ATI Radeon HD 4770, VGA Pertama dengan Chip 40nm

Situs PC Pop asal Jepang menampilkan beberapa slide menarik mengenai kartu grafis terbaru ATI Radeon HD 4770 yang akan datang dengan chip berfabrikasi 40nm, menjadikan ATI sebagai pemimpin sementara dalam persaingannya melawan NVIDIA.

Berdasarkan spesifikasi yang dijelaskan di situs, Radeon HD 4770 (RV470) kemungkinan besar akan bekerja lebih cepat dibandingkan NVIDIA 9800GT, dan kemenangan juga didapat dari kisaran harganya yang dipatok pada $99, yang berarti lebih rendah jika dibandingkan dengan harga 9800GT yang sekarang antara $119 sampai $139.

VGA ini makin berkilau dengan chip processingnya yang sudah menggunakan fabrikasi 40nm sehingga bisa menampung lebih banyak transistor ke dalamnya yang total ada 826 juta, berbanding 9800GT yang masih menggunakan fabrikasi 65nm dan 55nm. Sebagai tambahan Radeon HD 4770 menyediakan memori GDDR5 yang lebih cepat, tapi sayangnya jumlah memori video (frame buffer size) yang disediakan baru ada 512 MB, tenaga proses mencapai 960 GLOPs, clock speed pada 750 MHz dan clock memory sebesar 800 MHz menggunakan memory bus 128-bit, dan konsumsi tenaganya sekitar 80 watt.

DirectX 10 vs. DirectX 10.1

VGA ini sudah lebih jauh mengungguli 9800GT dengan dukungannya terhadap DirectX 10.1. Tapi peningkatan seperti apakah yang diusung DirectX versi terbaru ini? Dari diagram yang ada pada slide oleh AMD, di sana diperlihatkan game PC STALKER: Clear Sky sebagai benchmark. Pengaturan resolusi layar pada 1920x1200 dengan patch DirectX 10.1 menghasilkan FPS (Frame per Second) hampir mencapai 40. Sedikit lebih baik dibandingkan DirectX 10 yang hanya sanggup mencapai 36 FPS. Selain itu efek bayangan dan cahaya menjadi lebih realistis dengan teknik rendering min/max shadow map terbaru untuk menghasilkan kualitas tingkat tinggi terpaan cahaya pada permukaan suatu benda.

Fit PC2

How small is it? About the size of a paperback book. Designed to fit just about anywhere, the Fit-PC2 (Linux model) sports a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530, 1GB of DDR2-533, 160GB hard drive, preloaded with Ubuntu Linux 8.04, for $359. You can go even more bare bones with models that come sans operating system and only a bay for a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive (buy it separately); those start at $225.

Fanless Operation

fit-PC2 is totally fanless - the all-aluminum case dissipates heat. This has two advantages -

• • fit-PC2 is noiseless, or absolutely silent if used with a solid state disk.
  • Increased reliability due to no moving parts.

A Standard PC

fit-PC2 may look like an appliance, but it's a full PC including -

• 1.6GHz x86 CPU
• 1GB RAM
• SATA hard disk
• DVI with graphics acceleration
• High definition audio
• LAN and WLAN
• 6 USB ports

fit-PC2 fully supports all major operating systems.

See fit-PC2 Specifications

VAIO LT Series PC/TV - Premium Model

This all-in-one PC has no tower at all. Everything is enclosed within the 22-inch widescreen display. The VAIO features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB of L2 cache, a 1T-byte hard drive, 4GB of RAM, wireless keyboard and mouse, 802.11 a/b/g/n, and Blu-ray Disc media support. Price: $3299.

Powerful PC performance

Featuring an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9300 (2.50GHz) with 6MB L2 Cache. Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Ultimate is the most complete edition of Windows Vista®, with an array of advanced technologies. Comes with 4GB RAM¹³ and massive 1 terabyte² hard drive tucked behind a slim and stylish LCD TV. 802.11a/b/g/n wireless LAN technology¹⁰ offers a massive boost in wireless connection speed and range.

Experience Blu-ray Disc™ media playback

Blu-ray Disc™ media support lets you play back¹⁶ HD Blu-ray Disc movies in stunning clarity. Blu-ray Disc™ optical drive lets you record 25-50GB of video¹⁷ or data to a single Blu-ray Disc™ media (sold separately). Powerful PC lets you watch and record analog, digital and cable TV, including premium HD channels¹⁵ to which you subscribe to.

XBRITE-HiColor™ LCD technology

Enjoy incredibly crisp images and HD video on a 22”⁸ WSXGA+ (1680X1050) LCD with XBRITE-HiColor™ technology.

All-in-One Design

Mount on your bedroom, kitchen or office wall for a chic, space-saving computing experience¹⁸. Framed 22”⁸ wall-mountable HD display with transparent border produces a stunning, floating effect. Wireless keyboard and mouse free you to work from your sofa without cables.

Honda Develops Brain Interface for Robot Control

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

The system, which was developed with the Japanese government-affiliated Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International and precision equipment maker Shimadzu, builds on previous work announced three years ago towards a possible future where devices can be controlled by thought.

In 2006 Honda and ATR researchers managed to get a robotic hand to move by analyzing brain activity using a large MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner like that found in hospitals.

The latest work is a step more advanced and measures the electrical activity in a person’s brain using electroencephalography (EEG) and blood flow within the brain using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to produce data that is then interpreted into control information. It requires no physical movement.

The system was not demonstrated on Tuesday but Honda did release a video of experiments. It shows a controller sitting in a chair with a large hemispheric scanner over his head, like the sit-down hair dryers you find in hair salons.

Both the EEG and NIRS techniques are established but the analyzing process for the data is new. Honda said the system uses statistical processing of the complex information to distinguish brain activities with high precision without any physical motion.

In the video, the controller is shown one of four cards — right hand, left hand, foot and tongue — and asked to visualize making a corresponding movement. After being shown the card for the right hand he visualizes moving that hand but physically remains completely still. After an indeterminable period Honda’s Asimo robot, to which the system is hooked-up, raises its right hand.

Honda claims a 90 percent success rate using this method to correctly analyze thoughts.

The video starts off by proposing a world in which air conditioners will automatically come on when people in the room think its too hot, where car doors open when owners approach with arms loaded with shopping and where homeowners can think about tasks that need to be done and robots interpret the thoughts and get on with the jobs.

That day is clearly a long way off but with the latest development the system makes a big jump from being fixed to portable. It’s impossible to move an MRI machine around but the computer attached to the scanner, while large, is in theory portable. The entire machine, scanner and chair appears to take up about the same amount of space as a small car.

ATR and Honda began research into BMI technology in 2005.

Intel launches Xeon Processor 5500 series

Previously codenamed Nehalem-EP, the processor 5500 improves system speed and includes the Intel Turbo Boost Technology, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, integrated power gates and Next-Generation Intel Virtualisation Technology (VT).

Software vendors currently supporting the series-based platform, include Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP AG, Sun Microsystems and VMware.

Corey Loehr, group manager A/NZ Enterprise and Solution Sales for Intel said the series offers 70 percent more performance, 40 percent lower system cost and 50 percent fewer cores.

“This is the most significant server performance launch in Intel’s history since the Pentium Pro processor in 1995.

“In 2015, architecture will be very different to what it is today. Customers are trying to reduce costs and complexity in looking to standardise their architecture.

“We see people wanting less architecture. This is a great opportunity for them to consider this platform as a way to move towards that.”

Loehr added there is not a data centre today where customers are not looking at energy efficiency.

He said the enterprise-class chips adjust energy usage levels by using a processor idle power level of 10 watts, enabling a 50 percent reduction in system idle power compared to the previous generation.

Intel has also unveiled the L5518 and L5508 versions of Intel Xeon processors.

The L5518 offers 2.13 GHz and a power level of 60 watts. The L5508 offers 2.00 GHz and a power level of 38 watts.

Loehr said there are three pillars of a data centre; Compute; which carries the Intel Xeon 5500 platform with enhanced compute and I/O virtualisation.

The Network; 10Gb Ethernet controller and support for Unified fabric and Storage; Open platform and Performance Breakthroughs (SSDS).

Intel's Core i7 processors

by Scott Wasson

Those of us who are conversant with technology are more or less conditioned to accept and even expect change as a natural part of the course of things. New gadgets and gizmos debut regularly, each one offering some set of advantages or refinements over the prior generation. As a result, well, you folks are a rather difficult lot to impress, frankly speaking. But today is a day when one should sit up and take notice. I've been reviewing processors for nearly ten years now, and the Core i7 processors we're examining here represent one of the most consequential shifts in the industry during that entire span.

Intel, as you know, has been leading its smaller rival AMD in the performance sweeps for some time now, with a virtually unbroken lead since the debut of the first Core 2 processors more than two years ago. Even so, AMD has retained a theoretical (and sometimes practical) advantage in terms of basic system architecture throughout that time, thanks to the changes it introduced with its original K8 (Athlon 64 and Opteron) processors five years back. Those changes included the integration of the memory controller onto the CPU die, the elimination of the front-side bus, and its replacement with a fast, narrow chip-to-chip interconnect known as HyperTransport. This system architecture has served AMD quite well, particularly in multi-socket servers, where the Opteron became a formidable player in very short order and has retained a foothold even with AMD's recent struggles.

Now, Intel aims to rob AMD of that advantage by introducing a new system architecture of its own, one that mirror's AMD's in key respects but is intended to be newer, faster, and better. At the heart of this project is a new microprocessor, code-named Nehalem during its development and now officially christened as the Core i7.

Yeah, I dunno about the name, either. Let's just roll with it.

The Core i7 design is based on current Core 2 processors but has been widely revised, from its front end to its memory and I/O interfaces and nearly everywhere in between. The Core i7 integrates four cores into a single chip, brings the memory controller onboard, and introduces a low-latency point-to-point interconnect called QuickPath to replace the front-side bus. Intel has modified the chip to take advantage of this new system infrastructure, tweaking it throughout to accommodate the increased flow of data and instructions through its four cores. The memory subsystem and cache hierarchy have been redesigned, and simultaneous multithreading—better known by its marketing name, Hyper-Threading—makes its return, as well. The end result blurs the line between an evolutionary new product and a revolutionary one, with vastly more bandwidth and performance potential than we've ever seen in a single CPU socket.

Yahoo offers tools to help marketers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo introduced several tools on Tuesday that it says will help marketers target their ads more efficiently at a time when many of them are cutting advertising spending drastically.
One of the new products lets marketers target people with tailored display ads based on the terms they used in Yahoo’s search engine.

Another tool customizes display ads based on the websites people have visited and their activity on those sites.

“Marketers are looking for increased accountability for every dollar they spend,” said Michael Walrath, senior vice president of Yahoo’s Advertising Marketplaces Group, in a statement.

Yahoo will also introduce a search advertising tool next month that lets marketers control what time and day of the week they want their ads to run, and what age group or gender they want to target.

Yahoo, which has been struggling to retain market share against bigger rival Google Inc, launched the new tools at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual conference in Florida.

Yahoo’s new Chief Executive Carol Bartz is expected to announce major management reorganization as early as this week, according to press reports.

Separately, Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday at the company’s analyst day he wants to team up with the Yahoo to take on Google.

Ballmer added that pooling resources with Yahoo does not mean he wants to acquire the company. Microsoft walked away from its $47.5 billion buyout offer for Yahoo last May.

Shares of Yahoo were up 3.4 percent at $12.38 in early Nasdaq trading on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Anupreeta Das, additional reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Derek Caney)