Apple's A6 processor may come courtesy of TSMC, Samsung left to wonder why

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/apples-a6-processor-may-come-courtesy-of-tsmc-samsung-left-to/

Apple's fondness for anorexic handhelds knows no bounds, and if this alleged deal with the Asian foundry holds water, expect to see its waistband tighten further. Rumoured back before the iPad 2 launch, the house-that-Steve-built's reportedly been eyeing Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp to produce an 'A6' for its upcoming iPhone refresh. While it's easy to dismiss this purported move as a direct diss to Samsung, what's more likely is that Cupertino's engaging in a competitive bit of size does matter -- specifically, the A5's 45nm process. A transition to newer, lower power 28nm ARM chips would give Jonathan Ives' employer a distinct market advantage, dwarfing even TSMC's current 40nm in the process. While it's all still just speculation for now, only time and an iPhone 5 tear-down will tell for sure.

Apple's A6 processor may come courtesy of TSMC, Samsung left to wonder why originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink This Is My Next  |  Ars Technica  | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Summary only...

NVIDIA teases a pair of mystery laptop GPUs running Crysis 2 (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/nvidia-teases-a-pair-of-mystery-laptop-gpus-running-crysis-2-vi/

Did someone say controlled leak? NVIDIA's come clean about the fact that it has some news to share tomorrow, but until then, it's being oh-so demure about what it has up its sleeve. Behold, an unnamed GPU -- two of 'em, in fact! -- running Crysis 2 in SLI mode. What you see in the short clip below is the DirectX11 version of the game running at 1080p resolution with tesselation enabled and a high-resolution texture pack. All told, the game appears to play smoothly, even with the settings cranked to the max. So just what is this thing? Looks like we'll find out in the morn, folks.

Continue reading NVIDIA teases a pair of mystery laptop GPUs running Crysis 2 (video)

NVIDIA teases a pair of mystery laptop GPUs running Crysis 2 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Summary only...

Acer's AC700 Chromebook coming to the US this month for $350, 3G model arriving later this summer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/acers-ac700-chromebook-coming-to-the-us-this-month-for-350-to/

Samsung's beautiful-but-pricey Series 5 Chromebook too rich for your blood? Fear not, cloud-dwellers. Acer just announced that its Chromebook, dubbed the AC700, will go on sale in the states this month for $349.99, to be followed by a 3G-equipped version later this summer. If you're part of the niche market that would happily live in Chrome OS in exchange for instant-on access, be advised that it runs on an Atom N570 processor and 2GB of RAM, and has 16GB of flash storage, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, two USB 2.0 ports, and a 4-in-1 memory card reader. We'll be curious to see how the build quality compares to the Series 5's, though for some people, that $70 price gulf will render that a moot point. PR after the break.

Gallery: Acer AC700 Chromebook

Continue reading Acer's AC700 Chromebook coming to the US this month for $350, 3G model arriving later this summer

Acer's AC700 Chromebook coming to the US this month for $350, 3G model arriving later this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Summary only...

Panopticlick Determines How Unique and Trackable Your Browser Is, Even with Cookies Turned Off [Privacy]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5815856/panopticlick-determines-how-unique-and-trackable-your-browser-is-even-with-cookies-turned-off

Webapp Panopticlick examines how unique and trackable your browser fingerprint is even if you've disabled cookies in your browser.

Developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the webapp uses information your browser shares with web sites by default—like installed plug-ins, system fonts, screen resolution, and so on—to create a fingerprint and test how difficult it is to track your browser across the internet. My browser's fingerprint, for example, was unique among the 1.6 million browsers already tested by the site.

For more information—including ways you can defend against this kind of fingerprinting—check out this PDF.

Panopticlick | EFF

Read More...

Summary only...

Video Calling App Fring Now Offers Four Way Group Chat [Video]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5815864/video-calling-app-fring-now-offers-four-way-group-chat

iOS/Android/Symbian: Fring, one of our favorite mobile apps for VoIP calls, just released a new iPad app that supports four-way video calling between the iPad and non-iOS users. They also updated their iPhone, Android, and Symbian versions to match.

Fring for iPad beats Facetime for multi-party video calling, and is the only iPad app that allows iPad users to talk to more than one other person without an Apple product. Fring allows you to drag names from your contacts list directly into the chat window to start a session with them. Drag in up to four friends and you'll be able to talk to them all at once, and they'll be able to chat with the group. Plus, since Fring supports iOS, Android, and Symbian devices, there are no limitations on who you can chat with.

Fring | iTunes App Store via Fring Blog

---

You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter.

Read More...

Summary only...