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GDC 2014: Completely different because it is not called Mantle, just ask MS PR Just as SemiAccurate predicted months ago, Microsoft has adopted AMD’s Mantle but are now calling it DX12. The way they did it manages to pull stupidity from the jaws of defeat by breaking compatibility in the name of lock-in. The impetus for all of this mess is the dire situation the XBox One is in. You might recall that it is woefully underpowered compared to the Sony PS4, has roughly 50% less shader performance, far lower memory bandwidth, significantly harder to program for, and tools described...

MWC 2014: Why? Because we can, that's why Mellanox was showing a very interesting networking card to SemiAccurate at MWC, one capable of 56Gb Ethernet. If you are scratching your head wondering when 56GbE became a standard, you didn’t miss anything yet.The cards shown off by Mellanox are a dual port 10GbE on the right and a dual port 56Gb FDR Infiniband on the left. No points if you figured out where this is going already. That card also does two lanes of 10 and 40GbE as well, likely for the high latency buffs out there. In short this card...

HMC Consortium Reveals Hybrid Memory Cube 2.0 Spec The Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC), the organization dedicated to the development and establishment of an industry-standard interface specification for the hybrid memory cube (HMC) technology, has announced the second version of the HMC specification. The new spec could boost performance of the hybrid memory cubes to whopping 480GB/s, which is more than enough for next-gen graphics cards and mobile devices. HMC uses advanced through-silicon vias (TSVs) – vertical conduits that electrically connect a stack of individual chips – to combine high-performance logic with Micron's DRAM. Micron's HMC features a 2GB memory...

Sony Corporation and Panasonic today announced that they have formulated "Archival Disc", a new standard for professional-use, next-generation optical discs, with the objective of expanding the market for long-term digital data storage. Optical discs have excellent properties to protect themselves against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored.

Graphics and x86 cores are all just 'compute units' now for our games, videos and apps AMD has released its long-awaited Kaveri processor, the first accelerated processing unit (APU) to incorporate both on-die CPU and GPU cores in a heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) with a shared memory architecture. Behold Kaveri, in which CPUs and GPUs are equal 'compute unit' partners (click to enlarge) "We're going to need to create a new term," AMD product CTO Joe Macri said at a Kaveri briefing, "because HSA has really changed what can be done on the graphics part of the die."That new term,...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA and NEW YORK, NEW YORK--(Marketwired - Jan. 20, 2014) - LOMIKO METALS INC. (TSX VENTURE:LMR)(PINKSHEETS:LMRMF)(FRANKFURT:DH8B) (Europe: ISIN: CA54163Q1028, WKN: A0Q9W7) (the "Company") announces Graphene 3D Lab has reached a significant milestone by filing a provisional patent application for the use of graphene-enhanced material, along with other materials, in 3D Printing (Additive Manufacturing). "This patent application is the result of a diligent effort on behalf of our team. It opens up a clear path toward the commercialization of graphene," stated Daniel Stolyarov, Graphene 3D Labs' CEO. "It is important that our proprietary technology is accepted by consumers in...

Graphene, one of the world’s thinnest electronic nanomaterials, has long held the promise as a wonder material in everything from flexible touchscreens to super-fast circuits. IBM researchers have demonstrated one of the first working prototype chips made of graphene. They created a logic circuit that was reliable enough to send and receive a text message. The demonstration has the potential to improve today’s wireless devices’ communication speed, and lead the way toward carbon-based electronics device and circuit applications beyond what is possible with today’s silicon chips. Integrating graphene radio frequency (RF) devices into today’s low-cost silicon technology could also be...

Around 15 months ago, AMD announced that it would be building 64-bit ARM based SoCs for servers in 2014. Less than a month into 2014, AMD made good on its promise and officially announced the Opteron A1100: a 64-bit ARM Cortex A57 based SoC. The Opteron A1100 features either 4 or 8 AMD Cortex A57 cores. There's only a single die mask so we're talking about harvested die to make up the quad-core configuration. My guess is over time we'll see that go away entirely, but since we're at very early stages of talking about the A1100 there's likely...

Apple has managed to leave everyone behind with the world’s first 64-bit ARM architecture system-on-chip. However, if the rumours about Qualcomm’s forthcoming application processor is correct, then the world’s largest supplier of chips for mobile devices may be preparing something that will blow away not only Apple’s A7, but even Nvidia’s Tegra K1. Qualcomm is reportedly working on Snapdragon 810 system-on-chip that boasts up to eight 64-bit custom cores with up to 4MB of cache and up to 2.50GHz frequency. The app processor also packs Adreno 430 graphics core with up to 500MHz clock-rate, LPDDR3/LPDDR4 memory controller and various...

Seagate Technology said at a conference call with investors and financial analysts that it would release a hard disk drive with 6TB capacity in the beginning of the second quarter, 2014. The company did not reveal a lot of details about the upcoming product, but noted that this would be an enterprise-class hard drive. “We are continuing to expand our offering of high capacity drives with our six-disk, 6TB drive shipping early next quarter,” said Steve Luczo, chairman and chief executive of Seagate. At present 6TB hard disk drives in 3.5” form-factor are available exclusively from Western Digital Corp.’s HGST....

After his proposal for a quick market entry via Atari was rejected, Lowe was given one year to design and produce a personal computer that would be market-ready.William Lowe at a 2007 event marking the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Using porous silicon coated with graphene, material scientists at Vanderbilt University have developed the first supercapacitor that is made out of silicon. Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges. These are just two of the possibilities raised by a novel supercapacitor design invented by material scientists at Vanderbilt University that is described in a paper published in the October 22 issue of the journal Scientific Reports. It is the first supercapacitor that is made out of silicon so...

Heterogeneous Queues make GPUs a full peer in computeAMD is finally talking about hQ or Heterogeneous Queuing, the final step in the Fusion integration of CPU and GPUs. hQ itself is more of a mechanism for software to utilize the hardware that is in Kaveri, but it will carry over in to much much more.Conceptually speaking hQ is a pretty simple idea to explain because at its most basic level all it does is allow the GPU to send tasks to the CPU. Of course this simple thing to explain has a lot of tech behind it, simplicity is usually...

The Internet we each see every day is an infinitesimally tiny sliver of the whole—the parts we have curated for ourselves, the parts our network of friends and family sends to us, and the sites that we have made parts of our routines. But beyond this micro-level editing, there are also macro forces at work: The Internet largely exists for and is created by the people who are on it. The map above gives a rough idea of who those people are—or, at least, where they are. The map, created as part of the Information Geographies project at the...

Biggest security purchase since Intel wolfed down McAfee Intrusion prevention's a hot topic in the world of security, as reflected in the $2.8bn price tag Cisco has paid to complete the acquisition of network security specialists Sourcefire.The purchase - which was announced in July - is the largest security firm purchase since Intel's $7.7bn acquisition of McAfee in 2010. And it's a huge personal payday for Marty Roesch, creator of the open-source intrusion protection system Snort. He took Snort's basic technology and built commercial code under the Sourcefire brand since 2001."I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sentimental. When...

″ Exclusive: Seems awfully antitrusty from this point of view Sources high up at Nvidia say that the program that bribed Origin PC to drop AMD products and publicly badmouth the company, its products, and anything related is called “Tier 0″. The plan was hatched by Nvidia sales and it has a few bits to it. Tier 0 partners have to drop competitive products, AMD in this case, publicly badmouth AMD, and put out press releases/bang the publicity drum on the subject. The idea is to make it look like a grassroots problem that high-end gaming PC makers are all...

Logitech Readies G-Series Controller for iPhoneNow that Apple iOS 7 operating system officially supports various gaming accessories, expect both iPad and iPhone to gain various controllers and add-ons designed with games in mind. Apparently, Logitech is among the first to offer one of such devices for the iPhone. Logitech is reportedly working on a controller that basically transforms iPhone into a game console. @Evleaks has managed to publish the first photos/renderings of the first Logitech gamepad for the iPhone, which is expected to be unveiled in the coming weeks. The Logitech G-series controller for iPhone is a long block with a...

The controller offers two trackpads which provide "haptic" feedback capable of delivering various physical sensations to the player. Valve said it offers a better way to play games that have traditionally been controlled with a keyboard and mouse. Gamers have been invited test the device before it goes on sale in 2014. "Traditional gamepads force us to accept compromises," the company said via its announcement page. "We've made it a goal to improve upon the resolution and fidelity of input that's possible with those devices. "The Steam controller offers a new and, we believe, vastly superior control scheme, all while...

IoT to Generate Global Revenue of $8.9 Trillion by 2020 The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a new construct in the information and communications technology (ICT) world that is occupying the minds of IT vendors, service providers, and systems integrators as it represents huge potential for new streams of revenue and new customers. The ongoing development of smart cities, cars, and houses; enhanced connectivity infrastructure and increasingly connected culture are just some key enablers to the rise of IoT. In fact, Internet of Things is not something that is coming, but something that has already been partly implemented, but will...

By 2016, Nearly 50% of NAND Flash to Be Made Using 3D TechnologyWill look different too:With conventional semiconductor manufacturing technology soon to reach its limit in the NAND flash segment, suppliers of these memory chips are set to adopt 3D production techniques in order to boost the capacity of their devices.