Twelve months ago NVIDIA stood on stage at CES and introduced its Tegra 2 SoC. It promised dozens of design wins and smartphones shipping before Spring 2010. That obviously did not happen.
What instead happened was NVIDIA lost a number of design wins, many of which we centered around mobile OSes other than Android. There were a number of Windows Mobile/Windows CE based designs that never made it to market, and a lot of efforts around earlier versions of Android that never went anywhere.
In the time since NVIDIA’s CES 2010 announcement, the company has shifted resources and focused its entire Tegra team on a single OS: Android. Choosing Android isn’t a hard decision to understand, of all of the available smartphone OS options it has the most momentum behind it.
Read on for more coverage of NVIDIA's Tegra 2 announcements at CES.
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The Microsoft keynote at CES last night reiterated a lot of what we already know about Windows Phone 7, and fleshed out the software giant's plans for its mobile phone operating system in 2011. Part of those plans include a much needed update bringing copy and paste, some dramatic performance improvements, and support for CDMA carriers stateside like Verizon and Sprint.
Read on for more.
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AP – To fight dwindling camera sales, manufacturers are slashing prices for point-and-shoots — often below $100 — and offering more features for the money.
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After hearing so much about RIM’s PlayBook it was good to get the opportunity to take this one for a spin, and while I certainly see what the fuss is about the device still faces hurdles ahead.
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As the playoffs begin, Onion Sports offers an analysis of each team’s chances to win it all.
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Last June, Turbine made the decision to switch Lord of the Rings Online from a subscription-based business model to a free-to-play model supported by microtransactions. In a podcast interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Turbine executives revealed that the switch has gone well for the company, with game revenues roughly tripling. The active player base has also grown significantly in that time. Executive Producer Kate Paiz said, “This really echoes a lot of what we’ve seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It’s really about letting players make their choices about how they play.”
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Appolicious – After all the rumors, innuendo, anonymous sources and random pieces of hardware that have been scattered across the Internet, a pretty reliable authority — tech site Gizmodo — thinks Tuesday is the day for the Verizon (VZ) iPhone announcement.
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WASHINGTON—In an effort to boost the economy and promote job growth, representatives from the newly revived Works Progress Administration announced Thursday their plan to dismantle, piece by piece, the 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete forming th…
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Ben Patterson – The engineers in Sony’s 3D division have clearly been busy tinkering, at least based on a couple of prototype devices on display here at CES: a visor that looks way goofy but handles 3D, 720p video, and a portable Blu-ray …
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Macworld – MacBook and MacBook Pro owners looking for extra juice on long-haul trips away from the convenience of electrical outlets have two new options from Sanho, makers of the HyperMac series of Apple accessories.
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Brian and I are currently at LG's press conference where the company announced, as expected, the LG Optimus 2X – the world's first dual-core Cortex A9 smartphone based on NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC. While NVIDIA announced Tegra 2 at last year's CES, it has taken this long to even get to the point where we can talk about products that will soon be shipping.
The 2X uses NVIDIA's Tegra 2 AP20H with both of its two Cortex A9s running at 1GHz. We'll have more details on Tegra 2 later today during NVIDIA's press conference. I'd expect the Optimus 2X to ship sometime in Q1.
LG also announced its thinnest smartphone: the Optimus Black. The phone is 9.2 mm thick (weighs 109 grams) and uses LG's ultra bright 4-inch NOVA display (it's not AMOLED). LG claims a brightness of 750 nits, which if true is at least 23% brighter than the brightest smartphone display we've tested thus far (BlackBerry Torch) and 30% brighter than the iPhone 4.
Lastly, LG announced an LTE USB dongle, the VL600, based on its own L2000 LTE chipset. It's Verizon branded in the photo, so we'll probably see it again soon.
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Ever since the Sandy Bridge preview, we’ve been waiting to see what Intel’s new architecture could do for mobility. No longer would quad-core notebooks require discrete graphics solutions, and performance would improve as well. While many of the desktop parts make do with a trimmed down graphics controller, nearly all of the mobile Sandy Bridge processors are packing a full set of 12EUs. Combine the improved efficiency of Intel’s new HD Graphics solution with double the clock speed of Core 2010’s IGP, and you have a recipe for mainstream graphics that may finally move out of their parents’ basement. We’ve been vigorously testing our Sandy Bridge notebook for the past couple of weeks, throwing everything we had available at it. Processor and graphics performance are markedly improved over Arrandale and Clarksfield, and battery life shows promise as well. Sandy Bridge may be a nice upgrade on the desktop, but for laptops and notebooks it’s nothing short or revolutionary. Read on to find out why!
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The entities formerly known as AMD—namely, AMD and GlobalFoundries—are both here in Vegas for CES, and we had an opportunity to stop by and discuss their current and future technologies. 2011 is set to be a major year for both companies, with new process nodes, new CPUs, and new GPUs targeting all segments of the computing spectrum. Judging by the amount of AMD laptops scattered around the various booths, this could be something of a comeback for the “little” guys. Why the excitement, and what’s coming this year?
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Hugh Pickens writes “Dolphins have long been recognized as among the most intelligent of animals, but now the Times reports that a series of behavioral studies suggest that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self, can think about the future and are so bright that they should be treated as ‘non-human persons.’ ‘Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,’ says Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University. ‘The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions.’ For example, one study found that dolphins can recognize their image in a mirror as a reflection of themselves — a finding that indicates self-awareness similar to that seen in higher primates and elephants. Other studies have found that dolphins are capable of advanced cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, artificial language comprehension, and complex social behavior, indicating that dolphins are far more intellectually and emotionally sophisticated than previously thought. Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, claiming that the current relationship between humans and dolphins is, in effect, equivalent to the relationship between whites and black slaves two centuries ago.”
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kiwimate writes “Marin County in California has passed an ordinance (PDF) banning the installation of smart meters in unincorporated Marin. Among the reasons given are privacy concerns associated with measuring energy usage data moment by moment and the potential for adverse impact on emergency communication systems used by first responders and amateur radio operators. The ordinance also comments that ‘the SmartMeters program … could well actually increase total electricity consumption and therefore the carbon footprint,’ citing ‘some engineers and energy conservation experts.’” The ordinance also mentions “significant health questions” raised about “increased electromagnetic frequently radiation (EMF) emitted by the wireless technology in SmartMeters.”
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An anonymous reader writes with news of research into the scientific literacy of college biology students. Earlier studies found that students tended to “rely on mainly informal reasoning derived from their personal experiences,” so the researchers derived a new instructional framework that explicitly taught principle-based reasoning. While the number of students who used this method did increase, more than half continued to use informal reasoning, which the researchers say points to a flaw in the way biology is taught (PDF). “Most college-level instruction presents students with complicated narratives about the details of key processes (e.g., cellular respiration), but does not explicitly reinforce the use of key principles to connect those processes. Therefore, students are understandably occupied with memorizing details of processes without focusing on the principles that govern and connect the processes. … As a result, students may leave an introductory biology course with the ability to recite the reactions in the Calvin cycle but still believing that plants obtain most of their mass from the soil rather than from the atmosphere, that plants photosynthesize but do not respire, or that the mass of a decomposing organism will primarily return to the soil.”
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SAN ANTONIO—Spurs center Tim Duncan held a press conference Monday to unveil the newest style in the Florsheim catalog, called simply "the Duncan." "We really tried to capture the classic styling of the Tilden, paired with the ease an…
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Digital Trends – A long time ago, in a press conference far, far away, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced that finally, fans of Star Wars would have another chance to give money to George Lucas.
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MerelyASetback writes “Razer has shown a new concept for a gaming device that uses a pair of 7-inch multitouch displays as well as a layer of tactile, dynamic keys on the lower screen. Much like the Optimus Maximus of yesteryear, this keyboard would enable gamers to place different screens underneath depending on the title, and even within a game — you could imagine the keys shifting to account for different POVs, levels, scenarios, etc. Internally, the concept is based around an Intel Atom processor, but there’s no word on what kind of GPU would work alongside of it.”
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So I have a confession to make. The past few months I've been incredibly preoccupied with smartphones, so much so that the ASUS MS238H has been sitting on my desk for a very long time. The data's been largely taken, the display calibrated, but for whatever reason the review has endlessly been on my back burner – I'm sorry ASUS. The upside of this situation, however, is that I've spent a long time using the ASUS MS238 and feel like I know it inside and out, and it's a slim value performer.
Read on for our full review.
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ContributorNetwork – The first day of the 2011 CES International kicked off Thursday and it was a day of major product announcements from a wonderful assortment of manufacturers including Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Dell, and Samsung, among others. Their offerings? Smartphones and tablet PCs. Which first-day items were the most exciting? Check out these details.
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WASHINGTON—In a stunning disclosure this week, congressional sources revealed that the acrimonious gridlock in the U.S. Senate traces its origins to a single November evening in 1986, when Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) engaged in sexual intercourse with Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) then-wife, Sherrill.
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Instead of the usual booth at CES, Netgear opted for private demo suites at the Marriot this time around. They also had a press conference on Tuesday, which I deliberately refrained from writing about because AnandTech is all about digging up the actual interesting news and doing the analysis right before getting it to the readers.
I had covered some Netgear press releases about their powerline networking products and the NeoTV 550 last August. At CES, we have some refreshes on top of that list, as well as some updates on the NTV 550 front (which has already found its way into the hands of a small number of US customers). Without further ado, onto the details!
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Intel's Sandy Bridge processor architecture is upon us, and with it a freshly minted gaming PC courtesy of CyberPowerPC: the Gamer Xtreme 4000. If you read Anand's preview of Sandy Bridge (along with our review), you should already know it's the fastest processor clock-for-clock that money can buy. So what happens when a boutique like CyberPowerPC overclocks it from the shop and ships it to you strapped to 4GB of DDR3 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570? That's what we're going to show you today.
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AP – Six girls have been arrested after students were invited on Facebook to take part in “Attack a Teacher Day” at two middle schools.
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An anonymous reader writes “Scientists at Harvard have found that people are remarkably bad at noticing when moving objects change in brightness, color, size, or shape. In a paper published yesterday (PDF) in Current Biology, the researchers present a new visual illusion that ’causes objects that had once been obviously dynamic to suddenly appear static.’ The finding has implications for everything from video game design to the training of pilots.”
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Today I was finally able to spend some time with Motorola’s Atrix 4G and its webtop dock. For those of you who don’t know, earlier in the week Motorola announced its first Tegra 2 based smartphone: the Atrix 4G. Motorola later announced another Tegra 2 based smartphone, the Droid Bionic, however the Atrix 4G is its flagship smart/superphone.
Equipped with a full GB of memory and 16GB of NAND, the Tegra 2 based Atrix 4G has one very unique feature: it can be docked into a custom ultra thin notebook chassis and used to drive the notebook.
Read on for Anand's take on the setup.
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dotarray writes “Online copyright lawsuits aren’t all about music. Video game publisher Atari Europe recently became concerned that copies of its game Alone in the Dark were floating around one-click file-hosting service RapidShare, so it took the hosting company to court. While they won the initial case, the decision was overturned on appeal, finding that RapidShare is doing nothing wrong.”
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Blacklaw writes “Intel’s Sandy Bridge line of processors is impressing the tech community with its power, but a sneaky little feature designed to appease Hollywood has some concerned about Intel’s intentions: Intel Insider. If a major video streaming service, such as Lovefilm or the US-based Hulu, were to implement Intel Insider technology on their movie streams — as a way of convincing Hollywood to release films sooner and in high definition without worrying about piracy — it would mean that only those who use Intel’s very latest Sandy Bridge CPUs would be able to stream movies. Not only would those using older Intel chips that don’t support the technology be cut off from the service, but those on systems featuring CPUs from rival manufacturers such as AMD and low-power specialist VIA would also be excluded.” In a blog post about this new feature, Intel denies that it is DRM.
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If you have a propane tank, an ultrasonic sensor, a copy of Guitar Hero and a touch of pyromania, this is the project for you. From the article: “For version 1 of FireHero, the player simply watches a video of the guitar hero chart and plays on the guitar accordingly. Version 2 of FireHero will have a much better system, with Autoplay functionality. I will be able to take a custom guitar hero chart, convert it into a MIDI file, and use Processing to analyze it and play FireHero to the track.”
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AP – With so many investors becoming fans of the company, Facebook will be legally required to begin sharing more information about its finances and strategy by April 2012, according to documents distributed to prospective shareholders.
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Motorola just announced its flagship Tegra 2 based smartphone: the ATRIX 4G. Running Android 2.2, the ATRIX 4G has a pair of Cortex A9s running at 1GHz inside NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC (similar to the LG Optimus 2X that was just announced earlier today). The SoC has 1GB of memory on package, putting it at twice what you get in most high end smartphones today. The phone is 10.9mm thick and will ship with 16GB of internal NAND storage and a beefy 1930mAh battery.
The real killer feature for the ATRIX is Motorola's webtop application. Motorola will be offering a netbook chassis with a ATRIX 4G dock on it. When your phone is docked, the ATRIX 4G will drive the netbook's 11.6" display and use its 36Whr battery. You get a full keyboard in the 13.9mm thick chassis.
When docked the ATRIX 4G will give you up to 8 hours of battery life (seems a little low given the huge battery). Finally, when docked you'll browse the web using a full blown ARM compiled version of Firefox.
You're looking at the smartphone's first steps into the realm of the PC.
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While most of the desktops we've received so far have been fairly affordable (read: south of two large), we haven't really had a chance to take a run at the cream of the crop. We're talking the big ticket items—the expensive, beastly gaming machines. That all changes today with our review of the DigitalStorm BlackOps. The stock model starts at $1,776, but the demon we have on hand tips the scales at $3,624. That's no small amount of cash to drop on a gaming tower, but the BlackOps Assassin Edition comes with an overclocked Intel Core i7-950 and SLI'd GeForce GTX 580s. The only question that remains: is it worth it?
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HTC CEO Peter Chou just announced the HTC Inspire 4G. Details about the HTC Inspire 4G's hardware stack are relatively scant, but the 4.3" screen begets a platform likely similar to the HTC EVO 4G, and will run Android 2.2. The Inspire 4G also appears to include HSPA+ support, not LTE.
The HTC Inspire 4G's real new feature is that it will be the first HTC phone with the new HTC Sense experience. HTC Sense brings a host of new enhancements, including context-aware ringtones – leave your phone in a purse or handbag, and the ringer will be appropriately louder, but silence itself when removed.
The New HTC Sense will also come with a web component, HTCsense.com, which provides remote wipe, lock, and ring functionality similar to what Windows Phone 7 and iOS offer. The version of HTC Sense on the Inspire, while new stateside, appears to be similar to if not the same as what's offered on the HTC Desire HD and Z in European and Asian markets.
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I guess you could say I have always had a love affair with the written word. The simple, solitary act of contemplating the white expanse of the blank page, and then putting pen to paper and seeing where the words take me, is my one constant solace in an o…
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With CES 2011 upon us, we must acknowledge that 2011 could well be the “Year of the Tablet”. Everyone—Motorola, Dell, HP, HTC, Acer, you name it—is releasing a tablet or three. If you’re ASUS, you’re announcing four different tablets today. If you are ASUS, I’d like to offer my congratulations and best wishes for this full-on assault of the tablet market. Chances are though, you’re not ASUS, so here’s the rundown on the four new devices.
Three of them are Honeycomb-based tablets, joined by a traditional Windows slate. Looking at the Android-based Eee Pads, we have the MeMO, a 7” Snapdragon slate, the Transformer, a 10” Tegra 2 slate with an optional keyboard docking station, and the Slider, a 10” convertible tablet with a sliding, tilting keyboard. The Windows tablet is called the Eee Slate EP121 and features a 12.1” display with an active Wacom digitizer and Core i5 UM power. It’s a pretty impressive looking bunch, so read on for more details and analysis.
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WASHINGTON—Announcing that it would no longer allow Americans to fall behind, the Federal Communications Commission introduced a plan Monday to levy steep fines on anyone failing to keep up with the nation’s TV shows.
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Lanxon writes “Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometers below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it’s been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It’s also oligotropic, meaning that it’s supersaturated with oxygen — levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes.”
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