IonPlatform
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NVIDIA to buy significant stake in VIA?
Rumor has it NVIDIA is currently talking to VIA Technologies about purchasing a large stake in the company, to the tune of around 300 million new shares each priced somewhere in the range of NT$9 and NT$12 ($0.27 and $0.35 US equivalent) apiece, for a grand total of approximately US $81 million to $105 million. Don't put too much stock into this at the moment, as none of this is confirmed -- indeed, the last time we heard such murmurings was also sourced from DigiTimes, who doesn't have the best of track records. That said, the two companies have worked together before and do have the Ion platform connection. With Intel talking a lot of sass and litigation lately, we wouldn't put past NVIDIA to cuddle up with a close friend.[Via Electronista]
Intel rips into NVIDIA's Ion platform
Intel and NVIDIA aren't exactly hiding their differences with each other these days, and it doesn't look like that's about to change anytime soon, especially when it comes to NVIDIA's turf-encroaching Ion platform. According to a document apparently now making the rounds in some circles, Intel not only says that NVIDIA is simply reusing an integrated graphics chipset designed laptops and desktops, which will "in turn leads to higher costs as well as high power consumption," but that NVIDIA is overstating interest in Ion from OEMs, saying that "as of this writing, no customer has publicly disclosed plans to design Ion-based products." Intel reportedly further goes on to say that "NVIDIA's Ion HD playback may not be as good as NVIDIA claims," and even if Ion is more powerful, "neither gaming nor video transcoding are relevant to netbook and nettop users." As if that wasn't enough, Intel closes things out by saying that since it'll be releasing its own update platform by the end of the year, "the window of opportunity for Ion is very short." Of course, there's still no indication that any of this will lead to a hard break between Intel and NVIDIA, although NVIDIA does at least now have VIA to fall back on.
