June
Early June brought the annual Taiwanese tech-fest: Computex. In keeping with the trend that had come to dominate the year, low power processors were the strongest theme at this year's event.
OEMs were keen to show-off new, affordable thin-and-light notebooks based around Intel's new CULV processor, while Intel itself unveiled the next generation of its Atom processor - codenamed Pineview - which would have the graphics processor on the same piece of silicon as the CPU.
ARM and its ecosystem, meanwhile, gave themselves a larger presence than usual at Computex as they strove to bring attention to the smartbook form-factor, which would put an SoC into a mininotebook chassis and to offer mobile phone functionality.
The mobile trend continued after the show. Samsung launched some new smartphones, HP launched a notebook with integrated 3G connectivity and Europe announced that Micro-USB would become the mobile phone charger standard - hopefully ending the waste associated with the many different proprietary chargers currently used.
Intel moved to protect itself from the growing influence of the ARM ecosystem by increasing its stake in low-power graphics designer Imagination Technologies and announcing a strategic relationship with Nokia. Meanwhile it tinkered further with its CPU range by introducing the Core i5 and Core i3 brands.
