Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Intel kills Larrabee discrete GPU, will focus on integrated graphics

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/intel-kills-larrabee-discrete-gpu-will-focus-on-integrated-grap/

Intel's been promising to blow up the graphics market with its Larrabee GPU for over three years now with virtually nothing to show for it, and it looks like the company has finally decided to can the entire project after downsizing it to a "software platform" last year. A new Intel blog post on the matter says the company won't bring a discrete graphics chip to market, and will instead focus on integrated graphics for everyday computing and highly-parallel multicore processors for high-performance computing. Now, Intel's obviously still in the graphics game, and it's already made a strong move towards integrated graphics by building GPUs right into the Atom N470 and much of the Core 2010 line, but on a much broader level the decision to drop Larrabee means that Intel is now essentially pursuing the same strategies as its competitors: AMD is famously behind schedule with its Fusion project but plans to ship ATI-powered hybrid CPU / GPUs next year, and NVIDIA has been pushing its multicore GPU-based Tesla high-performance computing platform for a while now.

We're also curious about how Intel intends to address the gaming market in the future -- its own integrated graphics obviously aren't up to the task, and it's still fighting with NVIDIA over a Core 2010 chipset license, so that's a big question mark going forward as more and more focus is placed on low-power and integrated solutions. We'll see what happens -- it's not too often the death of a vaporware product has the potential to shake up the entire industry.

Intel kills Larrabee discrete GPU, will focus on integrated graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 15:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marvell shows off 10-inch Android tablet at Netbook Summit

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/marvell-shows-off-10-inch-android-tablet-at-netbook-summit/

Unfortunately, we don't know much about this new Marvell powered tablet, but we couldn't resist sharing our impressions of the very svelte 10-inch device. We only got a few minutes to play around with the slate at the Netbook Summit, but we can tell you that it has a brushed metal back and there's an opening on the front for a camera. As for the internals, it's based on Marvell's Moby reference design, which uses its Snapdragon-class Armada 610 processor, and will run Android 2.1 Eclair. The rest will be up to whatever Marvell customer is bringing this bad boy to market -- the Marvell executive that let us catch a glance at the device wouldn't turn it on as he feared we may see the mystery customer's logo. We told you we didn't know much, but from what we saw today it sure looks promising. Now, if only we felt Android was ready for these tablets...

Gallery: Marvell 10-inch tablet

Marvell shows off 10-inch Android tablet at Netbook Summit originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 16:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Four more major laptop manufacturers will use NVIDIA Optimus by the fall

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/four-more-major-laptop-manufacturers-will-use-nvidia-optimus-by/

It's no secret that we've been big fans of NVIDIA's automatic graphics switching Optimus technology, but we've had one major complaint -- there's just not enough systems with it on the market. While ASUS has been employing the technology in most of its new systems, others, like Lenovo and HP, have been quite tight-lipped on the GPU tech. But apparently that's about to change. When we crossed paths with NVIDIA's Vice President of Worldwide Sales Rene Haas at the Netbook Summit, he revealed that at least four more major manufacturers will be using Optimus by the end of the summer. He wouldn't share any details on brands, but he did say that there should be a total of 50 Optimus lappies on the market by the fall. Of course, we don't know how many of those will be made by ASUS or will be Ion 2 netbooks, but it surely looks like the momentum is growing, and we're hoping to learn more at Computex next week. Fingers crossed that we can count the Alienware M11x among them.

Four more major laptop manufacturers will use NVIDIA Optimus by the fall originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 17:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Shadow glimpsed in the wild: 4.1-inch screen, 8MP camera, OMAP3630 processor?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/motorola-shadow-glimpsed-in-the-wild-4-1-inch-screen-8mp-camer/

Leave it to the very same poster who teased the Motorola Shadow's Getting Started manual, wnrussell of Howard Forums, to provide a pretty clear shot of the device itself -- yep, that's a HDMI out port -- and reveal some purported specs. Here's the claimed technical details: 4.1-inch screen, TI OMAP 3630 processor (a 720MHz ARM Cortex A8), 8GB internal storage, 8 megapixel camera. Yeah, we can buy all that, especially since he's clearly got the device in hand -- so now it's up to Verizon to let us know when we can do the same.

[Thanks, Erik]

Motorola Shadow glimpsed in the wild: 4.1-inch screen, 8MP camera, OMAP3630 processor? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 23:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2011 Audi A8 gets factory-installed wireless hotspot option

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/2011-audi-a8-gets-factory-installed-wireless-hotspot-option/

We'd heard that the 2011 Audi A8 would be getting a UMTS modem in mid-2010 to help with things like Google Earth, and it looks like Audi has now delivered that and more -- it's just announced that the car is the first anywhere to be available with a factory-installed WLAN hotspot option. That will apparently let you either drop your SIM card into the car's on-board system or pair your phone with it via Bluetooth, and then share wireless internet access with up to eight WiFi-enabled devices at speeds up to 7.2 mbps -- assuming you actually need any more devices than the two dozen or so that are already built into the car, that is.

Continue reading 2011 Audi A8 gets factory-installed wireless hotspot option

2011 Audi A8 gets factory-installed wireless hotspot option originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 02:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Streak official: exclusive to O2 UK in early June

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/dell-streak-official-exclusive-to-o2-uk-in-early-june/

Let's all feign surprise now, as Dell has just gone official with its worst kept, though perhaps sexiest, secret ever. The former Mini 5 has been christened the Streak and is launching at the beginning of next month. The UK will be getting the first bite at this cherry, with the rest of Europe following soon thereafter and the US a disappointingly distant third with a launch "later this summer." If you've been living under a (Round) Rock, this is Dell's big foray into the smartphone market: a 5-inch supersized Android handset, housing a 1GHz Snapdragon, a 5 megapixel cam, 16GB of built-in memory (expandable to 48GB via MicroSD) and a customized UI. Curiously, Dell's opting to market the Streak as "the ultimate portable tablet pc" and would prefer that this device, albeit fully equipped to carry out cellular calls like a phone, not be called a smartphone.

We got a chance to play with it during a briefing in London recently, and frankly, aside from the snazzier paintjob, there's nothing new to report. Just like the prototype unit we've previewed to exhaustion, the device on hand was running Android 1.6 and Dell's skinning team hadn't yet laid on the goodies that we've been promised. The battery is the same 1,530mAh cell as before, and we even managed to get the browser to crash in the exact same fashion that our own Streak exhibits on occasion. Now that's consistency. We're not being told the specific Android version that the Streak will ship with, but a couple of flavors are being mulled over right now. Till we get more info, we suggest sitting back, relaxing, and perusing the gallery below for the roaring red number that's currently on show. It won't be available at launch -- you can have any color so long as it's black -- but "a range of colors and designs" will swiftly follow to sate any aesthetic concerns. Video and full press release after the break.

Update: The Carphone Warehouse listing for the Streak shows Android 1.6 as the OS with an "OTA upgrade available soon." Pair that with word direct from Dell that Android 2.2 and Flash 10.1 are coming "later this year," and you can connect your own dots [Thanks, Azza].

Update 2: O2's website now has a precise date for us: June 4.

Gallery: Dell Streak official: exclusive to O2 UK in early June

Gallery: Dell Streak official pics

Continue reading Dell Streak official: exclusive to O2 UK in early June

Dell Streak official: exclusive to O2 UK in early June originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 05:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Display busts out 84-inch 3DTV with 3,840 x 2,160 res, we want the 2D version

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/lg-display-busts-out-84-inch-3dtv-with-3-840-x-2-160-res-we-wan/

Yesterday we brought you Samsung's 19 inches of transparent AMOLED goodness, today LG counters with an 84-inch 3DTV boasting UHD resolution and a claim to being the world's biggest of its kind. To be honest, at that size you really can't get away with old reliable 1080p, so it's comforting to see LG's keeping pixel pitch in mind when designing its headline grabbers. In other news coming out of the SID 2010 show, LG is demonstrating a "liquid lens" TV that'll give you glasses-free 3D, though the details of how that works are a bit scarce, while the company's also pushing its IPS wares in a big way, with a 47-inch HDTV, a 32-inch pro monitor, and a 9.7-inch (sounds familiar) smartbook on show. Also at 9.7 inches, we have color e-paper that's slated for mass production before the end of the year, while that flexible e-paper from January is also making an appearance. A pretty comprehensive bunch of goodies from LG, we'd say.

LG Display busts out 84-inch 3DTV with 3,840 x 2,160 res, we want the 2D version originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 05:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola's 4.3-inch Droid Shadow found in a unicorn gym?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/motorolas-4-3-inch-droid-shadow-found-in-unicorn-gym/

Color us highly skeptical of the backstory, but Gizmodo claims to have received a picture of Motorola's rumored 4.3-inch Droid Shadow. The device above was supposedly left behind at a Verizon corporate gym in Washington. As the story is told, a gym employee managed to snap the photo above and identify an HDMI jack, 8 megapixel camera, Snapdragon processor, and 16GB of storage before the handset was remotely locked and the owner returned to claim it. Suspiciously, there's only one photo of the device shown at precisely the same angle as the supposedly leaked "getting started" image seen three days ago -- right, just enough time to cobble together a Photoshop. The refined Motoblur UI seems to align though so who knows... really, who knows?

[Thanks, Aaron]

Motorola's 4.3-inch Droid Shadow found in a unicorn gym? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 06:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M: 'world's fastest' mobile GPU now official, landing in June

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/nvidia-geforce-gtx-480m-worlds-fastest-mobile-gpu-now-offici/

NVIDIA has just announced that the GTX 480M, the mobile re-spin of its extravagantly overpowered Fermi desktop parts, will be arriving in the middle of next month. Touted as the world's fastest mobile graphics processor, this chip will bring 352 CUDA cores and a 256-bit memory interface to up to 2GB of GDDR5 RAM. These are clear and convincing advances over the incumbent Green Team leader, the 360M, but things start to look a little worrying when we check the 480M's clock speeds. The processor speed is nearly halved from the desktop GTX 480, at 850MHz, the memory does only 1,200MHz, and the graphics run at 425MHz -- we didn't know anything worthwhile even operated below 500MHz these days. Either way, you're getting a computing powerhouse, with the 480M's 897 gigaflops comfortably dwarfing its predecessor's 413 and promising almighty tessellation performance. What it all means with regard to keeping your frame rates up while traversing the Terminus Systems, we can't yet say. We'll let the benchmarking gurus figure it out -- go past the break for the full press release and spec sheet.

Continue reading NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M: 'world's fastest' mobile GPU now official, landing in June

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M: 'world's fastest' mobile GPU now official, landing in June originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monday, May 24, 2010

Seagate pairs 7200RPM HDD with 4GB of NAND in 2.5-inch Momentus XT hybrid drive

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/seagate-pairs-7200rpm-hdd-with-4gb-of-flash-in-2-5-inch-momentus/

Just as we surmised, Seagate is taking the wraps off its new hybrid drive, with OEM shipments of the Momentus XT starting today. Hailed as the fastest 2.5-inch laptop drive on the planet, this here device marries a 7200RPM hard drive (250/320/500GB) with 4GB of SLC NAND flash memory and 32MB of cache, and the company's Adaptive Memory technology allows it to store frequently used information on the latter for ultra-speedy access. It can boot up to 100 percent faster than a conventional 5400RPM hard drive, and thankfully for us all, it utilizes a standard 9.5mm-high form factor that the vast majority of laptops use. Seagate also affirms that the drive "operates independently of the operating system and the motherboard chipset," but we're going to hold tight until we see the first real benchmarks (it'll soon be an option in ASUS' ROG G73Jh gaming laptop) before getting all hyped up. In related news, the outfit also announced the world's highest capacity 7200RPM drive at 750GB, with the Momentus 750GB boasting SATA 3Gbps support, an NCQ interface, 16MB of cache and "silent acoustics." No price is mentioned, but you can bet a hefty premium will placed on something this capacious. The full presser, another image and a specs sheet awaits you beyond the break.

Update: The reviews are already pouring in, and at just $155 for the 500 gigger, it's receiving a fair amount of praise.

Continue reading Seagate pairs 7200RPM HDD with 4GB of NAND in 2.5-inch Momentus XT hybrid drive

Seagate pairs 7200RPM HDD with 4GB of NAND in 2.5-inch Momentus XT hybrid drive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung demos 19-inch transparent AMOLED display

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/samsung-demos-19-inch-transparent-amoled-display/

We don't know what kind of display-making genii Samsung has locked away in its R&D labs, but the Korean giant is once again demonstrating a world's first. This time we're looking at a 19-inch transparent AMOLED display, taking the technology up from the 14-inch model we saw live at CES in January. The company has now achieved a 30 percent transparency on its designs, and its ideas for how they may be used are fittingly futuristic. Samsung envisions storefront advertising, à la your favorite sci-fi movie, as well as HUDs for helmets and car windshields -- maybe if TomTom can secure a supply of these screens, the dedicated GPS device can find a way to live on after all.

Samsung demos 19-inch transparent AMOLED display originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 09:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel officially outs Core i3, i5 and i7 ULV processors for those ultra-thin laptops

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/intel-officially-outs-core-i3-i5-and-i7-ulv-processors-for-thos/

We can't say this one is much of a surprise, but it sure is good to get the official details on Intel's latest ultra-low voltage Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. Just as we had heard, the new dual-core CPUs will be landing this June, and though they won't be replacing the current Celeron and Pentium ULVs on the market, they'll certainly provide a more powerful option for the "ultra-thin" category. All the new 32-nanometer Nehalam chips are said to provide 32 percent better performance than previous ULVs, but a 20 percent power reduction than standard-voltage Core 2010 CPUs. And just like those regular Core 2010 processors, these get the same Turbo Boost and Hyper-threading performance advantages. All the processors have TDPs of 17 watts which is what is enabling the 50 percent improvement in thermal performance. That's all the technical details Intel shared this morning, but it shouldn't be long before we up and testing the performance and battery life of these new chips in slim laptops from MSI, Lenovo and Acer. Until then, there's the full press release after the break.

Gallery: Intel Core i3, i5, i7 Ultra-thin

Continue reading Intel officially outs Core i3, i5 and i7 ULV processors for those ultra-thin laptops

Intel officially outs Core i3, i5 and i7 ULV processors for those ultra-thin laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 10:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel to announce dedicated tablet silicon at Computex

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/intel-to-announce-dedicated-tablet-silicon-at-computex/

During this morning's press conference on the new Core i3, i5 and i7 ULV processors, Intel PC Client Group Vice President Mooly Eden revealed that Chipzilla will launch that special "tablet solution" we had heard about at Computex next week. No details were given on this "dedicated silicon for the tablet space," but we can assume that it's going to fall into the Atom line up. Whether it will be an extension of the Moorestown family or just be an outgrowth of the Pineview platform found in netbooks and nettops remains to be seen, but you can bet on us listening up for more info when we're live from Taipei next week. Hit the link below if you want to hear this guy spill the beans.

Intel to announce dedicated tablet silicon at Computex originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia N8 benchmarked against N97, makes it look old and busted

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/nokia-n8-benchmarked-against-n97-makes-it-look-old-and-busted/

Nokia's new hotness, the N8, is starting our week off in fine style. Finest Fones, what looks to be a Symbian-only mobile news site, is reporting its own tests done with the handset that show it comfortably outpacing its predecessor. Of course, in these fog of war-obscured times (before proper hardware is dished out), we can't really be sure of the veracity of what we read, but Symbian^3's newfound ability to exploit graphics hardware seems to be paying off relative to the more primordial ways of the S60 5th software on the N97. The intrepid investigators found a 180 percent performance delta between the two phones in Speedy Go! tests, while the N8 ran through a cycle of FPC bench 3D with perfect 60fps scores each and every time. We won't be convinced by the purported 680MHz CPU inside till we test it out for ourselves with a load of widget-heavy homescreens, but early signs seem to be encouraging.

Nokia N8 benchmarked against N97, makes it look old and busted originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 03:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel Core i5-580M speeding toward a fall release at 2.66GHz?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/intel-core-i5-580m-speeding-toward-a-fall-release-at-2-66ghz/

The Core i5-540M is still quite rare on the ground, but we're hearing word that Intel is already prepping the assembly line for its successor. A new Core i5-580M has been dug up by the sleuths at Notebook Italia, who say it'll run at a default 2.66GHz and ramp up to 3.33GHz via Turbo Boost when needed. Those numbers compare favorably to the 2.53GHz and 3.06GHz of the 540M, and if Intel and company get their timing right,the 580M should be stealing some of that Core i7 thunder just in time for the back to school shopping rush. Won't hear any complaining from us if that turns out to be the case.

Intel Core i5-580M speeding toward a fall release at 2.66GHz? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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