Friday, August 31, 2012

Samsung slips into AMD's HSA party, may seek parallel processing boost for Exynos

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/samsung-amd-hsa-foundation/

Samsung slips into AMD's HSA party, may seek parallel processing boost for Exynos Trust us, this should ultimately make a lot of sense. As we already know, AMD recently set up the HSA Foundation to promote its vision for better parallel processing -- and especially GPU compute -- in mobiles and PCs. Its semi-rival ARM was one of the first big players to join up, and now Samsung has decided to hop onboard too. Why would it do that? For the simple reason that the Korean company still makes its own chips, based on ARM designs, and we've seen that GPU compute is going to be a big feature in its coming Exynos 5 processor with Mali T604 graphics.

Now, anything else at this point is pure speculation, since we only know about Samsung's HSA membership from the appearance of its logo on a relevant slide at AMD's keynote speech at IFA, and there's no official word on Samsung's intentions. At a bare minimum, the company could simply be firming up friendships and hedging its bets on the future of computing. We wouldn't be surprised, however, if Sammy is looking to work with ARM and AMD to implement further aspects of the HSA philosophy into even more advanced Exynos chips down the line -- chips that are able to use both GPU compute and smaller transistors to achi! eve leap s in performance while also gobbling fewer volts.

Continue reading Samsung slips into AMD's HSA party, may seek parallel processing boost for Exynos

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Samsung slips into AMD's HSA party, may seek parallel processing boost for Exynos originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 1:39 PM

Sharp's IGZO low-power, high-res display technology gets its time to shine at IFA

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/sharps-igzo-low-power-high-res-display-technology-gets-its-tim/

Image

Alongside the slew of 90-inch TVs, Sharp also used this year's IFA to show off something a little less glamorous. Its IGZO technology (that's indium gallium zinc oxide, kids) was developed in conjunction with the Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. According to Sharp, the displays "have a significantly higher translucency [compared to traditional LCD TFT displays]. This improvement means that smaller or fewer LEDs are needed for the backlighting." The result is less power consumption for high-res displays and higher sensitivity on touchscreens, with far less noise to contend with.

The company plans to create three panel sizes to start: 10-inch (2560 x 1600), seven-inch (1280 x 800) and 32-inch (3840 x 2160). Sharp was also demoing a prototype seven-inch tablet (which you can see in the gallery below) alongside the displays. The representative we spoke with wouldn't reveal anything about specific products the company plans to produce using the technology, but did tell us that we can expect to see some IGZO products in 2013. Check out an explanatory video after the break.

Continue reading Sharp's IGZO low-power, high-res display technology gets its time to shine at IFA

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Sharp's IGZO low-power, high-res display technology gets its time to shine at IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 07:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:55 AM

Samsung Galaxy Note II gets early benchmark treatment at IFA

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-early-benchmark-ifa/

DNP Samsung Galaxy Note II gets early benchmark treatment at IFA

Here at IFA, the Galaxy Note II's glossy plastic build is practically fading under the ambush of cameras snapping away at Samsung's booth, but clearly this phone is more than just a (super sized) pretty face, and it's time to take a look at what's under the hood. As mentioned in our hands-on, Samsung upgraded the original Note's dual-core 1.4GHz chipset to a quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos processor. We put the device to the test today to see how those amped-up insides reflect in the Note II's benchmark scores. As you'll see below, Sammy's latest handset fares significantly better than the original Note and the Galaxy S III.

Galaxy Note II

Galaxy Note (international)

Galaxy S III (I9300)

AnTuTu
11,736
N/A
11,960

Quadrant
6,644
3,810
4,454

Vellamo
2,466
901
1,751

SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms, lower is be! tter)
1,330
2,902
1,460

CF-Bench
15,305
N/A
13,110

GL Benchmark Egypt Offscreen
114 fps
N/A
99 fps

Oh, what a difference a processor makes. Clearly the step up to a quad-core CPU is to thank for the large performance delta between the Note II and the last-gen Note, though the international version of the Galaxy S III, with a quad-core 1.4Ghz Exynos processor, also falls behind in Quadrant and other tests. The Note II also trumped its Samsung siblings on the browser-focused Vellamo benchmark, which hints at snappier performance on this phone. The phone's graphics chops look pretty good, too, if the GL Benchmark score is any indication. Our testing got cut short before we could run SunSpider, but we'll add that figure shortly.

Update: We've added SunSpider as well -- the device clocked in at 1,330ms, which is a hair faster than the Galaxy S III.

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Samsung Galaxy Note II gets early benchmark treatment at IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 07:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:55 AM

Blue Microphones Mikey Digital portable microphone for iOS devices hits shelves, offers mobile tracking for $100

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/blue-microphones-mikey-now-shipping/

Blue Microphones Mickey Digital portable microphone for iOS devices hits shelves, offers mobile tracking for $100

The second of Blue Microphone's CES trio has broken cover. Mikey Digital, a mobile recording peripheral for the iPad and iPhone is now available at select retailers. If you're in need of a refresher, the retooled version of the original Mikey tracking unit connects to you Apple smartphone or tablet via the dock connector. The mic houses the same two condenser capsules found on the more robust Snowball and Yeti USB mics while sporting built-in sensitivity control and CD-quality analog / digital conversion. A 3.5mm audio jack is included for monitoring or either stereo line-in or mic-in -- if you're looking to tack on a few more gadgets when recording with the 230-degree rotating kit. USB pass-thru allows for charging while in the midst of a session and a LED clipping indicator keeps tabs on volume levels to ensure the best results. If all of that sounds too good to pass up, the Mikey Digital will hit your wallet for $99.99 just as soon at you can enter your shipping info.

Continue reading Blue Microphones Mikey Digital portable microphone for iOS devices hits shelves, offers mobile tracking for $100

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Blue Microphones Mikey Digital portable microphone for iOS devices hits shelves, offers mobile tracking for $100 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:54 AM

Acer announces Aspire M3 and Aspire V5 laptops with touchscreens

Source: http://www.engadget.com/acer-aspire-v5-touch-aspire-m3-touch/

Acer announces Aspire M3 and Aspire V5 Ultrabooks with touchscreens

In case you haven't noticed, there are two kinds of Windows 8 devices on display at IFA this week: laptop / tablet hybrids, and already-announced laptops, refreshed to include touch screens. Acer's newest two Ultrabooks fall into that second category: the company just announced touch-enabled versions of its Aspire M3 Ultrabook and Aspire V5 thin-and-light (pictured). For now, Acer isn't saying a word about price or availability, so for now you'll have to be content with a few spec details, all embedded after the break.

Continue reading Acer announces Aspire M3 and Aspire V5 laptops with touchscreens

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Acer announces Aspire M3 and Aspire V5 laptops with touchscreens originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:54 AM

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