NIM Quetta 6th MCMC 8June2009-22 August 2009

Shilajit-Asphaltum

Shilajit is Shilamolecular weight organic compounds and paleohumus, naturally exuding from steep rocks in many mountain ranges especially in Himalayan and Hindukush ranges of Indian Subcontinent. Today, Shilajit is understood to be a remnant of vegetational fossils that has undergone a high amount of metamorphosis due to temperature, moisture and the pressure of the earth.
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The Himalayan mountains are understood to have been formed from the collision of the Sub-Asian and Indian continents about 50 million years ago. During the collision dense vegetation comprising entire rain forests are understood to have been trapped under millions of tons of pressure, which slowly changed this vegetation into a rich bioactive material, called Shilajit. Thus Shilajit represents originality of ancient vegetation and purity of non-exposure to any harmful fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide and other pollutants.
For morde detail follow the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=190309070421

Shilajeet-Asphaltum

Shilajit is Shilamolecular weight organic compounds and paleohumus, naturally exuding from steep rocks in many mountain ranges especially in Himalayan and Hindukush ranges of Indian Subcontinent. Today, Shilajit is understood to be a remnant of vegetational fossils that has undergone a high amount of metamorphosis due to temperature, moisture and the pressure of the earth.
For further detail see the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=190309070421

The Himalayan mountains are understood to have been formed from the collision of the Sub-Asian and Indian continents about 50 million years ago. During the collision dense vegetation comprising entire rain forests are understood to have been trapped under millions of tons of pressure, which slowly changed this vegetation into a rich bioactive material, called Shilajit. Thus Shilajit represents originality of ancient vegetation and purity of non-exposure to any harmful fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide and other pollutants.
For further details follow the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=190309070421

Russia plans to station troops in the Arctic

Russia plans to turn the Arctic into its “leading strategic resource base” by 2020 and station troops there, documents showed on Friday, as nations race to stake a claim to the oil-rich region.
The country’s strategy for the Arctic through 2020 adopted last year and now published on the national security council website says one of Russia’s main goals for the region is to put troops in its Arctic zone “capable of ensuring military security”.
The strategy also calls for the “creation of (an) actively functioning system of the Federal Security Service coastal guard”, in a sign that the KGB’s successor agency seeks to tighten its control of the region.
Following the publication of the strategy, the Security Council quickly moved to allay possible concerns that Russia was seeking to flex muscles in the region.
“The issue of the Arctic’s militarisation is not on the agenda,” a spokesman said in written comments to AFP on Friday.
“The Arctic region is becoming a most important arena for Russia’s relations with foreign partners in the area of international and military security.” According to the strategy, the Arctic should become Russia’s “leading strategic resource base” between 2016 and 2020.
To that end, the country should finalise the borders of the Russian Arctic and ensure “Russia’s competitive advantages in exploration and transportation of energy resources” are realised between 2011 and 2015, the document said.
Scientists say that global warming is opening up Arctic resources for exploration, prompting nations with Arctic coastlines to stake a claim to the resource rich region.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Stoere this week that the scenario of Nato war games dubbed the “Cold Response” in Norway had raised eyebrows in Moscow.
“We are surprised that the games that are currently being conducted in the Norwegian waters are dedicated to the scenario of the aggravation of a conflict regarding access to resources,” he said.
Russian envoy to Nato Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday the Western military bloc should refrain from making inroads in the region.
“Nato has nothing to do in the Arctic, the alliance is unable to melt the Arctic ice,” he said in televised comments.
Five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States dispute the sovereignty over parts of the region, which has been estimated to contain around 90 billion untapped barrels of oil.
Moscow in 2001 submitted a request to the UN to extend its territory to the Laminose Ridge, a mountain chain running underneath the Arctic.
Russian scientists in 2007 planted a flag on the ocean floor beneath the North Pole in a symbolic bid to stake the Kremlin’s claim over the region.

Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies it will invest more in biofuels.

Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation. Executives at its annual strategy presentation said Shell, already the world's largest buyer and blender of crop-based biofuels, would also invest an unspecified amount in developing a new generat¬ion of biofuels which do not use food-based crops and are less harmful to the environment.
The company said it would concentrate on developing other cleaner ways of using fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. It hoped to use CCS to reduce emissions from Shell's controversial and energy-intensive oil sands projects in northern Canada.
The company said that many alternative technologies did not offer attractive investment opportunities. Linda Cook, Shell's executive director of gas and power, said: "If there aren't investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won't put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewables [which made money] we would put money into it."
Friends of the Earth (FoE) criticised Shell for freezing investment in renewables such as wind in favour of biofuels. "Shell is backing the wrong horse when it comes to renewable energy – biofuels often lead to more emissions than the petrol and diesel they replace," the campaign group said.
Shell has about 550 megawatts of wind farm capacity around the world, enough to power a city the size of Sheffield when the wind blows. Last year, it pulled out of the 1,000MW London Array project, the joint venture to build what would be the world's largest offshore wind farm, in the Thames Estuary. Former project partner E.ON has yet to decide to continue with the £3bn investment needed.
The company has predicted that by 2025, 80% of energy will come from fossil fuels and 20% from alternative energy sources. Yet it is spending just over 1% of its budget on alternative technologies. Over the past five years, only $1.7bn of the $150bn it has invested has gone towards alternative energies.

Nowruz-New Persian Year

Nowruz is the new year which is celebrated with great festivity in Iran and Afghanistan. It is an event which provides a chance for the families to get together and see the relatives. Nowruz, or the "new day", marks the start of the Persian solar calendar and falls on the vernal equinox, which is this Friday. It has been celebrated in Iran and other parts of Asia for thousands of years. At Nowruz you eat a huge meal with your family, and then for the next 12 days the whole country shuts down as everyone visits their relatives. At every stop you have to eat from their Nowruz table - that almost always means sweets."
The table is the symbolic centre of the Nowruz celebrations. On top of a beautiful tablecloth are laid auspicious objects to bring health, prosperity and luck, including apples, garlic, vinegar, berries and the aforementioned wheatgrass. Just before the moment of the equinox, family members - each wearing at least one new piece of clothing - gathers round the table. At the minute when the sun crosses the equator they say a prayer while passing rice and coins from hand to hand to, again, bring prosperity. After wishing each other a happy new year they tuck into the sweets, washed down with glasses of black, sugary tea.
Every Persian meal starts with naan-o-paneer-o-sabzi - sprigs of fresh herbs such as dill, mint, flat-leaf parsley and coriander, alongside small cucumbers, spring onions, radishes, walnuts and sheep's cheese - all waiting to be rolled in strips of flat bread and eaten. After 12 days of visiting family, the whole of Iran, weighed down with stoves for tea, kebabs and rice, heads out to picnic, throw out the bad luck (and wheatgrass) and bask in the spring. If it's not possible to get out into the countryside, the patches of grass at the centre of roundabouts are regularly commandeered.

UN warning about new web domains

The United Nations warned that the planned introduction of multiple new web domains – adding to the likes of .com and .net – will spark trademark rows, confuse consumers and undermine public trust without tough new rules to curb abusive practices by “cybersquatters” and domain registries. The World Intellectual Property Organisation raises its concerns in a letter to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the non-profit US-based group that manages the internet addressing system. Its plans to allow companies and public sector organisations to create their own top-level domains, such as .pepsi or .worldbank, could result in hundreds of such domains compared to the 21 now authorised. This would present a “nearly unmanageable task” for trademark owners to monitor abuse, says Francis Gurry, WIPO director-general. Each new top-level domain gives so-called cybersquatters a chance to register a web address using someone else’s trademark or name, in the hope of selling it to the legitimate owner at a high price or making money from advertising on the site.
The problem has been exacerbated by practices such as automated domain name ‘tasting’ – registering sometimes millions of domain names during the free trial period allowed by current rules to see which sites bring in the most “pay-for-click” advertising revenue. ICANN has agreed in principle that WIPO will handle challenges by trademark holders to proposals for new top-level domains. But the UN agency says stronger rules are needed to deter usurpation of trademark names after top-level domains have been registered, targeting abusive practices by registrars that “cause or materially contribute to trademark infringement”.
These would include deliberately or knowingly registering web addresses that violated trademark rights or failing to put in place reasonable procedures for protecting such rights. Sanctions for breaching the rules could extend to injunctions to cease registrations of particular names or even cancellation of the registrar’s contract with Icann.
Separately, WIPO said cybersquatting disputes filed with its arbitration centre reached a record 2’329 last year, bringing to over 14,000 the total number of cases handled by the centre under a cheap and quick disputes procedure introduced by Icann a decade ago.
Complainants in 2008 included companies such as Samsung and BMW, and personalities such as film star Scarlett Johansson and Arsenal footballer Cesc Fàbregas.
The WIPO centre, which arbitrates disputes for all the existing top-level domains and for 57 country domains, accounts for about 60 per cent of cybersquatting cases filed worldwide.

Russia to re-arm and boost its nuclear forces

Russia said it would re-arm its military and boost its nuclear forces in response to the expansion of NATO to its western frontiers and the increased threat of international terrorism. Russia perceives Nato’s eastern expansion, coupled with US plans to deploy a ballistic missile shields in eastern Europe, as a threat to its national security. The creation of a modern army was crucial to protect Russia against outside aggression and underpin the growing of the economy and wellbeing of citizens, said Russian President.
Mr Medvedev admitted that the war with Georgia last summer had exposed shortcomings in the Russian military that should be rapidly redressed. Although Russia’s military campaign in Georgia was successful, the war exposed the army’s lack of modern equipment and the top-heavy bureaucracy. Russia has since launched plans to transform the army into a lighter more agile force. It has also raised hackles in NATO by establishing military bases in Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and announcing plans to base part of its Black Sea fleet on the Abkhazian coast.

Hunt for Planets like earth

The launch of the Kepler spacecraft from Cape Canaveral in Florida marked the beginning of the most ambitious hunt for planets like ours in distant solar systems.
The Kepler telescope will spend three-and-a-half years staring deep into a starry region of the Milky Way, in the direction of the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, in the hope of spotting Earth-sized planets as they pass in front of their stars.
Every half hour, Kepler will record the brightness of 100,000 stars using a 95 megapixel camera built by the British firm e2v. The camera is so sensitive, it could spot the imperceptible dimming of a car headlight as a fly wanders across it.
The mission will focus its attention on planets in the "Goldilocks region" of space, where conditions are just right for liquid water to exist. Some of these worlds could potentially be home to life as we know it.
"If Kepler were to look down at a small town on Earth at night from space, it would be able to detect the dimming of a porch light as somebody passed in front," said James Fanson, project manager at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Though the Kepler mission should reveal Earth-sized planets in habitable orbits around stars, it will not be able to tell us if they are home to alien life. For that, we will have to wait for future missions that can analyse the atmospheres of the alien worlds Kepler finds.

GOCE-Gravity and Ocean Circulation Explorer

The European Space Agency and its engineers launching most important satellite known as the Gravity and Ocean Circulation Explorer, or Goce. This is being blasted into space on a Russian SS-19 missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome near Arkangel.
Once in orbit the £200m satellite – constructed by the European Space Agency, Esa - will swoop over the atmosphere to measure Earth's gravity with unprecedented accuracy. The data it returns will be vital to scientists trying to understand the impact of climate change on Earth, and in particular for climate researchers who are seeking to understand how oceans transport heat around the planet. "Gravity varies depending where you are on the planet," says Professor Marek Ziebert, of University College, London. "And those variations have an effect on how the oceans circulate. Goce will provide crucial information that will allow us to gain a new understanding of how the oceans behave."
But Goce is also distinctive because of its elegant design and its covering of silver-blue solar cells. It has been labelled the Ferrari of space probes by its manufacturers, Thales Alenia Space Italia while Volker Liebig, Director of Earth Observation Programmes at Esa described the craft as "a jewel of innovations".
Liebig added that Goce has been designed to fly at an extremely low orbital altitude, just 250km (155 miles) above Earth, where it will encounter friction from the thin atmosphere: "For this reason it has an eye-catching aerodynamic shape and will actively compensate for the air drag by using the finely controlled thrust of its ion engine."
The probe's T5 ion rocket was built by QinetiQ in the UK and will be fired constantly throughout its 20-month mission in order to keep Goce in its correct orbit. At the same time, computers will send 10 messages a second to its engines to ensure the probe orbits at the right height. Goce will also use GPS devices to plot its exact position and a gradiometer, a machine that can detect fluctuations of a million millionth in Earth's gravity.
This data will then be transmitted daily and used to build a model of Earth's shape, one that is accurate to within a centimetre, as well as putting together a highly accurate gravity map of the planet. "Gravity is the force that drives the circulation of the oceans," added Dr Mark Drinkwater, Goce's project scientist. "Until we understand its exact role we cannot predict how the seas - and planet - will behave as the climate gets warmer. That is why Goce is being launched."
Ocean currents take a third of all the heat that falls on equatorial regions and carries it to higher latitudes. One of the most important currents is the Gulf Stream, which scientists fear could be destroyed or diverted by melting Arctic ice. But they need to know all the gravitational effects that influence the stream's course across the Atlantic before they can make accurate predictions.
The problem is that Earth's gravity is not constant. The planet is flattened at the poles, for example, so gravity is stronger there, and weaker at the equator. Gas fields, mineral deposits, groundwater reservoirs and rock strata also produce variations in gravity.
"There are all sorts of wiggles and bumps in Earth's gravity field," said Dr Chris Hughes, of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool. "Each will influence ocean currents, which have a crucial role in moving heat around the world. If we are to understand how climate change is going to affect the planet, we have to have a precise picture of its gravity field.
Once we combine the data we will get from Goce with observations of sea height and ocean current flow - information that is provided by other satellites - we will get a clear idea of what our oceans are doing. Then we will get a better picture of how the seas are changing as the world heats up."

New iPhone

Apple is holding a special event sometime ahead in a week time about new iPhone features. In the past two weeks Apple has introduced new Mac hardware and a new iPod shuffle, for which the company simply issued a press release. The fact that Apple is hosting an event for the iPhone OS 3.0 shows that it will likely involve meaningful changes to the iPhone feature set. One can easily say that news could pave the way for an entirely new version of the phone later this year. In any case, whatever next week's news happens to be, it will mark just the latest significant change to the iPhone since it was first announced more than two years ago. If the company does not change the iPhone's hardware, it will be the first time that a full new version of the handset's software has been released on its own. Last year the company did unveil its software developer's kit - which enabled people to create applications for the handset - but that was tied to the release of the iPhone 3G.

List of Richest People

The business magazine has published a list of billionaire; according to this report the financial crisis has hit the billionaire as well. The billionaire list shrank by nearly a third. The Bill Gates, the Microsoft Legend have lost $18 billion from last year's list, but he still owner of $40 billion and stood on top. Warren buffet and Carlos slim stood on second and third positions with $37billion and $35billion of assets respectively, they have lost $25billion in the previous year.

The Forbes list includes the names of assets owner who possesses more than of one billion US$. In the last year the Billionaire Club was consist of 1,125, now it has shrank to 793 billionaires. The Financial Crisis destroyed $1.4 trillion in wealth of the billionaire.

For the entire list of billionaire from Forbes click the link below or click here :

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/11/worlds-richest-people-billionaires-2009-billionaires_land.html

Apple's new iPod Shuffle

Now Apple's new iPod can talk to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names. Interesting that it's taken three generations of the iPod shuffle to arrive at this place: when the idea of a really small Flash-based player was first mooted, people said Apple wouldn't be able to do it with a small enough screen. So they didn't. Do the screen, that is.How then do you know what song's playing? Apple somehow persuaded people that you didn't need to. You filled it up and then had a load of songs which you put on, yes, "shuffle".
But technology moves on, and rather as Apple dissed the idea of video players before introducing the video-playing iPod, here's the equivalent of a screen for you. The new version has 4GB of storage (enough for the fabled "1,000 songs") plus an intriguing feature called "VoiceOver" - which has a computer-generated voice - male on the Mac, female on Windows, "Comic Book Guy" on Linux.
This also creates the possibilities of creating playlists . What's interesting about this is twofold: it indicates that Apple is thinking "beyond the screen", to audio feedback which it had already on the iPod nano; and it shows how far storage prices have fallen. The 4GB (only) shuffle, all Flash-based, costs $79; the 5GB original iPod cost $399, and used a hard drive. Plus there's the fact that speaking interfaces are getting increasingly popular: first the Kindle, now the iPod shuffle. OK, you wouldn't want to have a book read to you in its computer-generated voice.

New UK Search Engine-Wolfram Alpha

A British physicist has revealed his plan to launch a new internet search engine so powerful that one expert has suggested it "could be as important as Google". London-born scientist Stephen Wolfram says that his company, Wolfram Research, is preparing to unveil the system in two months' time. Known as Wolfram Alpha, the site is an attempt to address some of the deficiencies of current web search by understanding people's questions and answering them directly.
According to its creator, the system understands questions that users input and then calculates the answers based on its extensive mathematical and scientific engine.
Natural language processing – the ability to determine – has long been a holy grail for computer scientists, who believe for interacting with machines in an instinctive way. And that, says Wolfram, is part of the code that Alpha has cracked.
Other search engines, such as Google, compare search terms against billions of documents stored on its servers, before pointing to the pages on which the correct answer is probably kept. Although this method has proved phenomenally successful, many computer scientists have continued trying to create a system that can understand human language.

Control iPod by eye blinking

The researchers have developed ways by which you can control the iPod through blink of eyes or just changing facial expressions. The gadgets specially music players like MP3 players will be using such ways in near future. Engineers at Osaka University have developed a new system for controlling electronic devices that could enable people to navigate through the tracks on their MP3 player simply with a wink or smile. The device - which has been nicknamed the "Mimi Switch" – consists of a small earbud that is capable of measuring movements in the wearer's temple. Different actions or facial expressions result in a variety of actions, depending on how the system is programmed.

"An iPod can start or stop music when the wearer sticks his tongue, like in the famous Einstein picture," suggested lead researcher Kazuhiro Taniguchi. "If he opens his eyes wide, the machine skips to the next tune. A wink with the right eye makes it go back."
The team behind the system suggest that it could easily be integrated into headphones or glasses – and used to control a variety of other electronic devices, like home lighting or even washing machines.
The research paper detailing the Mimi Switch, which was actually published last year in the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, has suddenly resurfaced after being picked up online – but it is far from being the only invention of its kind.

Features of Microsoft's Windows 7

Microsoft's Massive List of Improvements to Windows 7
Microsoft on Thursday released a lengthy list of 36 improvements it plans to make to the release candidate (RC) for Windows 7, though the company did not provide any details on when that RC might actually be available.
The Windows team separated the updates into nine categories, including the desktop experience, touch, and Windows Media Player.
Desktop Experience
Desktop tweaks received the most attention, with 10 expected changes.
Microsoft has incorporated its "Aero Peek" window transparency tool to the ALT+TAB function to give you a better idea of the items you have open on your desktop.
"One can still quickly flip between and cycle through running windows using the ALT+TAB keys, but when more window information is needed Aero Peek will appear," Sareen wrote. "This is triggered by a time delay as you pause while keyboarding through running windows."
The team has also combined the launch and switch function of the Windows Logo button.
With Vista, you can press the Windows Logo button plus a number that corresponds with applications on your taskbar and that application will launch. Now, pressing those buttons will also enable you to switch between programs.
For example, if Outlook is the first application in the queue of running programs, and Internet Explorer is number two, a user can press the Windows Logo and the "1" key, and Outlook will launch. Press Windows logo plus "2" and Windows 7 will switch to the already open program.
"The magic really begins when IE is running with several windows or tabs—holding down the Windows Logo and tapping the 2 key repeatedly will actually cycle through the open IE items off the taskbar (with Aero Peek, of course)," Sareen said. "Letting go simply switches to the corresponding window."
Ever missed a notification? The RC tweaks the alert function by making them more noticeable and adding a bolder orange color. Microsoft also more than doubled the number of flashes a user will see – from three to seven.
The RC will also make it easier to open files with a specific program, now allows for 24-39 percent more icons to be displayed before the taskbar scrolls, and makes it easier to see what files are open when items do scroll, among other changes.

Rocket Biodiesel

"Most rocket scientists are knee-jerk anti-environmentalists. But we're going to run out of rocket fuel at some point, so what are we going to run our rockets on after that?"
The above statement was uttered by Steve Harrington, a leader from engineering firm Flometrics that claim the possibility of using biodiesel as rocket fuel in the future. Yes, the commercially-available biodiesel we see today might be able airplane. It's just a possibility for now though, seeing as the test conducted used what NewScientist describes as a "modest" engine. Biodiesel, however, did provide 820 pounds of thrust compared to the 840 figure exhibited by the more conventional kerosene-based rocket fuel engine, with the possibility of performing better by modifying the rocket setup. The possible usage of biodiesel for rockets has more engineering than environmental benefits though. Biodiesel is reportedly denser than kerosene, so there's more power for the same tank size and amount of fuel.

Sun powered lightings

Do we have a solution for energy crisis in Pakistan and in third world countries. The answer is yes. Perhaps what we are laking is will on the part of our leadership. Pakistan is blessed that it is in the sun belt countries, and Balochistan province has he highest sun shine of avergae 296 days per annum, if solar power is harnessed it can generate enough electricity for Pakistan. In a very simple way, We can overcome energy crisis. Environmentalists are also crying for green technologies. But Sun sends each 10,000 times more energy than required by the earth habitants.
Some companeis are coming up with positive solutions, like IKEA revealed a year ago that solar-powered products are going to be available in its stores, and soon the announcement will come to fruition. You've seen the types before - lights designed for outdoor use that harness the energy of the sun. What's great is that IKEA is offering a variety of styles for people to choose from. There are posts, globes, chains, paper lanterns and lamps among the first wave of IKEA solar-powered lighting which will be available within a couple of weeks or so in stores.
The devices are all equipped with rechargeable batteries that store the energy harnessed from the sun during daytime. At night, the devices switch on their LED lights consuming a lot less energy than incandescent lights, so the power harnessed lasts longer. The products are now showcased in IKEA's web site, if you want to take a look at what you'll get in a few weeks' time.

Make a portable mobile phone charger from AA batteries.

Make a portable mobile phone charger from AA batteries
To make a portable cell charger it depends on what voltage does your phone requires. For 5.6 V you need 4AA batteries of any reputable companies like energizer should be enough. You need a screw driver and a soldering iron and a charger jack. You also need a holder for the 4AA batteries. Unscrew the jack, cut the wires from jack. Take the batteries holder and solder it with jack wires. Put screw back on jack and connect the jack with mobile phone. Put 4AA batteries in the battery holder and enjoy the portable mobile charger where ever you go it is with you.

Atom processor of Intel

Atom processor of Intel is used in netbook and real difference between a netbook and a notebook is the use of an Intel Atom processor. This is smaller, cheaper and a lot less powerful than a Celeron, Pentium or Core chip, but it also runs cooler and provides much better battery life. There are some PCs with Atom chips that the suppliers say are not netbooks — examples include the Asus N10 and Sony's pocketable Vaio P-Series — but generally the distinction holds.
Credit goes to Asus for starting the netbook market in 2007 with the Eee PC 700, which had a 7in screen and was initially targeted at the schools market. RM introduced it to the UK as the MiniBook, running Linux. The idea was that it would be a consumer appliance, like a CD player or TV set: no support would be needed, beyond a reset to factory condition.Another difference is that netbooks leave out the CD/DVD drive, encouraging users to download applications or use web-based alternatives. However, there have been plenty of notebook PCs without CD/DVD drives, going back more than a decade. Examples include Toshiba's Libretto and Portégé ranges, and IBM's ThinkPad X series. But still, as the hardware specifications improve, netbooks are getting bigger and more expensive — more like notebook PCs, in fact.

Netbooks are still 32-bit systems, whereas notebooks are moving to 64-bit version of Windows. Netbooks will typically have 2GB of memory whereas 64-bit notebooks will have 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or more. The question is, how competitive will Intel make the Atom? Will it promote cheap 64-bit multi-core designs? The Atom's very power-efficient Bonnell architecture was developed to help get Intel into new markets for what it calls MIDs (mobile internet devices), and when the Sodaville "system on a chip" version arrives, consumer electronics products. It's intended to slow the advance of ARM-based chips such as the Cortex A8 and A9, which are also aimed at the MIDs/netbook market.
But the way things are going, Atom chips look like displacing sales of more expensive Core 2 processors. This could hit Intel's revenue and, perhaps, its profits. When faced with a similar challenge, Microsoft opted to sell cheap copies of XP rather than expensive copies of Vista. It hurt, but it helped stop Linux from taking over the netbook market. Will Intel take a similar line?