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Daily Roundup: iPhone 5s and 5c reviews, Cyber-shot QX10 review, iOS 7 now available, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Hands-on with Acer's DA241HL 24-inch all-in-one running Android
Granted, tablets are getting up there in size, but even after a couple of Android all-in-ones (including, in fact, one from Acer early this year), we're still not fully used to playing Angry Birds on a glossy 24-inch display. We're sure we'll get a better handle on it, but these things take time. For those who want their Android games and apps in full, giant HD, there's the DA241HL. We've got to admit, while it's still an odd space, Acer's doubling down here, with a pretty nicely designed all-in-one that looks a bit better than the current DA220HQL. Along the bottom, you'll find one long speaker grille with four buttons: input, monitor settings, volume up and down and power. Flip the device around to find the hinged stand and a removable panel that hides three USB ports, an SD slot, a headphone jack, HDMI and micro-USB sockets. The USB, in particular, will come in handy when you want to connect up a keyboard and mouse, and you'll be using the HDMI and micro-USB should you decide to connect a phone or PC to use it as a secondary display.
NVIDIA CEO: 'We're going to bring it with the second generation Surface'
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has confirmed to CNET that a followup to the Surface RT is in development, and that it will apparently continue to use NVIDIA hardware inside. Recently news concerning the ARM-powered version of Microsoft's tablet hasn't been good, with a $900 million inventory charge and price cuts for both the RT and Pro. According to Jen-Hsun Huang, the addition of an Outlook mail app in Windows 8.1 can be the killer app the platform has been missing, and the company hopes it will be a big success. Rumors for the next gen of Surface have hinted at Microsoft offering Qualcomm chips in some models as well a smaller 7-inch version. NVIDIA may have some Tegra 4-specific features to contribute to the latter -- we'll see if Microsoft can take a bigger bite out of the tablet market on its second attempt.
Mad Catz CEO announces 'Project M.O.J.O.' Android gaming console coming at E3
So, what with E3 just over the horizon, we're expecting a bunch of gaming news. But a new contestant in the Android gaming market? From an established gaming hardware maker? Well, apparently so, according to Mad Catz CEO Darren Richardson who announced "Project M.O.J.O." in a recent earnings call. Calling it an Android "micro console," Richardson claims it's like a supercharged smartphone, without a display, that you plug into a flatscreen TV. Richardson was also keen to stress that it's all about hardware performance, and will be open platform (rather than selling content). There are no details about specification at this stage, but M.O.J.O. is likely to be the fruit of a recent NVIDIA partnership, and will be the centerpiece of Mad Catz's own GameSmart products, which ensures a slew of peripherals and controller options. This partnership also likely means Tegra Zone compatibility, and therefore games from launch. For now we'll have to sit and wait, but it looks like Android gaming is about to step up a gear.
NVIDIA Tegra 4i software update adds LTE-Advanced speeds
NVIDIA's Tegra 4i appeared in February boasting, amongst other things, its built-in Cat. 3 LTE modem capable of speeds as high as 100Mbps. What NVIDIA didn't make obvious at the time was that the i500 modem, the fruit of its Icera acquisition, had the processing grunt to enable a software modem update to boost its speed to Cat. 4 LTE (150Mbps.) We had a quick visit with NVIDIA and saw a "perfect world demo" (pic above) of the device being bombarded at 150Mbps as well as placing an actual call on AT&T's network and streaming video. Of course LTE-Advanced doesn't exist in the real world yet, nor does a real handset sporting this chip, though seeing another player battling incumbent Qualcomm in this space before these networks have even been lit up certainly warms our hearts. Check the PR text for all the nitty gritty details after the break. Brad Molen contributed to this report.
NVIDIA Tegra 3 open source code gets early 3D support
It's a given that NVIDIA's Tegra 3 can handle 3D -- unless you've been crafting a fully open source project around the chip, at which point you've been stuck in a flat world. Fresh contributions from Avionic Design's Thierry Reding have brought that extra dimension back, albeit in limited form. His early patches for the Linux kernel enable support for 3D when using the Tegra Direct Rendering Manager driver. There's also a matching Gallium3D driver for us regular users, although it's still young: it can run reference 3D code as of a recent check, but can't produce visible imagery. While it may take some months before everything falls into place, the officially-backed work should make the (slightly aging) chip that much more useful beyond the realms of Android and Windows RT.
NVIDIA details how its Jetson development kit creates smart, seeing cars
Developing a high-end in-car infotainment system can present challenges that don't exist in other platforms -- you're juggling core car systems, a myriad of sensors and media playback in a testbed on wheels. NVIDIA has just explained how it's uniting those elements with its new, lengthily-titled Jetson Automotive Development Platform. While it looks like a single-DIN car stereo laid bare, the configurable kit incorporates a Tegra processor (for usual infotainment functions), multiple car-friendly interfaces and a Kepler-based graphics chipset that can power car detection, lane departure and other computer vision systems by using CUDA or OpenCV code. The net effect should be a much simpler development process: automakers can consolidate some of their test hardware in one Jetson unit that they can upgrade or swap out if newer technology comes along. NVIDIA isn't naming the handful of designers and suppliers that are already building car electronics using Jetson, although history offers a few possible candidates.
The Conduit HD coming to Tegra-powered Android devices March 14
High Voltage Software recently announced a port of the single-player levels from Wii shooter The Conduit to Tegra-powered Android devices. Called The Conduit HD, the game will land on the Google Play store on March 14, offering the first two levels for free to players.The rest of the single-player campaign can be purchased for $4.99, or players have the option of buying levels three through six and seven through nine in two separate packs for $2.99 apiece. While TegraZone notes that the game will be compatible with GameStop's tablet controller, there's no mention of it supporting Nvidia's Project Shield handheld system. %Gallery-180299%
NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on (video)
NVIDIA's latest venture in the mobile world, called the 4i, was introduced last week ahead of Mobile World Congress, and fortunately the chipset maker brought the product to Barcelona embedded in a reference phone known as "Phoenix." The 8mm-thick handset, which will find a home in the labs of manufacturers and carriers (as well as the desks of many third-party devs), sports a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP rear-facing camera, PRISM 2, Chimera, DirectTouch and LTE (we're told that most major bands are included for testing purposes). As it's not geared for general consumer use, so it's not the thinnest, sleekest or best-looking device, and the back doesn't even seem to snap completely shut. Units are being sampled as we speak, and we should expect to see devices hit the market in nine to twelve months. Since it's still pretty early in the process, we weren't able to turn on the phone or benchmark the chipset; the only exception to this rule, as you'll see in the video, was when a rep showed a gaming demo on his particular unit. While the 4i is the smaller brother of the Tegra 4 family, it's still expected to be quite powerful. The chip, which is designed specifically for smartphones (tablets will take advantage of Tegra 4 instead), features four 28nm Cortex-A9 r4 (beefed-up from the standard A9) cores that can be clocked up to 2.3GHz, 60 GPU cores (compared to 72 on the T4) and an integrated i500 LTE baseband modem. For additional comparison, NVIDIA showed us the two sibling boards side-by-side. Head below to check out our galleries of Phoenix and the two chipsets, as well as a brief video that shows off the graphics prowess of the 4i.
NVIDIA Tegra 4 benchmarked, breaks all sorts of speed records (video)
When NVIDIA unveiled Tegra 4 back at CES, we scrambled to get hands-on with a reference device. And though our initial performance impressions were positive -- it runs 1080p video and games smoothly -- there was only so much we could say to illustrate how fast the performance is. After all, Tegra 3 already does a fine job handling games and full HD movies. What we really needed were benchmarks, some quantitative data to help show the difference between Tegra 4 devices and whatever's currently on the market. Fortunately for all of you, we just got our chance: here at Mobile World Congress, the company has reference tablets set up expressly for the purpose of running tests. So, we did just that... over and over and over until we had a long list of scores. Meet us after the break to see how it fared.
NVIDIA intros Tegra 4i with built-in LTE, details Chimera camera tech with HDR
Did NVIDIA say it would stick to one new mobile processor design per year? If so, it's not worried about its own rules: meet the Tegra 4i. The 4-plus-1 chip formerly known as Project Grey is a Tegra 4 mostly in name, and goes for integration rather than raw power. It sheds the newer Cortex-A15 architecture of the Tegra 4 for a spruced-up 2.3GHz Cortex-A9 with the i500 LTE modem built directly into the chip die -- a move that cuts the surface area in half and simplifies the hardware, even as it supposedly outruns equivalent competition. The design is more than just an overclocked Tegra 3 with 4G inside, though. The 4i touts 60 graphics cores versus the 12 of its ancestor, and inherits the high dynamic range photography and video engine of the Tegra 4. NVIDIA is demonstrating the 4i's chops through the Phoenix (pictured above), a 5-inch, 1080p reference Android smartphone that builders can use as a starting point. There's no immediate customers mentioned for the CPU, although we suspect those are coming soon. Speaking of that camera technology, NVIDIA has also given it a name. Chimera, as it's now called, isn't just about making HDR available for every photo and video. The mix of CPU and GPU processing can capture HDR panorama shots without requiring a single-direction sweep, letting a would-be Ansel Adams 'paint' the panorama out of order. The autofocusing engine is also smart enough to include subject tracking with an exposure lock. Both 8-megapixel Aptina and 13-megapixel Sony camera sensors can already support Chimera, which gives us a clue as to just what imaging we can expect with the first batch of Tegra 4 and 4i devices.
NVIDIA Nsight Tegra 1.1 Visual Studio Edition gives developers a path to Android
One of the biggest roadblocks to Android app development is just coming to grips with the tool set: asking developers weaned on Visual Studio to drop it for the likes of Eclipse is tossing them in the deep end of the pool. NVIDIA is offering a slightly gentler swimming lesson through the launch of Nsight Tegra 1.1 Visual Studio Edition. The kit brings the needed framework for native Android apps into Visual Studio 2010 so that programmers can work with the debugging and other features they've come to know. Although Nsight Tegra isn't the same as building in Google's preferred environment, it's also free for registered Tegra developers -- no doubt in the hopes that there will be more apps built around NVIDIA's chips.
NVIDIA posts Q4 2013 earnings: $1.1 billion in revenue, $174 million in profit
Earnings may be down slightly sequentially for the graphics and mobile CPU powerhouse, but things are still looking good compared to the same period last year. For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013 NVIDIA is reporting $1.1 billion in revenue, a small dip from last quarter's record $1.2 billion, but up from 2012's $950 million. That's an increase of 16.1 percent year-over-year and, perhaps most importantly, net income was up 50 percent to $174 million. That does, however, mark a significant drop from Q3's $209 million in profits. Still, while it didn't offer specific numbers in its press release (those may come during the company's earnings call later today), NVIDIA declared that its Tegra business was continuing to grow. And its GPU division continued to put up impressive numbers, raking in $3.2 billion for the year, despite a sagging PC market. If you'd like to dig into all the financial particulars check out the PR after the break. Update: In its earnings call, NVIDIA said Tegra products for smartphones and tablets, which include recent Windows RT models, have risen 50 percent year-over-year to around $540 million. NVIDIA is also currently sampling 4G LTE modems with its Tegra 4 processor, which was announced at CES this year. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said that "LTE modems will allow Tegra to enter into new markets where LTE is necessary." Later in the call, Huang gave praise to the much-hyped Project Shield, stating that the portable console will be a great companion device for GeForce, thus enhancing their case for the GPU. "We have more than just Android application processors," he said. "We have Android, we have Windows RT, we have Shield. Tegra is not just for smartphones." Nicole Lee contributed to this report.
NVIDIA's Tegra 4 reference tablet hands-on at CES 2013 (video)
During our on-stage broadcast with NVIDIA, while we got another look at Project Shield, we were also surprised by the appearance of NVIDIA's new Tegra 4 reference tablet. Previously out of reach over at the chipmaker's CES space, we got to exclusively handle it and play some Riptide GP 2 (another first). The device -- which won't ever make its way to consumers -- was incredibly light, while the 16:9 11-inch display beamed out Android 4.2. There's a raft of ports for developers to meddle with, including micro-USB, HDMI and storage expansion, as well as some indentations for docks and fixtures. In our hands, it's unerringly light -- and the NVIDIA guys seemed pretty proud when we mentioned that. Performance on the game and basic navigations was unsurprisingly very slick -- the game we tried was developed specifically for NVIDIA's new mobile chip. However, we weren't able to steal a glance at the web browser or other functionality, but we're likely to see and hear a lot more next month at Mobile World Congress. After the break, we've got some playtime with Riptide 2 and a video tour of the device. %Gallery-175577% Note: In the video, we mention that the device is running Ice Cream Sandwich, but it's actually running Jelly Bean. Apologies for the error.
Audi to take NVIDIA powered MIB systems global, drive Tegra through Asian, North American markets
NVIDIA and Audi have been building high-end infotainment systems for some time, but until now, the best of the team's efforts have only been available to European drivers. Not anymore -- NVIDIA announced today that Audi's latest Tegra-based MIB high-end is ready to hit the road, and is due to arrive in major markets in Asia, the US and Canada by 2014. The system uses a variety of technologies to offer drivers live updates from Google Earth real-time updates on gas prices and even weather forecasts. Audi says it's planning to bring the MIB systems to all of it's new vehicles, and is also pimping the tech out to other brands, such as Volkswagen and Skoda. The company didn't specify which Tegra chip would be making the international tour, but NVIDIA general manager Taner Ozcelik suggests that upgrading the system to the company's latest is a relatively smooth process. "NVIDIA's modular VCM approach lets companies like Audi quickly move from a Tegra 2 processor, to a Tegra 3 and beyond." Read on for the company's official press release.
OUYA and Kill Screen announce CREATE Game Jam, bait developers with $45,000 in prizes
Excited for OUYA? So are the folks at Kill Screen -- so much so, they've seen fit to host a 10-day competition to coax OUYA compatible game prototypes out of the development community. It's calling the event CREATE, and in addition to drumming up interest for Kickstarter's favorite game console, it aims to celebrate how OUYA and a new generation of indie game developers are making the television an open gaming platform. Starting on January 14th, Kill Screen will start accepting prototype submissions of playable (but not necessarily complete) games. Ten days later, a panel of indie veterans will cull the fat, and select finalists based on not only the game itself, but the social media efforts of its development team. This is an indie game competition, after all. The contest judges entrants on how effectively they use the OUYA platform too, including processor, sound, controller integration, in-game payments and other elements available in the console's development kit. Winners can score anywhere between $5,000 to $20,000 in prizes, with an extra bonus if the finished game launches on OUYA. Enough incentive for you? Check out Kill Screen's full contest rules at the source link below.
Nvidia unveils Android gaming handheld powered by 'world's fastest mobile processor'
Graphics powerhouse Nvidia is entering the portable gaming market with Project Shield, an Android handheld fitted with the company's newly unveiled quad-core Tegra 4 mobile processor. Shield, showcased by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at this year's CES, resembles a PS3 or Xbox 360 twin-stick controller but attached to a flip-top 5-inch 'retinal display' multitouch screen with 1280x720 HD resolution at 294 dpi. The Tegra 4 chip it contains, which Nvidia claims is the world's fastest mobile processor, offers effectively six times greater visual output than its Tegra 3 predecessor, as found in Microsoft Surface tablets. Nvidia tells our friends at Engadget that the device is expected to ship in Q2 of this year. One crucial factor which remains undisclosed is the price.Shield also has 38 watt hours of batteries, which translates into 5 to 10 hours of gameplay or 24 hours of HD video, and a bass reflex audio system with a greater signal-to-noise ratio than the iPhone 5. In addition to the standard audio jack, Shield has a microSD slot, a micro USB port, and an HDMI port that Huang demonstrated with an LG 4K resolution HDTV. Shield's 'console-grade' analog sticks are joined by a d-pad and a standard quartet of buttons, as well as triggers and bumpers.Huang also demonstrated a few games from Nvidia's Tegrazone store being played on the device, followed by a brief run of mega-mech battling in Hawken. Next, Huang detailed how Shield can wirelessly stream from a PC across a local network to Shield, using this to play Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Assassin's Creed 3 on the handheld. As Engadget reports, there was perceivably very little lag. The demo also showed Shield accessing Steam on the PC, with Huang underling the ease with which Big Picture Mode can be used via Shield to bring Steam games to HDTVs.You can watch the full CES demonstration of Project Shield on Nvidia's Twitch.tv page. It's roughly 40 minutes long, and begins at around the 2h02m mark.
NVIDIA officially unveils Tegra 4: offers quad-core Cortex A15, 72 GPU cores, LTE support
One new SoC per year? That's what NVIDIA pledged back in the fall of 2010 and today at its CES 2013 presser, it delivered with the Tegra 4's official unveiling. The chip, which retains the same 4-plus-1 arrangement of its predecessor, arrives with a whopping 72 GeForce GPU cores -- effectively offering six times the Tegra 3's visual output and is based on the 28nm process. It also is the first quad-core processor with Cortex A15 cores on-board, and offers compatibility with LTE networks through an optional chip. NVIDIA claims this piece of silicon is the world's fastest mobile processor, and showed a demonstration in which a Tegra 4 went head-to-head against a Nexus 10 in loading websites (you can guess which one won). The Tegra 4 also introduces new computational photography architecture, which adds a new engine to drive the image processing and significantly improve the amount of time it takes to calculate the necessary mathematics 10 times faster than current platforms. To show off its power, NVIDIA demonstrated HDR rendering on live video. The chip is also capable of implementing HDR in burst shots and with LED flash. The idea, NVIDIA says, is to eventually make our mobile cameras more powerful than DSLRs, and this is certainly a step in the right direction.
Ouya developer console gets an official unboxing, flaunts transparent case (video)
It's a little early for an Ouya teardown, but Kickstarters who chipped in $699 won't have to wait long to see what the little console is made of -- Ouya's developer hardware is transparent. The console's team decided to cut the inevitable march of unboxing videos off at the neck, offering fans a quick preview of the package it's shipping out to devs. The standard accoutrements are there -- the tiny console itself, two prototype controllers with batteries, HDMI and power adapters, plus a micro USB cord and a letter to developers thanking them for their investment and warning them of the early build's bugs. The note also cautions deep-pocketed gamers that the device is built specifically for developer use, and has no games to placate eager couch potatoes. The video shows the console booting up, and even demonstrates how easy it is to open the hardware. Skip on past the break to get a glimpse at what early adopters and developers are getting their hands on.
NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor details leaked: 4-plus-1 cores, 28nm, six times the power of Tegra 3
NVIDIA's next superhero-themed mobile chipset has possibly made an early appearance in a leaked side in China, and it looks like it wants to go toe-to-toe with the latest processors from Samsung and Qualcomm. The Tegra 4 (codenamed Wayne) will apparently offer the same power-efficient 28nm process found on its Snapdragon rival and according to the slide from Chip Hell, there's a dizzying 72-core graphics setup. That's six times as many GPU cores as Tegra 3 -- the processor found in the Nexus 7, for example -- and the increase is claimed to result in six times the overall visual performance. Those graphics cores will be able to feed displays of up to 2,560 x 1600, with 1080p output at 120Hz, while the leak also mentions 4K -- if only in passing. There's no increase in CPU cores this time, with the same 4-plus-1 setup , but we are seeing its move to ARM's latest design, the Cortex-A15. Tegra 4 will apparently also catch up with USB 3.0, being NVIDIA's first mobile chip to do so, alongside dual-channel DDR3L memory. We've reached out to chipmaker and we'll let you know when we hear more, but it's highly likely we'll be welcoming this next-generation processor early next year -- say, at a certain mobile trade show.
