If you're planning to hike in the mountains or if your work takes you to locales that are off the beaten path, you may want to bring something a bit more durable than a standard tablet. That's where Xplore Technologies comes in -- the company just announced its Bobcat, a fully-rugged Windows 8.1 tablet with MIL-STD...Read more...
There's a bit of quoted wisdom that's been making the rounds in tech news, recently. Up until now, I've ignored it, in the hopes that it would die out and go away. Instead, it seems to be showing up with greater frequency. It looks something like this: "Like Intel, AMD was caught flat-footed in recent years with the...Read more...
AMD is launching its first tablet-optimized APU today, in a bid to challenge Intel's de facto dominance of the Windows 8 tablet market. Dubbed Hondo, the new Z-60 draws less power than any Brazos-based part AMD has launched before. Some of you may remember that AMD launched a tablet processor last year, but the Z-01...Read more...
Rumor around the 'Net is that AMD's Bulldozer follow-up, codenamed Vishera, could drop in early Q4 this year. The new AMD 8350, as its known, will supposedly be a four-module/eight-core design clocked at 4GHz (4.2GHz Turbo Mode) with a 125W TDP. Vishera could potentially deliver what last year's Bulldozer didn't; AMD's latest CPU was widely...Read more...
At Computex this week, AMD has launched a refresh of its popular Bobcat APU. The new Brazos 2.0 chips are slipping in at the top of the Bobcat product stack and offer marginal speed increases as well as an assortment of new features. On the performance side of things, virtually nothing changes. The new E2-1800 is 50MHz (three percent) faster...Read more...
Rumors about next-generation consoles like the Xbox 720 (codenamed Durango) and the PlayStation 4 have been milling about for several months, but the Sony side of the equation has just gotten a significant update. New information suggests that the PS4 is codenamed Orbis, will be built around an AMD x86-64 CPU and GPU...Read more...
When AMD held its Analyst Day a few weeks ago, the company focused on how it was fundamentally changing its approach to semiconductor research and product development. Years of attempting to compete with Intel drained company coffers and exposed it to tremendous competitive pressure. Consumers unquestionably profited...Read more...
AMD announced its fourth quarter and 2011 results yesterday. The figures aren't bad in and of themselves, but the company's overall position headed into 2012 is decidedly uncertain. Yearly revenue was flat at $6.57B, with total net income for fiscal 2011 at $495M, up four percent from 2010. "AMD shipped more than 30 million APUs in 2011, resulting...Read more...
AMD's initial layoff announcement yesterday implied that the dismissals would occur across the company's global sales force. While that may still be true, it has become clear that AMD has slashed its PR and marketing departments in particular. The New Product Review Program* (NPRP) has lost most of its staff and Director of Product Planning,...Read more...
Windows 8's primary feature (at least thus far) is its ability to run on ARM processors and, by extension, its tablet-centric UI. According to analyst firm IHS-iSuppli, official Windows support will give the ARM architecture the ability to do what no other CPU design has ever done: break the x86 monopoly. "Starting in...Read more...
With Bobcat and Llano launched, AMD has one more major product overhaul set for this year. The company's Bulldozer CPU will launch in the next few months, and after years of waiting, enthusiasts and IT industry analysts are both curious to see what AMD has in its high performance pipeline. A Turkish website, Donanim Haber, recently got its...Read more...
Microsoft's tablet strategy (or complete lack thereof) has drawn significant criticism, but the rumor mill suggests the manufacturer may take unprecedented steps to establish itself as a player in this space. DigiTimes, quoting unspecified industry sources, claims Microsoft may build and market its own tablet. MS is allegedly cooperating with...Read more...
VIA introduced its dual-core Nano just four months ago, but the company is already demonstrating that processor's big brother. The newly minted VIA QuadCore is--you guessed it--a quad-core processor that connects two dual-core Nano cores in an MCM (multi-chip module). The new chip won't actually ship for some months, but it may become a higher-performance...Read more...
VIA introduced its dual-core Nano just four months ago, but the company is already demonstrating that processor's big brother. The newly minted VIA QuadCore is--you guessed it--a quad-core processor that connects two dual-core Nano cores in an MCM (multi-chip module). The new chip won't actually ship for some months, but it may become...Read more...
Earlier this week, we covered AMD's announcement of its upcoming OpenCL programming conference and how it plans to offer information on making the most of its Llano APU and that processor's capabilities. One of the rumors rumbling around since then has been whether AMD and ARM would pursue any sort of cross-licensing agreement. AMD's director...Read more...
AMD has released its Q1 financials, giving us a look into the company's execution through what is normally considered a down quarter, as well as an opportunity to judge the impact of Brazos on the company's bottom line. The results are quite good relative to AMD's financial performance these past few years. The company reports revenue of $1.61B...Read more...
AMD has revised its purchase agreement with Global Foundries in a move that will allow the CPU design firm to recognize a $492 million non-cash gain in Q1. Instead of purchasing 45nm and 32nm wafers on a "cost-plus" basis, Sunnyvale will pay GlobalFoundries a fixed price for products through the end of the year. Reactions to the change have...Read more...
Two weeks ago, we discussed Asus' claim that certain AM3 motherboards would function properly when paired with AM3+ processors. We've since spoken with both companies and have a (slightly) clearer idea of what to expect. Asus' announcement is not, in any way, a refutation of AMD's previous comments on Bulldozer...Read more...
One downside of the upcoming Phenom II - Bulldozer transition is that the new processors won't be compatible with current AM3 motherboards. This news disappointed certain AMD enthusiasts, given that Sunnyvale typically focuses on chipset longevity, but the company justified the mood by stating that the only way to...Read more...
Today, Intel formally announced a new class of low-power Xeon processors meant to fill the growing demand for cloud computing servers. Intel has dubbed such servers micro servers, and believes they'll be the major source of server market growth in the next four years. Micro servers are defined by the company as...Read more...
Both TSMC and GlobalFoundries have released new information on their respective plans for the next few years. TSMC has announced its intention to double its 2011 R&D capital expenditure to $700 million, while it simultaneously spends $7.8B over the next year in order to increase its manufacturing capacity by...Read more...
AMD has released its fourth quarter 2010 financial results and they're nice numbers to end a year on. The company's revenue of $1.65B was up two percent quarter-on-quarter and flat compared to 2009. Despite the sales plateau, AMD's position has substantially improved over the past 12 months; the company reported a Q4 net income of $375M for...Read more...