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Is NVidia King Of The GPU Arena?
Nvidia’s desktop GPUs accounted for nearly 80 percent of all sales in the segment in Q2 2015, its highest market share ever.
According to beancounters at the market research firm Mercury Research the GPU market is slowly dying.
The latest quarter was a decrease of 11 percent from Q1 2015 and a year-on-year decline of 21.7 percent so Nvidia is the undisputed king of a much smaller kingdom.
Mercury Research notes that the notebook GPU segment also witnessed a decrease to the tune of 34.1 percent year-on-year, mainly due to the continued improvements in the iGPU segment.
However when comparing both number of GPUs sold to partners and a four-quarter average of sales, Nvidia is the Windows and AMD is the FreeBSD.
AMD is dependent on its latest Radeon 300 series of cards to claw back something but at the moment it is looking like Nvidia is unstoppable.
Nvidia has continued to amass more sales over the course of the last year, and with its Maxwell-generation cards now available across all price tiers, it is unlikely has much to worry about from AMD.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/is-nvidia-king-of-the-gpu-arena.html
Web.com Latest Hacking Victim
Hackers gain unauthorized access to the computers of Internet services provider Web.com Group and stole credit card information of 93,000 customers.
According to a website set up by the company to share information about the incident, Web.com discovered the security breach on Aug. 13 as part of its ongoing security monitoring.
Attackers compromised credit card information for around 93,000 accounts, as well as the names and addresses associated with them. No other customer information like social security
numbers was affected, the company said.
According to the company, the verification codes for the exposed credit cards were not leaked. However, there are websites on the Internet that don’t require such codes for purchases.
Web.com has notified affected customers via email and will also follow up with letters sent through the U.S. Postal Service. Those users can sign up for a one-year free credit monitoring service.
The company did not specify how the intruders gained access to its systems, but has hired a “nationally recognized” IT security firm to conduct an investigation.
Web.com provides a variety of online services, including website and Facebook page design, e-commerce and marketing solutions, domain registration and Web hosting. The company claims to have over 3.3 million customers and owns two other well known Web services companies: Register.com and Network Solutions.
Register.com and Network Solutions customers were not impacted by this breach unless they also purchased services directly from Web.com.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/web-com-latest-victim-of-credit-card-hacking.html
Memory Chips Appear To Be Dropping
The production value of memory chips in Korea fell by a percent on the previous quarter, affected mainly by a low bit growth of DRAM and NAND flash chips from SK Hynix.
Beancounters at Digitimes Research said that sales totaled US$12 billion in the second quarter of 2015, increasing 1 per cent from the previous quarter,
Server-use DRAM products became the primary product line for SK Hynix for the first time in the second quarter as sales of its PC-use DRAM chips suffered a significant decline compared to a quarter earlier.
Price reductions of PC DRAM chips were greater than market expectations in the second quarter due to an oversupply in the market, affecting sales performance of SK Hynix.
Samsung was less affected by declining PC DRAM prices because mobile DRAM products accounted for 35 per cent of its total DRAM income.
Samsung memory and semiconductor revenues hit a record high in the second quarter.
For the third quarter, the bit growth rates of NAND flash shipments at Samsung will rise 10 per cent and SK Hynix will increase 13 per cent on quarter.
SK Hynix will manage a five to eight per cent growth while Samsung is expected to see shipments of its DRAM chips grow 12-14 per cent.
Digitimes Researcher flipped their iChing coins and came to the conclusion that Korea’s memory products are expected to increase 3 per cent on quarter and 12 per cent on year in the third quarter of 2015.
Source
Qualcomm Debuts NextGen Adreno
Qualcomm has announced its next-generation Adreno GPU architecture, promising major improvements to performance, power efficiency and user experience in its upcoming Snapdragon processors.
The first two GPUs available on the new architecture, the Adreno 530 and Adreno 510, will be available integrated with the forthcoming Snapdragon 820 and Snapdragon 620/618 processors, Qualcomm said, and are claimed to “maximize battery life”.
The new GPUs are the successors to the Adreno 4xx family and are claimed to be the “highest-performance GPU ever designed by Qualcomm”, providing 40 percent lower power consumption and 40 percent faster performance for graphics and GPGPU compute when compared with the Adreno 430.
They will also support OpenGL ES 3.1+ Android Extension Pack, Renderscript, as well as the new OpenCL 2.0 and Vulkan APIs.
Other features include support for 64-bit virtual addressing, allowing shared virtual memory and efficient co-processing with 64 bit CPUs, along with improved fine-grain power management, and new rendering, compositing and compression techniques to enable higher performance at lower power consumption and reduced DRAM bandwidth.
The chip company also announced a new 14-bit Qualcomm Spectra image signal processing (ISP) unit, which will also debut in the Snapdragon 820. It is designed to support DSLR-quality photography and enhanced computer vision, Qualcomm said.
This will bring better camera and imaging technology to upcoming Android devices, Qualcomm said, such as more natural skin tones via 14-bit dual ISP units supporting up to three simultaneous cameras – for example, one facing the user, and two rear facing – and up to 25MP at 30 frames per-second with zero shutter lag.
Qualcomm VP of product management Tim Leland said: “Qualcomm Spectra ISP, together with our Adreno 5xx-class GPU, brings an entirely new level of imaging to smartphones, and is designed to allow Snapdragon-powered devices to capture ultra-clear, vivid photos and videos regardless of motion and lighting conditions and display them with the color accuracy that nature intended.”
Devices based on Snapdragon 820 that feature the new GPU and ISP are expected to be available in the first half of next year.
The specs for Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 820 mobile processor leaked last week ahead of its rumored launch later in August.
The chip was expected to be officially unveiled later this month, but an analyst called Pan Jiutang let the cat out of the bag, posting some slides on Weibo on Wednesday that revealed pretty detailed specifications.
The slides might not be 100 percent legit, but are in line with many other rumors circulating at the moment, and most likely accurate. It shows that the Snapdragon 820 sports the newer Hydra CPU which is claimed to be 35 percent faster than Qualcomm’s current 810 processor.
This better use of power is a result of the chip’s new 14nm manufacturing process, which is much smaller than with the 20nm Snapdragon 810.
Has The iPhone Peaked in The U.S.?
August 21, 2015 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Apple’s vice like grip in the US smartphone market is falling off as sales of the overpriced gadgets slump.
Research outfit Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said the 2.3 per cent drop in US sales had been covered by rises in China, Japan and Australia.
But the fact that Apple’s home ground is the US and that it has become increasingly dependent on its iPhone, this statistic does not bode well, particularly as the company depends on continual growth to maintain its share price the whole lot is starting become unstuck.
For the second quarter of 2015, iPhone sales grew by 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year across Europe’s five biggest markets, namely the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Growth was strongest in the UK at 5.5 percent and weakest in Italy at only 0.1 percent. Beyond Europe, iPhone sales surged by 9.1 per cent in Australia, 7.3 percent in China and 2.7 percent in Japan.
It is worthwhile pointing that the European growth outside the UK, Australia and China is more indicative of a flat market rather than actual growth.
A possible reason for the fall in the US is better competition from Android where Apple’s Android rivals provided a tougher fight.
Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said in a press release. “In the U.S., as we forecasted last month, Android’s growth continued in the quarter ending June 30, with both Samsung and LG increasing their share sequentially. Forty-three percent of all Android buyers mentioned a ‘good deal on the price of the phone’ as the main purchase driver for their new device.”
“Android in the U.S. is undergoing its strongest consolidation yet, with Samsung and LG now accounting for 78 percent of all Android sales,” Milanesi added. “LG is the real success story of the quarter. Not only did it double its share of the US smartphone market once again, but it was also able, for the first time, to acquire more first-time smartphone buyers than Samsung.”
Screen size was the main driver for Android buyers across Europe, according to Dominic Sunnebo, business unit director at Kantar. Samsung and LG both sell big-screen “phablet” phones. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 sports a 5.7-inch screen, while LG’s G4 packs in a 5.5-inch screen.
Though the iPhone 6 Plus also uses a 5.5-inch display, iOS buyers are driven by a wider range of factors, Sunnebo said, including “phone reliability and durability, as well as the quality of the materials.”
Of course if you are member of Tame Apple Press you will forget to report the news and say the opposite and claim that the iPhone’s wonderful sales are a problem.
Malware Turns Computers Into Cellular Antenna
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A team of Israeli researchers have improved on a way to steal data from air-gapped computers, thought to be safer from attack due to their isolation from the Internet.
They’ve figured out how to turn the computer into a cellular transmitter, leaking bits of data that can be picked up by a nearby low-end mobile phone.
While other research has shown it possible to steal data this way, some of those methods required some hardware modifications to the computer. This attack uses ordinary computer hardware to send out the cellular signals.
Their research, which will be featured next week at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., is the first to show it’s possible to steal data using just specialized malware on the computer and the mobile phone.
“If somebody wanted to get access to somebody’s computer at home — let’s say the computer at home wasn’t per se connected to the Internet — you could possibly receive the signal from outside the person’s house,” said Yisroel Mirsky, a doctoral student at Ben-Gurion University and study co-author.
The air-gapped computer that is targeted does need to have a malware program developed by the researchers installed. That could be accomplished by creating a type of worm that infects a machine when a removable drive is connected. It’s believed this method was used to deliver Stuxnet, the malware that sabotaged Iran’s uranium centrifuges.
The malware, called GSMem, acts as a transmitter on an infected computer. It creates specific, memory-related instructions that are transmitted between a computer’s CPU and memory, generating radio waves at GSM, UMTS and LTE frequencies that can be picked up by a nearby mobile device.
The GSMem component that runs on a computer is tiny. “Because our malware has such a small footprint in the memory, it would be very difficult and can easily evade detection,” said Mordechai Guri, also a doctoral student at Ben-Gurion.
HTC To Go High-End
August 18, 2015 by admin
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Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp said it will eliminate some jobs and discontinue models as part of its strategy to focus on high-end devices to better compete with the likes of AppleInc and Samsung Electronics.
“The cuts will be across the board,” Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang told reporters after HTC reported a second-quarter loss and forecast another for the third-quarter. “They will be significant.”
Chang said the cost reductions would extend to the first quarter of next year, but declined to give further details.
A pioneer in early smartphones, HTC has been dismissed by industry watchers as confused, unoriginal and uncompetitive.
The company has been losing market share over the past few years, hit by intense competition at the high-end of the market from the likes of Apple and Samsung Electronics while budget Chinese rivals have also eclipsed its low-cost offerings.
HTC shares have fallen 51 percent so far this year. The stock closed 1.69 percent lower before the results were announced.
Chang said HTC was banking on selling high-end models in emerging smartphone markets such as India, where he said the company has a 20 percent market share of phones priced between $250-$400.
Analysts, however, are less optimistic, saying HTC is likely to continue to struggle for the next four quarters at least.
“We believe HTC will keep losing share in the smartphone market and will keep losing money,” analyst Calvin Huang with Taiwan’s SinoPac Securities wrote in a recent research note.
Did Microsoft Intentionally Delay The Surface Pro 4?
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The latest rumors suggest that Microsoft was waiting to jack the latest Intel Skylake processor under its bonnet.
Redmond seemingly wants the new Surface Pro to be state of the art and be a tablet which is useful. Skylake will give it better battery life and performance with current industry standards like Bluetooth 4.1, Cat6 LTE, WiDi 6.0, and A4WP wireless charging weaved into it.
Intel will support the tablets through compatibility with 3D cameras and audio processing software plus better stylus interaction.
There is no sign of confirmation of the rumors. Microsoft has been quiet so far about the Surface Pro 4. We had been expecting it to highlight some of the better features of Windows 10.
However if the rumors are true it will be a hell of a lot better than the MacBook Air 2015 because it will feature innovation, rather than just being thin.
Latest news about its release date suggests a 2016 launch.
Oracle’s New Processor Goes For The Cheap
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Oracle is looking to expand the market for its Sparc-based servers with a new, low-cost processor which it curiously called Sonoma.
The company isn’t saying yet when the chip will be in the shops but the spec shows that could become a new rival for Intel’s Xeon chips and make Oracle’s servers more competitive.
Sonoma is named after a place where they make cheap terrible Californian wine and Oracle aims the chip at Sparc-based servers at “significantly lower price points” than now.
This means that companies can use them for smaller, less critical applications.
Oracle has not done much with its Sparc line-up for a couple of years, and Sonoma was one of a few new chips planned. The database maker will update its Sparc T5, used in its mid-range systems and the high-end Sparc M7. The technology is expected to filter to the Sonoma lower tier servers.
The Sparc M7 will have technologies for encryption acceleration and memory protection built into the chip. It will include coprocessors to speed up database performance.
According to IDG Sonoma will take those same technologies and bring them down to low-cost points. This means that people can use them in cloud computing and for smaller applications.
He didn’t talk about prices or say how much cheaper the new Sparc systems will be, and it could potentially be years before Sonoma comes to market.
Yahoo Acquires Polyvore
August 12, 2015 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Yahoo Inc announced on Friday that it has agreed to acquire fashion start-up Polyvore to help drive traffic and strengthen its mobile and social offerings.
Yahoo, which did not disclose terms of the deal, said Polyvore will accelerate its ‘Mavens’ growth strategy.
The company has been focusing on four areas — mobile, video, native advertising and social — which it calls Mavens, to drive user engagement and ad sales as it battles intense competition from Google Inc and Facebook Inc .
Revenue from Mavens made up about one-third of the company’s total revenue in the quarter ended June 30.
The Mavens portfolio includes BrightRoll, mobile app network Flurry, mobile ad buying platform Yahoo Gemini and blogging site Tumblr.
Polyvore, the brainchild of 3 ex-Yahoo engineers, was started in 2007.
The Mountain View, California-based company allows users to mix-and-match articles of clothing and accessories and customize them into “sets”.
Polyvore’s co-founder and CEO Jess Lee was earlier part of Google Inc’s associate manager program, which Marissa Mayer headed before joining Yahoo as CEO.