on the application, Nvidia SLI Technology can deliver as much as twice the performance of a single GPU. The Atlantis Classic, in many ways the very definition of a desktop replacement, features desktop-class Core 2 Duo processors from Intel for uncompromised performance.

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Epson Toyocom Corporation today announced the commercial development of a new optical low pass filter (OLPF) for digital cameras. This OLPF features a new structure that enables the uniform separation of light rays across the visible spectrum. Digital camera pixel counts continue to climb, and market demands for higher image quality are on the rise. An optical low pass filter is often provided on digital cameras to combat moiré patterns. Conventional OLPFs employ a construction containing three quartz plates. The three-quartz plate system, however, does not provide uniform light separation characteristics at certain wavelengths, and thus not all moiré patterns are eliminated.

Epson Toyocom's latest OLPF employs a new structure wherein a wide-band phase retardation film is sandwiched between a pair of quartz plates. This design provides uniform light separation at all wavelengths of visible light and is thus able to eliminate moiré patterns across the visible spectrum. The new OLPF from Epson Toyocom is also thinner and lighter than the conventional structure because it requires only two quartz plates.

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The Brighton net has launched a series protective leather case for iPhone. Protective Leather Case for iPhone has micro suede inner lining and protects your iPhone from bumps and scratches.

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A new line of JVC full HD LCD televisions- 37-inch LT-37X898, the 42-inch LT-42X898 and the 47-inch LT-47X898 featuring the company’s second generation high-speed LCD technology was announced today. The new flat panel sets feature JVC’s Clear Motion Drive II technology with a 120 frames per second (120Hz) frame rate, double the typical rate, to deliver crisp fast action images. To further enhance performance, JVC’s CMD II TVs use a 10 bit IPS LCD panel, which renders more than one billion colors for rich, natural color reproduction, provides natural gray scaling and provides 64 times smoother gradation than does an 8 bit panel. Each set’s sound package includes MaxxAudio, a suite of five psychoacoustic DSP technologies that compensate for the limitations of small speakers. The sound package also includes a 20-watt amplifier, JVC’s Twin Oblique Cone speakers, Advanced Hyper Surround Plus, and JVC’s Smart Sound maintains a constant volume level as content changes (such as from program material to commercial). All three JVC LCD TVs include three HDMI v1.3 inputs, one RS-232 interface, one PC input, one Smart Video input; two component inputs, one S-Video input, three AV inputs, one optical digital audio output and one fixed audio output. Specifications include a contrast ratio of 2000:1, 4.5msec response rate, 500cd/m2 brightness, and a 178-degree viewing angle.

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The new remote control Beo5 remote from Bang & Olufsen is a fully-flexible and personalized remote that can handle operation of any product combination, even products with features and functions that we do not know yet.

Bang & Olufsen Beo5 remote has a new LCD colour display with a programmable touch-sensitive screen of chemically hardened front glass. This lets you activate functions that are relevant for your particular product combination by pressing directly on the screen. There are 12 of these so-called dynamic buttons that can be named or moved around as the customer pleases.

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