Although Apple is not the world’s largest supplier of personal computers, smartphones or tablets, it sells so many products that by 2015 it will consume 25 per cent of LPDDR memory produced in the world, according to analysts from TrendForce. At present Apple uses LPDDR3 memory inside its iPhones, iPads and MacBook …

Microsoft Corp. is expected to provide free Windows 9 upgrade to those who use Windows 8.1 today. Moreover, the company will reportedly offer Windows 9 with a huge discount to owners of Windows 7, the most popular version of Windows today. In a bid to make Windows 9 more popular …

Failure rate of consumer-class hard disk drives is a point of concern for many, if not all computer enthusiasts who build PCs themselves. Apparently, failure rate of hard disk drives heavily depends on manufacturing processes of particular manufacturers. Last week a report from Backblaze, a cloud-storage provider that uses consumer-class …

Intel Corp. has already started to ship its Core M microprocessors based on the Broadwell micro-architecture for ultra-low-power notebooks, 2-in-1s and tablets. According to a new media report, the company will introduce its Core i3/i5-i7 central processing units made using 14nm process technology for mainstream mobile PCs at the Consumer …

Microsoft Corp. last week announced the return of its hardware-focused event. The purpose of Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) will be to bring the hardware engineering community together in one place. The software giant will provide an opportunity to interact with technical and business experts from Microsoft, other partners, and …

Intel Corp. and Tsinghua Unigroup, a China state-owned limited liability corporation, confirmed that they have signed an agreement under which Intel will acquire 20 per cent stake in the Chinese holding company, which controls two developers of mobile system-on-chips (SoCs), for $1.5 billion. It is believed that that the SoC …

Even though earlier this year it was reported that the talks between GlobalFoundries and IBM over the latter’s semiconductor business collapsed, a new media report claims that the two companies have finally come to an agreement. The Big Blue reportedly agreed to pay the contract maker of semiconductors for taking …

Backblaze, a cloud-storage provider that uses consumer-class hard disk drives and extensive replication mechanisms to store data, has published a new hard drive reliability report. It is not a secret that many consumer-grade HDDs are not very reliable, but what is surprising and alarming is that failure rate of certain …

Nvidia Corp. on Friday told KitGuru that it will focus solely on its proprietary G-Sync technology and not on a potentially competing Adaptive-Sync, which will become available sometimes in 2015. According to Nvidia, G-Sync-enabled graphics cards and monitors are available today, which is why it is natural to concentrate on …

Samsung Electronics said on Thursday that it has started to mass produce new NVMe PCIe solid-state drives based on 3D V-NAND flash memory. The new SSDs are designed for enterprise servers and feature improved reliability, performance and up to 3.2TB capacity. The Samsung SM1715 solid-state drives will be available in …

Although HGST, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp., introduced its 10TB hard disk drive earlier this month, the company has never revealed when it plans to release the product commercially. This week a representative for HGST finally said that the company will start mass production of behemoth HDD in early 2015. …

Despite of numerous reports claiming that Apple iPhone 6 Plus could be bent, the company believes that the issue is hugely exaggerated. According to Apple, only nine customers have complained about bending of the 5.5” smartphones. The company claims that its phones undergo rigorous testing and can withstand reasonable stresses. …

FOLLOW UP: Nvidia: We will focus on G-Sync, not Adaptive-Sync Although Nvidia Corp. is trying to promote its own proprietary G-Sync technology, it will also eventually support the industry-standard Adaptive-Sync tech, the company said recently behind closed doors. Nvidia introduced its G-Sync technology that enables the display to dynamically match a …

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on Thursday said that it has built the world’s first many-core networking processor for next-generation wireless communications and routers using 16nm FinFET fabrication technology. The ultra-thin manufacturing process will allow the many-core chip to deliver high performance and rich feature-set while consuming low amounts of power. …

Intel Corp. has quietly acquired a 20 per cent stake in a Chinese holding company that controls developers of system-on-chips for smartphones and other mobile devices, according to two media reports. It is expected that the chip designers will develop application processors for mobiles powered by Intel’s x86 cores, which will …

ARM Holdings this week introduced its new Cortex-M7 processor that promises to double the compute and digital signal processing (DSP) capability for high-end embedded applications used in next generation vehicles, connected devices (including the so-called Internet-of-things devices), and smart homes and factories. The ARM Cortex-M7 core is based on the …

Amazon plans to invest $55 million in its Lab 126 research and development facility in California and increase the headcount of R&D staff to over 3700 by 2019. The expansion of the “secretive” laboratory reaffirms Amazon’s plans to continue designing its own hardware, address new markets and become closer to …

Although it was expected that Advanced Micro Devices would launch its new single-GPU flagship graphics solution already this year, a new market rumour suggests that the forthcoming Radeon R9 390X graphics card is only due in 2015. In summer it transpired that AMD had taped out (the point at which …

Even though Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest maker of smartphones and is among the leading suppliers of media tablets, sales of the company’s personal computers are not really high. Apparently, due to low demand for its notebooks in Europe the company plans to discontinue PC business in the region …

Although Apple’s products are traditionally well-made and every detail of their design is well-thought, from time to time the company releases devices that suffer from minor or major design issues that greatly affect their appeal or even durability. Apparently, this is the case with the iPhone 6 Plus. While Apple …

Microsoft Corp. has unveiled a tiny device that turns every HDMI- and USB-equipped TV or monitor into a wireless display for Windows 8.1/Widows Phone 8.1-based personal computers, tablets or even smartphones. The gadget allows to show photos, videos or stream media content from PCs to TVs without a lot of …

The Israeli government announced this week that it has approved a plan submitted by Intel Corp. regarding upgrading its fab in Kiryat Gat. Under the terms of the plan the chip giant intends to significantly modernize its semiconductor manufacturing facility in order to build chips using 10nm process technology there. Intel …

Oculus VR has been on the hiring spree for some time now. The company has hired a number of top video game developers, but it has never announced plans to design first-party virtual reality video games. Late last week the company finally confirmed that the development of its own content is underway. …

Although Intel Corp. decided to set pretty moderate default clock-rate for its eight-core desktop chips aimed at performance enthusiasts, the new Core i7-5960X “Haswell-E” central processing units appear to be pretty good overclockers. Recently a German enthusiast managed to boost clock-rate of the new processor by two times from default …

Microsoft Corp. has decided to delay the launch of its Xbox One video game console in mainland China. The company said that it needs some additional time to polish the system before it reaches the market. Microsoft’s Xbox One will be the first foreign gaming console officially sold in China …

Apple on Monday said that it has sold over 10 million iPhone 6 units in three days after the devices were launched last Friday. The record sales were conditioned by broad geographical availability of the new smartphones as well as the fact that many customers were eager to get iPhones …

One of the things that Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 operating system is criticized for is poor scaling. As a result, it is sometimes inconvenient to work on Windows 8-based PCs with high-resolution/high-DPI displays. According to a new media report, the next Windows operating system will address such issues. PCPortal web-site has …

Chief executive officer of ARM Holdings on Monday defended the company’s Mali graphics technology in connection to a patent suit by Nvidia Corp against Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm. The executive of the technology developer said his company will assist Samsung in its legal fight with Nvidia. Samsung uses ARM’s Mali …

Sony is expected to release its virtual reality headset code-named Morpheus sometimes in 2015. Apparently, the device is nearly ready. Last week the company displayed its VR hardware at the Tokyo Game Show and the product was well received by gamers, which confirms the fact that its development is basically finished. …

Advanced Micro Devices and Synopsys, a company that helps to implement complex semiconductor devices like APUs, CPUs and GPUs, this week signed a multi-year agreement that gives AMD access to a range of Synopsys DesignWare intellectual property on advanced 16nm/14nm and 10nm FinFET process technologies. In exchange, AMD transfers certain …