Intel Confirms It Has 14nm Test Circuits Ready in Its Labs

Intel disclosed recently that the company has already finalized the very first test circuits built using the advanced 14 process technology which the chip maker plans to use for manufacturing its 2014 processors code named Broadwell. The info was disclosed by Pat Bliemer, Managing Director for Northern Europe and Benelux at Intel, in an exclusive interview with the Nordic Hardware website. According to the company’s rep, the technology is ready for building 14nm products in laboratory conditions, which means that Intel has a huge advantage in terms of manufacturing compared to its competitors that still struggle to go under 20 nanometers. The news is hardly surprising considering that Intel was also was the first company to start mass producing...

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LG Optimus Link Dual SIM Officially Introduced

Korean handset manufacturer LG announced the availability of the Optimus Net almost six months ago. The company also stated at the time of the launch that it will release a dual SIM version of the smartphone. Although LG did not reveal any details concerning the exact release date of the device, it appears that the company kept its promise and announced the dual SIM variant of the Optimus Net, in Russia. The handset was recently launched in Russia as LG Optimus Link Dual SIM and is now available for purchase for 8,990 rubles (290 USD or 215 EUR) off-contract. It's also out in Brazil as LG Optimus Net Dual. Aside the dual SIM functionality, both LG Optimus Net and Optimus Net Dual SIM have similar features. The phones are powered by Google's...

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Nvidia Wants to Ship 25 Million Tegra 3 Chips in 2012

Nvidia has high hopes for its recently launched Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip (SoC) device as in 2012 it plans to ship no less than 25 million such chips, which could make it more popular than the previous iteration of Tegra. These SoC are supposed to go into smartphones, tablet PCs and automobiles, according to industry sources cited by the DigiTimes publication. Nvidia’s goal is indeed impressive, but those in the industry doubt that the Santa Clara chip maker will be able to achieve it as its Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip failed to achieve the same 25 million target in 2011. According to the same publication, Tegra 2’s low sales performance was due to its inability to capture enough share from the smartphone market, which is currently dominated...

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AMD Bulldozer CPUs Selling Out Surprisingly Fast

Reviewers may have been generally disappointed in the Bulldozer central processing units, but even with the outcry on the Internet, the chips are selling well. Then again, Advanced Micro Devices never actually said that Bulldozer would smack Intel chips around. Bulldozer always was described as something that would be at the level of Core i5, but people probably hyped it up more than they should because it was given the FX moniker. Either way, the 8-core FX-8150 and FX-8120, FX-6100 and FX-4100 don't suffer from a lack of buyers. Of course, getting sold out could be indicative that the inventories of such CPUs aren't all that big, but that doesn't take away from how the units are, at the end of the day, gone from shops and retailers. Meanwhile,...

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Old Age Human Memory Loss Not an Issue for Memo Touch Tablet

Memo just announced a device that, in a way, is a throwback to the times when tablets were only heard of in specific fields, like medicine, only it used media slate looks.  Memo Touch, LLC just launched a special-purpose tablet that bears its name. Basically, the Memo Touch tablet is intended for elderly citizens that can't exactly claim to have the best short-term memory. Based on Archos 101, it delivers gentle cues when the time comes to see a doctor, take medication, do certain exercises. That is assuming the very same memory loss doesn't end up making owners forget where they last left a certain thing. With comprehensive calendar tools, family members can set up events, to-do items, phone numbers, share personalized messages or...

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AMD May Prepare Radeon HD 6930 to Counter Nvidia’s GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores

With the recent launch of the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, Nvidia managed to give those looking for a great price/performance graphics card another option for turning to its GPUs, but not to be outdone by its competitor AMD is reportedly also thinking about releasing an Radeon HD 6930 GPU in order to counter this recent threat coming from the green camp. Just like Nvidia has done with the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, AMD also plans to use a cut back version of its most powerful GPU in existence, the Cayman graphics core, for this new card. However, unlike its older brothers that are based on the Cayman architecture, the Radeon HD 6930 will use what according to Hardware Luxx is called the Cayman CE GPU supposed to include 1280 stream processors. The reduction...

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Nvidia Graphics Driver Leaks GeForce 600M-Series GPUs

A new Nvidia graphics driver provided for Asus’ notebooks has leaked a series of notebook GPUs that the chip maker wants to introduce in the near future as members of the GeForce 600M product family. The driver in question is marked as version 295.18 and apart from some cryptic "N13P" and "N13E" code names also mentions a series of low-end graphics cards such as the GeForce GT 635M, GeForce GT 630M, and 610M as well as the high end GeForce GTX 670M GPU. According to the Computer Base website, it’s not yet clear how many of the low-end parts listed are actually new GPUs and how many are rebrands of the current 500M-series chips, but the GTX 670M is definitely a new GPU. This isn’t however the first time that we have come to cross our ways...

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AMD Stopped Shipping Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs

Despite Bulldozer not being the success that everybody has hoped for, AMD has now stopped shipping Phenom II and Athlon II processors fabricated on the 45nm node, except for one such chip in the P II line. The new processors based on the Llano and Bulldozer architecture AMD released this year will slowly but surely take the place of the current Athlon II and Phenom II chips as these will start disappearing from the stocks of retailers around the world. The only chip that will survive, according to Nordic Hardware, will be Phenom II X4 960T based on the Zosma core that is effectively a six-core Thuban part with two of its computing cores disabled. Of the two brands that AMD stopped shipping, Athlon was the most successful, as it spanned an...

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Team Group Quad-Channel Xtreem LV Memory Kit Revealed

Since high-end motherboards and the Intel Sandy Bridge-E line of chips support super high-end, quad-channel memory, Team group decided to release two such kits, as well as a pair of dual-channel kits for good measure. The quad-channel kits are Xtreem LV DDR3 2400 CL9 and DDR3 2400 CL11. Their names are quite self-explanatory: their operating frequency is of 2,400 Mhz and their only real difference is the latency. While the former has 9-11-11-28, the latter works at 11-11-11-28. The modules enable kits with capacities of 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), 8 GB (2 x 4 GB or 4 x 2 GB) and even 16 GB (4 x 4GB). Meanwhile, the Xtreem LV DDR3 dual channel kits, also two in number, have clock speeds of 2,600 MHz and 2,133 MHz, respectively, as well as latencies...

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Raspberry Pi $25 (€18.5) ARM-Based Computer Almost a Reality

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is making great progress with the development of its $25 (€18.5) credit-card sized computer as recently it received the first batch of PCBs back from manufacturing. Only 100 printed circuit boards for this ARM-based computer powered by a 700MHz Broadcom SoC have arrives so far, but this is a cornerstone in its development as it pretty much means the final design is ready, if no major problems rear their ugly head. The other good news is that the Foundation plans to sell these first Raspberry Pi computers after the PCBs are populated with components and properly tested. The details are not set in stone, but most probably they will be auctioned off as a way of raising some extra cash. We’ll keep you updated with how things evolve for the Raspberry Pi from now on...

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Asus Transformer Prime Rooted with One-Click Razorclaw Tool

Even though the Transformer Prime won’t become available in the US for a few more weeks, the Asus tablet was already rooted using a one-click tool built especially for the original Transformer. As many other reviewers out there, Phil Nickinson from Android Central has also received a Transformer Prime from Asus to test. However, unlike the rest of those who got their hands on the Prime, Nickinson wanted to take his experiments with the Asus tablet one step further and so it tried a couple of rooting tools on the second gen Transformer. Nickinson struck gold when it came across an app called Razorclaw, which was specifically built to root the original Transformer, but seems to also work on the Prime. The instructions are really simple to...

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Micron and IBM Make 15 Times Faster 3D Memory Chips

The memory market is in the ditch, so a nice breakthrough might be just what it needs to climb back up, a breakthrough like the one Micron and IBM are developing. Technically, the idea for the new memory technology appeared some time ago. Known as 3D memory chips, it, or they, are a something that more than one chip maker is looking at, like IBM and Micron. The latter has a type of semiconductor that carries the moniker of Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC). The two started the month of December on a high note, showing that they had discovered a way to make the already impressive 3D chips 15 times faster. The first memory chip to use CMOS manufacturing technology with through-silicon vias (TSVs) is what they described in their announcement. The 32nm...

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