Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., may unveil a version of Office software suite for Apple iPad media tablet later this month. The set of programs will help Microsoft to boost its revenue in case users of the iPad find the Office useful and necessary. The world’s largest …
Read More »AMD readies Radeon R9 295 X2 graphics card with two Hawaii GPUs
Advanced Micro Devices is working on a dual-chip graphics card with two code-named Hawaii graphics processing units (GPUs). The new flagship graphics solution will feature a liquid-cooling system and will be widely available from various manufacturers. It took AMD over a year to develop a dual-chip graphics card with two …
Read More »Microsoft to waive Windows Phone fee for Indian smartphone vendors
In a bid to get a share of one of the world’s fastest-growing smartphone markets, Microsoft Corp. plans to waive the license fee for Windows Phone operating systems for two Indian smartphone manufacturers. The move is a rather unprecedented one, but it was necessary to ink contracts with the Indian …
Read More »Valve to demonstrate the latest Steam Controller next week
Valve Software late on Friday said that it would demonstrate the latest version of its Steam Controller in action at the upcoming Game Developers Conference next week. The company did not reveal whether the version of the device is the final one or not, but it showcased the new unit …
Read More »Intel to increase focus on desktop computers
For years Intel Corp. has been focused to deliver the best possible chips for various mobile devices, including notebooks and tablets, whereas solutions for desktops computers were put on the back-burner. This happened for many reasons because of the lack of competition on the desktop market as well as because …
Read More »Huawei to launch smartphone with two operating systems next quarter
Huawei, a leading maker of smartphones from China, has been primarily known for its excessively big or inexpensive smartphones in Europe and the U.S. However, Huawei is a rather innovative telecom company which can make state-of-the-art products. One of such devices – a smartphone with two operating systems – will …
Read More »Sony to reveal ‘Oculus Rift beating’ VR headset next week
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) plans to unveil its virtual reality headset next week at the Game Developers Conference. No details are known in advance, but some game designers who have already tried the device are reported to have said that the upcoming VR helmet is considerably more advanced than Oculus …
Read More »AMD confirms plans to launch Hawaii-based FirePro this month
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday confirmed that it would unveil its next-generation FirePro graphics cards aimed at the professional market later this month. While the company did not officially said that it plans to release Hawaii GPU-based FirePro graphics solutions, it did call the new products “groundbreaking”, which means all-new …
Read More »Toshiba sues SK Hynix for ‘wrongful acquisition’ of NAND-related info
Toshiba Corp. on Thursday announced that it has filed a civil suit against SK Hynix in a Japanese court. Toshiba accuses its rival of wrongful acquisition and use of Toshiba’s proprietary technical information related to NAND flash memory. The company demands compensation of its damages. Toshiba filed the suit after …
Read More »EA, Oculus VR, Panasonic, others to form Immersive Technology Alliance
A number of technology companies and organizations on Thursday said they had agreed to form the Immersive Technology Alliance (the ITA), which will develop and negotiate standards for to effectively meet the needs of the newly established Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), stereoscopic 3D and gesture industries. The org …
Read More »iOS 8 screenshots: Healthbook, Preview, TextEdit apps confirmed
A Chinese blogger (or bloggers) has posted what he/she claims to be the first screenshots from Apple iOS 8, the next iteration of the company’s mobile operating system. The screenshots confirm that some of the key innovations of the iOS 8 will focus on bringing health-oriented apps to the platform …
Read More »Intel pulls-in launch of Core i7 Extreme ‘Haswell-E’ 5000 to Q2
Intel Corp. has decided to speed up introduction of its next-generation microprocessors and platforms designed for enthusiasts who demand maximum performance. The new Core i7 Extreme “Haswell-E” chips along with Intel X99-based mainboards will be introduced at Computex Taipei 2014 in early June, several months before planned originally, according to …
Read More »Valve releases open-source Direct3D to OpenGL translation layer
Valve Software this week published its open-source Direct3D to OpenGL translation layer called ToGL. The product should help developers without a lot of resources to migrate their DirectX game engines (or games) to OpenGL in order to run them under Apple Mac OS X, Linux or Valve Steam OS operating …
Read More »G.Skill debuts 16GB 2.13GHz DDR3 memory kit for extreme laptops
Why small form-factor should mean slow performance? It clearly should not. G.Skill, a leading producer of high-end memory modules, this week unveiled an extreme DDR3 SO-DIMM memory kit that weds high clock-rate and capacity. Many people dump their desktops in favour of powerful laptops or ultra-small form-factor PCs these days, …
Read More »LaCie unleashes external storage solution with 1.3GB/s read speed
LaCie, a subsidiary of Seagate Technology, this week introduced the world’s fastest consumer-class external storage solution that will allow to edit ultra-high-definition video in the field. The new LaCie Little Big Disk features Thunderbolt 2 interface and read speed of up to whopping 1375MB/s. As usual, the speed comes at …
Read More »OCZ preps Jetstream Express SSD controller with PCIe 3.0, SATA support
While OCZ Storage Solutions will continue to utilise third-party controllers for solid-state drives for some of the upcoming products, the grand plan is to rely exclusively on controllers designed by OCZ and by the parent company, Toshiba Corp. Moreover, it looks like OCZ has a promising controller in the works. …
Read More »Next-gen high-end GPUs: only in the second half of the year, if not later
Virtually all manufacturers of graphics cards these days are unveiling factory-overclocked graphics adapters based on existing AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce graphics cards at CeBIT trade-show. The reason why they are refreshing their lineups now is simple: they do not expect any new high-performance graphics chips to emerge in the …
Read More »Valve’s VR specialist moves to Oculus VR
Oculus VR this week revealed that Atman Binstock became the new chief architect at the company. Mr. Binstock is a well-known virtual reality specialist, who will join the already exceptionally strong team of Oculus VR. Atman Binstock was one of the lead engineers and driving forces behind Valve’s VR project, …
Read More »Asustek’s smartwatch to feature voice, gesture controls
Jonney Shih, the chairman of Asustek Computer, has disclosed additional details about the company’s smart-watch device due later this year. As it appears, the gadget will understand voice commands and hand movements/gestures. The head of Asus also confirmed that the smartwatch will be a companion device for smartphones. The chairman …
Read More »Samsung begins to produce DRAM using 20nm process technology
Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said that it had begun mass production of dynamic random access memory using 20nm process technology. The new fabrication tech will not only enable the company to produce more energy-efficient DDR3 memory, but will also reduce manufacturing cost of DRAM and will thus make it more …
Read More »ZiiLabs sues Apple and Samsung for patent infringement
ZiiLabs, the company which was earlier known as 3Dlabs and developed professional graphics solutions and which now designs multimedia system-on-chips, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States against Apple and Samsung. The plaintiff alleges that products from Apple and Samsung infringe its patents related to graphics processing …
Read More »Factory fire could affect availability of Samsung Galaxy S5
The fire at a factory which produces printed circuit boards in Anseon, South Korea, could affect availability of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S5 smartphone. The PCBs for the new flagship smartphones were damaged by the fire, just like manufacturing equipment, according to a media report. The fire was first reported at …
Read More »Apple releases iOS 7.1: fixes shortcomings, adds performance
Apple on Monday released the new version of its iOS mobile operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The main innovation of the 7.1 is addition of CarPlay technology introduced last week, but there are much more improvements in addition to this tech. In particular, the iOS 7.1 fixes …
Read More »Electronic Arts plans to support virtual reality technologies
Andrew Wilson, chief executive officer of Electronic Arts, said that the game publisher would definitely support various virtual reality technologies since gamers clearly want to “immerse” deeper into video games. The problem is that at present it is unknown what exactly to support, which is why some things are put …
Read More »Analyst: Microsoft will offer Kinect-free version of Xbox One in 2015
While Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect 2 sensor is significantly better than its predecessor and can enable not only new types of games, but new usage models for the Xbox One game console in general, it also makes the new system more expensive and thus less popular. Moreover, many consumer functions of …
Read More »Samsung set to produce Apple A8 SoCs for next iPhones, iPads
Although Apple is trying to reduce its business relations with arch-rival Samsung Electronics, it cannot completely avoid them. According to a new media report, the company has ordered manufacturing of its next-generation A8 application processors to Samsung Electronics in addition to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. ZDNet Korea reports that Samsung …
Read More »Sony and Panasonic unveil new optical discs with up to 1TB capacity
Sony and Panasonic on Monday introduced their new jointly-developed optical disc format called Archival Disc that allows to store from 300GB to 1TB of data on a single 120mm disc. Both Sony and Panasonic aim to launch systems with a recording capacity of 300GB per disc in summer 2015. Initially, …
Read More »Apple adds better support for 4K displays in the latest Mac OS X
Apple this week revealed a beta build of the upcoming Mac OS X Mavericks operating system version 10.9.3 to software developers. Among other things, the new version of the OS adds proper support for displays with 4K resolution. Theoretically, this might mean that Apple is either working on a new …
Read More »IDC: the worldwide tablet market growth set to slow down
The adoption of tablet in the well developed countries was extremely quick thanks to a multitude of reasons. Nonetheless, market observers note that the growth of the tablets market is beginning to slowdown. Recently International Data Corp. (IDC) revised its tablet sales forecast for this year and now expects around …
Read More »Apple orders 90 million iPhone 6 from Foxconn
Foxconn Electronics will reportedly land record orders for Apple iPhone 6 this year. Apple wants its main manufacturing partner to produce as many as 90 million next-generation smartphones in 2014, if unofficial information is to be believed. As it appears, Apple is pretty confident that its new smartphones will become …
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