Advanced Micro Devices plans to introduce four new microprocessors designed for enthusiasts and overclockers on the first of September. Three new AMD FX and one new Athlon X4 central processing units will address PC enthusiasts with different budgets, but will not necessarily offer unbeatable performance. Next month AMD plans to …

A number of executives of high-tech companies and some market observers have said that the effect of Windows XP’s end-of-life and increased sales of PCs will last for several quarters. However, Meg Whitman, chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, believes that the effect is about to end. However, a good news …

Overclockers UK on Wednesday said that it will sell DDR4 memory modules from G.Skill in the U.K. and also revealed the first images of the Ripjaws 4 memory sticks as well as their specifications. G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4 288-pin memory modules will operate at clock-rates up to 3.0GHz and will …

SanDisk On Tuesday introduced its first consumer solid-state drive that is based on triple-level-cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. The SanDisk Ultra II SSD promises to be very affordable, thanks to usage of inexpensive TLC NAND, yet the manufacturer declares rather strong performance and provides three-year limited warranty. The SanDisk Ultra …

Overclockers UK on Wednesday announced that it will exclusively sell Avexir Platinum DDR4 memory modules in the U.K. Caseking will exclusively sell such memory modules in mainland Europe. While initially the companies will offer rather moderate 2.40GHz DDR4 memory solutions, eventually they promise to bring modules with up to 3.40GHz …

Asustek Computer has announced plans to demonstrate its highly-anticipated smartwatch at the IFA 2014 trade-show in Berlin, Germany, next month. The company has even uploaded a preliminary picture of the device to partly show off its design. “Time has been transformed, and we have changed,” Asus quoted a Lebanese artist, …

BlackBerry this week formed a new business unit that will concentrate on patents, technologies and software. The new unit will help the company to get new revenue streams without selling smartphones, but by licensing its intellectual property, software or technologies. BlackBerry Technology Solutions, or BTS, includes BlackBerry’s technology assets, such …

Nvidia Corp. recently shipped the first samples of graphics cards based on the code-named GM200 graphics processing units (GPUs) to its developers in India. This confirms that the company already taped out the new GPU and got the first samples of the chip from the fab. Theoretically, Nvidia could launch …

Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 4 is one of the fastest-selling consoles in the history of video game hardware in general, a great success for the platform-holder. What is interesting is that even Sony itself does not fully understand the reasons behind such massive success. Still, a good news now is that …

Steve Ballmer, a former chief executive officer of Microsoft who spent 34 years at the company in total, said that he will step down as a board member of the software giant. This will mark the end of his career at Microsoft and will eliminate any influence that Mr. Ballmer …

LG Electronics on Monday said that it would unveil the world’s first curved ultra-wide computer display with 21:9 aspect ratio next month at IFA 2014 trade-show in Berlin, Germany. The display is designed for both professionals as well as home entertainment enthusiasts. LG’s Curved UltraWide Monitor (model 34UC97) features 34” …

Microsoft Corp. plans to unveil public preview of its next-generation Windows operating system in late September or early October, a media report claims. The commercial version of the OS code-named “Threshold” is expected to debut in spring, 2015. ZDNet reports that those who install the public tech preview of the …

Although Advanced Micro Devices pins most of its hopes on hybrid accelerated processing units (APUs) these days, it continues to supply traditional central processing units for performance enthusiasts. In a bid to make its FX-series line a little bit more competitive, the company plans to cut-down their prices in the …

Asustek Computer has revealed some additional details regarding its product development cycles and decision making process. Apparently, it takes at least nine months to develop and build a new mainboard for a new microprocessor. Actual mass production of new motherboards starts only about a month before launch. “[We start planning] …

International Business Machines Corp. said that it had received notice from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that the organization allows IBM to sell its x86 server business unit to Lenovo Group. The decision to sell-off x86 server business was criticized by multiple analysts, but it …

Khronos Group, the organization responsible for multiple open-standard application programming interfaces (APIs), such as OpenCL, OpenGL and WebGL, this week announced intention to rebuild the OpenGL API from scratch. The purpose of this is to be able to compete against Microsoft’s DirectX 12, AMD’s Mantle and other possible APIs (e.g., …

Earlier this year it was reported that GT Advanced Technologies, a company that produces sapphire crystal glass that has an exclusive supply agreement with Apple, had greatly expanded its manufacturing capacities (with the help of Apple). However, later on a rumour emerged that the iPhone 6 would use “traditional” Corning …

While the photos of the upcoming Intel Core i7-5900-series “Haswell-E” processors are no longer considered a breakthrough news, they still pose a lot of interest, especially if they are in high-resolution and reveal the backside of the chips. The first image of an engineering sample of the Intel Core i7-5900-series …

Samsung Electronics this week said that it had acquired SmartThings, a company that develops software and hardware for smart homes. The acquisition will help SmartThings to expand its product line, whereas Samsung will be able to enter a new market of smart home appliances. The company will continue to operate …

In the second quarter of 2014 shipments of smartphones reached a new milestone: 300 million units per quarter for the first time in history, according to International Data Corp. When it comes to operating systems, then Apple and Google controlled 96.4 per cent of the market, whereas shares of BlackBerry, …

At the Siggraph 2014 conference Intel Corp. demonstrated how the new DirectX 12 application programming interface can speed up rendering performance and improve battery life of mobile devices. The results of the demo were nothing but impressive: the new low-level API not only rather dramatically improves performance, but also allows …

Asetek, one of the world’s largest suppliers of sealed liquid cooling solutions, said on Thursday that an undisclosed “OEM customer” had chosen the company’s coolers for “a graphics liquid cooling product.” Asetek did not reveal anything about its new customer, but it is highly likely that the company signed a …

Intel Corp. has decided to speed up the introduction of its next-generation Core i7 5800/5900-series “Haswell-E” microprocessors by several days or weeks and introduce the new chips already in August. This should give Intel and its partners several additional days of sales and therefore additional revenue, but it will not …

Avago Technologies continues to resell assets it got from LSI last year. On Thursday Avago and Intel said that the latter will acquire the Axxia networking business from the former. The acquisition of Axxia essentially makes Intel a supplier of network processors based on ARM Cortex and IBM Power processing …

OCZ Storage Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toshiba Corp., on Wednesday introduced its new entry-level family of solid-state drives. The Arc 100-series of SSDs feature the latest technologies, yet do not offer leading-edge performance, however, their price promises to be very competitive. The OCZ Arc 100-series SSDs provide up to 490MB/s …

In an attempt to sell more Xbox One hardware, Microsoft Corp. readies several all-new bundles of the console for this fall. The bundles will include free games, consoles with all-new designs, a console with 1TB hard drive and other bonuses. What is noteworthy is that all new bundles will come without …

One of the features of Intel Corp.’s Haswell micro-architecture (and Broadwell micro-architecture) were transactional synchronization extensions (TSX), which could significantly boost performance in multi-threaded applications that take advantage of them. As it appears, usage of the technology leads to unpredictable PC behaviour due to an erratum. As a result, Intel …

Advanced Micro Devices yet has to commercially ship its first ARMv8-based system-on-chip for servers code-named Seattle. Nonetheless, the company already says that it is ready to develop semi-custom server-class SoCs for servers based on the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture. The company already offers customized Opteron chips powered by its x86 cores. …

The USB 3.0 promoter group this week announced the completion of the USB type-C specification that defines the next generation USB connector. The new plug is reversible and is considerably thinner than existing ones. Moreover, it will support up to 10Gb/s transfer rates as well as up to 100W power delivery. …

Nvidia Corp. on Tuesday refreshed the lineup of Quadro professional graphics cards. The new graphics boards are based on either Kepler or Maxwell architectures, will offer higher performance than predecessors as well as a number of new capabilities that will significantly change the way people use professional graphics cards. The …