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Chinese hackers allegedly stole secrets from US law firms
Three Chinese hackers have been charged with insider trading after stealing secrets from American law firms. The Department of Justice has revealed that Lat Hong, Bo Zheng and Chin Hung installed malware on servers in order to access confidential data. The group was able to obtain documents relating to proposed mergers and acquisitions targets. Knowing what blockbuster deals were coming, the group bought shares in the target businesses. Through a series of deals, officials believe that the trio made upwards of $4 million in illegal profit.
Intel swallows one of its rivals for $16.7 billion
After getting the all-clear from the European Commission, Intel has wrapped up its $16.7 billion acquisition of fellow chip maker Altera. The deal is the company's biggest buyout to date, and will help it keep enterprise customers happy with faster, more complex silicon. As the Wall Street Journal explains, technology giants such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft currently use Intel's Xeon processors for computational work. Some, however, are bolstering them with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) sold by Altera, which are useful because they can be reprogrammed. Intel will sell the two pieces together starting next year, but its long-term vision is to combine both onto a single chip.
First 64-bit quad-core ARM chips to be fabricated by... Intel?
Intel's largest chip manufacturing customer, Altera, has said that it'll soon be building chips there based on -- wait for it -- ARM technology. Its Stratix 10 SoC will contain a quad-core, 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, which Intel confirmed would be the first of that type manufactured by anyone. By contrast, Apple's latest Samsung-built 64-bit A7 ARM chips used in the iPhone 5s are only dual-core. However, Altera's processors, which will be fab'ed with Intel's advanced 14nm tech are destined for networking equipment only and won't compete with the likes of Qualcomm and Samsung for smartphones. In any case, Intel's just a gun for hire with its biggest competitor's tech, so it would be unwise to draw any conclusions -- after all, the chip giant has its own Clover Trail to follow.
Intel lands Altera as its biggest chip manufacturing customer to date
Many of us see Intel as self-serving with its chip manufacturing, but that's not entirely true: it just hasn't had very large customers. A just-unveiled deal with Altera might help shatter those preconceptions. Intel has agreed to make some of the embedded technology giant's future field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) using a 14-nanometer process, giving Intel a top-flight customer while giving Altera a leg up over any rivals stuck on less efficient technologies. The pact may be just the start -- Intel VP Sunit Rikhi portrays the deal as a stepping stone toward a greater role in contract chip assembly in an interview with Reuters. We're not expecting Intel to snatch some business directly from the likes of GlobalFoundries and TSMC when many of their clients are ARM supporters, or otherwise direct competitors. However, we'll have to reject notions that Intel can't share its wisdom (and factories) with others.
Intellectual Ventures begins tech patent offensive, files three lawsuits against nine companies
We've always wondered why former Microsoft CTO Nathan Mhyrvold was stockpiling patents at his new company Intellectual Ventures, and it looks like we're starting to find out why: in addition to licensing the entire portfolio to HTC and Samsung, IV's just filed its first three patent lawsuits against nine tech companies. Details are sparse, but the first suit is against Symantec, McAfeee, Trend Micro, and Check Point Software, the second names Elpida Memory and Hynix, and the third is against Altera, Lattice Semiconductor, and Microsemi. We'd assume the patents in question are all super-technical in nature, but it's really not the specifics we're interested in -- it's more the fact that IV is starting to flex some muscle in the tech world, and that means a lot of money could change hands real fast. We'll see what happens.
DDD chip makes all your old 2D video 3D automatically
Add another to the CES must-see list, as DDD TriDef and Altera have teamed up to create automatic 2D-to-3D converting processors. Slated to run demos on a 46-inch Hyundai IT 3D LCD , the opportunity for plug and play 3D could make for an easy transition, just like the jump to HD (ha!) While you collectively shudder from horrible memories of the old days of high definition, we'll ponder whether this is the same sterescopic 3D chip Samsung is testing with an eye towards a late '09 release. Considering their long track record with DDD finding this hardware a home next to your MediaLive Digital Media Adapter doesn't seem to be entirely unreasonable speculation.
Xilinx, Altera showing off FPGA coprocessors at IDF
While Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) haven't benefited from a good deal of buzz just yet, things could be taking a turn, as both Xilinx and Altera caught a few eyes at IDF. We've already seen the unique, albeit highly specific chips in a supercomputer, but the dedicated coprocessor / accelerator modules could be landing beside your Intel Xeon CPU. Essentially, the devices plug "directly into the processor socket of dual- or quad-socket servers" in order to provide "high performance application acceleration ranging from 10x to 100x compared to processors alone, while simultaneously reducing overall system power consumption." The modules act as targeted CPUs, effectively computing very specific tasks in a much more efficient fashion than a general microprocessor can alone, which could boost the speed of scientific, financial, and life science applications that rely on very particular calculations. Of course, mainstream adoption still has quite a ways to go, but the quicker we get dedicated physics and AI coprocessors to go along with these snazzy new GPUs, the happier (and poorer) we'll be.[Via RobotSkirts]Read - Altera demonstrates FPGA at IDFRead - Xilinx demonstrates FPGA at IDF
Let It Wave's bandlet upconversion technology on the air in France
Let It Wave's bandlet upconversion technology is on the air on a French high definition TV station broadcasting the French Roland Garros Tennis open. The CTO of France Televisions Interactive states the company is using the technology to mix upconverted SD sources with native HDTV footage, enabling high definition programming to reach customers sooner. We haven't had the best experiences with mixed SD content at US sporting events like the PGA Championship, but Let It Wave claims its technology upconverts as high as 1080p with no flickering or jaggies. French television is currently testing the technology on Altera FPGA-based hardware and will continue to do so for the next three months with a variety of sources, the company plans to announce more products at NAB 2007.
Bandelet upconverting technology finds a home with Altera
That was quicker than we thought. Let It Wave's upconversion technology that claims to be better than current motion-adaptive techniques (like Faroudja's DCDi) has a hardware partner in Altera.Altera has already put their FPGA chips in some devices you may have heard of, like LG's 71" gold plated PDP, RCA's Scenium line of DLP HDTVs and Texas Instruments' DLP chipset. With that track record we should hopefully be seeing this technology in shipping products very soon, especially since the FPGA is designed to be able to change and add new technology quickly.
