Saturday, October 16, 2010

AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars

AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars

AMD told us that it wasn't terribly interested in the iPad market, and would wait and see if touchscreen slates took off, but CEO Dirk Meyer changed the company's tone on tablets slightly after reporting a $118 million net loss (on $1.62 billion in revenue) in a Q3 2010 earnings call this afternoon. First revealing his belief that tablets will indeed cannibalize the notebook and netbook markets, he later told investors that he actually expects AMD's netbook parts to start appearing in OEM slates in the next couple of years, and that AMD itself would "show up with a differentiated offering with great graphics and video technology" when the market becomes large enough to justify an R&D investment.

Elsewhere, AMD CTO of servers Donald Newell prognosticated that the number of individual CPUs on a chip won't go up forever: "There will come an end to the core-count wars," he told IDG News. Just as the megahertz race was eventually defeated by thermal restrictions, so too will the number of cores on a chip cease to increase. " I won't put an exact date on it, but I don't myself expect to see 128 cores on a full-sized server die by the end of this decade," he said. So much for our Crysis-squashing terascale superchip dreams, we suppose.

AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year

AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year

The attentive newshounds over at AnandTech have picked out a golden nugget of disclosure from AMD's earnings call last night, citing CEO Dirk Meyer as saying "we will be launching our second-generation DX11 graphics offerings next week." What he's talking about, of course, is the highly anticipated refresh of the Radeon HD 5000 series, which some recent spec leaks suggested would bring a healthy bump in performance. After announcing the new product line next week, AMD promises to flood the market with "hundreds of thousands of units," which will be shipping before the end of this quarter -- meaning you'll have a Radeon HD 6xxx in time for the holiday gaming craze if you really want it. Can't ask anymore than that, now can we?

AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Canon's 60D impresses reviewers, but a challenger approaches (video)

Canon's 60D impresses reviewers, but a challenger approaches (video)

Canon's 60D impresses reviewers, but a challenger approaches

Canon's prosumer line just got a little better, with the 18 megapixel, 1080p recording 60D hitting stores and, now, getting recommended reviews. Photo Blog and Camera Labs have weighed in so far, and both have positive conclusions, most notably regarding that movie mode. The camera will kindly record in 1080p24 in addition to 1080p30, but the autofocus while filming is panned, called "fairly useless" thanks to only happening when you half-press the shutter button, and then taking a few seconds to figure things out -- but that's just like the EOS 7D and T2i. Overall the 60D scores highly and easily bests the 50D it replaces, but the real competition is Nikon's D7000, which interestingly is busting out at retail already, offering a similar price point, similar capabilities, and a magnesium alloy chassis, versus the plastic one on the Canon. How will they compare? We'll just have to wait for the next round of reviews to find out.

Continue reading Canon's 60D impresses reviewers, but a challenger approaches (video)

Canon's 60D impresses reviewers, but a challenger approaches (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Garmin's $23 Chirp wireless beacon brings geocaching thrills to Oregon, Dakota GPS units

Garmin's $23 Chirp wireless beacon brings geocaching thrills to Oregon, Dakota GPS units

Looking for an avenue to join millions of others in geocaching, eh? We know, there's hardly a better way to spend a weekend than by playing a sophisticated game of hide-and-seek, and Garmin's right there with us. If you, like it, are stuck in Kansas with nary a Jayhawk game in sight, this here pebble is the answer to all of your boredom woes. The Chirp is a wireless beacon that's designed to work with any compatible wireless-enabled Garmin handheld (the Oregon, Dakota and the recently announced GPSMAP handhelds are mentioned by name), and once you've set it up to cooperate with your device, it'll automatically transmit program coordinates so other cachers can find each stage of your multicache -- it's touch-and-go in its simplest form. The whole thing measures just 1.3- x 0.9-inches, weighs under an ounce and can be had for just $22.99. So yeah, good luck sticking to Segway polo with an offer like that.

Update: Video after the break!

Continue reading Garmin's $23 Chirp wireless beacon brings geocaching thrills to Oregon, Dakota GPS units

Garmin's $23 Chirp wireless beacon brings geocaching thrills to Oregon, Dakota GPS units originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iomega serves up adorable 1.8-inch External USB 3.0 SSD pocket drives

Iomega serves up adorable 1.8-inch External USB 3.0 SSD pocket drives

Some might say that you have somewhat of a problem when calling a solid state drive "cute," but what do they know, anyway? Iomega's newest batch of external SSDs are easily the most adorable we've seen, as these 1.8-inchers can just about slip into any oversized Fifth Pocket that you may have. Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB sizes, the diminutive drives support USB 3.0 and are built to be lugged around and occasionally dropped, stepped on or used as a stress-relief tool. Specifically, the metal enclosure is engineered to handle drops from up to ten feet, and the 256-bit hardware encryption ensures that only you and your cronies will see what's inside. The company's also tossing in its Protection Suite (loaded with anti-virus, cloning and backup applications), and it'll be hawking these in early November for $229, $399 and $749 from least capacious to most. Oh, and that noise you hear? A hundred million USB 3.0 flash drives getting all sorts of perturbed.

Gallery: Iomega External USB 3.0 SSD drive

C ontinue reading Iomega serves up adorable 1.8-inch External USB 3.0 SSD pocket drives

Iomega serves up adorable 1.8-inch External USB 3.0 SSD pocket drives originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Transform review

Samsung Transform review

With Epic 4G styling, a front-facing camera and a $150 post-rebate price, it's easy to mistake the Samsung Transform for a high-end phone. Don't. The reality is that it's a evolution of Samsung's mid-range Moment and Intercept more than anything else -- you're paying an additional $50 here to get a front-facing camera, an LED flash and a few welcome tweaks, but the same ho-hum performance plus a few new annoyances to boot. Where does it improve and where does it fail? Find out in our full review.

Gallery: Samsung Transform unboxing and hands-on

Gallery: Samsung Transform and Epic 4G, sized up

Continue reading Samsung Transform review

Samsung Transform review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AppleInsider: New MacBook Air 'certain' to be 11.6-inches, may have flash-based instant-wake ability

AppleInsider: New MacBook Air 'certain' to be 11.6-inches, may have flash-based instant-wake ability

Rumors of an 11.6-inch MacBook Air refresh are nothing new at this point, but AppleInsider says it's confirmed a smaller version of Apple's ultraportable is coming at next week's "Back to the Mac" event, and that units are rolling off factory lines right now in preparation for near-immediate delivery. AI also says it's been told that the revised machine will feature a novel new storage system called "SSD Card" that looks like a stick of RAM -- a smaller form factor that would obviously allow the new Air to be even smaller, and possibly sport instant-on wake times, something that's been rumored from other sources this week as well. We'll be at the event live next week so we'll see what happens -- keep it locked right here.

Update: CNET's chiming in with rumors of a "significantly lower" price than the current model's $1,499 starting point, which is always fun to hear -- the catch is that it might still use an older Intel Core 2 Duo chip and NVIDIA chipset, which is far less fun. We'll see!

AppleInsider: New MacBook Air 'certain' to be 11.6-inches, may have flash-based instant-wake ability originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CyberPower gets diminutive with LAN Party EVO SFF desktop family

CyberPower gets diminutive with LAN Party EVO SFF desktop family

Look out, Shuttle -- CyberPower's getting all up in your territory with its new LAN Party EVO series. Introduced today, this foursome of minuscule monsters relies on mITX and mATX motherboards and plenty of high-end internals to deliver solid gaming performance in a desktop that's at least somewhat portable. The Party EVO Mini is wrapped in a Silverstone SG-07B enclosure, while the Xtreme, Commander, and Ultra tout In-Win's Dragonslayer. Aside from integrating its Max Airflow Package to keep things a couple of notches below "Molten Lava," the whole crew is equipped with a 64-bit copy of Windows 7, a three-year warranty and free lifetime phone support. As for specs, the Mini ($1,079) gets a Core i7-870 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770 GPU and a 1TB HDD, while the Xtreme ($799) steps down (oddly enough) to a Core i5-760 and an HD 5670 on the graphics front. The Commander ($999) includes a Core i7-950, 6GB of DDR3 RAM and NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 450 (1GB), and finally, the Ultra ($759) branches out with an AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, ATI's Radeon HD 5670 GPU (1GB) and a full terabyte of hard drive space. So, which is going to be, buster?

Continue reading CyberPower gets diminutive with LAN Party EVO SFF desktop family

CyberPower gets diminutive with LAN Party EVO SFF desktop family originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, October 15, 2010

What is #SMTVO? If you don't know, you probably should; find out here - http://bit.ly/cV9z3J #socialmedia

What is #SMTVO? If you don't know, you probably should; find out here - http://bit.ly/cV9z3J #socialmedia

Thursday, October 14, 2010

HP Envy 17 review

HP Envy 17 review

When it comes to selecting our favorite mainstream Windows laptops these days the HP Envy 14 is pretty much at the tippy top of the list. (Hey, we don't just give anything away to our college-bound readers, you know?) But while the 14-inch version of the magnesium-alloy laptop may have impressed us with its new backlit keyboard and internal organs, we've still been aching to know how the bigger and badder Core i7-powered Envy 17 stands up. With a 1920 x 1080-resolution 17.3-inch display, 1GB of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics, a USB 3.0 port and Blu-ray drive, can you really blame us? There's no doubt that the Envy 17 is one epic desktop replacement, but for $1,599 (the starting price is $1,299) we've got to tell you you're not purchasing perfection. Just what holds back the Envy 17 from being the be-all end-all multimedia monster? We'll divulge all in our full review after the break.

Gallery: HP Envy 17 review

Continue reading HP Envy 17 review

HP Envy 17 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Think not what social media can do for you today; think what you can build in social media (think lifetime value) http://bit.ly/cV9z3J

The ROI of Social Media Is Still Zero; but the Social Media Total Value of Ownership #SMTVO will be HUGE - http://bit.ly/cV9z3J

CHART OF THE DAY: Foursquare's Weekly Checkins Are 5X As Big As Facebook's

CHART OF THE DAY: Foursquare's Weekly Checkins Are 5X As Big As Facebook's

Foursquare is still whipping Facebook in the world of checkins, according to a set of data we've collected for the last month.

Once a week we looked at the checkin stats for three popular restaurants near our office -- Gramercy Tavern, Craft Bar, and Shake Shack. Shake Shack in particular is the sort of place people want to checkin at. You have to stand in line for a really long time, and it has cachet.

Despite Facebook's huge advantage in terms of user base, so far it hasn't beaten Foursquare. Every week for the last four weeks Foursquare's checkins at the below restaurants have been five times as large on average as Facebook's Places checkins.

We charted the number of checkins for each week below. The stats are on Foursquare's restaurant pages and in the "info" section of the places in the Facebook iPhone app.

chart of the day, foursquare vs facebook places, sept-oct 2010

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Social media is not media; social marketing is not marketing; what is the ROI of social? http://bit.ly/cV9z3J

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