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Intel finds SSD firmware bug, calls in the exterminators

by Vladislav Savov posted Nov 6th 2009 at 9:06AM

Amid Intel's recent catalog of problems is a pretty significant firmware update for the X25-M SSDs, which went rogue and started bricking drives for the sheer bloody-minded enjoyment of it. After promptly pulling the software, the chip giant set straight to work -- or so we presume -- and has today finally managed to replicate the fatal circumstances that may lead to your SSD's untimely demise. That's not to say the problem's been fixed, and there's no word yet on when the cleaned up patch will be back out for consumption, but at least we're a step closer to realizing those TRIM-related speed boosts. So, are you growing tired of Intel's suicidal firmware updates, or should we consider these mere bumps on the road to superfast SSD awesomeness?

Samsung slims down NAND memory packaging, wafer-thin gadgets to follow

by Vladislav Savov posted Nov 6th 2009 at 8:19AM

Good old Samsung and its obsession with thinness. After finally letting its 30nm 32Gb NAND chips out of the bag in May, the Korean memory maker has now successfully halved the thickness of its octa-die memory package to a shockingly thin 0.6mm (or 0.02 inches). The new stacks will start out at a 32GB size, though the real benefits are likelier to be felt down the line when the ability to pack bits more densely pays off in even higher storage capacities. Cellphones, media players and digital cameras will inevitably take the lion's share, but we're hopeful -- eternal optimists that we are -- that this could accelerate the decline of SSD prices to a borderline affordable level. Intel and Micron promised us as much, how about Samsung delivering it?

[Via Information Week]

Adobe engages Apple in passive aggressive warfare with iPhone's Flash message

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 2nd 2009 at 2:58PM

Adobe's seemingly tried everything in its fight to get Apple to tear down enough development barriers to get Flash ported to the iPhone, culminating in a native compilation option in CS5 that... well, really doesn't solve much of anything. So far, nothing's worked. What's next? Get the masses fired up with some old-fashioned propaganda and let 'em riot down at One Infinite Loop, of course! Visiting Adobe's Flash download page from an iPhone now shows a pretty tersely-worded message informing the user that they're getting short-changed simply by Apple's refusal to budge, so yeah, if you hear an occasional cry of "this is outrageous, I'm writing Apple immediately!" while sitting at an airport gate or a coffee shop, you can safely guess what just happened.

[Via Gear Diary]

Fujifilm's Remora flash could save those underwater family portraits

by Tim Stevens posted Oct 28th 2009 at 8:09AM

Underwater photography is tough, and, when you're dealing with something less than Caribbean-clear blue seas, finding the right lighting can be near-impossible. Fujifilm's Remora looks to make things a little easier, offering a 60 degree beam of light with a guide number of 20, so it's bright enough even for nighttime cuttlefish documentaries but can be dimmed to save the retinas of sensitive cephalopods. Four AA batteries give you 240 flashes at a depth of up to 180 feet, but at £229 (about $370) only the most serious rebreathers need apply.

Samsung invests in Fusion-io, takes relationship to 'a new level'

by Vladislav Savov posted Oct 21st 2009 at 4:55AM

Specializing in PCI Express-mounted flash storage, Fusion-io has managed to not only survive in these tough economic times, but garner additional investments from some clearly impressed onlookers. Loathe to be left out of the loop, Samsung -- the world's biggest NAND flash manufacturer and also Fusion-io's chief supplier -- has thrown some cash at the young startup company, and declared that the pair are now officially dating. Or, in their parlance, they've agreed to "jointly evaluate technology for new SSD applications." Samsung won't have any board level influence, but providing a reliable supply chain and the clout of its name should ensure that Fusion-io is around long enough for us to eventually be able to afford an ioDrive.

[Via PC World]

Windows PC Scout patronizes, offers surprisingly good comparison tool

by Vladislav Savov posted Oct 20th 2009 at 11:31PM

Want a "high-quality" machine that represents the "best of the best in laptops?" Microsoft's got your back with its all-new PC Scout, a Flash-based laptop recommendation engine whose delivery is unfortunately more than a little reminiscent of those misguided Windows 7 launch party promos. Ah well, should you successfully navigate your way past bad jokes about space-cats and online dating, and on to the Selection section, you'll find a thoroughly decent laptop comparison tool -- with sliders for price and features narrowing or expanding your available choice in real time. With future plans to expand it to cover desktop hardware as well, Microsoft is making a commendable and seemingly rather useful effort to aid its users in picking out a new machine. Kudos for that, now how about hiring some real actors for a change?

[Via Ars Technica]

SanDisk ships world's first X4-based flash memory cards, humans wait for capacity increases

by Darren Murph posted Oct 14th 2009 at 5:10AM

SanDisk was busy trumpeting the benefits of X4 technology way back in February, and now the company's tooting its own horn once more by shipping the planet's first memory cards based on the new tech. For those who've forgotten, X4 can hold four bits of data in each memory cell, which is twice as many as the cells in traditional MLC NAND memory chips. In theory, this stuff will allow for bigger capacities in the flash memory that we so dearly love, but for whatever reason (read: cost concerns), the first X4-based SDHC and Memory Stick PRO cards top out at just 16GB. Wake us up when we can slam a sub-$50 256GB SDHC card into our D90, okay?

Kingston's MobileLiteG2 card reader makes your thumb look huge

by Darren Murph posted Oct 8th 2009 at 10:42PM

There's diminutive, and then there's Kingston's MobileLiteG2 card reader. The second-generation of this here reader supports a wide variety of formats (SD, SDHC, microSD, microSDHC, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo and Memory Stick Micro), and it also boasts retractable covers on each side to protect the USB connector and the memory card. At just 2.45- x 1.16- x 0.646-inches in size, there's an 87.425 percent chance that you'll lose this before the MobileLiteG3 comes out, but honestly, that's probably a-okay with Kingston. Those looking to downsize in a big way can order this bugger up for $11 (for the reader itself), $28.50 (bundled with a 4GB SDHC card) or $46 (bundled with an 8GB SDHC card).

[Via OhGizmo]

Adobe lets you use Flash to create... non-Flash apps for the iPhone

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 5th 2009 at 6:01PM

Notably (or not so notably) absent from this week's mobile announcements out of Adobe's Flash camp is the iPhone, a platform that many want to see pick up official Flash support for a number of totally valid reasons -- but realistically, the gap between Adobe's stance and Apple's stance on the subject seems no closer than it did in 2007. The solution? Let developers make Flash apps for the iPhone and convert 'em over to native code prior to submission to the App Store. Of course, this effectively means that there's nothing "Flash app" about these Flash apps, but if nothing else, it lets devs apply their existing knowledge and code libraries in a way that'll make Apple happy and get real, native apps out to users without the muss and fuss of a manual port. The apps look pretty cheesy compared to most purpose-suited iPhone apps, but skeptics should note that there are already 8 apps live in the App Store that were compiled this way -- Adobe boasts that it's a 100 percent acceptance rate so far -- and the Flash CS5 dev environment required to make it happen should be available as a public beta "later this year." Pretty cool, but no, seriously... how about real Flash, Apple?

Flash 10.1 announced for just about anything with a screen, webOS and WinMo betas this year (update: Pre video!)

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 5th 2009 at 1:31AM

Flash 10 already supports HD video on the desktop, but 10.1 -- announced this week at Adobe's MAX conference in Los Angeles -- is being billed the first to really reap the full benefits of the Open Screen Project by unifying feature sets across a wide variety of platforms on the desktop, the laptop, and the pocket. As usual, Windows, Mac, and Linux will all get hooked up with the latest release, but public betas of 10.1 for Windows Mobile and webOS will be hitting before the end of the year as well followed by Android and Symbian in "early" 2010. RIM's also gotten official with its rumored membership in the Open Screen Project, though the lack of a timeline for 10.1 support in BlackBerry OS is a stark reminder of the long technical road that lies ahead for Waterloo as it tries to match the smartphone competition tit-for-tat in the multimedia space. At the end of the day, mobile Flash means nothing without the horsepower to properly drive it, so let's hope that Tegra, Snapdragon, and next-generation architectures like OMAP4 start to come on board en masse just as these builds come out of beta.

Speaking of fast chipsets, the other big news out of the show is that Flash 10.1 will take advantage of GPU acceleration on a number of key mobile platforms, including both nVidia's Tegra and Qualcomm's Snapdragon alongside ION for smooth (well, theoretically smooth) 720p and 1080p video on the latest generation of netbooks and smartbooks.

Update: Added video of the Palm Pre running three instances of Flash in parallel after the break.

Read - Flash 10.1 announcement
Read - RIM joins the OSP

Continue reading Flash 10.1 announced for just about anything with a screen, webOS and WinMo betas this year (update: Pre video!)

GPU-accelerated 720p Flash video gets demoed on a netbook (smoothly)

by Donald Melanson posted Sep 28th 2009 at 12:54PM

It's been a long wait since NVIDIA and Adobe announced their plans for GPU-accelerated Flash video back in January of this year, but it looks like the pair now finally have something to show for themselves. While it's not quite clear how official it is just yet, the folks at NotebookJournal have nonetheless published a video that shows 720p Flash video running smoothly on a netbook (an ION-powered HP Mini 311, to be specific). Unfortunately, it looks like we'll still have to wait until sometime in the first half of 2010 to see the technology become publicly available (at least if the slides in the video are any indication), but you can now check out the demo for yourself after the break. Just be sure to stick with it for a while or skip ahead to the 1:20 mark -- they show a non-accelerated video at the beginning for an all too painful comparison.

[Via Liliputing]

Continue reading GPU-accelerated 720p Flash video gets demoed on a netbook (smoothly)

Video: Intel-powered set-top box running Flash, decoding HD video

by Nilay Patel posted Sep 22nd 2009 at 4:51PM

Intel's making a big TV push here at IDF, and a lot of it centers around the CE 3100 Media Processor, which combines an 800MHz Pentium M core with a proprietary video processing core all on one chip. That's about as much power as a 1.2GHz Atom, and it's enabled some pretty cool demos, like this box that's running a custom Flash Lite UI on top of Linux. The video silicon accelerates H.264 playback, so newer YouTube content looked fantastic -- some of the best big-screen YouTube we've ever seen actually. That's all the software was optimized for, however -- older content that required software decoding looked much worse, and playback wasn't stellar. That's down to optimization, though, and we're willing to forgive it, especially since the demo was put together in two weeks or so. Of course, the big question when you're looking at an IA core running Flash is whether or not this rig can do Hulu on a big screen, and the answer was cautious but optimistic: it's technically possible and even somewhat easy, but as usual it all comes down to Hulu allowing it. (What else did you expect?) Still, it's interesting to see a set-top box with some actual processing power, and Intel's got some more interesting demos for us coming up, including a three-tuner Tru2Way HTPC that can send video to a PS3. Video after the break!

Continue reading Video: Intel-powered set-top box running Flash, decoding HD video

Intel Atom dev program launched, seeks to inspire netbook-centric applications

by Darren Murph posted Sep 22nd 2009 at 3:48PM

So, here's the situation. The current fleet of netbooks would be rendered next to useless with Vista loaded on, but having Windows XP on there forces manufacturers to regurgitate specification lists. Rather than using the introduction of Windows 7 to fully pursue a world where netbooks can actually run around freely with 2GB (or even 3GB!) of RAM and chipsets powerful enough to open seven Excel sheets simultaneously, Intel is today sparking up its Atom Processor Developer Program. The reason? To "spur a new wave of applications for... netbooks, with support for handhelds and smartphones available in the future." Call us calloused, but that sounds a lot like a company pushing for "lite" software that functions on sluggish hardware.

Granted, we know that's not exactly the case here -- after all, even we wouldn't argue that some applications could benefit from being re-written to operate on a 10.1-inch display -- but it still feels like Intel's pushing software programmers to cater to underwhelming hardware rather than innovating its chips to work faster and more efficiently. There's no doubt that this feeling is compounded by just how long we've been waiting for a new wave of Atom CPUs, but at long last, we digress. The program actually has quite a few positive merits, such as striving to "reduce overhead and streamline the creation of new applications" for smaller devices -- something that would benefit every user regardless of processor. So far, both Acer and Dell have voiced their support for the program, giving us at least a modicum of reassurance that the Aspire One and Mini lines aren't vanishing anytime soon. Hit the read link for the glorified details, if you're into that type of thing.

[Via jkkmobile]

Snow Leopard ships with old version of Flash - great for hackers, not so much for the rest of us

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 3rd 2009 at 2:31PM

As we've seen, for many people the migration to Snow Leopard has been eventful (to say the least). Even if you've been spared most of the growing pains, you'll want to make note of this next item: According to the kids at Adobe, the initial release of Mac OS X 10.6 includes an earlier version of Adobe Flash Player (10.0.23.1), necessitating an upgrade to 10.0.32.18 if you want to take advantage of the enhanced security the latter provides. What's more, even if your plug-in was up-to-date, an upgrade to Snow Leopard will downgrade your Flash Player version -- so much for auto-magically downloading the most recent updates when you install the OS, eh? Our feeling is this: if you're including Flash Player in the OS, you'd better update that as well. As Daily Tech points out, Adobe products (especially Flash) are a favorite of hackers and malcontents everywhere, so if you're serious about security you'll want to get your hands on the update ASAP. And as always, the read link is a terrific place to start.

[Via Daily Tech]

ASUS EeeBox EB1012 teases home theaters with dual-core Atom and Ion graphics

by Thomas Ricker posted Sep 1st 2009 at 5:41AM

Looks like our dreams of a discrete, low cost home theater PC are about to be realized. ASUS has a new EeeBox PC EB1012 touting a dual-core Atom N330 (just as rumored), NVIDIA MCP7A ION graphics, a 250GB SATA hard disk, 2GB of DDR2-800 memory expandable to 4GB, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, S/PDIF 5.1 audio jack, and HDMI out. As such, this little 222 x 178 x 26.9mm box should handle your hardware accelerated 1080p content just as readily as it does full-screen Flash video from Hulu and beyond -- a place where single-core Atom-based Ion nettops fail. It also features an eSATA jack, 4x USB ports, and an SDHC card reader for plugging in more media. No word on price or ship date but we'll keep an eye out.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]