Sign up for our Technology Newsletter 
Can IBM Beat Moore’s Law?
Big Blue Researchers have discovered a way to replace silicon semiconductors with carbon nanotube transistors and think that the development will push the industry past Moore’s law limits.
IBM said its researchers successfully shrunk transistor contacts in a way that didn’t limit the power of carbon nanotube devices. The chips could be smaller and faster and significantly surpass what’s possible with today’s silicon semiconductors.
The chips are made from carbon nanotubes consist of single atomic sheets of carbon in rolled-up tubes. This means that high-performance computers may well be capable of analysing big data faster, and battery life and the power of mobile and connected devices will be better. The advance may enable cloud-based data centres to provide more efficient services, IBM claims.
Moore’s law, which has for years governed the ability of the semiconductor industry to double the processing power of chips every 24 months is starting to reach the limits of physics when it comes to doubling the power of silicon chips. This could mean a slowing of significant computing performance boosts unless someone comes up with something fast.
IBM researchers claim to have proved that carbon nanotube transistors can work as switches at widths of 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, and less than half the size of the most advanced silicon technology.
The latest research has overcome “the other major hurdle in incorporating carbon nanotubes into semiconductor devices which could result in smaller chips with greater performance and lower power consumption,” IBM said.
Electrons found in carbon transistors move more efficiently than those that are silicon-based, even as the extremely thin bodies of carbon nanotubes offer more advantages at the atomic scale, IBM says.
The new research is jump-starting the move to a post-silicon future, and paying off on $3 billion in chip research and development investment IBM announced in 2014.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/can-ibm-beat-moores-law.html
IBM Debuts New Mainframe
IBM has started shipping its all-new first z13 mainframe computer.
IBM has high hopes the upgraded model will generate solid sales based not only on usual customer patterns but its design focus aimed at helping them cope with expanding mobile usage, analysis of data, upgrading security and doing more “cloud” remote computing.
Mainframes are still a major part of the Systems and Technology Group at IBM, which overall contributed 10.8 percent of IBM’s total 2014 revenues of $92.8 billion. But the z Systems and their predecessors also generate revenue from software, leasing and maintenance and thus have a greater financial impact on IBM’s overall picture.
The new mainframe’s claim to fame is to use simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) to execute two instruction streams (or threads) on a processor core which delivers more throughput for Linux on z Systems and IBM z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) eligible workloads.
There is also a single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD), a vector processing model providing instruction level parallelism, to speed workloads such as analytics and mathematical modeling. All this means COBOL 5.2 and PL/I 4.5 exploit SIMD and improved floating point enhancements to deliver improved performance over and above that provided by the faster processor.
Its on chip cryptographic and compression coprocessors receive a performance boost improving both general processors and Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) cryptographic performance and allowing compression of more data, helping tosave disk space and reducing data transfer time.
There is also a redesigned cache architecture, using eDRAM technology to provide twice as much second level cache and substantially more third and fourth level caches compared to the zEC12. Bigger and faster caches help to avoid untimely swaps and memory waits while maximisng the throughput of concurrent workload Tom McPherson, vice president of z System development, said that the new model was not just about microprocessors, though this model has many eight-core chips in it. Since everything has to be cooled by a combination of water and air, semiconductor scaling is slowing down, so “you have to get the value by optimizing.
The first real numbers on how the z13 is selling won’t be public until comments are made in IBM’s first-quarter report, due out in mid-April, when a little more than three weeks’ worth of billings will flow into it.
The company’s fiscal fortunes have sagged, with mixed reviews from both analysts and the blogosphere. Much of that revolves around IBM’s lag in cloud services. IBM is positioning the mainframe as a prime cloud server, one of the systems that is actually what cloud computing goes to and runs on.
Is Qualcomm Overheating?
South Korean smartphone maker LG Electronics Inc said on Thursday that it has not experienced any overheating problems with Qualcomm Inc’s new Snapdragon processor that is powering a curved-screen device going on sale later this month.
“I am very much aware of the various concerns in the market about the (Snapdragon) 810, but the chip’s performance is quite satisfactory,” Woo Ram-chan, LG vice president for mobile product planning, told reporters at a press event for the company’s G Flex2 smartphone.
The comment came after Bloomberg reported a day earlier that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world’s top smartphone maker, decided not to use the new Qualcomm processor for the next flagship Galaxy S smartphone after the chip overheated during testing. Samsung and Qualcomm have declined to comment on the report, which cited unidentified sources.
Samsung is widely expected to unveil the new Galaxy S smartphone in early March, and Bloomberg reported that the Korean firm will use its own processors instead.
But LG’s Woo said on Thursday that internal tests for the G Flex2, powered by the new Qualcomm processor, show that the new product emits less heat than other existing devices. The new phone is scheduled to start selling in South Korea on Jan. 30.
“I don’t understand why there is a issue over heat,” he said.
MS Surface Pro Sells Out
Microsoft started selling its Surface Pro tablet last Saturday, and quickly ran out of its supply of the 128GB configuration.
While the less expensive 64GB device was also listed as out of stock Saturday on Microsoft’s online store, by Sunday it was again available.
The company acknowledged the outages.
“We’re working with our retail partners who are currently out of stock of the 128GB Surface Pro to replenish supplies as quickly as possible,” said Panos Panay, general manager for Microsoft’s Surface line, in a Saturday blog post. “Our priority is to ensure that every customer gets their new Surface Pro as soon as possible.”
Numerous online reports noted the shortages, saying that some Microsoft retail stores sported Apple-esque lines on Saturday and that many Best Buy and Staples locations — Microsoft’s retail partners for the Surface in the U.S. — had single-digit supplies that in some cases were claimed earlier in the week.
Microsoft is selling the Surface Pro in the U.S. through its online e-mart, its approximately 70 retail outlets, and the Best Buy and Staples chains.
The device, which runs Windows 8 and is powered by an Intel processor, sells for $899 in a 64GB storage configuration, and for $999 with 128GB. Keyboard-cover accessories — the Touch Cover and Type Cover — sell separately for $120 and $130, respectively.
Samsung Plans To Go Low-End
February 13, 2012 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
Comments Off on Samsung Plans To Go Low-End
Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s top television maker, has seen TV sales firming up so far this year and plans to launch cheaper TVs, as demand for lower-end models increase, the head of its TV business said on Wednesday.
Demand for lower-end TVs has been increasing in recent months as major South Korean retailers such as E-Mart Co introduced flat-screen models that are as much as 40 percent cheaper through alliances with small local manufacturers.
“As long as there’s demand, we’re open to get into that segment,” Kim Hyun-suk, executive vice president of Samsung’s visual display division, told reporters.
“We’ve been preparing to introduce cheap models and have been studying to optimize production costs and retail prices. Those (cheap) models will be ready for sale in one or two months.”
Samsung, the most profitable TV maker, also introduced on Wednesday its highest-end premium set that it hopes will help boost profitability, as a fragile global economy threatens to sap demand growth this year after no growth in 2010.
The ES8000 model has voice, motion and face recognition functions, as well as 3D and Internet-enabled capabilities. The models, available in sizes of between 46 and 65 inches, will go on sale from this weekend in South Korea before a global launch in March.
Kim said Samsung’s TV sales so far this year have been stronger than a year ago and demand from China remained solid.
November 16, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
Comments Off on
Google, which last week created a bit of chaos with the launch of a Gmail application for Apple iOS devices, has decided to put out discontinue its Gmail application for the BlackBerry.
As of Nov. 22, Google will no longer offer technical support to users of the application, nor will it allow people to download it anymore, the company wrote in a blog post.
However, people will be able to continue using it, although Google will put its development efforts on the version of the application for mobile browsers, available at gmail.com.
RIM Unveils New BlackBerry Torch Phones
August 8, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
Comments Off on RIM Unveils New BlackBerry Torch Phones
Research In Motion on Wednesday unveiled two more powerful versions of its touchscreen BlackBerry Torch, hoping to buy time until it can introduce a radically new software package in its smartphones.
The new smartphones, along with a Bold upgrade unveiled earlier, are part of what the Canadian company called its biggest global launch ever as it seeks to claw back North American market share losses from Apple’s iconic iPhone and a slew of devices running on Google’s Android software.
The three touchscreen phones, running on the new BlackBerry OS 7, each boast an improved screen display and pack a 1.2 GHz processor from Qualcomm, the most powerful ever for a BlackBerry phone. All three devices will launch with carriers globally by the end of August, RIM said.
The browser for the new phones is 40 percent faster than the original Torch, RIM’s last major phone launch which hit shelves almost a year ago.
But since co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis has already promised “superphones” next year using the QNX-based operating system running RIM’s PlayBook tablet
computer, analysts are looking beyond the launch.
“This is a necessary product refresh in advance of the big bang that we hope and expect will happen with QNX-based phones,” said CCS Insight vice-president of research John Jackson.
Visa Digital Wallet Coming
May 15, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
Comments Off on Visa Digital Wallet Coming
Visa Inc, the world’s largest credit and debit card processing network, is designing a digital wallet that people can use to pay for things on the Internet or with their phones instead of with traditional plastic cards.
The network said on Wednesday it is collaborating with several large U.S. and international banks to create the wallet. Its partners include US Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial, BB&T Corp, Toronto Dominion’s TD Bank and the U.S. arm of Barclays PLC.
The “digital wallet” will store the banks’ customers’ credit and debit card account information, both for Visa cards as well as other cards. People can use the wallet to pay for things online or in stores, Visa said.
The network will also have to convince merchants to put a new “one-click” button on their websites, so that potential customers can use their Visa digital wallets to buy things by clicking the button instead of by manually entering all of their account information every time they want to make an online purchase.
Banks, mobile phone operators and networks like Visa are all trying to gain territory in the small, but high-potential market for U.S. mobile payments. Last week Isis, a separate mobile payments venture run by three of the top four U.S. carriers, said it had modified its initial goals and was now open to working with Visa and MasterCard as it introduces its own mobile wallet.
Jim McCarthy, Visa’s head of global products, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that mobile payments in the United States “will more easily take off” from people using their smartphones’ browsers to buy things online.