SANTA CLARA, California: Chipmaker Intel Corporation is scheduled to launch its next-generation Core 2 Duo, or “Conroe”, chip for desktop PCs on 27 July.

The company will also introduce a dual-core Itanium chip “Montecito” meant for high-end servers on 18 July.

The launch of these products marks the company’s efforts to retrieve lost market share and to arrest dwindling earnings.

A spokesperson for the company said the company plans to introduce multiple chips, more than 10, over the next 30 to 60 days. These will include a standard desktop version of Conroe and an advanced edition for gamers and other combinations of features and prices. The chip should be available in the market almost immediately as the company has already started shipping it to certain channels and manufacturers, the spokesperson said.

Intel wants to take advantage of the holiday season as well as the plans of IT departments of many companies for upgrades of their systems in the fourth quarter.

The launch of Conroe will coincide with the introduction of the chipmaker’s proposed VPro platform, which is a bundle of features for businesses. The company has been selling bundles of hardware and software for mobile desktops and Viiv for home entertainment. It now wants to extend the concept to business desktops.

Intel had in June launched its Xeon 5100 range of chips, called Woodcrest, meant for servers. The other product in the pipeline is the Merom chip for mobile notebooks, which is expected to debut in August.

All these new chips are built on the Core technology, which is a successor to the company’s Netburst class of processors.

Analysts say Intel has accelerated the launch schedule of its chip product line following the dismal performance in the first quarter when it missed estimates. It is also expected miss the forecast for annual revenue too.

Industry watchers say the company will continue to face stiff competition from rival Advanced Micro Devices as several high-end PC users had preferred AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 chips, while low-end users have the benefit of buying its inexpensive chips.

Intel says Core 2 Duo chips will deliver better performance with lower power consumption than Pentium D chips. It has also said that it expects the Core family of processors to deliver around 20 per cent better performance than AMD’s chips.

More needs to be done to help “socially isolated” people switch to digital TV, a consumer panel recruited for media panel Ofcom has said.The independent panel expressed “strong concerns” over how digital switchover was being managed and that “vulnerable households” had been “poorly targeted”.

It also said Digital UK, in charge of the process, was not properly funded.

The panel also said there was confusion over who was “ultimately responsible” for the switch to digital.

It said the “complex multi-organisation arrangement for oversight, management and delivery” limited the effectiveness of plans put in place to facilitate the change from analogue to digital by 2012.

The panel’s concerns relate to a draft copy of Ofcom’s latest report which sets out the next steps in digital switchover.

In a letter to panel chairman Colette Bowe, Ofcom chairman David Currie agreed the issue of social isolation had been “seriously underplayed” in the early version of the report.

‘Practical assistance’

However, it said it had no control over Digital UK’s funding or the division of switchover responsibilities.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the Government was “committed to ensuring that those who need practical assistance in making the switch will get it”.

“Around 6.5 million households will be eligible for this assistance, covering the vast majority of those who will have the most difficulty during switchover.”

In response to the Ofcom panel’s comments regarding accountability, the DCMS said it “made sense” for two Government departments to have joint responsibility for switchover.

“The DTI (Department for Trade and Industry) has responsibility for the important role the manufacturing and retail industries have to play, whilst DCMS oversees the broadcasting industry.”

In response to the panel’s comments regarding its funding, a Digital UK spokesman said the non-profit body believed it had “the resources necessary to implement switchover effectively”.

He added that its current national PR campaign - fronted by “Digit Al”, an animated robot voiced by the Little Britain comedian Matt Lucas - had already had “a positive effect on public awareness”.

You wander around your local video game store, a little bored, just looking for something new. Nothing catches your eye, and then suddenly BAM! You feel like you’re on the moon. They couldn’t have possibly made something this silly, could they? Of course they could. I mean, someone made a peripheral that moves the power button on the back of the PS2 to the front. I’m not even kidding.
So now apparently the market needed an Xbox 360 RF Adaptor. While I can see some of the uses, I guess if you want to bring your console over to someone else’s house who isn’t as technically up to date as you this would be a good idea. The price isn’t bad either at US$10. The very idea of it just sends cold chills down my spine. Are they people out there who picked up a $400 console and the only way they have to hook it up is through their coaxial input?
I guess there are enough people in need that making one made sense financially. I wonder if we’ll see one for the PS3. How long until there are so few TVs left without at least RCA connectors that this won’t be worth releasing?

We’re still digging through gigs of CES photographs when we happened upon one rather juicy bit we thought we might share. We found this little number over at the Blu-ray booth — which, given the circumstances, we can only assume was paid for and set up at least in large part by Sony. Yes, you’re reading that placard right (we had to zoom in from another angle since the lighting made it hard to catch a decent shot). Is it true? Is the Sony PlayStation 3 that we’ve all now come to know and love (or not) merely a “conceptual design?” Because if it is they must be further behind than we originally anticipated.

“Tired of picking up and putting down a scanner every time you need to scan a bar code?” reads the copy for Socket’s new Cordless Ring Scanner Series 9, and it’s like they’ve totally been reading our minds. Seriously, even though we haven’t done the bar code thing since our pre-Engadget days at the corner grocery, we definitely see the advantages of a light, wearable, Bluetooth scanner for the repetitive drudgery of inventory management. The CSR Series 9, which will available through direct channels next month, is made of ruggadized LiquidMetal (since it’s trademarked it must be good tech) and consists of a small Class 2 laser tacked to a finger ring and tethered to a wrist-mounted Bluetooth transmitter. Included keyboard emulation software allows the bar code data to be directed into empty fields of any PC application, and even lets the user remotely enter carriage returns and tabs. If this product’s non-consumer status wasn’t obvious to you already, the $1200 price tag should help clear things up.