(Press Release) VIA Technologies, Inc, has announced that its net sales for September 2001 were about NT$ 2.6 billion (US$ 75 million approximately). Meanwhile, on a sequential basis, sales revenues from January to September 2001 were about NT$ 26 billion – an increase of 14.72% compared to 2000.
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(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics said on Wednesday it will use Microsoft Pocket PC software for a new range of handheld computers that will come out next year. The news comes as Samsung prepares to launch its first handheld computer on the U.S. market, based on Microsoft's rival software system Palm Inc. Samsung has so far only produced handheld computers for the Asian market. The new product to be produced with Microsoft software is aimed at a global audience. The Microsoft link is another blow to Palm which has consistently lost ground to its aggressive rival. In Europe alone, Palm's market share shrunk in the second quarter to 42.3 percent from 65.4 percent a year earlier, according to Gartner Dataquest.
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(Press Release) SOYO Computer, Inc. today announced the SY-K7V DRAGON-plus -- a revised model of its award-winning board for AMD CPUs, which features VIA's KT266A chipset and a new memory controller to boost performance. The new SOYO SY-K7V DRAGON-Plus motherboard features the VIA Apollo KT266A chipset, which supports AMD Athlon/Duron CPUs, running at up to 266MHz FSB. Combined with an enhanced memory controller that compliments the higher performance of DDR memory over DRAM, the DRAGON-Plus enhances memory performance as much as 48 percent over prior models. The new SOYO DRAGON-Plus is also bundled with a Smart Card reader for future electronic commerce and network security applications. The Smart Card reader occupies an empty 3.5-inch drive bay and includes all appropriate cables and driver software. Smart Card (PC/SC) standard technology not only provides secure access to systems, businesses will benefit from the multitude of other smart card applications/functions such as secured transaction procession and payments, secured storage of private information, medical and citizen information, and personal contacts.Single board list price for the DRAGON-Plus motherboard is $175 U.S. Discounts are offered to volume buyers and system builders.

The SY-K7V DRAGON-Plus comes in an ATX form factor. The board includes five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant), and one Universal AGP Pro slot with support for 1x/2x/4x mode graphics. With its AGP Pro slot, the DRAGON-Plus motherboard offers a dedicated, high-speed port for the movement of large blocks of 3D texture data between the PC's graphics controller and enhanced system memory. This makes it a speedy board for real-time video editing, graphics processing, video streaming, speech recognition, and a variety of mainstream applications. The DRAGON-PLUS's memory is expandable with three 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets, and support for up to 3GBs of DDR memory.

The SY-K7V includes an on board CMI 8738 audio chip, which provides 6-channel speaker support with 3D surround sound. On board 10/100 Mbps Ethernet functionality is also available with VIA's PHY controller. The board's Ultra I/O Chip includes two RS-232 serial ports (16550 UART compatible); one parallel printer port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode), one FDD port (supports 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD); an IrDA port with optional cable for transceiver, and six USB ports (2 rear, 4 front). The board's Ultra DMA IDE ports provide support for four independent channels, which can accommodate eight IDE devices, including two for RAID.

SOYO has integrated a number of enhanced system management capabilities into the SY-K7V DRAGON-PLUS motherboard. The embedded Promise FastTrak 100 Lite controller supports RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring). The CPU core voltage, FSB and multiplier can all be adjusted via Award PCI BIOS setup. Support is also included for on-board hardware monitoring and includes SOYO's Hardware Health Utility to streamline PC system management. Among the many hardware monitoring functions are CPU fan speed and temperature monitoring; WOL (Wake On LAN) function to simplify network management; software power-off controls and remote and/or alarm power-on control.
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(Press Release) Dell has announced its latest wireless-ready corporate notebook that enables mobile users to move about without worrying about a connection or a recharge. The Latitude C600 series, Dell's mainstream notebook for corporate users, is its best selling notebook ever with over one million shipped since its launch in September 2000. The new C610 features Mobile Intel Pentium III processors-M, fast ATI Mobility RADEON video graphics, and effortless connectivity via three integrated communication options: wireless networking, traditional wired networking and dial-up modem.
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(Press Release) IBM has selected Turtle Beach as its exclusive provider of sound cards for newly built PCs. Turtle Beach's Santa Cruz is now available in selected systems, including some NetVista models.
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