During an interview with The Telegraph published on Wednesday, Apple’s design boss Jonathan Ive said that his most impressive work at Apple has yet to come. While Apple’s late co-founder and former chief executive Steve Jobs still takes center stage when the company’s current product line is discussed, Jobs’s knack for surrounding himself with an amazing team was one of the key factors that led to Apple’s success. Among the top executives who had a hand in making Apple what it is today — the most valuable company in the world — is Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of Industrial Design at the Cupertino, California-based company. While Ive is one of the executives behind all of Apple’s biggest hits, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the British designer who will receive knighthood on Wednesday in London says his best work is still buried deep in Apple’s labs. More →
While the flagship smartphone itself will remain under wraps until next week’s press conference, Samsung on Thursday unveiled its next-generation mobile processor, the Exynos 4 Quad, which will power its upcoming Galaxy S3. The new 1.4GHz quad-core SoC is built on 32-nanometer architecture, and Samsung says the chipset will offer significant performance improvements over its previous-generation Exynos processor while consuming 20% less power. “The quad-core processor offers phenomenal multitasking abilities surpassing any single or dual application processor,” Samsung’s VP of System LSI marketing Taehoon Kim said. “Since all the cores must share a single battery, the power management and efficiency in the limited battery capacity are indispensable for mobile computing devices. Given the diverse functionalities consumers are demanding from their mobile devices today, the Exynos 4 Quad meets those high-performance needs while keeping power consumption very low.” Samsung’s full press release follows below. More →
Seagate said in its recent fiscal second-quarter earnings report that it expects the flooding in Thailand to result in a continued hard drive shortage throughout 2012. The company originally reported issues after flooding affected its factories in October, 2011. In addition, analysts have suggested that the floods could increase laptop and desktop PC prices, and hurt overall sales for major computer vendors. Seagate said that it shipped 47 million hard drives during the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which was down just 4% from the same quarter last year. The company confirmed in its earning statement that it has already secured long-term deals to make sure prices don’t inflate further. More →
Sony on Monday announced its latest and thinnest back-illuminated CMOS image sensor that will no doubt help manufacturers create thinner smartphones. “Sony has succeeded in establishing a structure that layers the pixel section containing formations of back-illuminated structure pixels over the chip affixed with mounted circuits for signal processing, which is in place of supporting substrates used for conventional back-illuminated CMOS image sensors,” Sony explained in its announcement. “By this stacked structure, large-scale circuits can now be mounted keeping small chip size.” The chip’s features include:
Sony will begin shipping samples to manufacturers in March. The company’s full press release follows after the break. More →
Not long ago we published a story about Raspberry Pi, a $35 Linux-based single board computer that is still in development. Now, a Model B version of the device is being demoed and it shows off the small computer’s AirPlay streaming capabilities. The video shows one of Raspberry Pi’s developers using an iPad to stream a video clip to the Raspberry Pi Model B device using AirPlay without a hitch. The developers behind the tiny and affordable computer have said they hope the gadget will eventually be used in schools, although it’s still unclear when the company will begin shipping devices to consumers. A video of Model B working seamlessly with AirPlay follows after the break. More →
We just met with Corning during CES in Las Vegas to check out its new Gorilla Glass 2 panels for smartphones and tablets. The new glass is 20% thinner than before, but just as strong and scratch resistant as the original Gorilla Glass. The thinner build will surely help manufacturers make smaller and lighter smartphones. We stayed to watch a pressure test, images of which are in the gallery below, and were impressed with the strength of the glass. Corning said that it’s already shipping the new panels to phone manufacturers and that we will see smartphones on the market soon with the new glass. We were also told that Gorilla Glass 2 will be used in new Windows-powered computers later this year. Be sure to check out our gallery below.
Intel could be preparing to unveil most of its next-generation 22nm Ivy Bridge processors ”on or around” April 8th according to a recent rumor. The company is set to introduce 25 different models in total, DigiTimes reported, including 17 chips designed for use in desktop PCs and eight for notebooks and ultrabooks. Intel will announce the following desktop processors in April according to the report: the Core i7-3770K, 3770, 3770S, 3770T as well as the Core i5-3570, 3550 and 3450. The desktop processors will reportedly range in price from $184 to $332. The following notebook CPUs will also be announced: Core i7-3920Qm ($1,096), 3820QM ($568) and the 3720QM ($378). Intel is allegedly working on the Core i5-3520M, 3360M, 3320M for notebooks and the Core i7-3667U and Core i5-3427U for ultrabooks, but those processors may not be announced at the same time; the company is expected to unveil several other models for both notebooks and desktops in May. Intel has said its Ivy Bridge chips will offer a 37% performance increase over its 32nm chips.
Samsung on Wednesday announced the Exynos 5250, the company’s latest system-on-a-chip (SoC), which packs two ARM Cortex-A15 processors clocked at 2GHz. Samsung said the dual-core chip, which will be used primarily in high-end tablets, offers about twice the CPU performance of its existing products that are equipped with a pair of ARM’s 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 processors. The Exynos 5250 supports 2560 x 1600-pixel resolution displays and also offers more than four times the graphics performance of existing ARM Cortex-A9 chips. Samsung expects to mass produce the Exynos 5250 during the second quarter of 2012. The full press release, translated from Korean to English, follows after the break.
The team at iFixit recently tore open Barnes & Noble’s brand new Nook Tablet to get a closer look at its inner workings see how they compare to Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The group found that the Nook Tablet is powered by a dual-core TI OMAP 4 processor clocked at 1GHz, and it has 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal SanDisk storage. It also has a 4,000 mAh battery under the hood that’s rated for up to 11.5 hours of reading time, 3.5 hours longer than the previous generation Nook Color device. The Nook Tablet received a repairability score of 6 out of 10 points, which is worse than the Kindle Fire’s 8/10 score. The LCD can be easily replaced because it isn’t fused to the bezel, however one would need to remove the motherboard in order to replace the battery, and there are “excessive amounts of adhesive” and even hidden screws that made the teardown a bit more tedious than usual. More →
The group at iFixit recently tore open the Amazon Kindle Fire to get a good look at its hardware. The group discovered that the device is powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 processor clocked at 1GHz that is paired with an older Texas Instruments WL1270B 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi chip. Overall, the Kindle Fire didn’t have too many complicated parts, which resulted in a solid 8/10 repairability score from iFixit. The team said its rear case is easy to take off, users only need a regular screw driver to open the tablet, and the LCD isn’t fused to its the glass cover, which means it should be fairly easy to replace if it breaks. Unfortunately, however, the glass pane is fused to the bezel, and it will require a heat gun to separate the components. A video from DirectFix, another site that tore apart the Kindle Fire and examined its innards, follows after the break. More →
Qualcomm announced Wednesday that it is now shipping its 4G LTE Gobi 4000 platform to OEMs. The platform combines its 3G/4G wireless modems, the MDM9600 and the MDM9200, and the Gobi API that will allow manufacturers to create devices with support for LTE/HSPA+ and LTE/EV-DO networks. “To make Gobi 4000 available to as many consumers as possible, Qualcomm has worked hard to ensure that OEMs can use the platform on many commonly used personal computing, tablet and e-reader operating systems, including Windows and Android, and hardware architectures, such as our powerful Snapdragon dual-core and quad-core processors,” Qualcomm CDMA Technologies senior vice president of product management Cristiano Amon said. Many manufacturers use Qualcomm’s Gobi technology, including Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Novatel and Sierra Wireless. Apple uses older Gobi technology in its CDMA iPad 2 and iPhone 4, which means it’s very possible that we’ll see Qualcomm’s Gobi 4000 platform used in a 4G iPhone and iPad. In addition to the Gobi 4000 announcement, Qualcomm announced 8 new S4 processors (the MSM8660A, MSM9260A, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8627, MSM8227, APQ8060A, and the APQ8030) that use the company’s Krait CPU. The chips were designed for next-generation smartphones and tablets and are expected to hit the market early next year. Read on for Qualcomm’s full Gobi 4000 press release.
NVIDIA has finally announced its quad-core ARM Cortex A9 Tegra 3 processor, previously codenamed “Kal-El,” that will deliver “PC-class performance” for tablets and smartphones. NVIDIA said the new chip will offer 3 times the graphics performance of its dual-core Tegra 2 chip and it will consume up to 61% less power. If a user is listening to music or using a phone in a way that does not demand a lot of power, the new chip will automatically throttle down to use a companion core. Once a user fires up a game, browses the Web, or performs a task that needs the extra power, the Tegra 3 processor disables the companion core and activates all four processing cores. In addition to the four cores and the companion core, Tegra 3 also has a 12-core GeForce graphics processing unit with support for stereoscopic 3D, new video engines for playing 1080p HD video and more. NVIDIA said Tegra 3 is in production now and one of the first products to ship with it will be the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. Read on for the full press release and a video that shows off the chip’s gaming capabilities. More →
