Ultra laptops benefit from new technolgies

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- New chips and new technology displayed at the U.S. Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas may end size and power issues facing ultra mobile computer users.

Intel just introduced more than a dozen computer chips of a reduced size that lets the new models work as fast as their predecessors while using half the power, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday.

Also at the Las Vegas electronics showcase, Sprint Nextel demonstrated WiMax technology it plans to introduce in Dallas and other larger urban areas. WiMax provides wireless Internet that it says works as fast as an office connection.

The most powerful ultra computer units, which look like toy laptops, are heavy and run out of power too soon. The smallest units, which look like portable game devices, do too little and work too slowly.

"Put these two developments together, and you can give people much better tools for mobile computing and Internet," Bryan Deaner, a corporate messaging manager at Intel, told the newspaper.