Hardware Archive

Acer Could Exit Netbook Market

Submitted by fran 2011-01-18 Hardware 7 Comments

"Acer is developing a pair of Intel-based tablets in what could be a wider exit from the entire netbook category, the company's Taiwan sales manager Lu Bing-hsian said on Tuesday. The seven- and 10-inch slates would use quad-core versions of Sandy Bridge-era Core processors but, reportedly, run on Android rather than Windows 7. Rather than serve as complements, they were directly intended to help in "phasing out netbooks," IDG was told."

What Are the Windows A: and B: Drives Used For?

Submitted by sawboss 2011-01-13 Hardware 97 Comments

"The question that forms the title of this article has recently been posted on the Super User Q&A site for computer enthusiasts. At first I was shocked at how silly a question it was as everyone should know that, right? But then I started to think about it and realized anyone under a certain age probably has no clue."

ARM CEO: PC Market Not Our Target

Submitted by vodoomoth 2011-01-13 Hardware 10 Comments

"Despite the progress, ARM, which licenses its designs to chip makers, is keeping its focus on smartphones and tablets. The company's CEO, Warren East, sat down with the IDG News Service to discuss Windows, the PC market and future architecture developments."

Move to ARM Chip Cuts XO Laptop Power Use to 2 Watts

Submitted by sawboss 2011-01-10 Hardware 26 Comments

"While the availability of power in certain regions of the world cannot be solved by the OLPC, it can improve upon the power use of the XO Laptop. And with v1.75 they have managed to half that power use. The reason this has been made possible is the move to use an ARM rather than an x86 processor. So now rather than drawing 4 watts of power, the XO-1.75 draws 2 watts. The new chip being used is a 1GHz Armada 610 from Marvell." Update : Here are some clarifications regarding the use of ARM chips and Linux at OLPC.

Qualcomm Acquires Atheros

Submitted by jonas.kirilla 2011-01-06 Hardware 9 Comments

"Qualcomm Incorporated and Atheros Communications, Inc., today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Qualcomm intends to acquire Atheros, a leader in innovative technologies for wireless and wired local area connectivity in the computing, networking and consumer electronics industries."

NVIDIA Announces ARM CPU for Desktop, Server, HPC

Thom Holwerda 2011-01-05 Hardware 82 Comments

Just - just hold on a second. This is big: NVIDIA, maker of graphics accelerator chips, has just announced, during its keynote at CES, that it is developing a high-performance ARM-based processor together with ARM, targeted squarely at the desktop, server, and even high-performance computing markets. That Windows on ARM thing? NVIDIA referenced it multiple times! Update: Boom, and we have a press release. "NVIDIA announced today that it plans to build high-performance ARM based CPU cores, designed to support future products ranging from personal computers and servers to workstations and supercomputers. Known under the internal codename 'Project Denver', this initiative features an NVIDIA CPU running the ARM instruction set, which will be fully integrated on the same chip as the NVIDIA GPU."

Reverse Engineering the MOS 6502

Guest post by PLan 2011-01-03 Hardware 5 Comments

A 50 minute talk by Michael Steil at 27C3 on the low cost CPU that arguably introduced the home computer revolution.

What Will Power Computing for the Next 10 Years and Beyond?

Guest post by fran 2010-11-23 Hardware 25 Comments

The CPU industy is working on 16nm chips to debut by around 2013, but how much smaller can it go? According to the smart guys, not much smaller, stating that at 11nm they hit a problem relating to a 'quanting tunneling' phenomena. So what's next? Yes, they can still add core after core, but this might reach a plato by around 2020. AMD's CTO predicts the 'core wars' will subside by 2020 (there seems to be life left in adding cores as Intel demonstrated a few days ago, the feasibility of a 1000 core processor.) A Silicon.com feature discusses some potential technologies that can enhance or supersede silicon.

Acer Unveils Tablets, Smartphone, Dual-screen Laptop

Thom Holwerda 2010-11-23 Hardware 26 Comments

Usually, the only live press events which garner any attention are those by Apple, and sometimes those by Microsoft. This time around, though, Acer's been the center of attention, and it has paid off: the company has unveiled a boatload of interesting hardware - including a dual-screen laptop, a high-resolution Android phone, and several tablets.

‘Chaogates’ Hold Promise for the Semiconductor Industry

Guest post by fran 2010-11-17 Hardware 3 Comments

"In a move that holds great significance for the semiconductor industry, a team of researchers has created an alternative to conventional logic gates, demonstrated them in silicon, and dubbed them chaogates. The researchers present their findings in Chaos, a journal published by the American Institute of Physics."

Intel’s Former ARM Team Hits Chipzilla with New Server Chip

Thom Holwerda 2010-11-11 Hardware 3 Comments

The gloves are off in the ARM vs. Intel battle, now that Marvell has announced a full-blown ARM server chip for cloud datacenters. The 40nm, 1.6GHz, quad-core ARMADA XP is aimed squarely at a market segment that Intel has seen strong performance from in the past few quarters, and Marvell's co-founder, Weili Dai, is clear about that, saying, "Marvell's introduction of a powerful solution for enterprise-class cloud computing applications is a very important milestone in the mobile Internet revolution."

Early Look at UEFI BIOS Replacement

Guest post by fran 2010-11-08 Hardware 41 Comments

SweClocker has just posted what might be the first video of the anticipated Bios replacement UEFI .

A Z80 laptop? Why not :)

Kroc 2010-11-07 Hardware 26 Comments

"I had reduced the size of my ongoing Z80 project down to something more wieldy by using CPLD chips, but it was still a bit too bulky to fit into an acceptably sized case. The next step was to look into FPGAs and see where they could take it. One thing led to another and I ended up building a self contained post modern home computer laptop.. thing." Kroc: Can I haz port of BBC BASIC plz?

With the Jack PC, the Computer’s in the Wall!

Submitted by SReilly 2010-11-03 Hardware 6 Comments

"The Jack PC from Chip PC Technologies offers a neat and novel thin-client desktop computing solution where the computer doesn't just plug into the wall, it is the plug in the wall. Running on power provided by the ethernet cable that also connects it to the data center server, the computer-in-a-wall-socket supports wireless connectivity, has dual display capabilities and runs on the RISC processor architecture â€“ which gives the solution the equivalent of 1.2GHz of x86 processing power."

Arm Plans To Add Multithreading To Chip Design

Submitted by fran 2010-09-30 Hardware 28 Comments

"Arm plans to add multithreading capabilities to future architectures as it tries to boost the performance of its processors, a company representative said on Tuesday. The company is looking to include multithreading capabilities depending on application requirements in different segments, said Kumaran Siva, segment marketing manager at Arm, at the Linley Tech Processor conference in San Jose, California"

Measuring Atomic Memory with Nano Precision

Submitted by fran 2010-09-29 Hardware 2 Comments

Researchers at IBM now know how long a single atom can "remember" its state. The events that take place inside of atoms occur at speeds that are normally much too fast to capture. Now researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center have developed a technique that lets them watch this atomic action with unprecedented resolution"

OCZ Invents Drive Interface 3X Faster Than SAS

Submitted by fran 2010-09-29 Hardware 6 Comments

OCZ Technology, today unveileda proprietary drive interface called "High-Speed Data Link" (HSDL) that's expected to boost I/O for solid-state drives (SSDs) in high-performance computing environments.

ARM Unveils Cortex-A15, Up to 2.5Ghz Quad-core

Thom Holwerda 2010-09-09 Hardware 75 Comments

So, we have Intel and AMD. These guys are doing pretty well in laptops, servers, and of course desktops, but when it comes to mobile devices, they've so far been unable to adapt the x86 architecture to the stricter requirements that come with those devices. ARM, on the other hand, pretty much owns this market at this point. And you know what? It's time for Intel and AMD to get worried - really worried. ARM has just announced its Cortex-A15 MPCore chips - which will reach 2.5Ghz in quad-core configurations.

SiOx Memory: How it Works

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-09-08 Hardware 5 Comments

"The recent announcement that Rice University grad student Jun Yao has demonstrated a new memory device has created a stir. As well it should. The new device is non-volatile, offers fast sub-100 ns switching times, can be written 10,000 times and is fully compatible with current CMOS manufacturing processes. A 1,000 bit proof-of-concept chip has been built by a private company."

Mac Cloner Quo Computer Still Going Strong

Thom Holwerda 2010-09-08 Hardware 56 Comments

There's this hole here at OSNews, a hole left when Psystar was dealt a devastating blow by Apple's legal team. That whole saga provided a nice steady stream of news articles that's been dried up for a while. However, Psystar was not the only clone maker out there - what happened to Quo Computer, that clone maker with an actual real-world store front? They're still here, and just launched a new product.