This past week Texas Instruments raised the outlook for their sales for the second quarter.  Demand for smartphones such as the Palm Pre along with analog chips helped drive up sales.  TI said on Monday that they expect revenue to be between $2.30 and $2.5 billion.  The previous estimate was between $1.95 and $2.40 billion.

The TI 600MHz OMAP 3430 processor is the core of the Palm Pre.  TI also provides the power management supplies, audio equipment, and the USB silicon used in the Pre.  Earlier this week, Sprint said that the Pre helped them break a sales record.

Texas Instruments competes against companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung, and Marvell.  Intel has implied that they will be getting into the smartphone market by 2011 too.  The Apple iPhone processor is supplied by Samsung but is branded by Apple.

According to CNET, the chip in the Pre is superscalar in design and is based on the Cortex-A8 core.  ARM is the company behind the Cortex-A8.  The 3430 processor has a dedicated level-2 cache that has the ability to execute twice as many instructions per clock cycle over chips in the past.  The graphics accelerator in the Pre is a Powervr SGX 2D/3D.

Las Vegas has been called “America’s Playground” by the movie Ocean’s 11.  Now that Clearwire is preparing to launch WiMAX in the casino city, I’d call it a “nerd’s playground.”  The image above proves that Clearwire is getting ready to introduce WiMAX service into the city, but there won’t be an official launch date announced until later this summer.  Other cities that will be getting WiMAX soon includes Atlanta, Georgia and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

[via Engadget/Clear.com]

Timothy Morse became the CFO and SVP of Altera Corporation back in January 2007.  Before that he was the CFO and General Manager of Business Development at GE Plastics.  He had worked at General Electric for 15 years.  Morse has just been hired to become the CFO of Yahoo! as the replacement of Blake Jorgensen.

Jorgensen left Yahoo! in February and was given a $1.8 million severance package.  The time that Jorgensen left was interesting because he had worked through the unsolicited Microsoft bid and Carl Icahn’s proxy war to have the whole board at Yahoo! replaced.

Morse’s responsibilities will include managing the company’s finance and investor relations.  He will also oversee M&A possibilities.  Morse will be starting on July 1.  Altera Corporation is a semiconductor company.

Monash University student Alexander Vittouris in Australia has designed a concept for a car called the Chevrolet T-REX.  The concept behind the car is the use of non-traditional materials for the design.  The sheet metal of a typical car is replaced by a textile-liberated “skin” on the T-REX.

The in-wheel motors are self-contained which creates a “bolt on” drivetrain solution.  The car also utilizes Michelin’s Tweel technology which gives the car more degree of ride compliancy.

“One of the other ideas incorporated into the design of the T-REX, was the seamless integration of interior and exterior – the exterior material becomes the seating cocoon for the driver and the two rear passengers.  Almost all vehicles, both production and concept, have a disconnection between the notion of the interior and the exterior – this was amongst many of the issues I was looking into,” stated Alexander Vittourius.

The concept was submitted for the Australian Design Award-James Dynson Award.

[via DesignBlog/StudentDesignAwards]

The Sony Ericsson TM717 has been submitted to the FCC, but it has the code name “Elle.”  The TM717 is expected to replace the TM506 since it looks similar and packs more features.  The TM717 also has a AWS 3G network connection option and a 3.2 megapixel camera.  The camera on the TM506 is 2 megapixels.    Depending on the FCC’s approval, we should expect to see the TM717 hit the T-Mobile network in the next several months.

[via Engadget/FCC]

AOL has bought out a local news website called Patch.com.  Tim Armstrong invested seed capital in Patch.com back in 2007.  As part of the deal, Armstrong will not profit from the seed investment he put in.  However, he will receive his seed capital back through AOL shares once the company separates from Time Warner.

Armstrong’s seed capital was made through his private investment company Polar Capital Group.  Another acquisition that AOL announced is Going.com.  The price of both properties were not disclosed.

The full press release is available after the jump.

[via BusinessInsider]

Turner Classic Movies turned 15 years old and they are celebrating by launching a social network.  The social network is called the TCM Classic Film Union and the URL is tcm.com/fan.  The social network has features such as profiles, movie fans, actor and actress fans, and rare photos and video clips centered around Turner Classic Movies.

There are over a million actors, directors, producers, etc. in the database to become fans of.  The TCM social network also has thousands of movies that people can become fans of.  Turner Classic Movies is a part of Turner Broadcasting System inc. and a subsidiary of Time Warner.

Some of the stars include Marlon Brando, John Payne, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, etc.  The classic movies in the TCM social network database include Ada, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, North by Northwest, and Gone With The Wind.

Beware, sushi chefs! At the International Food Machinery and Technology exhibition taking place in Tokyo, one of the highlights was Chef Robot.  This robotic hand can automatically move pieces of sushi around.  Having a robot move around your sushi for you may not be as fun as interacting with a person, but sometimes people prefer to eat fresh sushi in peace and quiet.

[via Ubergizmo/TokyoMango]