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Qualcomm and LG Settle Dispute
Qualcomm has buried the hatchet with LG after the smartphone vendor agreed to pay more for its chips.
LG said the dispute with Qualcomm has been completely settled, although it did not say how much it had agreed to pay. Earlier it had claimed Qualcomm had overcharged for the chips under a licensing contract.
The news about the lawsuit settlement emerged following Qualcomm’s profit forecast for the second quarter in January, which was below what Wall Street’s tarot readers had predicted.
The company expected its mobile chip shipment to fall by 16-25 per cent in the second quarter. Additionally, it expected 3G and 4G device shipment to decline by 4 to 14 per cent. As for the first quarter of 2016, Qualcomm’s chip shipment fell 10 per cent , with a drop in revenue by 21.6 per cent. Revenue from licensing declined 10.4 per cent, suggests a Reuters report.
An LG spokesperson said that this kind of dispute was “actually nothing” and was similar to the ones that the industries had in the past.
“Qualcomm has lowered its royalty rate to LG in return for LG’s guaranteed purchase of Qualcomm processors, which are currently being used in its flagship handsets and will be used in upcoming flagship models,” added the official.
Qualcomm might have been a little nervy. LG has invested millions to develop its own chipset, in an attempt to cut down its dependency on Qualcomm for mobile processors.
Courtesy-Fud
Is Apple Trying To Rain On Intel’s Parade?
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Intel’s cunning plans for computers that will recognize human emotion using its RealSense 3D camera, have been killed off in the short term by Apple.
RealSense is a mix of infrared, laser and optical cameras to measure depth and track motion. It can be used on a drone that can navigate its own way through a city block, but it is also good at detecting changes in facial expressions, and Intel wanted to give RealSense the ability to read human emotions by combining it with an emotion recognition technology developed by Emotient.
Plugging in Emotient allowed RealSense to detect whether people are happy or sad by analyzing movement in their lips, eyes and cheeks. Intel said that it could detect “anger, contempt, disgust, fear,” and other sentiments.
A few months ago the fruity cargo cult Apple acquired Emotient. Intel has removed the Emotient plug-in from the latest version of the RealSense software development kit.
It is not clear at this point if Apple told Intel that it invented the plug in and so it had to sling its hook, or if Intel did not want Jobs’ Mob anywhere near its technology.
The RealSense SDK has features that allow it to recognize some facial expressions, but it’s unclear if they’ll be as effective as the Emotient technology.
Courtesy-Fud
Qualcomm Jumps Into VR
Qualcomm has thrown its hat into the virtual reality (VR) ring with the launch of the Snapdragon VR SDK for Snapdragon-based smartphones and VR headsets.
The SDK gives developers access to advanced VR features, according to Qualcomm, allowing them to simplify development and attain improved performance and power efficiency with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, found in Android smartphones such as the Galaxy S7 and tipped to feature in upcoming VR headsets.
In terms of features, the development kit offers tools such as digital signal processing (DSP) sensor fusion, which allows devs to use the “full breadth” of technologies built into the Snapdragon 820 chip to create more responsive and immersive experiences.
It will help developers combine high-frequency inertial data from gyroscopes and accelerometers, and there’s what the company calls “predictive head position processing” based on its Hexagon DSP, while Qualcomm’s Symphony System Manager makes easier access to power and performance management for more stable frame rates in VR applications running on less-powerful devices.
Fast motion to photon will offer single buffer rendering to reduce latency by up to 50 percent, while stereoscopic rendering with lens correction offers support for 3D binocular vision with color correction and barrel distortion for improved visual quality of graphics and video, enhancing the overall VR experience.
Stereoscopic rendering with lens correction supports 3D binocular vision with color correction and barrel distortion for improved visual quality of graphics and video, enhancing the overall VR experience.
Rounding off the features is VR layering, which improves overlays in a virtual world to reduce distortion.
David Durnil, senior director of engineering at Qualcomm, said: “We’re providing advanced tools and technologies to help developers significantly improve the virtual reality experience for applications like games, 360 degree VR videos and a variety of interactive education and entertainment applications.
“VR represents a new paradigm for how we interact with the world, and we’re excited to help mobile VR developers more efficiently deliver compelling and high-quality experiences on upcoming Snapdragon 820 VR-capable Android smartphones and headsets.”
The Snapdragon VR SDK will be available to developers in the second quarter through the Qualcomm Developer Network.
The launch of Qualcomm’s VR SDK comes just moments after AMD also entered the VR arena with the launch of the Sulon Q, a VR-ready wearable Windows 10 PC.
Courtesy-TheInq
Intel Putting RealSense Into VR
March 16, 2016 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Intel is adapting its RealSense depth camera into an augmented reality headset design which it might be licensing to other manufacturers.
The plan is not official yet but appears to have been leaked to the Wall Street Journal. Achin Bhowmik, who oversees RealSense as vice president and general manager of Intel’s perceptual computing group, declined to discuss unannounced development efforts.
But he said Intel has a tradition of creating prototypes for products like laptop computers to help persuade customers to use its components. We have to build the entire experience ourselves before we can convince the ecosystem,” Bhowmik said.
Intel appears to be working on an augmented-reality headset when it teamed up with IonVR to to work on an augmented-reality headset that could work with a variety of operating systems, including Android and iOS. Naturally, it had a front-facing RealSense camera.
RealSense depth camera has been in development for several years and was shown as a viable product technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2014. Since then, nothing has happened and Microsoft’s Kinect sensor technology for use with Windows Hello in the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book knocked it aside.
Intel’s biggest issue is that it is talking about making a consumer product which is something that it never got the hang of.
RealSense technology is really good at translating real-world objects into virtual space. In fact a lot better than the HoloLens because it can scan the user’s hands and translate them into virtual objects that can manipulate other virtual objects.
Courtesy-Fud
USB 3.1 Coming Later This Year
The emerging USB 3.1 standard is on track to reach desktops as hardware companies release motherboards with ports that can transfer data twice as fast as the previous USB technology.
MSI recently announced a 970A SLI Krait motherboard that will support the AMD processors and the USB 3.1 protocol. Motherboards with USB 3.1 ports have also been released by Gigabyte, ASRock and Asus, but those boards support Intel chips.
USB 3.1 can shuffle data between a host device and peripheral at 10Gbps, which is two times faster than USB 3.0. USB 3.1 is also generating excitement for the reversible Type-C cable, which is the same on both ends so users don’t have to worry about plug orientation.
The motherboards with USB 3.1 technology are targeted at high-end desktops. Some enthusiasts like gamers seek the latest and greatest technologies and build desktops with motherboards sold by MSI, Asus and Gigabyte. Many of the new desktop motherboards announced have the Type-C port interface, which is also in recently announced laptops from Apple and Google.
New technologies like USB 3.1 usually first appear in high-end laptops and desktops, then make their way down to low-priced PCs, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst of Mercury Research.
PC makers are expected to start putting USB 3.1 ports in more laptops and desktops starting later this year.
HGST To Debut 10TB HD
HGST has revealed the world’s first 10TB hard drive, but you probably won’t be installing one anytime soon.
The company has been working on the 10TB SMR HelioSeal hard drive for months and now it is almost ready to hit the market.
The drive uses Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) to boost density, thus enabling HGST to cram more data on every platter. ZDnet got a quick peek at the drive at a Linux event in Boston, which also featured a burning effigy of Nick Farrell.
Although we’ve covered some SMR drives in the past, the technology is still not very mature and so far it’s been limited to niche drives and enterprise designs, not consumer hard drives. HGST’s new drive is no exception – it is designed for data centers rather than PCs. While you won’t use it to store your music and video, you might end up streaming them from one of these babies.
Although data centres are slowly turning to SSDs for many hosts, even on cheap shared hosting packages, there is still a need for affordable mechanical storage. Even when hard drives are completely phased out from the frontline, they still have a role to play as backup drives.
HGST Buys Amplidata
HGST announced the acquisition of Belgian software-defined storage provider Amplidata.
Amplidata has been instrumental in HGST’s Active Archive elastic storage solution unveiled at the company’s Big Bang event last September in San Francisco.
Use of Amplidata’s Himalaya distributed storage system, combined with HGST’s unique Helium filled drives, creates systems that can store 10 petabytes on a single rack, designed for cold storage literally and figuratively.
Dave Tang, senior vice president and general manager of HGST’s Elastic Storage Platforms Group, said “Software-defined storage solutions are essential to scale-out storage of the type we unveiled in September. The software is vital to ensuring the durability and scalability of systems.”
Steve Milligan, president and chief executive of Western Digital, added: “We have had an ongoing strategic relationship with Amplidata that included investment from Western Digital Capital and subsequent joint development activity.
“Amplidata has deep technical expertise, an innovative spirit, and valuable intellectual property in this fast-growing market space.
“The acquisition will support our strategic growth initiatives and broaden the scope of opportunity for HGST in cloud data centre storage infrastructure.”
The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of the year. No financial terms were disclosed.
Amplidata will ultimately be incorporated into the HGST Elastic Storage Platforms Group, a recognition of the fact that every piece of hardware is, in part, software.
Mike Cordano, president of HGST, said at last year’s Big Bang event: “We laugh when we hear that we’re a hardware company. People don’t realise there’s over a million lines of code in that drive. That’s what the firmware is.
“What we’re starting to do now is add software to that and, along with the speed of the PCI-e interface, that makes a much bigger value proposition.”
WD’s My Passport Goes Wireless
September 19, 2014 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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Western Digital has announced the latest addition to its My Passport series of portable external hard drives.
The My Passport Wireless, as the name suggests, is WD’s entry in the current crop of WiFi Direct attached storage devices.
Available in capacities of 500GB, 1TB and 2TB, the My Passport Wireless drive can sit directly on a WiFi network or act as a pass-through device, linking up to eight devices regardless of type and operating system.
One touch syncing with Dropbox, Onedrive and Google Drive allows users to keep local copies of files without clogging up their computer hard drives.
With an optimal battery life of eight hours and standby life of 20 hours on a single charge, My Passport Wireless is capable of streaming HD video to multiple screens, and connects with wireless cameras via FTP for simultaneous backup during photo sessions.
An external SD card slot is also included for devices that do not have a direct connection, or if you need a little extra boost in storage space.
WD’s My Cloud app, which also powers its My Cloud range of NAS devices, has been given a facelift to include access to the My Passport wireless. New features include an embedded music and video player, and remote configuration of drive settings.
The 500GB model will retail at $150.00, with the 1TB and 2TB editions priced at $200.00 and $250.00, respectively.
As part of the launch of the My Passport Wireless, WD also introduced two new limited edition wired My Passport devices to commemorate ten years of the range. The My Passport Ultra Metal Edition and My Passport Ultra Anniversary Editions were described by Scott Vouri, WD VP of Consumer Marketing as “a souvenir of ten years of a classic device”.
New USB Chip Developed
October 18, 2013 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
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Silicon Motion says it has begun shipping samples of a new USB 3.0 controller chip for flash drives that could boost performance by up to 50%.
The company said the new SM3267 integrated controller is expected to deliver up to 160MB/s read, and 60MB/s write speeds through a single channel; that would be a 30% to 50% performance improvement over today’s USB 3.0 flash drive technology.
Even though the USB 3.0 specification has the capability to support 4.8Gbps throughput speeds, the speed of a USB 3.0-enabled flash drive is dictated by the speed of the accessing flash devices in the drive. Today, most consumer-USB 3.0 flash drives support about 100MB/s read speeds.
We are pleased to announce that SM3267 has received design-ins from most of our current USB controller customers, including many top-tier OEMs, and we expect SM3267-based USB 3.0 flash drives will be commercially available starting in the fourth quarter of 2013,” Wallace Kou, CEO of Silicon Motion, said in a statement.
The new integrated chip will also be able to run at lower voltages, from 5 volts to 1.2 volts, enabling a 25% to 30% lower USB flash drive device temperature compared with other USB 3.0 flash controller products in the market, Silicon Motion said.
The new IC will support the vast majority of NAND flash technology, including new triple-level cell (TLC), multi-level cell (MLC), high speed Toggle, and ONFI DDR NAND manufactured by Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, SK Hynix, Micron and Intel.
The new chip has already passed both USB-IF compliance testing and WHCK (Windows Hardware Certification Kit) tests for Windows 7 and Windows 8.
The new IC is available in a Chip-on-Board (COB) and in a 48-pin QFN green package.
HGST Goes Self-Assembling Molecules
HGST has announced that it has developed self-assembling molecules and nanoimprinting to potentially double data density in hard disk drives.
HGST used to be known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies before Western Digital bought it, and has been working on lithography techniques to boost data density on hard disk platters. Now the firm has announced that it has been able to create patterns of magnetic islands that are 10nm wide, doubling present state of the art data density.
HGST Fellow Tom Albrecht described the self-assembling molecules as block copolymers that are made of segments that repel each other to create segments that are lined up in rows, and said that lab tests show promising read/write performance and data retention. The firm claims it has combined self-assembling molecules, line doubling and nanoimprinting down to the 10nm scale in a circular arrangement.
Albrecht said, “We made our ultra-small features without using any conventional photolithography. With the proper chemistry and surface preparations, we believe this work is extendable to ever-smaller dimensions.”
HGST said self-assembling patterning and nanoimprinting can result in 1.2 trillion dots per inch, which it claims is twice the density of existing hard disk drives. According to the firm, its engineers have been able to create segments only 50 atoms wide.
Although HGST showed off the technology this week at the SPIE Advanced Lithography 2013 conference, the firm said it expects the technology to be cost effective by the end of the decade, that is if solid-state disk drives haven’t eliminated the need for hard disk drives by then.