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AMD's latest laptop CPUs include its first chips for Chromebooks
AMD is kicking off 2019 with an overhaul of its laptop processors, and it's breaking some new ground in the process. The company has unveiled its first two A-Series chips designed explicitly for Chromebooks, the 1.6GHz A4-9120C and 1.8GHz A6-9220C. Both are dual-core chips that use just 6W of power and promise faster performance than the Intel chips you typically see in entry-level Chrome OS portables. The A6 is up to 23 percent faster in web browsing than the Pentium N4200, AMD said, and 42 percent faster in photo editing. You might not have to spend a small fortune to get a Chromebook with decent horsepower.
Audi's new traffic-light countdown is the first step to smarter cities
As I get closer to the intersection, a countdown starts on the dashboard. The light is currently green, but the new Audi I'm driving tells me it'll be 147 seconds before I make it through the junction. Sure enough, the light turns yellow, then red, and I come to a stop as the numbers tick off in reverse. Once it hits four, the timer disappears, and within a few seconds the light turns green. It seems like a trivial feature, a timer telling you when a traffic signal is about to change. But in practice, it's quite useful. More important, it's currently available in Las Vegas, a baby step toward a future where cars and cities talk to one another to reduce gridlock.
Sony cuts the price of its 'Digital Paper' and now it's only $1,000
If the only thing keeping you from Sony's electronic paper replacement was the price, you're in luck. According to The eBook Reader, these days anyone can grab the flexible 13.3-inch E Ink display from Sony's online store (previously it was restricted to legal or banking professionals), and the price just recently fell $100. We're still not sure if dropping under the $1,000 barrier is enough to make reading PDFs and signing A4-sized documents is enough to make it worthwhile, but there are probably some folks who will find a use. Sure it doesn't do color, but the display is high res (1,200 x 1,600) and it has a three week battery life. Who needs two Xbox Ones anyway?
HP is building a $199 Windows laptop
Microsoft has been pushing hard for extra-cheap Windows computers that can take on Chromebooks, and it appears that HP is more than willing to hop on that bandwagon. Mobile Geeks has posted a leaked data sheet for the HP Stream 14, an upcoming $199 laptop that's clearly meant to fight Google-powered PCs. The base 14-inch system should cut corners by using a low-powered AMD A4 Micro processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1,366 x 768 screen and 32GB of flash storage; apart from the capacity, it'd be a step down from the company's $299 Chromebook 14. You'd have to pay more for brawnier parts like an A10 Micro chip, 64GB of space and a 1080p touchscreen. Not satisfied with the limited drive options? HP would try to make up for the shortfall by giving buyers 100GB of OneDrive cloud storage for two years, matching what you get with many Chrome OS devices. There's no word on when the Stream 14 would make its debut, although the deluge of information hints that we could see this budget portable fairly soon.
ASUS unveils budget X102BA laptop with 10-point touch and AMD inside
ASUS' new Zenbook UX301 and second-gen Transformer Book a little too rich for your blood? You'll be glad to hear that the company has announced what appears to be a more down-to-Earth ultraportable, the X102BA. As suggested in rumors, the laptop is ultimately a rival to Acer's 11-inch Aspire V5. While the X102BA sports a smaller 10.1-inch touchscreen, it uses the same 1GHz Temash-based AMD processor and should offer both healthy battery life and quicker-than-usual integrated graphics. The base 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive won't impress anyone, but ASUS is sweetening the pot by offering a free copy of Office 2013 Home & Student with every model. The company isn't providing launch details just yet; still, we wouldn't be surprised if the X102BA is priced well within the budgets of returning students. Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!
AMD details Elite Mobility and mainstream APUs, we run early tests (hands-on)
AMD has been willing to tease its 2013 ultra-mobile APU (accelerated processing unit) strategy through PCs like the Acer Aspire V5, but today it's spilling the beans in earnest. The headliner for many is the company's just-shipping Elite Mobility line, or Temash: the A4 and A6 designs are built for tablets, like Hondo was, but their Jaguar-based system-on-chip designs should be faster in both CPU and graphics power without a hit to battery life. AMD estimates that the Radeon HD 8280G video core in an Elite Mobility A6 is about five times faster than a Clover Trail-based Atom and twice as fast as Hondo, but lasts about 45 percent longer on battery than an Intel Core i3. And that's while untethered -- that Turbo Dock feature is still in place to boost speeds by over 30 percent when a dock is around for extra cooling. The E1, E2, A4 and A6 mainstream APUs based on Kabini, meanwhile, are all about tackling the Pentium and Core i3 chips that go into entry-level laptops. AMD reckons that the dual-core (E-series) and quad-core (A-series) parts are up to 88 percent faster overall than their ancestors, and can even punch above their weight class: the E1's Radeon HD 8000-level graphics are up to 66 percent faster than those of a much thirstier, Trinity-era A4 chip. Battery life is a specialty as well, with up to 10 hours when idle and 9 hours of web use. That's typically 2 to 3 hours more than Kabini's Brazos ancestor could manage. AMD wasn't specific on when these mainstream APUs would first ship when we were briefed, but we had the opportunity to benchmark an A4-based reference laptop. Read on past the break for the scores and some early impressions. %Gallery-189169% %Gallery-189171%
Samsung spending $4 billion to renovate Austin chip factory
Premiership footballers will be weeping in envy at the way Samsung's been spending its cash this month. After splashing $822 million on a Korean R&D center, it's now chucking $4 billion to renovate its semiconductor factory in Austin, Texas. The cash will be used to increase production on system-on-chip products used in a wide variety of smartphones and tablets, presumably to cope with future demand. It's not clear if this investment is in addition to the $1 billion it was raising in January to add a new SOC and OLED line to the same facility, but it's certainly a good time to be living in Texas, right now.
Apple's architect of iPhone, iPad CPU leaves for AMD
When you're the best, people want you. CPU manufacturer AMD apparently wanted the best, and they've lured Apple's head chip designer Jim Keller away from the company. Keller became an Apple employee in 2008 when Apple acquired startup chipmaker PA Semi. Keller has some former history with AMD, having been the original architect of the Athlon line of processors that were popular in 2005-2006. While at PA Semi and Apple, Keller was responsible for the A4 and A5 processors that power the iPhone and iPad. Apple bought PA Semi in 2008 for US$278 million, moving to the ARM architecture for its mobile devices and shunning Intel's Atom mobile chips in the process. The reasoning behind this move was surprisingly prescient: Apple wanted to move away from its reliance on Samsung to design and make the chips that went into the first iPhone. When he moves to AMD, Keller's new boss will be Mark Papermaster. For a short time, Papermaster was the Apple senior vice president of iPhone engineering. He quit following the 2010 iPhone 4 "antennagate scandal". More details follow in the official press release. Show full PR text August 01, 2012 08:00 ET Computer Architect Jim Keller Joins AMD as Chief of Processor Group Industry Veteran Architected Several Generations of Popular Apple, Broadcom and AMD Processors SUNNYVALE, CA–(Marketwire – Aug 1, 2012) – AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced today that Jim Keller, 53, has joined the company as corporate vice president and chief architect of AMD's microprocessor cores, reporting to chief technology officer and senior vice president of technology and engineering Mark Papermaster. In this role, Keller will lead AMD's microprocessor core design efforts aligned with AMD's ambidextrous strategy with a focus on developing both high-performance and low-power processor cores that will be the foundation of AMD's future products. "Jim is one of the most widely respected and sought-after innovators in the industry and a very strong addition to our engineering team," said Papermaster. "He has contributed to processing innovations that have delivered tremendous compute advances for millions of people all over the world, and we expect that his innovative spirit, low-power design expertise, creativity and drive for success will help us shape our future and fuel our growth." Keller was most recently a director in the platform architecture group at Apple focusing on mobile products, where he architected several generations of mobile processors, including the chip families found in millions of Apple iPads, iPhones, iPods and Apple TVs. Prior to Apple, Keller was vice president of design for P.A. Semi, a fabless semiconductor design firm specializing in low-power mobile processors that was acquired by Apple in 2008. While there, he led the team responsible for building a powerful networking System on a Chip (SoC) and its integrated PowerPC processor. Keller previously worked at SiByte® and Broadcom as chief architect for a line of scalable, MIPS-based network processors that supported 1Gig networking interfaces, PCI and other control functions. Before Broadcom, he spent several years at AMD, playing an instrumental role on the design team responsible for the groundbreaking AMD Athlon™ 64 and AMD Opteron™ 64 processors, which featured the world's first native x86-64 bit architecture. Keller co-authored the widely adopted HyperTransport specification, as well as the innovative x86-64 processor instruction set, which is used around the world today in hundreds of millions of desktop, notebook and server systems. Jim was a corporate consulting engineer at DEC, and architected two generations of Alpha processors during his tenure there. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University.
Apple's A5X processor is big and beautiful
Chipworks posted some polysilicon die photos that compare Apple's A4, A5 and A5X processor. What's most striking to the casual observer is the relative size of each die. As Chipworks notes, the A5X is "big and beautiful" when compared to the A4 and even its close predecessor the A5. You can see the detailed photos with block annotations on Chipworks's website. You can even grab a high-resolution version of the A5X that you can use as a desktop wallpaper.
iOS 5.1 gets a tethered jailbreak for non-A5 iPads, iPhones and iPods
The iPhone Dev Team has updated redsn0w to support a tethered 5.1 jailbreak for non-A5 devices. This means it'll only work with the original iPad and the iPhone 4 and older devices. The tethered jailbreak also apparently breaks iBooks, a bug which will be fixed in a future version of redsn0w. You can download the jailbreak tool from the iPhone Dev Team's website. There's detailed information on the jailbreak and instructions on how to keep your carrier unlock. The Dev Team also has a stern warning to iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners -- if you want to keep your current jailbreak, "DO NOT UPDATE TO 5.1." [Via MuscleNerd]
iPad 3 logic board with 'A5X' chip purportedly snapped by Mr. Not-so-Blurrycam
Well, if it looks real, sounds real and is halfway logical, we probably should distrust it all the more. Yes, it's the time when all the rumors, photoshops and general hysteria around Apple's next slab reaches its apex. The photo above was grabbed by the steady hand of sas126, a blurrycam snapper in name only, and posted to Chinese site Weiphone, purporting to be the logic board for the iPad 3. The big news (if true) is the "A5X" silicon, suggesting we'll see an incremental enhancement rather than the wholesale revolutions evident in the A4 and A5 chips that accompanied its predecessors. The SoC (with the Apple logo, to the right of the two Hynix memory modules) carries a date-stamp of 1146, suggesting it was produced in the 46th week of last year. Of course, now that we're getting so close to the actual event, whatever Tim Cook whips out on stage will never match whatever we'd conjured up on our own hearts: so try to dampen down that rampant excitement because we've still got 17 days left to wait.
Apple's A4 and A5 processors targeted in a new lawsuit filed by Via
According to a Bloomberg report, well-known motherboard and chipset manufacturer Via has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. Filed in Delaware Federal court, the complaint accuses Apple of infringing three US patents that cover microprocessor technology used in smartphones and tablets. Presumably, this lawsuit is targeting Apple's A4 and A5 processor used in the iPhone 4, iPad and the iPod touch. The Taiwanese manufacturer is asking for an injunction against Apple products containing these microprocessors and a jury trial. Apple, as expected, has not commented on this latest lawsuit.
AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 APUs ready to ship, take on Intel for your budget PC dollar
That's right folks, AMD's A4 APUs are here and ready to take on Intel in a battle for the bottom end of the mainstream desktop market. These dual-core desktop parts pack integrated graphics courtesy of the company's Radeon line. Both also boast a 65W TDP and 1MB of L2 cache. The only difference here is speed and price: the 3300 clocks in at 2.5GHz with a 440MHz GPU for $70, while the 3400 moves on up to 2.7GHz and a 600MHz GPU for only $5 more. They're not exactly speed demons, but should be able to hold their own against similarly priced Pentiums -- especially if you don't plan on buying a discrete graphics card. You can pick one up now at Amazon and other select retailers but, before you go, check out the PR after the break.
Apple reportedly leaves Samsung for A6 production
Apple may drop Samsung and switch to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for the production of its next generation A6 chipset. The Cupertino Company is reportedly working with TSMC to move to a 28 nm ARM SoC in 2012. Rumors of this TSMC partnership surfaced earlier this year before Apple filed a trademark infringement suit against Samsung. Though the A4 and A5 are still being produced by Samsung, the Korean company may be out of the loop in future Apple hardware. This move away from Samsung may have a deleterious effect on the Korean manufacturer as Apple is reportedly one of its biggest customers. Apple has secured LCD displays, chipsets and NAND flash memory from Samsung that are used in its iOS devices. If the impending legal battle between the two companies sours the relationship, Apple may be forced to turn to costlier options for its device components, and Samsung may lose one of its biggest customers.
Toshiba outs blingtastic Qosmio X770 for the US market, new P, C, and L series laptops
See that refined beast? You're looking at the Toshiba Qosmio X770 -- that European gaming behemoth we ogled from afar last month -- and in a matter of weeks, it'll continue its world tour to land on US shores. To recap, the company shrunk the screen from 18.4 inches to a more manageable 17.3, gave it a paint job that ever-so-subtly fades from red to gunmetal gray, and added a matching red backlit keyboard. This beefy guy comes in $1,199 and $1,899 configurations, with the higher-end model packing a 3D display, quad-core Core i7 CPU, and a 1.25TB hybrid hard drive, and the lower end offering a dual-core Core i5 CPU and a 750GB HDD. Either way, though, you'll get NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics, 1.5GB of video memory, and MaxxAudio3 sound enhancement software. Meanwhile, Toshiba streamlined its consumer laptops for those non-gamers in the back-to-school crowd, axing the A and M lines, and leaving just the P series, for "premium." It'll include 14-, 15.6-, and 17.3-inch models, all decked out in a textured, two-tone Fuxion X2 finish and featuring USB sleep-and-charge ports, HDMI-out, Harman Kardon speakers, and that same MaxxAudio 3 utility. Depending on the configuration, you can also score NVIDIA GeForce GT540M graphics, Intel Wireless Display, a 4G radio, a Blu-ray drive, and a 3D screen (only on the 15-incher). On the inside, you've got your choice of Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs or a spankin' new A6-3400M accelerated processing unit from AMD. Look for the 14-inch P745 with a starting price of $699, and 15-inch P755 and the 17-inch P775 for $629 and up. And, rounding out its portfolio, Toshiba refreshed its budget Satellite L700 series with Core 2011 processors and new AMD A4 and A6 APUs, while the entry-level Satellite C800 gets AMD Fusion C-50 and E-350 APU options. None of these laptops go on sale until later this month, so for now you can content yourself with those up-close-and-personal hands-on shots below. %Gallery-126296% %Gallery-126295%
AMD's Fusion A-Series chips official: 10.5-hour battery life, DirectX 11 graphics, and USB 3.0 support (video)
AMD's Llano platform has been on our radar for more than two years, and finally, the company has come clean with its latest class of hybrid CPU / GPU chips, officially dubbed the Fusion A-Series. Unlike the low-power flavor of Fusion accelerated processing units already on the market, these 32-nanometer APUs were designed with desktops and mainstream laptops in mind, taking direct aim at Intel's Core 2011 processors with the promise of superior processing and discrete-level graphics, and 10-plus hours of battery life. Aside from the assorted performance and battery life claims the company is making (much more on that in a moment), what this means is that as far as laptops go, AMD is completely stepping away from the standalone-CPU-plus-GPU paradigm. But, the company will still make dedicated Radeon cards, which can be coupled with an APU for a 75 percent boost in graphics performance -- a setup AMD is calling "Dual Graphics." All told, these chips measure just 228 square millimeters. To put this in context, check out the gallery of hands-on shots below, featuring the A-series next to a standalone CPU, discrete graphics card, and, for the sake of scale, the kind of low-power Fusion chip introduced back at CES. A-Series-equipped PCs are already shipping, and AMD says we can expect to see at least 150 of them this year. That sounds promising indeed, but we've still got lots of technical details to rehash. Head on past the break for the full spill on what these APUs pledge to do, along with a video of AMD senior product marketing manager Raymond Dumbeck showing off some A-series laptops in action. %Gallery-124351%
Intel hints at option of custom chip foundry for big customers
Reuters is reporting that Intel "wouldn't blink" if given the chance to make custom chips for Apple's devices, like the iPhone and iPad. At an investor event in London on Thursday, Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told journalists that "there are certain customers that would be interesting to us and certain customers that wouldn't." Apple, unsurprisingly, is one of the first type of customer. Currently the A4 and A5 chips found in iPhones and iPads are manufactured by Samsung, but reports have hinted that Apple may be moving away from Samsung and jumping to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) on a foundry basis. Given that Apple's A5 chip makes up a large portion of the $7.8 billion components contract Apple has with Samsung, it's no wonder that Intel would want to be a foundry chip maker for the Cupertino company. As Smith told reporters, "If Apple or Sony came to us and said 'I want to do a product that involves your IA (Intel architecture) core and put some of my IP around it', I wouldn't blink. That would be fantastic business for us." She did also say that Intel would have to put more thought into considering being a foundry for custom chips that didn't involve an Intel architecture core: "Then you get into the middle ground of 'I don't want it to be a IA core, I want it to be my own custom-designed core,' and then you are only getting the manufacturing margin, (and) that would be a much more in-depth discussion and analysis." [via MacRumors]
AMD Llano quad-core APUs and Zambezi octa-core CPUs get priced, the former listed inside an HP dv6
Don't mistake the relative quietness from AMD on the APU front for inactivity. Ever since announcing the first shipment of its Llano Accelerated Processing Unit in April, the company's been working behind the scenes to ramp up availability to OEMs, and somewhere along the supply chain a gracious soul has been found who's leaked the bulk pricing for those chips. The new quad-core A Series processors start off at $110 for an A6-3450 and max out at $170 for an A8-3550P, but there's also mention of octa-core FX processors, which will weigh in at $320 a piece and reputedly compete with Intel's 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K. The latter are built around AMD's Bulldozer modules (wherein one module counts for two cores) and look to be the manifestation of the company's Zambezi CPUs, which could come without an integrated graphics processor as is available on the Llano and the rest of AMD's Fusion line. Just to whet appetites further, we've also come across an HP dv6 on an obscure German retail site, offering a 1.6GHz A6-3410MX APU, 6GB of RAM, and a most reasonable €590 price. There's obviously no promised delivery date, but this should be the first of many such appearances in the coming days as we build up towards Computex 2011. Something tells us AMD won't be holding back when the Taipei electronics show gets started. [Thanks, Shashwat and Vygantas]
XBMC comes to the iPad
We were politely asked to keep quiet about this until today, but here's the truth: XBMC now runs on the Apple A4, period. As in, there's no reason why you can't install that shiny new Apple TV 2 version of the media center software on your jailbroken iPad or iPhone 4 too. Find instructions at our more coverage link... then give the hackers and developers a cheer.
Apple's A5 chip rumored to have 4X the power of A4
AppleInsider is reporting that both the iPad 2 and the next generation of the iPhone, both rumored to be released later on this year, will feature the next generation of chips designed by Apple. The A5 (named after the A4, the current chip in most iOS devices) is rumored to have two cores, making for faster graphics performance, and enabling things like the iPad 2's rumored Retina Display and HDTV out of the next version of the Apple TV. There's a lot of technical information out about the new chip (it will likely include the new SGX543 graphics core, an upgrade from the current model used by Apple), but with two cores running, the new chip model is supposed to offer around four times the processing power of the current generation. That allows for both the mentioned graphics upgrades, as well as faster computing tasks straight off of the processor with OpenCL. Apple's Intrinsity and P.A. Semi are likely to be the companies behind development, while Samsung is likely working on actual production. We can look for faster, better, stronger Apple chips later on this year. [via Engadget]