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Acer's Chrome OS all-in-one is the first with a touchscreen
Intrigued by the idea of an all-in-one Chrome OS computer, but were hoping for something a little more exciting than the likes of LG's Chromebase? You've got it: Acer has just unveiled its own Chromebase. The system has a 21.5-inch 1080p display like its LG rival, but it's the first to include a touchscreen for those times you want to share input (or just can't be bothered to reach for the mouse). It's also running on NVIDIA's Tegra K1 chip rather than the speedier Intel Celeron of its competitor, although that's not necessarily a bad thing if you're looking for a quiet, low-powered PC. Whether or not it has the lower cost to match is up in the air, however. Acer ships its Chromebase to Asia and North America in the second quarter of the year, but it hasn't divulged pricing just yet.
Samsung asks the US government to block NVIDIA's chips
The patent war between NVIDIA and Samsung isn't going to wind down any time soon. Samsung has backed up its countering lawsuit against NVIDIA with a US International Trade Commission complaint asking the agency to block imports of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics chips and Tegra mobile processors. While it's not clear just which parts are under scrutiny, the dispute names a slew of third-party device makers who'd have to stop selling hardware in the US. Most of them are video card designers, such as Biostar and EVGA, but the action would also affect Tegra-based gadgets like OUYA's mini console and the Wikipad gaming tablet.
Samsung lawsuit claims that NVIDIA's benchmarks are misleading
Samsung definitely isn't taking NVIDIA's first patent lawsuit lying down. The Korean tech firm has countersued NVIDIA not just for allegedly infringing on six patents, but for leading buyers astray with benchmarks for the Shield Tablet. NVIDIA is supposedly trying to "confuse customers" by claiming that the slate's Tegra K1 processor outpaces the Exynos 5433 chip in the Galaxy Note 4; regular benchmarks show that's not true, Samsung claims. The suit also accuses PC vendor Velocity Micro of violating two additional patents (for a total of eight), since NVIDIA's graphics cards play a heavy role in its lineup.
Acer Chromebook 13 review: long battery life, sharp screen, good price
After years of getting little respect, Chromebooks are finally on the rise (at least in schools), which means every major PC maker is trying to get in on the action. That includes chip makers too, like NVIDIA. Though the company previously shied away from Chrome OS devices, it's now pledging to power a whole range of different Chromebooks with its Tegra K1 chip, each of them promising long battery life and more graphics muscle. The Acer Chromebook 13 is the first of the bunch, and while some of you might be Chromebook'd out, we were actually excited. Here was a $300 laptop boasting at least 11 hours of battery life, a 1080p display option and enough horsepower to clobber Intel at things like gaming and rich websites. As it turns out, it was all just a little too good to be true.
NVIDIA hints at an HTC Nexus 9 tablet coming within weeks
Remember those hints of HTC returning to tablets? Yeah, the cat's out of the bag. As part of its patent lawsuit against Qualcomm and Samsung, NVIDIA has revealed that it expects a Tegra K1-powered "HTC Nexus 9" sometime within the third calendar quarter of the year. That would theoretically put the launch sometime before the end of September. However, don't get your hopes up for a release that soon. HTC just sent out invitations for a "double exposure" media event on October 8th, and there's still no guarantee that the Nexus 9 will surface at that gathering. Given that the slate is supposed to be running Android L, any unveiling will likely hinge as much on Google's progress as it does HTC's.
HTC's first tablet in years pops up in a trade group filing
HTC hinted that it would get back into tablets this year, and there have been detailed rumors covering the effort. However, tangible evidence of that hardware has been hard to come by -- until now, that is. The Wi-Fi Alliance has certified the "Flounder," a tablet that would run Google's upcoming Android L. While the listing doesn't say much by itself, the model numbers match those in an @upleaks post mentioning that there would be a WiFi-only model as well as LTE variants for both the world at large and American CDMA carriers (think Sprint or Verizon). These tidbits don't confirm many of the other rumored aspects of the slate, such as the 8.9-inch display, Tegra K1 processor or Nexus badging. However, they at least suggest that HTC is close to releasing its first tablet since 2011's Flyer and Jetstream -- if you've spent years hoping for a follow-up device, you may well get your wish.
NVIDIA explains why its 64-bit chip should be Android's speed champ
NVIDIA set out to claim the Android performance crown when it unveiled its 64-bit Tegra K1 processor at the start of the year, and it's now ready to explain why it expects to come out on top. The chip's two Project Denver cores will have an edge partly because they'll optimize code on the fly -- they'll break down big instructions into tiny, super-efficient functions that can be recycled as often as necessary. The company expects roughly twice the speed it would get from ordinary code, making the 64-bit K1 faster than you'd expect just by looking at the hardware. It should tout "significantly higher" performance than current four- and eight-core mobile CPUs, and run as well as some PC processors; be prepared for more Tegra-powered laptops and high-end tablets.
Acer's Chromebook 13 lasts a stunning 13 hours on a charge
Until now, if you wanted a Chromebook with a full HD display, you only had one option: the 13-inch Samsung Chromebook 2. Want epic battery life? Yep, all roads lead to Samsung there, too. Well, not anymore, anyway. Acer just announced the Chromebook 13, and it matches Samsung nearly spec for spec with an optional 1080p display and NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra K1 chip, promising up to 13 hours of runtime (details on that after the break). This is interesting for two reasons. First off, although this is essentially the same class of product as what Samsung is selling, it costs $100 less: $299, versus $400 for the Chromebook 2. Sounds good, right? What's more, this is the first-ever Chrome OS device with an NVIDIA processor inside.
Xiaomi's first tablet offers powerful gaming on the cheap (video)
Just over two years ago, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun told this author that he wasn't sure about making a tablet, but today he confessed that he's been quietly developing one this whole time. What we have here is the conveniently named Mi Pad, which was just unveiled in Beijing with super attractive price points: CN¥1,499 (about $240) for the 16GB version, and CN¥1,699 (about $270) for the 64GB flavor. To be honest, we saw this coming when MIUI was released for the Nexus 7 back in March, but what surprised us was that this new slate happens to be the first to feature the powerful Tegra K1 SoC. This follows Xiaomi and NVIDIA's earlier collaboration on the Tegra 4 variant of the MI3 smartphone.
NVIDIA announces the Jetson TK1 dev-kit, calls it the world's first mobile supercomputer
Wish you had your own personal supercomputer? Soon, you'll be able to buy one -- well, sort of. At its GPU Technology conference today, NVIDIA announced the Jetson TK1, a $192 Tegra K1-based development kit built on the same architecture that powers the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Haung describes it as "the world's tiniest little supercomputer," noting that it's capable of running anything the Titan can run, but at a much slower pace.
Early benchmarks suggest NVIDIA's new Tegra chip outperforms Apple and Qualcomm
The graph above comes courtesy of Tom's Hardware and, whichever way you look it, it suggests NVIDIA is onto a good thing. The company's recently announced Tegra K1 processor combines a handful of ARM Cortex-A15 CPUs with a GPU based on the same successful Kepler graphics architecture found in desktops and laptops. The result seems to be a minimum 25 percent lead over the current generation of flagship chips, including Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 and Apple's 64-bit A7, as measured with 3DMark -- although this may not be an especially fair comparison since we don't know the precise wattage of the Thinkvision's processor (if it's more than a few watts, it shouldn't really be compared to the chip in a smartphone). You'll find a roughly similar pattern in other tests over at the source link, but before you disappear into a new tab here's a couple more disclaimers: Firstly, these scores are based on a Lenovo Thinkvision 28 Android all-in-one (with a lovely 4K panel), which Tom's Hardware was led to believe (but not officially told) contains a K1. Secondly, assuming this is a K1, it's definitely not the 64-bit version; it's not running at NVIDIA's claimed max clock speed of 2.3GHz, and it's almost certainly not using market-ready drivers -- all of which suggests that 2014's crop of Tegra K1-powered tablets could be even more powerful than what we're seeing right now. Update: More benchmark scores are spilling out. They still only relate to graphics, and they rely on a pre-release version of GFXBench, but these numbers would suggest that a Tegra K1 reference tablet can match or even beat the 3D performance of an Intel Haswell laptop with integrated graphics, despite the latter presumably burning many more watts.
NVIDIA seriously made a crop circle for marketing its new Tegra K1 chip
You know that new NVIDIA Tegra K1 chip? And you know that crop circle that popped up and then disappeared? Yup, that was an advertisement for the new chip. Yes, seriously.
NVIDIA reveals second Tegra K1 with 64-bit support, dual 2.5GHz Denver CPUs
Ever since the introduction of Apple's A7 chipset on the iPhone 5s, 64-bit has become somewhat of a buzzword for manufacturers like Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Samsung and MediaTek. The former has already followed in Apple's footsteps with 64-bit support on the Snapdragon 410, an SoC destined for budget devices and emerging markets, but we were anxiously awaiting word on NVIDIA's next-gen aspirations at tonight's press conference. And now we have it -- the company just announced a second version of the Tegra K1 introduced earlier, this time with a dual-core 2.5GHz Denver CPU (yes, that Project Denver) and 64-bit support. We're still waiting to hear specific availability, but NVIDIA tells us to expect more details in the coming months, so the extra boost in performance will require a bit of patience. Update: We received a little extra clarification from NVIDIA reps, who have told us that the K1 has already been certified by AT&T and Vodafone (among other carriers), and we should expect to see devices with the new chipset near the end of the first half of 2014. We also learned that although LTE support doesn't come natively on the chipset, it'll still be available thanks to an external chip that will be part of the K1 setup. It's hard to say whether or not this will help NVIDIA gain some lost ground on Qualcomm, but only time will tell. Ben Gilbert contributed to this post.
NVIDIA K1 chip adds Unreal Engine 4 support (update: video!)
The Unreal Engine's latest iteration, Unreal Engine 4, is adding support for NVIDIA's latest Tegra chip, the K1. Epic Games' ubiquitous engine powered much of last-generation games with Unreal Engine 3, and Epic's promising even more with the next generation. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced as much tonight during the company's CES 2014 press conference, and he made sure to note the much shorter gap between Unreal Engine running on next-gen consoles/PC and mobile devices. With Unreal Engine 3, Infinity Blade was the first mobile game running on Epic's game tech -- demonstrated on-stage during an Apple keynote for a new iPad. Unreal Engine 4, however, scales both up and down right out of the gate, apparently. "We can take absolutely anything that runs on PC or high-end consoles and run it on Tegra...I didn't think that we'd be at this level on mobile for another three to four years," Epic Games head Tim Sweeney said of the news. Color us unsurprised -- we expect to see Unreal Engine 4 running on anything that plays games in the coming years. Update: NVIDIA just posted its video of the K1 chip running an Unreal Engine 4 demo, check it out after the break.
NVIDIA announces Tegra K1 with 192 cores and Kepler architecture
In what's becoming a yearly tradition, NVIDIA came to its CES press conference with tidings of its next-generation mobile processor which will begin gracing devices in 2014. The chipset maker officially announced Tegra K1, which features the first 192-core GPU based on the Kepler architecture which was originally designed for desktops and notebooks and later added to supercomputers. As you can imagine, NVIDIA is bringing its graphics chops to the new DirectX 11-powered GPU, and it packs a serious punch -- so much so, in fact, that it will come with support for Unreal Engine 4 and OpenGL 4.4. In the company's usual form, we were treated to demos of the new chip's power compared side-by-side with a Tegra 4, and the difference was quite noticeable; the K1 offers real-time computing, global illumination, higher dynamic range and greater detail like reflective surfaces, dripping water and other realistic physically-based rendering. Interestingly, Tegra K1 will actually come in two different versions: a 32-bit option with a 2.3GHz "4-plus-1" A15 CPU and a 64-bit unit with a 2.5GHz dual-core Denver CPU. Naturally we're a bit more curious about the latter at the moment, and we'll update you as we get more information about either chip -- such as availability. Update: We received a little extra clarification from NVIDIA reps, who have told us that both versions of the K1 have already been certified by AT&T and Vodafone (among other carriers), and we should expect to see devices with the new chipset near the end of the first half of 2014. We also learned that although LTE support doesn't come natively on the chipset, it'll still be available thanks to an external chip that will be part of the K1 setup. It's hard to say whether or not this will help NVIDIA gain some lost ground on Qualcomm, but only time will tell. Ben Gilbert contributed to this post.
