Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL), Intel (INTC), Research in Motion (RIMM), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), Texas Instruments (TXN)

A month ago, Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), introduced a new chip category, the Atom brand, specifically designed for mobile internet devices, or what Intel it calls MIDs. After missing out on the market for cellphone chips, Intel is trying to push this technology and will use a conference in Shanghai to proclaim it as the next large thing in consumer gadgets.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Intel also said “25 hardware companies have decided to make portable World wide web devices using its latest chip technology” for gadgets that are smaller than a laptop but larger than a smartphone. Apparently, the devices will begin appearing in late May and early June on store shelves in China, Japan and South Korea. N.America and Europe distribution will come at a later date.

I find it fascinating that a new category of product is being pushed from the chip level rather than from the manufacturer level. But perhaps manufacturers are bound by chip capabilities and with the Atom, specifically designed to draw little power and thus conserve battery power, it makes sense.

As PDAs seem to have all but disappeared from the market, most of us these days rely heavily on our laptops and mobile devices, separating the functions of both, especially when travelling. One is more for email, the other more for work and browsing abilities. A device that could potentially combine both may be exactly what’s needed. At a $500 price tag, when an Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone or a Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry costs nearly the same, this might just find its place among those on the move.

Intel will not find the field lacking of competition with Qualcomm Inc. (NYSE: QCOM) and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) already improving Web abilities of cellphones and other devices with ARM designs. It might come down to battery vs. calculating power between the two designs.

And perhaps, what many consumers have been hoping for since the launch of the iPhone, with this new Intel chip Apple could finally take the Mac laptop and the iPhone/iPod Touch to crate a device that would combine the favorite functionalities and feature of both into one. Now, that would be nice!

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, AMR Corp (AMR), UAL Corp (UAUA), Delta Air Lines (DAL)

If you’ve a trip planned on United Air Lines, Inc. (NASDAQ: UAUA) over the next couple of days, you may want to call ahead and verify that your flight is still on schedule. According to news reports this day, the airline is going to be performing comprehensive inspections of 52 of its 777 aircraft.

Air travelers have been dealing with delays for the past week as all the major airlines are working to get all their planes inspected and given the “all clear” by the FCC. Last week, we saw major cancellations and delays for travelers flying American Airlines (NYSE: AMR) and Delta (NYSE: DAL) as those two carriers were having scores of planes inspected for potential problems with their wiring bundles.

The United inspections are looking at the fire suppression system in the cargo bays. The company wants to make sure that this system is working correctly, and notified authorities when it discovered that one of the five bottles in the suppression system was skipped over during the last inspection of the system.

United hasn’t released any information yet on just how many flights will be delayed, or if any will be canceled, but I would definitely advocate you double check your travel plans before heading to the airport if you are traveling on United today.

The inspections are expected to last anywhere from 24 to 36 hours, and United has stated that it plans to use other planes in its fleets to handle the passengers whose planes have been grounded, so hopefully everyone will be able to get to their destinations. Whether the flights will be on time is another issue.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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qazsedcft writes “BBC is reporting that Astronomers have discovered what appears to be the youngest planet, being less than 2000 years old. If this proves to be true it could challenge our models of solar system formation.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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psyced writes “Steganography is a technique to encode secret messages in the background noise of an audio recording or photograph. There have been attempts at steganalysis in the past, but scientists at FH St. Pölten are developing strategies to block out secret data in VoIP and even GSM phone calls by preemptively modifying background noise (link is to a Google translation of the German original) on a level that stays inaudible or invisible, yet destroys any message encoded within. I wonder if this method could be applied to hiding messages in executables, too.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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