Misc tech news/articles thread...

[stmok]

This is a thread where we're going to dump anything that doesn't really talk about CPU or GPU hardware or future roadmaps. So instead of lots of "Misc News" threads; we're going to have one centralised thread.

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"Heat Terminator": Thermalright Spitfire and VRM Heatsinks
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cooler ... tfire.html
Performs quite well, but expensive.

HP ProBook 5310m: A Slender Laptop for Business Users
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3673/hp-p ... ness-users
Its for the typical office user. Don't expect GPU gaming performance, super long battery life, etc.

Windows Home Server v2 'Vail' Beta: Drive Extender v2 Dissected
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3677/wind ... -dissected
Based on Windows Server 2008 R2...Microsoft borrowing ideas from Sun's (now Oracle) ZFS?

Intel Cannot Ship Enough 32nm Microprocessors – Report.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... eport.html
Looks like Intel can't make enough mobile processors to keep up with demand.

[stmok]

April 29th...

Apple's Intrinsity Acquisition: Winners and Losers
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3665/appl ... and-losers
Apple's third semiconductor company acquisition...This article ponders on the various perspectives of it.

Adobe Enables Flash GPU Acceleration in OS X, We Test It
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3682/adob ... we-test-it
Well, it cuts CPU usage down by 50% on Youtube...That's if your Mac uses a Nvidia Geforce series GPU.

HP buys Palm for $1.2 billion, rescues webOS
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/201 ... fforts.ars
HP just finished acquisition of 3Com early this month. Now they are buying Palm!

VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 released
http://vbox.innotek.de/pipermail/vbox-a ... 00038.html
If you want to try it out, the download link is there. Remember to report any issues in their forums! Also note, its now referred to as Oracle VM VirtualBox.

[jerrek]

HP may be able to flex is corporate footprint to use palm in a way that palm never could.

[stmok]

Vintage Tech Ads: The 15 Funniest Videos
http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/105778/v ... est-videos

The 5th one is "MS-DOS 5 rap"...And the 10th one has Ballmer selling Windows 1.0
The 8th one is Apple's infamous 1984 ad about setting people free from IBM's chains. Kind of ironic...

[stmok]

AMD announces its 2010 notebook platforms
=> http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18795/41/
AMD launches their "Vision" mobile platform.
(I guess you could say its the counterpart to Intel's Centrino.)

Acer shows its new Aspire notebooks
=> http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18808/41/
Acer is one of the first partners for the Vision platform.

MSI's Wind U250 breaks cover
=> http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18807/41/
Another partner is MSI...

AMD’s “Dream Processor” for Enthusiasts May Never Reach Retail.
=> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... etail.html
AMD Phenom II X4 960T is OEM only.

Second Iteration of AMD Fusion Chips Due in 2015 – AMD.
=> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... 5_AMD.html
Well, the 1st generation is about putting the GPU onto the CPU. (Where they are two distinct solutions.)
The 2nd generation is about taking elements of the GPU and putting them into the CPU at the core level.

AVADirect's W860CU: Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Vs. GeForce GTX 285M
=> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ava ... ,2615.html
What's lame about these mobile GPUs is...
Mobility Radeon HD 5870 is really an underclocked Radeon HD 5770 desktop GPU.
AND
GeForce GTX 285M is really a GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB with power saving tweaks.

Meanwhile...

Microsoft: MSE safe from Windows kernel hook attack
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2 ... attack.ars
There's an issue with some AV solutions out there; due to the way they're implemented. Microsoft Security Essentials doesn't use this approach (using the Windows kernel). So it isn't vulnerable to this type of attack.

[stmok]

Meet Larrabee, Intel's answer to a GPU
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/05/17/ ... nswer-gpu/

In any case, the whole idea of a GPU as a separate chip is a thing of the past. The first step is a GPU on a CPU like AMD's Fusion, but this is transitional. Both sides will pull the functionality into the core itself, and GPUs will cease to be. Now do you see why Nvidia is dead?

So, in two years, the first steps to GPUs going away will hit the market. From there, it is a matter of shrinking and adding features, but there is no turning back. Welcome the CGPU. Now do you understand why get why AMD had to buy ATI to survive?

Larrabee 3 is now Larrabee 2
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/05/17/ ... arrabee-2/

Larrabee 0 => 16-core, 65nm chip that was meant for developers to get their feet wet, not for public use.

Larrabee 1 => Hampered by issues (causing major delays). Performance was less than 1/4 of it's intended target. Product shelved; as window of opportunity was missed.

Larrabee 2 => Refresh and cleanup of Larrabee 1. But some lessons learned weren't able to be incorporated.

Larrabee 3 => Lessons of Larrabee 1 applied. Expected release in 2012/2013 timeframe. The public will see this as "Larrabee 2".

[stmok]

Aussie broadband: How unlimited is 'unlimited'?
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/3 ... nlimited_/

The current state of Australian home broadband "unlimited" plans.

[stmok]

Intel Demos Working System Based on 48-Core Chip.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... _Chip.html

Its very programmable. Its still x86 architecture. And its clocked somewhere between 1.6Ghz to 1.8Ghz. It goes to 125W under load.

[stmok]

Intel: We Will Not Bring Discrete Graphics Product to Market in the Short-Term.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/disp ... _Term.html

Intel Kills Off Larrabee Discrete Graphics, For Real
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/larrab ... 10508.html
Its not dead...Just delayed until Intel gains experience and maturity with discrete video card solutions.

Larrabee alive and well
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/05/27/ ... -and-well/

...If you stopped reading there, you might have a pretty grim outlook about Larrabee. If you continued to bullet point 4 however, it read, "We will also continue with ongoing Intel architecture-based graphics and HPC-related R&D and proof of concepts." Now, if a program was dead, why would they continue to do R&D and proof of concepts? Doesn't that sound like an ongoing development program to you?

Why Intel Larrabee Really Stumbled: Developer Analysis
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/20 ... lysis.aspx
A look and reasoning of where Intel screwedup.

Intel Kills Larrabee GPU, Will Not Bring a Discrete Graphics Product to Market
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3738/inte ... -to-market
Essentially, Intel is responding to Nvidia in the HPC market and ATI/AMD in the CPU+GPU market.

Intel Moves Nehalem to ULV for Ultra-Thin Laptops
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nehale ... 10503.html
Core 2 series is finally getting replaced in the ULV market.

Intel Ultra Thin: CULV Arrandale Boosts Performance and Reduces Size
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3737/inte ... duces-size
Only Core i5-430UM, Core i5-540UM, and Core i7-660UM have Turbo mode. No ULV CPUs are quad core. Only dual-core with Hyperthreading.

VIDEO: Dell Confirms M11x Getting Core i3/i5/i7
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/M11x-n ... 10487.html
Haven't seen the video, but I'm guessing it'll be the ULV versions of the CPUs.

Momentus XT Review: Seagate's Marriage Of The HDD And Flash Memory
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sea ... ,2638.html
Its really a "transitional product". A regular HDD with 4GB SLC SSD built-in.

Dual-Channel DDR3: Who Makes The Best 4GB Kit Under $150?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dua ... ,2618.html

Ninth Foxconn Worker of 2010 Commits Suicide
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Foxcon ... 10486.html
Death is the only way out! Apparently, Foxconn has no concept of "Occupational Health and Safety".

Apple, Dell, HP Comment on Foxconn Suicides
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Foxcon ... 10525.html
The usual comments about condolences and investigating the matter...

BREAKING NEWS : Foxconn Suicide Numbers has reached 15 and counting.
http://en.ocworkbench.com/tech/breaking ... -counting/
Foxconn jumpers are growing by the number...

There are also other allegations that Foxconn is abusing their employer rights as rumors of staffs working well over 80 hours of overtime.

Steamworks Now Integrated into UDK
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Unreal ... 10517.html
In case you're a hobbiest programmer...

MSI Shows External Graphics Card w/ATI
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Graphi ... 10527.html
Marketed as Graphics Upgrade Solution or GUS. It has a 84W power limit!
US$99 to US$109 (Just the external housing with power supply and ExpressCard connection).
US$169 to US$229 with Radeon HD5670 1GB
...Next generation versions will be USB 3.0 powered.

Yahoo! CEO Tells Michael Arrington to “F*ck Off”
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/20 ... 2809d.aspx
Bite your tongue!

US appoints cyber warfare general
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/ ... e-general/
Looks like US Cyber Command has a leader.

AMD 880G Graphics Performance Review
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... ce-review/
Its really a dialed up 785G IGP.

VMware gives Fusion a major speed boost with 3.1 update
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/ ... update.ars
If you own an Mac and use VMware's Fusion for your virtualisation needs; Consider this new release.

FSF: Apple's iTunes Store terms of service at odds with GPL
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/ ... th-gpl.ars

If a developer is the original author of code licensed under the GPLv2, that code could be dual licensed for distribution under the App Store. But if a developer incorporates someone else's GPLed code, and Apple doesn't change its terms of service to be in compliance with the GPL, then developers may find their apps being removed from the App Store en masse.

[stmok]

BigPond kills their File Library...
=> http://files.bigpond.com/

Important Notice
Friday, 25th June 2010
The BigPond File Library will be discontinued after June 30, 2010 - due to low levels of general usage and limited appeal to a mainstream audience.

Large file libraries such as download.com and tucows.com offer a range of files and content we can not match, so we have taken the reluctant decision to discontinue this service.

No more unmetered distro downloads or mirror updates, TED talks, HD Nation, Techzilla, etc for those who use it.


And for the other unfortunate news for today...

Conroy retains Comms portfolio
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/218070,co ... folio.aspx

PM Gillard made minimal changes in her cabinet.
(Well, Labor has lost my vote.)

[stmok]

Shuttle Computers Navigate Record of Reliability
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... uters.html

Its a glimpse of computing from NASA's perspective...The most interesting thing to note is that your regular PC or notebook wouldn't function well in space. The radiation in space is much higher (Earth's magnetic field is weaker up there), and it causes serious memory issues; that results in system crashes...Other than that, their standard notebook they use are slightly modified ThinkPads and when it comes to their critical computing systems; its NOT about performance, but reliability and robustness. (Its mission critical remember!)


HP Leaks Out Windows 8 Goals, Features
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/20 ... tures.aspx

Microsoft is taking note of the things that both Apple and Linux are doing; and have incorporated it into their future goals...Roadmaps and plans are nice to have; but it depends on how well things are executed. They seem pretty ambitious. Time will tell on how they deliver the whole product to end users.

[stmok]

How many CPU cores do games need?
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2 ... mes-need/1

Used a Intel Core i7-980X processor (6-core, 3.33 GHz; Max Turbo Frequency: 3.6 GHz)
Disabled HyperThreading and power saving states. They then scaled the cores from 1 to 6 via motherboard's BIOS settings.

The basic gist for the whole article: For today's games..
* Going from 1 to 2 cores offers the most benefit.
* Going from 2 to 4 cores offer very small benefit.
* Going 4+ cores offers no benefit. (Dimishing returns!)

So if you're a gamer, a dual-core with a more expensive and powerful video card is generally the way to go as the "minimum".
A highly clocked CPU with 4 cores is optimal. 6 cores is a waste of money.


Meanwhile in Taiwan...

Notebook manufactures wants standard power bricks
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/07/05/ ... er-bricks/

Acer, Asus, Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Pegatron and Inventec are all interested in developing a standard for notebook power adapters together with IEEE.

iPhone 4's issues and how Apple reacts...

Apple's response to iPhone 4 antenna problems is unacceptable
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/07/05/ ... cceptable/

If you hold your phone in such a way that you touch both of the antennas at once, the signal goes into the toilet. How bad is it? According to the same Anandtech article linked above, the signal attenuation is up to 17.9dB greater than the 3GS, and 9.1dB more than the Nexus One.

The article goes on to say that the antenna is improved, but if you touch it, the drops about 10x more than the competition. Luckily, if you are in an area that has a strong signal, the worst case drop, 24.6dB according to Anandtech, isn't enough to show on the signal bars. What an improbable coincidence!

That brings us back to Apple's response. The first one, by none other than His Steveness, was to blame the users. No really, he blamed the person who bought the products for holding it wrong. It would be in really poor taste to make the following analogy in joke form, so on with the show:

(The following conversation takes place in a doctors office, with a patient, lets call him 'Steve' for no particular reason, is telling the doctor about his ailments.)
Steve: Doctor, my pancreas hurts when I raise my right hand.
Doctor: Don't raise your right hand. That will be $300. Next!

The next and slightly more official word is in the aforementioned press release. Apple starts out by spending the first paragraph not only congratulating themselves, but also telling how they leapt into action at the first sign of trouble. Lassie would be proud.

Lastly, Apple says that if you don't like it, you are more than welcome to bring it back for a refund and go away, people who hold things the Apple way are welcome to stay. It isn't a massive and obvious design flaw covered up by very questionable software decisions, it is a piece of art. A piece of art approved by Steve, so you have to love it. Anything less means you will sit alone at the coffee shop, a fate worse than death for most iPhone owners.

[stmok]

Nvidia purposefully hobbles PhysX on the CPU
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/07/07/ ... physx-cpu/
(Long summary of the following article.)

PhysX87: Software Deficiency
http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?A ... 0510142143
(Technical version...)

The above articles indicate that Nvidia/AGEIA has intentionally used x87 code for the CPU portion of PhysX. This is to make CPUs in PCs look worse off than they really are compared to GPUs. ie: They're doing things for marketing reasons. (Using x87 over SSE/SSE2 typically results in 20% less performance...And you have to specifically/intentionally tell a C/C++ compiler to use x87). Further suspicions are raised when one realises PhysX doesn't have a huge performance drop in current game consoles. (They do NOT use GPU for PhysX, and their CPUs are slower than ones found in current PCs!)

Side note:
* x87 has been depreciated in favour of SSE/SSE2 for floating point work. (There's really no reason to use it unless the physical hardware doesn't support it.)
* SSE-series will itself be eventually be depreciated in favour of AVX. (AVX is supported in 2011 releases of Intel's Sandy Bridge, and AMD's Bulldozer processors.)

[stmok]

Did NVIDIA cripple its CPU gaming physics library to spite Intel?
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010 ... -intel.ars
Ars Technica has also picked up on the story, and have got Nvidia's response on the matter...

When you're talking about changing a compiler flag, which could have been done at any point revision, the combination of "nobody ever asked for it, and it wouldn't help real games anyway because the bottlenecks are elsewhere" is not quite convincing. It never occurred to anyone over the past five years to just make this tiny change to SSE? Really?

Of all the answers we got for why PhysX still uses x87, the most convincing ones were the ones rooted in game developer apathy towards the PC as a platform. Rege ultimately summed it up by arguing that if they weren't giving developers what they wanted, then devs would quit using PhysX; so they do give them what they want, and what they want are console optimizations. What nobody seems to care about are PC optimizations like non-crufty floating-point and (even better) vectorization.

"It's a creaky old codebase, there's no denying it," Skolones told Ars. "That's why we're eager to improve it with 3.0."

But still, when you boil it all down, we keep coming back to the point that it's so easy to switch from x87 to SSE, and x87 has been deprecated for so long, and it's so much to NVIDIA's advantage to be able to tout the GPU's superiority over the CPU for physics, that it's very hard to shake the feeling that there's some kind of malicious neglect going on. Think about it: if game developers really don't care that much about PC physics performance, and it's "good enough" with x87 code, why make a small change that might give the CPU an unneeded boost? Why not just let it struggle along at "good enough"?

Meanwhile, Intel realises their Celeron line is a little redundant...Rumours indicate a gradual phase out will be achieved by 2011.

Intel May Ditch Celeron Microprocessor Brand.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... Brand.html
Celerons may be bumped off in favour of dual-core Atoms and Pentium lines.

Intel Celeron Waves Good Bye
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/20 ... d-bye.aspx
So in 2011, the line-up may look like this...
* Atom (netbook/nettop/MIDS)
* Pentium (Budget-Mainstream)
and
* Core i-series (Performance-Mainstream and Enthusiasts)


Phenom II X6 1045T comes in Q3 2010
http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/proc ... in-q3-2010
A lower speed 6-core from AMD running at 2.7Ghz (3.2Ghz in Turbo). Article indicates that Phenom II X6 1090T is supposed to last for the remainder of 2010. It will then be dropped in favour of the newer "Bulldozer" based solution in 2011.


More iPhone 4 issues?

iPhone 4 bursts into flames, burns hand
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/ ... ches-fire/
Faulty USB cord or port on the phone? Just be weary if your phone starts heating up.

[stmok]

Graphics Cards Supplier Expects ATI’s “Southern Islands” to Show Up in Q4.
=> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/disp ... in_Q4.html
and
AMD Reaffirms Plans to Introduce Second-Generation DirectX 11 Family of Chips in 2010.
=> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/disp ... _2010.html
Currently called "Southern Islands", (unofficially referred to as Radeon HD 6000 series); is really an evolutionary improvement over the current HD 5000 series by taking certain core elements from "Northern Islands" and tweaking (more efficient, better performance). The latter is actually a new GPU while the former is a "stop gap" due to manufacturing issues with TSMC. (They've affected all their customers when they've stuffed up their transition from one die shrink to another.) ... Its up to you to decide whether you want to upgrade your GPU this year or wait for the 2011 releases.

Good news: RAM is getting cheaper again
=> http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19277
Rumours on the web indicate that there has been an oversupply of flash RAM chips...So this maybe the reason.

Firefox 4 Beta 2 is coming soon
=> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... oming-soon
Version 4 introduces a new tab system. They have a video describing it.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 4 reception controversy continues...

The iPhone 4 Redux: Analyzing Apple's iOS 4.0.1 Signal Fix & Antenna Issue
=> http://www.anandtech.com/show/3821/ipho ... signal-fix

iOS 4.0.1 tweaks bar display, doesn't fix signal drop
=> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/ ... l-drop.ars

Apple knew that the Iphone 4 was a lemon
=> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... hone-lemon

Engineer warned Jobs of potential iPhone 4 antenna issues
=> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/ ... issues.ars

While we're talking about Apple...

Rumour: Apple preps Air 'netbook'
=> http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2 ... -netbook/1
A smaller MacBook Air with a 11.6 inch display? Who knows...

Meanwhile, Microsoft continues with another attempt to get people to use their Bing search engine...

Would You Switch to Bing for $3 to a Good Cause?
=> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/bing-g ... 10874.html
Instead of giving you discounts, etc...This time, they play the "Help the poor kids" sympathy card. Its really insincere to use "guilty tripping" as a way to get people to use your products. Their marketing folks will never learn: You can't use cheap tricks to gain loyalty.

At Anandtech.com...

ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte & MSI: Four Flagship X58 Motherboards Reviewed
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3820/asus ... s-reviewed
For those who are bored and have too much money...Check out the price of the Gigabyte mobo! US$699 (About AUD$797!) That's crazy! Price gouge much? (Don't waste your time with these; the chipset used in these mobos will be made obsolete in 5 months time when "Sandy Bridge" comes at the end of the year.)

I saved the most interesting (geek wise) article for last...

Intel Pentium 4 Vs. Atom: A Battle Of The Generations
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ato ... ,2649.html
...If you were curious on how things improved with time.