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Will Tegra 4 Support USB 3.0?
Wayne, also known as Tegra 4 is coming out at CES 2013, or in some 10 days from now. Nvidia has an event planned days ahead of CES 2013 and the company will likely show some tablets and hybrids based on the new Tegra SoC. Let’s call Wayne Tegra 4 before it gets official.
Nvidia had Wayne ready to launch in Q4 2012 but it had to wait for partners to release the designs based on it, and most of them wanted to do it at CES 2013. European phones based on Wayne are going to show up in February, at the Mobile World Congress.
This is the first quad-core A15 design that will bring a significant performance increase over Tegra 3 and we are hearing that the four-plus-one core will deliver a bigger performance boost than Tegra 3 did over Tegra 2. Also, the fact that the new chip is 28nm and supports DDR3L also promises more efficiency.
USB 3.0 support is something that is getting us excited as usually it is quite slow to transfer anything onto tablets, phones and hybrids. USB 3.0 on tablets will significantly increase the data transfer speed and Tegra 4 will be among the first chips to feature USB 3.0 support, and many consumers will appreciate faster data transfer rates.
The other thing that got our attention is dual display support and you will be able to have two independent screens. On Tegra 3 based devices, you can only mirror the output, not display two independent screens. It could be a very interesting feature for dockable devices.
Toyota Goes Wireless Charging
January 2, 2013 by admin
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Toyota is taking the smartphone boom quite seriously and the car-maker hopes to offer the first wireless charging systems in select models as early as next year.
Toyota’s wireless system will be compatible with the Qi standard and it will be introduced in the new Avalon sedan next year. Of course, it will be optional and it will be part of Toyota’s $1,950 “technology package” which includes other geeky goodies as well.
According to the BBC, Chrysler is also planning to offer a similar system in the Dodge Dart. Other car-makers will no doubt offer wireless charging functionality sooner rather than later.
The number of Qi compatible phones is limited for the time being. Just 34 phones support it, including the Lumia 920, Nexus 4 and HTC Windows Phone 8X. However, some very popular devices like Apple’s iPhone and Sammy’s Galaxy S series phones don’t support wireless charging just yet.
Google Sells A Piece Of Motorola
December 31, 2012 by admin
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Google plans to unload the TV set-top box business of its Motorola Mobility subsidiary to Arris Group, a broadband device vendor, for $2.35 billion.
Arris will also receive patents belonging to the business, called Motorola Home, and will get a perpetual license to other Motorola Mobility patents as part of the deal. The companies announced their agreement late on Wednesday and expect the sale to close by the second quarter of next year.
Google acquired Motorola Mobility in a closely examined deal that concluded in May. It bought the business primarily for its mobile assets and proceeded to seek a buyer for its Motorola Home division, which primarily makes set-top boxes for bringing video and other broadband services to TVs. Motorola Home had revenue of $3.4 billion in the year ending Sept. 30.
Despite the growth of Internet-based video services, Arris sees growth ahead in the set-top box business. The combined companies will have more than 500 customers in 70 countries, according to a press release.
“Every operator that we’ve talked to tells me that in-home devices are not going to go away,” Arris Chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione said on a conference call to discuss the deal. He sees a new generation of the boxes that will carry both traditional and IP (Internet Protocol) video services going into homes soon.
nVidia’s Tegra 4 Specs Spotted
Here is an interesting leak, just what the doctor ordered to spice up a rather slow news cycle. Chiphell has posted a slide containing a few Tegra 4 specs, but we still don’t know the clocks or a few other interesting details. Of course, the leak should be taken with a grain of salt, but the specs are more or less in line with what we were expecting all along.
Tegra 4, codenamed Wayne, is a 28nm part with revamped graphics and new ARM cores. Although the slide does not directly point to the type of ARM cores used in the design, the new chip is based on ARM’s latest A15 core. Like the Tegra 3, the new chip will also feature an additional companion core to improve energy efficiency. No surprises here really.
In terms of GPU performance, Nvidia promises to deliver a six-fold improvement over the Tegra 3 and a 20x improvement over Tegra 2 chips. Oddly enough, in spite of Nvidia’s graphics prowess, Tegra chips never featured world-beating graphics. This time around they could, thanks to the new 72-core GPU. The GPU will be able to cope with 2560×1600 screens at 120Hz, but it could also take on 4K resolutions, although details are still sketchy. At this point 4K support could only be relevant for next-generation smart TVs, with a huge price tag.
As far as other features go, Tegra 4 brings support for USB 3.0 and DDR3L dual-channel memory. The leak does not mention LTE support.
Tegra 4 will have to take on the likes of Samsung’s upcoming Exynos 5440, which should also debut in early 2013. Nvidia was first to market with a quad-core A9 chip, but this time around it will have to face off against the new Exynos and A15 quad-cores from other vendors.
Nvidia is expected to showcase the new chip at CES and we’ll be there to check it out.
Raspberry Pi Gets A Store
Raspberry Pi Foundation has opened a store to enable users to easily download applications that run on the credit-card sized computer.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation said it partnered with Indiecity and Velocix to create a store for applications that run on the Raspberry Pi computer. The Foundation said that the store itself is an application that runs under its Raspbian Linux distribution and at launch has 23 applications available for download.
The Raspberry Pi Store contains games such as Freeciv alongside applications such as Libreoffice and Asterisk. The Raspberry Pi Foundation said its store accepts compiled binaries, Python code, images, audio and video.
The Raspberry Pi Store will allow developers to charge for applications, with the Foundation saying that it hopes to see a mix of hobbyist and commercial software. The Foundation also asked users that download applications to review them in order to improve the results put out by its recommendations system.
While the Raspberry Pi was initially intended to help teach people how to program, the device has gained wider popularity due to the fact that its hardware can run many typical PC desktop applications. The Foundation’s Raspberry Pi Store will make it easier for users to find and install applications on the device, which can only be a good thing for the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Linux adoption.
AMD Offers More Radeon Chips
AMD has announced four Radeon HD 8000M series GPU chips sporting its latest Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.
AMD’s GCN architecture made its first appearance in the firm’s ultra high-end mobile chips, however next month’s CES show will see the firm show off laptops featuring four Radeon HD 8000M series chips. The firm’s four Radeon HD 8000M chips are pitched at the mainstream and gaming laptop markets, though the company said that Asus already has a laptop announced that will use the chips in an ‘ultrathin’ design.
AMD’s Radeon HD 8000M series sees the firm split three chips with the same number of stream processors and memory clock speeds that scale up to 1.25GHz but differentiated by their core speeds. The firm’s Radeon HD 8500M, Radeon HD 8600M and Radeon HD 8700M all have 384 stream processors but are clocked up to 650MHz, 775MHz and between 650MHz and 850MHz, respectively.
Topping AMD’s present range is the Radeon HD 8800M, which has 640 stream processors and is clocked at between 650MHz and 700MHz, while its GDDR5 memory is also clocked at 1.25GHz. All of the firm’s chips, by virtue of being based on the GCN architecture, support DirectX 11.1.
AMD said it will launch three more chips in the Radeon HD 8000M series in the second quarter of 2013. According to the firm’s roadmap, two of those chips will sit above the Radeon HD 8800M in terms of performance while the third will straddle somewhere between the Radeon HD 8600M and Radeon HD 8700M.
AMD was tight-lipped on the power figures for its chips, saying that full details of its Radeon HD 8000M series chips will appear at CES, where its partners will tip up with laptops sporting the chips.
Will Cisco Boot Linksys?
Cisco reportedly has hired Barclays to find a buyer for its Linksys business.
Cisco bought Linksys back in 2003 to get into the consumer networking business and the firm has put out some good products, most notably the WRT54G wireless router that was a favourite with technology savvy punters. Now Cisco is looking to offload Linksys as it continues to pull back from the consumer networking market.
Cisco has been cutting jobs and products such as the Flip video camera, as it wants to get back to the high margin enterprise networking business. Back in 2003, Cisco paid $500m for Linksys and got access to an established business that focused on producing consumer network equipment.
A decade later, it is being reported that Cisco will be lucky to get its $500m back. Cisco has been pulling out of its failed attempt to get into the consumer market and is now focusing on flogging both network infrastructure hardware and servers, though it is widely expected to be hit hard as software defined networks become more popular.
Unlike Cisco’s core enterprise business, Linksys products typically have low margins, and with its parent firm’s slowing sales growth, it is not surprising Cisco wants to offload it. Bloomberg’s sources said Cisco might find interest in buying Linksys from television makers, though they wouldn’t provide any more details.
Intel Details 22nm SoC
Thanks to a long spate of bad luck over at AMD, Intel now finds itself in a rather safe market lead, at least in high-end and server markets. However, in the low-end and mobile, Intel has a lot of catching up to do.
ARM still dominates the mobile market and Intel is looking to take on the British chip designer with new 22nm SoCs of its own. Intel outlined its SoC strategy at the 2012 International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco the other day.
The cunning plan involves 3D tri gate transistors and Intel’s 22nm fabrication process, or in other words it is a brute force approach. Intel can afford to integrate the latest tech in cheep and cheerful 22nm Atoms, thus making them more competitive in terms of power efficiency.
Since Intel leads the way with new manufacturing processes it already has roughly a year of experience with 22nm chips, while ARM partners rely on 28nm, 32nm and more often than not, 40nm processes. Intel’s next generation SoCs will also benefit from other off-the-shelf Intel tech, such as 3D tri-gate transistors.
Will Lenovo Go Public In 2K14?
Lenovo’s parent firm Legend Holdings could float an initial public offering (IPO) as soon as 2014, according to the firm’s chairman.
Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of Legend Holdings told China Business News that the firm plans to list on the China A-share market between 2014 and 2016. Chuanzhi also reportedly said the company will invest $3.2bn by 2014 to develop its various businesses.
Legend Holdings is 36 percent owned by the Chinese state controlled Academy of Sciences, with a further 20 percent owned by the private investment firm China Oceanwide Holdings Group.
Legend Holdings also has venture capital and real estate interests outside of Lenovo Group. The firm’s system building operations however have gone from strength to strength since it bought IBM’s PC business back in 2005, and it is now heavily promoting its Yoga tablet-laptop hybrid device.
Earlier this year Gartner reported that Lenovo had overtaken HP to become the largest PC vendor, something that HP disputed by offering IDC’s figures. Regardless of HP’s protestations then, Lenovo is set to overtake HP as its PC business continues to grow while HP’s has been shrinking for some time.
Legend Holdings might want to cash in on Lenovo’s high flying status and a cash injection from an IPO could help the company invest in designing products for the smartphone and tablet markets.
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Motorola To Close More Locations
December 19, 2012 by admin
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Motorola Mobility will shut down most operations in South Korea in 2013 as part of an ongoing restructuring under Google ownership.
The decision is estimated to displace about 500 jobs in South Korea and follows a decision made a month ago to close down most international Motorola websites and to lay off about 4,000 workers.
Motorola Mobility said in a statement that it began telling staff in South Korea on Monday about “plans to close most of our operations in Korea, including our research and development and consumer mobile device marketing organization.”
The statement said the changes “reflect our plans to consolidate our global R&D efforts to foster collaboration, and to focus more attention on markets where we are best positioned to compete effectively.”