Posts Tagged “guts”
Belkin’ SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Card and ExpressCard Grant Older PCs USB 3.0 Powers [Guts]
Hey, you know about USB 3.0 by now, right? It’s here! It’s fast! And while Belkin’s SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Card and ExpressCard may not be superspeedier than any other USB 3.0 product, they are early to the market.
Belkin’s SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe add-in card gives your computer two USB 3.0 ports, which means you’ll be able to transfer files up to five times faster than your namby pamby USB 2.0 link-up. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard does the same, and supports plug and play and hot-swap functionality. Both are available now for $80. Both will be available in the US in April, while you Canucks will have to wait until May.
Belkin’s also introducing SuperSpeed USB 3.0 cable, but at $40 for four feet, it’s SuperExpensive compared to what’s already out there.
Belkin Introduces SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Products
* SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products deliver transfer speeds of up to three times faster than USB 2.0
* Download HD movies, charge mobile devices, and transfer videos and photos from your camera to your computer more quickly with SuperSpeed USB 3.0(Playa Vista, CA) – February 23, 2010 – Belkin announces a new line of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products, including a PCIe Add-In Card, ExpressCard, and Premium A-B and Micro-B Cables. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products provide a high rate of transfer speed that allows you to move content-rich media back and forth between different devices.
USB 3.0 is specified to transfer at five gigabits per second, or 10 times faster than USB 2.0*. In our tests we observed speeds of up to 180 megabits per second, or three times faster than USB 2.0, which is a great improvement for activities such as large file transfers. USB 3.0 products are backward-compatible with USB 2.0 devices and will interoperate with them as well.
With SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products, you can do the following faster than before:
# Download HD movies and other multimedia
# Transfer high-bandwidth media and files back and forth
# Charge and sync devices, like a digital camera or smartphoneSuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Add-In Card
SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard™
SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Premium A-B Cable, 4 ft.
STATISTIC# An In-Stat 2008 report shows more than 3 billion USB-enabled devices currently being shipped.
# According to The NPD Group data from February 2010, Belkin is the current market leader in USB connectivity**.AVAILABILITY
# April 2010 in the US
# May 2010 in Canada.SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Add-In Card (F4U023) – $79.99
* Connects up to 127 USB devices (through cascading additional hubs)
* Supports plug and play and hot-swap functionalitySuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard™ (F4U024) – $79.99
* Fully compliant with ExpressCard specification 1.0 and Universal Serial Bus 3.0 specification Revision 1.0
* Supports plug and play and hot-swap functionality
* Connects up to 127 USB devices (through cascading additional hubs)SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Premium A-B Cable, 4 ft.(F3U158-04) – $39.99 ; 8 ft. (F3U158-08) – $49.99
SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Premium Micro-B Cable, 4 ft. (F3U165-04) – $39.99; 8 ft. (F3U165-08) – $49.99
Popularity: unranked [?]
Manufacturing Complicated Chips for Phones Is Real Expensive-Like [Guts]
That’s the moral of this NYT story about the bubbling war in mobile chips. They’re expensive to make. And, no one’s better at making them than Intel, whose manufacturing tech is years ahead of anybody else.
Until recently, foundries which manufactured chips on contract stuck to simpler chip designs because that’s what their tech was suited for. But now smartphones, and the chips inside of them, are a BFD, so competition’s ramping up, with $3 billion plants. GlobalFoundries, which was spun out of AMD, is one of the hot-and-heavy new guys, and about to open a massively advanced (and expensive) new plant in Germany. The first chips they’re making? For mobile devices.
Also expensive? Designing chips. The NYT pegs the cost of simply designing a chip at a billion dollars. (Exactly just how much “from scratch” they mean is debatable, since Apple’s A4 chip and Nvidia’s Tegra use off-the-shelf designs from ARM and others.)
Where things will get interesting is when these mobile chips, mostly ARM-flavored, finally start crossing the same line as Intel’s, since ARM chips are scaling up as Intel scales down, and the intersection’s not too far away. And that’s where Intel’s got a chance to really show what it’s made of, since they’re the last game in town that still designs and makes its own chips. [NYT]
Popularity: 1% [?]
Manufacturing Complicated Chips for Phones Is Real Expensive-Like [Guts]
That’s the moral of this NYT story about the bubbling war in mobile chips. They’re expensive to make. And, no one’s better at making them than Intel, whose manufacturing tech is years ahead of anybody else.
Until recently, foundries which manufactured chips on contract stuck to simpler chip designs because that’s what their tech was suited for. But now smartphones, and the chips inside of them, are a BFD, so competition’s ramping up, with $3 billion plants. GlobalFoundries, which was spun out of AMD, is one of the hot-and-heavy new guys, and about to open a massively advanced (and expensive) new plant in Germany. The first chips they’re making? For mobile devices.
Also expensive? Designing chips. The NYT pegs the cost of simply designing a chip at a billion dollars. (Exactly just how much “from scratch” they mean is debatable, since Apple’s A4 chip and Nvidia’s Tegra use off-the-shelf designs from ARM and others.)
Where things will get interesting is when these mobile chips, mostly ARM-flavored, finally start crossing the same line as Intel’s, since ARM chips are scaling up as Intel scales down, and the intersection’s not too far away. And that’s where Intel’s got a chance to really show what it’s made of, since they’re the last game in town that still designs and makes its own chips. [NYT]
Popularity: unranked [?]
Nvidia Ion 2 GPU Benchmarked As Slower Than Its Predecessor [Guts]
The first Nvidia Ion 2 netbook has been benchmarked, and the early results are disappointing: the Acer Aspire One 532G’s next-gen GPU managed to underperform the older Ion LE.
The benchmarking was done by Netbook News while at MWC, who managed to run a 3DMark03 graphics benchmark test during their hands-on time. The resulting score of 3,049 is lower than some Ion LE netbooks achieve; the Samsung N510, for example, scores a 3,593.
There are possible explanations, of course, and we won’t know for sure how the Ion 2 stacks up until we’re able to test a production-ready unit. As Netbook Choice points out, it’s possible that Acer and Nvidia purposefully hamstrung the machine to keep it stable during demonstrations. Then again, it’s also possible that Nvidia has had a difficult time working with the Aspire One 532G’s Pine Trail processor. Let’s hope it’s the former: the last thing netbooks need is even more limited graphics capabilities.
[Netbook News via Netbook Choice]
Popularity: 1% [?]
Oak Trail Is Name Of Intel Atom Z-Series Replacement (Supposedly) [Intel]
Intel is moving from conifers to deciduous trees as inspiration for its next Atom Z-series platform, if PC Watch is correct. The Z-series is residing in netbooks and ultra-portables such as the Vaio P from Sony, but with Moorestown not compatible with Windows it makes sense Intel would need a new processor.
Enter Oak Trail, which PC Watch admits is an unconfirmed rumor—but supposedly will be more energy efficient and perhaps even based on Moorestown, yet capable of running Windows. It’s certainly not a replacement for Pine Trail, which only launched in December, as they’re too large and use too much energy. [PC Watch via Pocketables]
Popularity: 2% [?]
60 Per-cent Cheaper CCFL Lamps Could Outshine LED Backlighting in TVs [TVs]
Cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlights are fast disappearing due to the more efficient and brighter LED swaggering onto the TV scene, but the Japanese company Sanken Electric claims its new CCFL technology is 60 per cent cheaper to produce.
Too little, too late for the unfashionable technology? Sanken reckons TVs perform just as well using two of its lamps as opposed to the six normally required. As production won’t start until this summer, it’s unlikely we won’t see them in TV sets for at least another year—and by then, LEDs will reign supreme. [Nikkei via CrunchGear]
Popularity: unranked [?]
Are Nokia and Intel Working on a Chip Together? [Guts]
Both companies are dropping clues that Nokia and Intel are working on a new mobile chip—a move that could solve serious problems for both. Intel and Nokia’s love affair, it seems, is bigger than Meego.
The theory congealed after Monday’s announcement of Meego, an awkwardly named laboratory child of the Nokia’s Maemo mobile OS and Intel’s Moblin netbook/tablet platform, and runs thusly:
1. Intel and Nokia are now working together in some capacity, obviously
2. Nokia has been reticent to voice solidarity with Qualcomm as the chip provider for certain forthcoming hardware
3. SemiAccurate actually reported that Nokia and Intel are working on an Atom-based SoC called Penwell, which for various technical reasons (including extra room for extra components created by the 32nm manufacturing process) looks like its shaping up to be a system-on-a-chip, in the style of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or Apple’s A4.
4. This would make sense for both companies, therefore, well, it would make sense for both of these companies.
Nokia’s current smartphone lineup hasn’t found a foothold in the US, and their netbook business is just learning to walk, so a partnership with Intel could help them develop high-end, unique hardware to power flagship handheld devices and new lines of netbooks, which, unlike last time around, might actually be worth their sky-high price tags. For Intel, well, Nokia is huge—the biggest cellphones manufacturer in the world—so having an in with them can’t be a bad thing.
It’s worth stressing that while a partnership here makes sense, it’s by no means vital: Intel would be fine without Nokia, and Nokia would be fine without Intel. But just think of the things they could do together! They are… mildly exciting, for some people! [Ars Technica]
Popularity: 3% [?]
Splayed, Splendid [Image Cache]
Photographer Adam Vorhees has a new hobby he’d like to share with everybody! It involves dismantling everyday objects and spreading them apart into lovely dioramas. Everyday objects like miniature Etch a Sketches, semiautomatic handguns, rotary telephones, and plasticized dead frogs.
Disregarding the bizarre item choice, which looks like the inventory of backpack of the Last Child On Earth, circa alternative-history-post-nuclear-apocalyptic 1970, Vorhees’ work has just left me wanting for more. It’s not that there’s any shortage of photos of gadgets in various states of disassembly, it’s just that they could do with a little more technique. Beauty in death, and all that. [Adam Vorhees]
Popularity: unranked [?]
Color-Compensation Chip Will Make Cellphone Displays Viewable Outdoors [Guts]
LCD displays aren’t exactly made for the outdoors. You have to squint, tilt the screen, and adjust the brightness to decipher anything in bright sunlight. But with NEC’s new color-compensation chip that will hopefully be an issue of the past.
Apparently the chip identifies colors which are “problematic” in outdoor light conditions (such as beige or yellow) and adjusts the contrast accordingly to make them easier to view. There’s no word on when the technology will be integrated into our cellphones, but I hope that it’s soon because between Florida and California, I keep finding myself in bright sunny places. [CrunchGear]
Popularity: 1% [?]
