271w ago - Intel will ride out any US recession and make a success of Wimax wireless broadband, the firm's chief executive Paul Otellini has told BBC News.

He said: "People turn to computers to improve productivity during downturn, because at the end of the day the computer is a tool for productivity."

Intel is the world's largest chip maker for desktops and laptops.

Answering BBC News users' questions, he said Intel's developing world laptop was better than the OLPC scheme.

Mr Otellini was confident that Intel would not be too badly affected by any recession in the American economy: "Much of our sales growth has have been in emerging markets - India, China and Eastern Europe - and I don't see them going into recession."

But he conceded that the credit crunch was having an impact: "We had a business we spun out into a new company and the launch was held up for five months because of the credit crunch.

"And we only needed a few hundred million dollars."

Mr Otellini also strongly defended Intel's promotion of its low-cost Classmate laptop in developing countries, which was criticised after the firm pulled out of the rival One Laptop Per Child Project.

In response to the suggestion from OLPC's founder Nicholas Negroponte that Intel had...

285w ago - A number of technologies have exploded throughout 2007 from Facebook and the iPhone to the Nintendo Wii.

But what will be making the headlines over the next 12 months?

Here the BBC News website gives its predictions for five technologies that could become big in 2008.

THE WEB TO GO

One of the biggest drawbacks of web applications is that they can only be used when there is an internet connection.

Although mobile working is becoming increasingly common, ubiquitous connectivity is still a long way off.

But there are tools that are beginning to blur the online and offline worlds.

Over the last 12 months a number of technologies that could have a significant impact on the way people use the web.

Search giant Google announced its Gears application whilst Adobe launched Air and Microsoft released Silverlight.

All the technologies have the ability to take rich web content and make some of it available offline.

For example Adobe has shown off an Ebay desktop application built using Air that would allow users to do much of the legwork required in setting up auctions offline.

The next time the user connects to the internet the listing would be posted to the website.

Silverlight offers...

294w ago - Africa needs to embrace wireless broadband as a potential solution to the digital divide, the chairman of Intel Craig Barrett has said.

"It's cheaper, easier and more efficient to communicate wirelessly," he told the BBC News website.

Less than 1% of Africans have access to broadband and only 4% use the net.

The International Telecommunications Union has predicted that the Intel-backed Wimax system could become the dominant mobile standard in Africa.

The continent's geography and political barriers have made it difficult to roll out wired broadband.

There is a shortage of fibre cable links between African countries and very few states have extensive copper wire networks for ADSL broadband.

Mr Barrett, who is in Africa as part of the Intel World Ahead programme, said: "In every African country, except some of the more established economies, cell phones vastly outnumber fixed line phones.

"You always have to put the backhaul channels in - which is why you need an overlaid fibre network.

303w ago - We bring together the most relevant Electronics Weekly content on a range of wireless technologies:

Wireless generally refers to an electronic process which is carried out without the use of a wired connection. Wireless communication is the transmission of information without the need of electrical conductors of any kind. The distances that wireless networks have been known to operate in can range from a few metres to thousands of kilometres.