Cortex-M4 set to become ARM's power core

The M4 is an important watershed architecture for Cortex-based microcontroller suppliers because of the DSP capability.

To date Freescale and NXP announced microcontrollers based on the Cortex-M4 processor core, which adds a DSP block to ARM’s popular Cortex-M3.

Now Cortex-M series heavyweight, STMicroelectronics has introduced its first microcontroller based on the ARM Cortex-M4 processor core.

With its STM32 series ST has one of the most popular Cortex-M based microcontrollers which are used in metering, point of sales and building security systems.

Now the Cortex-M4 based STM32 F4 MCUs with their single-cycle DSP instructions will be aimed at digital signal control applications such as high-end motor control, medical equipment and security.

There is pin-to-pin and software compatibility with the existing STM32 F2 parts.

The key to the Cortex-M4 core is its built-in integer DSP, and an optional floating point unit.

As a result it is effectively a digital signal controller aimed at applications in audio, motor control, industrial automation and automotive.

Its instruction set is a superset of the Cortex-M3’s.

When not executing DSP or floating point instructions, the M4 has a similar performance to the M3. Differences start to show once the DSP instructions are invoked.

Power consumption is predicted to be less than 40µW/MHz, with MP3 decode consuming 0.5mW.

Rather than use the Cortex-M4 core, Texas Instruments has opted to integrate its own higher performance C28x DSP core with an ARM Cortex-M3 core.

The Concerto F28M35x microcontroller series, announced in the summer, features a real-time control subsystem based on TI’s C28x core with floating point.

The communications subsystem is based on Cortex-M3 and there are peripherals such as Ethernet, USB On-The-Go, dual CAN, and multiple serial communication ports.

Performance can be tailored to different applications with options for 150/75MHz, 100/100MHz or 60/60MHz on the C28x and Cortex-M3 cores, respectively

Freescale Semiconductor’s Kinetis family of controllers is based on ARM’s Cortex M4 processor core.

M4 is a higher performance version of the Cortex-M3.

NXP Semiconductors also has a dual-core microcontroller which is its first asymmetrical dual-core device integrating ARM Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M0 processors.

It is essentially a programmable DSP device with the Cortex-M4 providing the DSP horse power and the Cortex-M0 providing house-keeping and peripheral control .

“The LPC4000 is not just another Cortex-M4. We’re introducing multi-core processing to microcontroller and DSP applications,” said a spokesman for microcontrollers at NXP Semiconductors.

According to NXP, the combination of the DSP performance with configurable peripherals will make the devices suitable for applications such as motor control, power management and embedded audio.

TI has already integrated the M4 in a 28nm system-on-chip device with four ARM processors on-chip.

The latest generation OMAP 5 mobile applications processor integrates two Cortex-A15 MPCores running at 2GHz and two Cortex-M4 processors.

The new chip has x3 the processing power of the previous OMAP 4 device. “There is nearly 60% average power reduction,” said TI.

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Will Windows 8 PCs Shut the Door on Linux?

It seems safe to say that a sizable proportion of Linux PC users in the world today installed the free and open source operating system on hardware that originally came loaded with Windows. After all, while there are preloaded systems available, it often ends up being cheaper to buy a Windows PC and load Linux yourself.

Once Windows 8 starts shipping on PCs, however, that may no longer be possible. It turns out that a new feature included in the operating system in the name of security may also effectively make it impossible to load Linux on officially Windows 8-certified hardware.

"It's probably not worth panicking yet," wrote Red Hat developer Matthew Garrett in a Tuesday blog post on the topic. "But it is worth being concerned."

'It Won't Be Installable'

The problem derives from Microsoft's decision to use a hardware-based secure boot protocol known as Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in Windows 8 rather than the traditional BIOS we're all familiar with. Microsoft principal lead program manager Arie van der Hoeven explained and demonstrated UEFI in a talk at the company's BUILD conference earlier this month, and that explanation is still available in the video below.

Essentially, the technology is designed to protect against rootkits and other low-level attacks by preventing executables and drivers from being loaded unless they bear a cryptographic signature conferred by a dedicated UEFI signing key.

"There is no centralised signing authority for these UEFI keys," Garrett explained. "If a vendor key is installed on a machine, the only way to get code signed with that key is to get the vendor to perform the signing. A machine may have several keys installed, but if you are unable to get any of them to sign your binary then it won't be installable."

Microsoft has said it will require that Windows 8 logo machines ship with secure boot enabled. Most likely, Windows on such systems will be signed with a Microsoft key, Garrett predicted.

Other operating systems, such as Linux, won't include any such signatures in their current state, of course. So, unless deliberate measures are taken to make them available, "a system that ships with only OEM and Microsoft keys will not boot a generic copy of Linux," Garrett explained.

'Kernels Will Also Have to Be Signed'

Options for Linux include providing signed versions of the operating system, but there are several problems associated with that approach, Garrett pointed out.

First, a non-GPL bootloader would be required. Grub 2 and Grub are released under the GPLv3 and GPLv2, respectively, he noted.

Second, "in the near future the design of the kernel will mean that the kernel itself is part of the bootloader," Garrett added. "This means that kernels will also have to be signed. Making it impossible for users or developers to build their own kernels is not practical."

Finally, if Linux distributions sign for themselves, the required keys would have to be included by every OEM, he said.

It may turn out to be the case that Microsoft will allow vendors to provide firmware support for disabling this feature and running unsigned code, Garrett acknowledged. Even so, however, it's unlikely that all hardware will ship with that option, he added, posing problems for at least some Linux users down the road.

It remains to be seen how this situation will play out, of course. For my part, though, it sounds like one more good reason to choose hardware with Linux preinstalled.

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Splashtop Remote Desktop now available for Mac OS X, costs but $10

Not content with creating the possibility of (emulated) Wii gaming on Android tablets, Splashtop continues to spread itself across pretty much anything with a screen, with a Mac-friendly version available now at the Mac App Store. This release allows both Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows to hold hands across the great OS divide -- nice to see Splashtop is still beavering away at its "Bridge to Anywhere." Desktop access to both your most intimate files and programs -- through both local networks and the internet at large -- are but a $9.99 payment away.

Splashtop Launches Remote Desktop App for Mac

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) September 21, 2011

Splashtop Inc., the worldwide leader in cross-device computing, today announced the release of its Mac client for Splashtop Remote Desktop to be demonstrated at MacWorld Asia 2011, Beijing, China, September 22-25. Now Mac users can enjoy Mac-to-PC and Mac-to-Mac remote access from a private network or across the Internet. Currently Splashtop Remote Desktop enables millions of mobile devices, from tablets to smartphones, to remotely access PCs and Macs with full audio and high-definition (HD) video. "Cats and dogs, oil and water, Macs and PCs – some things just didn't belong together until Splashtop came along," said Mark Lee, CEO and co-founder of Splashtop. "With our new Mac client, not only can Splashtop Remote Desktop users access their computers, but they can enjoy such features as the ability to run PC games and software remotely on a Mac with full HD and audio. Maybe that's why some customers call our product the Cat's Meow." Download Splashtop Remote Desktop from the Mac App Store at a discounted price of $9.99 for the launch week.

Splashtop Remote Desktop for Mac enables users to:

Access important files or photos on another computer without worrying about syncing, converting or compatibility issues

Use MS Office, Silverlight and other Windows software without having to install it on a Mac
Play HD movies and music from central media libraries without the hassle of transferring files Run graphic-intensive PC games on a powerful machine and play them from a portable Mac Watch HD videos streamed from a PC or Mac at up to 30 frames per second
Access the latest IE browser to view ActiveX enabled websites from a Mac

Splashtop Remote Desktop for Mac features include:

High performance video and audio streaming from your remote computer
Easy connectivity via LAN, Wi-Fi or over the Internet with Internet Discovery
Setup with ease through a simple, intuitive interface
Wake-on-LAN support

Mac OS X Lion compatible Splashtop Remote Desktop eliminates the need to transfer, convert or sync files and multimedia among devices. Important work files and office applications, such as Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, are easily accessed with this new app. Content for personal entertainment, including movies, music, photos and even 3D games, can also be viewed remotely. Simply go anywhere with just your mobile device, smartphone, tablet, notebook or ultrabook, and still have full access to your PC or Mac with a Splashtop Streamer installed.

Watch Splashtop Remote Desktop for Mac in action at youtube.com/watch?v=_nfz_HT1jvY Splashtop Remote Desktop is comprised of two components:

A Splashtop Remote Desktop application running on the client device, supporting iOS, Android, webOS, Windows, and now Mac OS

The free Splashtop Streamer software that runs on any computer with Windows 7, Vista, XP, or Mac OS X 10.6 or higher installed

Visit MacWorld Asia 2011, Booth #703, China National Convention Center, Beijing, September 22-25, for a demonstration of Splashtop Remote Desktop for Mac. At the Mobile Internet Forum attend "How to use remote desktop technology on iPad/iPhone," Room 401, with Cliff Miller, Splashtop chief marketing officer, on September 22, 1:30 p.m. and enjoy "Play Windows internet games such as WOW on an iPad," on the main stage, September, 24,12:30-2:00 p.m.

Download Splashtop Remote Desktop for Mac from the Mac App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/app/splashtop-remote-desktop-for/id459710463?ls=1&mt=12

About Splashtop Splashtop Inc., the worldwide leader in cross-device computing, was founded in 2006 with the goal of enabling people everywhere to quickly access content and applications across devices and clouds. Splashtop's flagship product, Splashtop Remote Desktop, is a best seller in the Apple App Store and Android Market, allowing users to enjoy a full computer experience from mobile devices and PCs. Today, Splashtop-based products are available on more than 70 million PCs and mobile devices from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG and Sony. Splashtop has received numerous awards, including the prestigious "Most Innovative Product" award from PC World, the "Best of What's New" award from Popular Science, and "Best of 2011 CES" award from LAPTOP Magazine. Splashtop Inc. is headquartered in San Jose with offices in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Taipei. For more information, visit splashtop.com.

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Tegra 3 has 5 Cores

The upcoming Tegra mobile chip from NVIDIA not contain 4 cores, but 5 cores, and NVIDIA has optimized its new chip to excel at high-performance and low power, two goals that are often contradictory. In a paper entitled “Variable SMP –A Multi-Core CPU Architecture for Low Power and High Performance Power and High Performance”, NVIDIA reveals how it has designed a quad-core chip, with a 5th “companion core” to achieve this seemingly impossible goal.

This graph provided by NVIDIA explain the power vs. performance conundrum

The root of the problem can be found in the process used to built computer chips. It is a fact that every chip leaks some amount of power, this is a natural phenomenon. In the context of this article, power leakage is the electric current that is consumed when the chip is in idle state. Although undesirable, especially on mobile devices, it cannot be avoided and the semiconductor industry has developed techniques to reduce power leakage.
But chips optimized for low-power leakage in idle state tend to consume more power than non-optimized chips during intense workloads. It’s obvious that people want a mobile device that consumes a minimal amount of power at all times.

Introducing the 5th “companion” core

The semiconductor reality is not going anywhere, so NVIDIA took a rather interesting approach to the problem: Tegra 3 is using a 5th, companion core, to handle all the “low-power” tasks like running the operating system in sleep mode, checking emails and notification, and keeping the system alive when you are reading a book, playing media files. When that companion core is working the “normal” high-performance cores can be shut down.
Because this companion core is optimized for low-power, NVIDIA doesn’t want it to handle heavy workloads, or it would start consuming too much. To do so, its frequency has been set  with a range of 0 to 0.5GHz. Whenever the companion core is overwhelmed by work, one or several high-performance cores wake up and pick up the work. This is NVIDIA’s definition and implementation of Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing (vSMP), which it has patented.

Automatic Core Switching

This graph shows the different combinations of ON/OFF cores

In its paper, NVIDIA says that the operating system (Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb) assumes that all CPU cores in the chip are identical instances, which is not true in this case. Therefore special management had to be devised at the hardware level, and the software level to make this heterogeneous group of cores completely transparent to the OS.
Cores are switched ON and OFF depending on a real-time analysis of the workload as the diagram above shows. The only “limitation” seems to be that “companion Core” cannot be activated when Core 1-4 are. NVIDIA says that not allowing the companion core and the high-performance cores to run at the same time simplifies the cache memory management and avoid performance penalties that would have hindered the high-performance cores.
Making this transparent to the OS is very important for many reasons, but for end-users, it means that OS updates don’t have to wait for NVIDIA to tweak some code.

vSMP Power benefits

This graph provided by NVIDIA shows power consumption relative to Tegra 2

Logically, Tegra 3 shows power benefits even when compared to the current generation Tegra 2 processor. According to NVIDIA, that is true during sleep state (LPO), media playback and even gaming. The graph above shows the power savings that NVIDIA has seen during its own tests. Remember that this shows only the power saved at the chip level, not at the system (including display) level.

NVIDIA also provides perf/Watt comparisons with other high-profile chips that are on the market such as the OMAP4 and the Qualcomm QC8660. Note that NVIDIA is using Coremark, a well-known benchmark that is very multi-core friendly (performance is more or less expected to scale with the number of cores). A quad-core Tegra 3 chip won’t have any difficulties winning the absolute score, but I find it very interesting to see that at comparable performance, Tegra 3 can consume only 1/3 of the electric power.

The two graphs above are used by NVIDIA to illustrate that Tegra 3 dominates low-power and high-performance scenarios.

Conclusion

Today’s release provides a very interesting insight into the low-power/high-performance strategy that NVIDIA has adopted. It is quite innovative and while embedding CPU cores with different capabilities is not something new, it is the first time that it has been used in this way in a high-end mobile processor.
However you should also keep in mind that the performance figures above reflect a best-case scenario that relies on the fact that application can scale with more cores, which is not always true. Multi-threaded programming remains an active subject of research and it remains to be seen how much real apps will scale. At this point, NVIDIA has remained tight-lipped about the graphics performance, so there is much more to learn about Tegra 3.
Nevertheless, NVIDIA’s companion core approach should yield a tantalizing battery life for what every phone does the most: sleep.  We can agree that every single mobile user cares about battery life, even if they may not care about high-performance. From that perspective, the architecture of Tegra 3 can bring real and significant benefits for all users.

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First Quantum Computer With Quantum CPU And Separate Quantum RAM

Computer scientists have built a superconducting number cruncher with a Von Neumann architecture that paves the way for a new era of quantum computation

kfc 09/21/2011

Back in 1946, the world's first general purpose electronic computer was switched on at the University of Pennsylvania. The huge processing power of ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) stunned the world, or at least the few dozen people who had any idea what it was for and why it was important.

But ENIAC had an important flaw. It could only be programmed by resetting a myriad switches and dials, a task that could take weeks. And this seriously hindered the computer's flexibility.

The solution was not hard to find. it had already been outlined by Alan Turing, John Von Neumann and others: have a unit for number crunching and a separate electronic memory that could store instructions and data. That design meant that any reprogramming could be done relatively quickly, easily and electronically.

Today, almost all modern computers use this design, now known as the Von Neumann architecture.

The exception is the quantum computer. These devices use the strange properties of the quantum world to perform huge numbers of calculations in parallel. Consequently they have the potential to vastly outperform conventional number crunchers.

Unfortunately, physicists have only a vague and fleeting power over the quantum world and this means has prevented them the luxury of designing a Von Neumann-type quantum computer.

Until now. Today, Matteo Mariantoni at the UC Santa Barbara and pals reveal the first quantum computer with an information processing unit and a separate random access memory.

Their machine is a superconducting device that stores quantum bits or qubits as counter-rotating currents in a circuit (this allows the qubit to be both a 0 and 1 at the same time). These qubits are manipulated using superconducting quantum logic gates, transferred using a quantum bus and stored in separate microwave resonators.

Let's say upfront that the result is not a particularly powerful computer. Mariantoni and co show off their device by demonstrating a couple of simple but unspectacular algorithms but ones that were carefully chosen as the building blocks of more impressive tasks such as error correction and factoring large numbers.

Not that they've actually done any of those things. What's impressive, however, is that they soon could since this approach is eminently scalable. "Our results provide optimism for the near-term implementation of a larger-scale quantum processor based on superconducting circuits," say Mariantoni and co.

There has been no shortage of false dawns for quantum computing in the last 20 years or so. But it could that the Sun is about to rise on a new era of computation. If it does, everything that has gone before will one day seem as primitive as ENIAC seems to us.

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Windows 8 BUILD tablets going for $2,700 on eBay

Remember when Samsung delivered their upcoming tablet that will run on the Windows operating system at the recently concluded BUILD conference by Microsoft to attendees? Just as expected, it isn’t too long before some of the attendees figured out that life is much more than just exclusive first hand experience with an unreleased tablet – having decided to put up their own BUILD tablet up for auction on eBay just to see how market forces will decide the final price tag.

Well, it seems that at least a couple of such tablets have already hit the $2,700 price point there, once again demonstrating the law of “supply and demand” in numerical figures. This particular piece of hardware is interesting, with an Intel Core i5 processor running proceedings from within, coupled with 4GB RAM, and a 64GB SSD, with the rest of the specfications looking very much like a laptop – until you realize that this is a tablet.

Since these tablets were designed for development and testing purposes, getting your hands on one might offer a very different end user experience compared to what Microsoft originally had in mind. Oh yeah, there won’t be any warranties for these, either.

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Windows 8 on ARM chips: It was too good to be true

OK, you fooled me, Microsoft. When the company first announced in January that Windows 8 would run on ARM chips -- used in most mobile devices -- I, like many people, assumed that Windows 7 and earlier would not come along for the ride. But this spring, Microsoft accused a blogger of being wrong in a post that suggested, among other things, that ARM-based computers would not run Windows 7 (though Microsoft didn't say what was wrong).

And this week at its Build conference for Windows developers, Microsoft showed off more than a dozen PCs and tablets running Windows 8, as a series of executives -- starting with Windows chief Steven Sinofsky on Tuesday -- touted Windows 8 on ARM while also talking about Windows 8's support for "legacy" Windows 7 applications. CEO Steve Ballmer closed the keynote sessions Wednesday saying that Microsoft's Windows strategy was "ARM and Intel, not ARM or Intel."

So I, like many others, thought Microsoft had pulled off the same trick that Apple did half a decade ago when it shifted from IBM's PowerPC chips to Intel's x86 chips: letting PowerPC apps run on the new Intel Macs.

I should have known better than to expect Microsoft to be as smart as Apple. Late Wednesday, in an earnings call with financial analysts, Sinofsky corrected a questioner on the issue, stating unequivocally for the first time that Windows 8 on ARM devices will run only the new Metro widget-style apps, not legacy Windows apps like Office.

What else is Microsoft leading us to believe that is not true? Maybe its Windows Live-based syncing won't be as broad as suggested. Maybe its mapping of UI elements across touch and keyboard/mouse will not be so automatic. Maybe Windows 8 on a tablet and Windows 8 on a PC will in fact be as separate as iOS on the iPad and Mac OS X on a Mac are -- maybe Windows 8's pan-device strategy is really just the same as Apple's strategy of having related OSes and common dev tools.

But it's my fault I was fooled. Microsoft has played this "we didn't actually say that" game before. And the lack of access to Microsoft Wndows execs at Build and the PR people who knew nothing (they didn't even have the session schedules) should have been a red flag that a hiding act was in progress. Fool me once ...

The good news is that this little false implication serves as an object lesson: If Microsoft is vague about or merely implies something, assume that whatever you thought might be there actually isn't. If you see only tea leaves, there are no Earl Gray and crumpets coming.

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Samsung Galaxy S III Gearing Up for 2012 Debut; to Sport 2GHz Quad Core Processor

Alright, the Samsung Galaxy S II is coming stateside. But if that was all you ever wanted, let us remind you that there is invariably a better version on its way. This time around, it is in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S III. Word is out about the device which will not arrive until the middle of next year. And, the specs seem too good to be true.

The Galaxy S III is said to sport a 4.65 inch Super AMOLED III display of 1280 x 1024 resolution and 352ppi. This means Samsung has managed to revamp their AMOLED displays to make it even better.

Then, there will be a whopping 2GHz quad core processor, with a 1.5 GB of RAM and 32 GB of built in storage. It is also said that the device will have a 2,250 mAh battery and TouchWiz 5, the less intrusive version of Samsung’s user interface.

Maybe Samsung is going Motorola’s way. And of course, it will run the latest version of Google Android 2.4, the Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

While the specs sure seem exciting, we do not have any word from Samsung confirming any of these, nor its availability by the middle of 2012. You never know, the smartphone market will have many of such devices around that time.

Would you go for this one when it finally arrives?

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HP Pavilion 3216AU - two for one ultraportable bargain

Harvey Norman’s current two for one sale on AMD notebooks is a mixed bag, but one particularly good bargain is the 11.6in HP Pavilion dm1-3216AU for an effective price of $349 (as long as you buy one for $698 and then get another one free). This makes it cheaper than any AMD powered netbook, but with significantly more computing power and much better specs.

The AMD Fusion E-350 (1.6GHz) is more than enough for productivity applications, and the integrated AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics gives the 3216AU a surprisingly good amount of versatility. Streaming a movie to a larger external screen is one of the tasks the 3216AU can easily handle, which for an ultraportable weighing 1.57kg is very impressive.

There’s a lot to like with the other specs as well, including a generously large 500GB hard disk drive and 4GB of RAM. It’s very well rounded overall, and considering that it’s selling for a price that many netbooks struggle to match you really can’t go wrong.

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Asustek's $200 Eee PC X101 Goes Up for Preorder

Asustek’s $200 Eee PC X101 might not be enough to prevent MeeGo from withering on the vine, but it’s a lot better than nothing at all. If you are one of those few tech conservationists considering rescuing this endangered species of mobile OS, it’s time for some action. The 10-inch MeeGo netbook is now up for pre-order from a couple of e-tailers in the States, with a third online retailer even listing it as being in stock.

If you failed to lower your expectations while making the jump, please do so before proceeding to the specs:

• * Operating System: MeeGo
• * Display: 10.1-inch LED WXGA display (1024 x 600)
• * CPU: 1.33 GHz Intel Atom N435 single-core processor
• * WLAN: 802.11 b/g/n (@ 2.4GHz)
• * LAN: 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
• * Memory: 1GB DDR3 (1 x SO-DIMM; up to 2G)
• * Storage: 8GB SSD
• * Camera: 0.3 megapixel
• * Speakers: Built-in Stereo speakers
• * Microphone: Digital Array Microphones
• * Card Reader: MicroSD Card Reader
• * Input / Output: 1 x Audio jack-out, 1 x Audio jack-in, 2 x USB 2.0 ports
• * Battery Pack: 3 cell
• * Dimensions: 10.31 x 7.09 x .69 –inches
• * Weight: 2.03 lbs (with 3 cell battery)

Available in black or white, the Eee PC X101 has a starting price of $200. However, it’s currently available for pre-order for slightly higher than that from the likes of Amazon ($226.99) and CDW ($209.99). Interestingly, the only e-tailer that has the X101 listed as available at the moment also appears to be the only one selling it for $199.

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The First Glimpse of the Windows 8 Start Menu

A new start for Windows 8.

The Microsoft Build event is kicking off in Anaheim, CA this week, so we're expecting lots of Windows 8 related news bits.

Before the conference starts, here is one new tidbit: the Windows 8 start menu. Microsoft has not officially talked about any of its changes in the start menu from Windows 7 to 8, but you can see below that there's been some tweaks that draw from Windows Phone 7.

The new start menu first popped up in Microsoft's demonstration of Windows 8's native ISO and VHD mounting. Hopefully we'll know much more this week.

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Lol.. Using the MacBook Air as a kitchen knife : )

Apple's MacBook Air notebook definitely has a number of cool features. The most notable thing just from looking at the notebook is its thin design. It's just .68 inches thick for both the 11 inch and 13 inch models. Now it looks like there's a trend developing where people are using the MacBook Air for some applications other than running iTunes or surfing the web. As reported by CNN, there are now people who are posting up videos showing the MacBook Air being used as a kitchen knife.

Several of the videos, including the one shown below, come from a person in Japan who films the MacBook Air cutting through an apple (yes, the irony is not lost on us), along with mushrooms, a shrimp and Chinese cabbage. A Japanese web site has even more MacBook Air food cutting pictures, including the notebook slicing its way into a corn cob, carrots and some kind of meat. Yet another web site has the notebook cutting into a bread loaf.

We could see using the MacBook Air as a bit of a time saver if you don't have any sharp knifes around but obviously using a notebook that costs $1,000 or more to slice up food can also be a very pricey proposition. However, we would also love it if the MacBook Air or perhaps the upcoming and equally thin Ultrabook-based notebooks could be used as the items used by the contestants in one of those food based reality shows like Top Chef or Hell's Kitchen. Hey, it could happen.

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Windows 8 to boot in 8 seconds

Microsoft is touting very fast boot times for Windows 8, thanks to the clever trick of writing the kernel state to disk at shutdown.

Rather than write the whole contents of memory to Windows' hibernation file, Windows 8 just writes enough to be able to put the state of driver, services and such back into memory, ready to run, at start-up. The kernel session is put into hibernation.

The kernel session file is compressed and saved. At start-up, it is de-compressed, a process that has been heavily parallelised to take advantage of multi-core CPUs for start-up speed.

The upshot: booting takes 30-70 per cent less time - up to just a eight seconds in a demo vid - with Windows 8.

Caveats apply, of course. While Microsoft says this tech speeds up booting off an HDD, it'll be faster still with an SSD, and expect it to use solid-state storage in video demos like the one over at the MSDN blog.

The blog also details how it's all achieved, and is worth a read.

And Microsoft cautions that to get best results your machine needs UEFI firmware rather than Bios. That's not because UEFI is inherently faster, but that, being newer, code written for it tends to be optimised more efficiently than old Bios code.

Finally, getting the user to log in, and then loading up post-login apps, data and services, will be no quicker.

Windows 8 will retain the - optional - ability to perform a full cold boot, loading and initialising the drivers and services from storage.

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Tursion TS-102 – pico projector or computer

Once in a while, we come across a cute little device that we are not too sure just how to categorize it. Let’s just say the Tursion TS-102 is one of those confounding moments – take a look at it, and most folks would say that this is another attempt to make a crack at the pico projector market, but it will never be able to end up as a commercial success. Well, you are half correct – as this is a pico projector that delivers 800 x 600 resolution at 20 lumens of brightness, shooting out a maximum image of 100″ in size.

Just what makes it special then? Well, the Tursion TS-102 achieves a world’s first by virtue of it running on the Android operating system from Google – although it will be just Android 2.1 Eclair (that is supremely outdated now, as Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread is the latest version for smartphones and Android 3.2 Honeycomb for tablets). Still, being an older version does not mean it won’t get the job done, especially when you take into consideration that this is a pico projector we’re talking about.

Other specifications include 8GB of internal memory which is clearly a leap forward for such a device, and a microSD memory card slot for expansion purposes. Equipped with Wi-fi connectivity, you will find all the relevant user interface buttons, touch pad and remote control bundled in a $449 package.

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Samsung, Microsoft join forces on Windows 8 tablet

South Korea's Samsung Electronics has teamed up with Microsoft to make a new tablet computer powered by the US software giant's latest operating system, a report said.

The Korea Economic Daily, citing an industry source, said the new tab based on the Windows 8 system would be unveiled at Microsoft's BUILD developers' conference in California from September 13-16.

"This new product manufactured by Samsung will be the company's first collaboration with Microsoft in its hardware devices," it quoted the source as saying.

A Samsung Electronics spokesman declined to comment. The company is the world's second biggest mobile phone maker after Finland's Nokia.

Analysts say Samsung is trying to diversify the operating systems of its smartphones and tablet PCs beyond Google's Android system, on which it currently relies heavily.

Google last month bought mobile device maker Motorola Mobility, making its debut in hardware and becoming a potential competitor to companies such as Samsung.

Samsung is promoting its Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tab computers to compete against Apple's market-leading iPhone and iPad. It is trying to strengthen its relatively weak software business.

Microsoft launched its Windows Phone 7 smartphone in November 2010 on handsets built by manufacturers including Taiwan's HTC, Samsung and fellow South Korean conglomerate LG.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced that it would be building a version of Windows to run with ARM processors, which use less power than offerings from its traditional partners like Advanced Micro Devices and Intel.

- AFP / NZHERALD STAFF

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Intel to focus on Ultrabooks, Windows 8 at forum

Intel will put its large spotlight on Ultrabook laptops and Windows 8, among other technologies, at its annual developer conference next week.
In a keynote on September 14, Mooly Eden, general manager of the PC client group at Intel, will describe the "transformation of the PC" being driven by Ultrabooks at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), according to an overview of the forum CNET received from Intel today. IDF begins next Tuesday.

Lenovo's U300s Ultrabook is extremely thin but boasts relatively long battery life.

(Credit: Lenovo)

Ultrabooks are very light, very thin Windows laptops that compete with the MacBook Air. The core hardware includes Intel second-generation "Sandy Bridge" processors and solid-state drives. Meant to emulate tablets in some respects, Ultrabooks are also designed to have instant-on capability and relatively long battery life despite their compact size .
Greg Welch, who heads Intel's Ultrabook group, is expected to lead a session titled "PC Client Platform Innovation," which covers the "shift to smaller form factor PCs which drive new consumer innovations" and "Intel's vision for...this new class of device," according to Intel's IDF Technical Session Catalog abstract.
Another Ultrabook-related session on September 13 states that "delivering [a] substantial increase in battery life mandates a brand new approach to power management in a mobile PC." Another session is entitled "Next Generation Display Technology for Ultrabook," hosted by both Intel and South Korea-based LG.
Windows 8, Microsoft's next major operating system, is also slated to received plenty of attention. A session on September 14 titled "Microsoft Windows 8 on Intel Architecture" will "provide a glimpse into the upcoming release of Microsoft's next operating system release Windows 8," according to an abstract. That session will be led by both an Intel engineer and Microsoft product managers.
And a Q&A session titled "Intel and Microsoft Windows 8" will take place on September 15.
Other sessions will include "Thunderbolt Technology Tutorial: Enabling New and Exciting Products," covering the new connection technology currently being used on Apple's MacBooks; "SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0): Ecosystem and Emerging Device Classes," which covers the latest generation of USB technology; and "Technology Insight: Intel Next Generation Microarchitecture Codename Ivy Bridge," which discusses Intel's next generation of processors due next year.
Other topics in focus will include cloud computing and advances in such areas as "extreme-scale computing, contextual awareness, and near-threshold circuit topologies that dramatically reduce energy consumption."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20102387-64/intel-to-focus-on-ultrabooks-windows-8-at-forum

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Motorola Xoom gets bargain price tag

Android Honeycomb's first tablet – the Xoom – isn't quite as popular as Moto was hoping. First the 32GB Wi-Fi only model had its price slashed from £480 to £395 on Amazon a few months back. Now, Dixons has taken a considerable chunk from the Xoom's price tag, taking the same model all the way down to £329. If 3G is more your thing, you can pick up a 3G flavoured Xoom in the same size for £400 – a mahoosive saving on its original £600 price tag.

It may have beaten all other manufacturers to the punch by being the first tab to debut Android Honeycomb 3.0, but just like the discarding of an ageing supermodel, it has since been trumped by younger, better looking devices, like Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Asus' Transformer.

So, a rear-facing five-megapixel camera, 720p HD video, HDMI connectivity in a chunky outer shell has proved unsuccessful. Could a price tag entice people to sit up and pay attention? It's certainly not going the way of the HP TouchPad just yet, but we always enjoy a bargain.

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70 inch HDTV prototype is also a Windows 7 PC

It's nothing new to see a company attempt to bring the PC and the television world together in terms of hardware. We have seen all-in-one PCs that have the parts inside a monitor. We have also seen media center PCs that hook up to larger HDTVs. But now one company is working on a prototype product that creates an all-in-one PC on a truly massive scale. As reported by Dvice.com, the German company Hannspree showed off the Lounge TV 70 at this week's IFA trade show in Berlin.

The product shown at Hannspree's booth was a massive 70 inch 1080p HDTV that also had a PC running inside it with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. Once more, the TV was running some kind of business application that allowed people to "draw" images on the huge TV screen. It basically turned this TV-PC combo into a whiteboard product as well. The story speculates that this kind of product could be used by businesses for high end presentations in conference rooms.

The report did not have any information on the hardware specifications of the PC parts inside. In the past all-in-one PCs tend to have hardware that's on the lower end of the scale. However, we would love to see a high end PC merged with a big screen TV like this for gaming. There's no word on pricing for the Lounge TV 70 nor any indication of a release date. It's possible that this TV is being made just for the German market.

Image via Dvice.com

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Toshiba unveils the slim Portégé Z830 Ultrabook Series

Toshiba has just announced its first Ultrabook, the the Portégé Z830 laptops. Featuring 2nd Generation Intel Core processors - core i3, i5, and i7, this new Ultrabook weighs only 2.5 pounds and measures only 0.63-inch in thickness. This form factor and design make the Portégé Z830 lighter and thinner than Toshiba’s previous R830 series laptops. This laptop also features a 13.3-inch display, DDR3 memory, 128GB SSD and Toshiba’s Hi-Speed Start technology which allows the laptop to power up in just few seconds. The Portégé Z830 laptops also has full-size LED backlit and spill-resistant keyabord, Toshiba’s USB Sleep & Charge technology, stereo speakers with enhanced audio technology from Waves Audio. Design-wise, this ultrabook is also a sight to behold with its light and yet durable magnesium alloy casing with Honeycomb Rib design. For reliability, security, and durability, Toshiba used its EasyGuard Technology on this machine.

With retail prices starting at $1,000, the Portégé Z830 Series Ultrabook systems will be available in November 2011 at select retail stores and Toshiba Preferred Partner Program resellers or from toshibadirect.com.

Via [Toshiba]

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ASUS G74SX - very well rounded 17.3in gaming notebook

For $2,096.95 the 17.3in ASUS G74SX-FHD-TZ130V is a superbly well-rounded gaming notebook. It's got a powerful strong graphics card and processor, and you can rip plenty of Blu-ray movies to the gigantic 1,500GB of hard disk drive storage. We’d hesitate to call it cheap, but it’s still really good value for money nevertheless.

An NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M dedicated graphics card is enough for newer games like Call of Duty: Black Ops to run at the highest settings on the 17.3in full HD screen. The Intel Core i7-2630QM (2GHz) processor’s no slouch either, particularly given it’s got Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology that lets it speed up to 2.9GHz if a particularly intensive game (or program) is running. There’s also a generous 8GB of RAM, so for gaming this notebook’s going to last for some time.

A Blu-ray burner ties in well with the 17.3in full HD screen, because it becomes easy to just pop in a Blu-ray disc and watch the movie at its native resolution. If you want to rip them then the 1,500GB of hard disk drive storage is generous even compared to dedicated entertainment notebooks. At 4.28kg it’s about typical for a gaming notebook in terms of weight.

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