ARM Huge Profit Increace 48% in Q2 and Surpasses Estimates

ARM has had yet another good quarter with record-breaking profits and very good sales. The company has again surpassed the analysts’ estimations and brought in $213 million in earnings. The official estimations were slated at about $203 million in earnings, but ARM Holdings has managed to do 3% better. That may not seem much, but the profits were an amazing 48% up to $61.2 million, while last year during the same season they were enjoying “only” $41.3 million in profits. The next quarter is supposed to be even better than this one and the analysts are predicting full-year revenues of $860 million. We’re more inclined towards seeing ARM break the $1 billion mark this year if we only take a look at the huge demand for...

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Turbo Camera for Windows Phone Can Shoot at 30fps

Owners of Windows Phone smartphones interested in taking advantage of a great camera application on their devices can now choose to purchase the Turbo Camera software from the Marketplace for only $0.99. The app, available in the official Windows Phone Marketplace for quite some time now, has recently reached 250,000 downloads, and the developer decided to cut its price in half in celebration. Those of you interested in enhancing the camera features of your devices will be able to grab the software at this price until the next major update for it arrives. That would be Turbo Camera 2.0, expected to land in the coming weeks, when the application will return to the original price tag of $1.99. The update will also come...

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Club3D 1100 MHz AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition royaleAce Monster Card

Traditional AMD video card partner has just launched a new AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics adapter with a custom cooling solution. Club3D’s new card is called Radeon HD 7970 royalAce and features AMD’s record-breaking Tahiti GPU in its GHz Edition complete with Boost option. Club3D’s new AMD Radeon HD 7970 royalAce video card doesn’t mention the “GHz Edition” anywhere in the naming scheme, but it does use such a chip mounted on a custom-made PCB and uses the GHz Edition BIOS with all its bells and whistles. Therefore, the royalAce is a pre-overclocked AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition video card. It’s most unfortunate that there’s no clear mention for the buyer to see, as most customers tend to believe that this is simply a Radeon...

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Nokia Lumia 900, 710 and 610 Receive 8779 Update

It looks like the Tango update 8779 for Lumia 900, 710 and 610 is now live in some regions. Nokia detailed the changes included in this update earlier this month, but did not unveil any info on the release date. However, the folks over at Plaffo have just learned that Nokia kicked off the rollout of the 8779 update in Italy, and possibly in other countries as well. The following changes are included in this update for Nokia Lumia 900, 710 and 610: Lumia 900 - Enhanced sensitivity for proximity sensor performance and improvement to your phone’s screen colours in low light conditions. Lumia 710 - Internet sharing (Wi-Fi Hotspot) — Share your phone’s internet connection over Wi-Fi with up to five other devices or computers and...

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Nokia Maps for Windows Phone Updated to Version 2.5

The main location application for Nokia Windows Phone devices has just received a minor updated that brings a few new features and options. Nokia Maps for Windows Phone has just received a bump to version 2.5 and the option to use a new feature called Route Planner. In addition, the new iteration of Nokia Maps features Groupon integration. However, this option is only available in the US for the moment. There might be other improvements included, but these do not show in the app’s changelog yet. The Finnish company also addressed several bugs, which has yet to be detailed. Keep in mind that Nokia Maps 2.5 for Windows Phone is not yet available for download in Marketplace. Still, we expect the developer to release the new...

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Samsung Galaxy S II With Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1 CyanogenMod 10 Preview

The popular Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100) already received the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade, but the South Korean company has yet to announce whether or not the smartphone will also get the Jelly Bean update. Until Samsung has decided whether the Galaxy S II is worthy enough for Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean platform, the community is hard at work to provide owners of the smartphone with custom ROMs that will bring some of the new features included in the latest version of Android. In this regard, folks over at XDA Developers have just released the CyanogenMod 10 preview for the Samsung Galaxy S II. Courtesy to Team Hacksung, the very early build of the ROM is now available for download, though we do not recommend...

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AMD Vishera FX Processors Are 100% Compatible with Current AM3+ Platforms

Texas-based fabless CPU designer, American company AMD seems to be very confident in the performance of its up and coming FX 8350 flagship and the FX 4300 processors, and plans no platform refresh for the following months. We reported here that AMD Piledriver enhanced FX processors will likely be at least 20% faster than the current Bulldozer CPUs, and we first reported here about the FX 8350 AM3+ flagship. After the 4 GHz frequency of the FX 8350 processor was confirmed here, we can now say that there will likely be no modification made to AMD’s current chipset lineup. Hardware experts from Fudzilla.com are also reporting today that industry sources say that SB950 is going to remain AMD’s top SouthBridge chip until mid-2013. The...

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OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Now Available for $19.99

Today, Apple made available for download the latest flavor of its Mac OS X, namely 10.8 Mountain Lion, which packs over 200 new features when compared to the previous software available for Mac. Users who choose to download and install the new OS flavor on their machines will benefit from improved messaging capabilities, a better notifications center, enhanced sharing capabilities, and a wide variety of other updates as well. The new platform was made available with a price tag of $19.99 attached to it, but it is available for free for those users who purchased a new Mac in the past five to six weeks or so. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion comes with a new Messages app, providing users with the possibility to easily send text, photos,...

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AMD Radeon HD 7990 Dual-GPU Delayed (Again)

AMD Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card should have been out by now, but things keep happening and causing the release to be pushed back. Most recently, it has been suggested that Advanced Micro Devices won't be able to start selling the item this July after all. This is reminiscent of how the dual-GPU adapter could not launch in June. Or April. Or even earlier in the first quarter of the year (2012). There is a silver lining in all this though: we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the HD 7990 has not, in fact, been scrapped. The cause behind this latest delay is vague, but it could be related to price-performance-watt problems, or a shortage of PEX8747 PCIe bridge chips by PLX (also used in NVIDIA's GeForce...

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New Intel Pentium and Celeron Series CPUs Set for September Release

We've known for some time that Intel will launch a new bunch of central processing units in the relatively near future, but the full list continues to surprise us by growing, again and again. Intel, of course, did not come out to say exactly which chips would appear, where and when, although it did touch upon several more noteworthy models. Most of the info made it to the web indirectly, through leaks, reports, product support listings by motherboard and laptop OEMs, etc. This instance is similar in that regard: a report has exposed the planned release of some Pentium and Celeron-series CPUs not known of previously. Under the Pentium brand, the G645 and G645T will make their entrance, curious in that they are Sandy...

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Microsoft Surface Tablets Price over $1,000

When announcing its own devices powered by the Windows 8 platform, namely the Surface tablets, Microsoft announced that they would be priced in line with the currently available tablet PCs and ultrabooks. At the time, many suggested that we might see the Windows RT Surface tablet going prices starting at $600, while the Windows 8 Pro-powered slate would cost over $800. However, it appears that these devices might actually land on shelves with much higher price tags than that, if the info listed on a Swedish retailer today is to be believed. Third-party retailer webhallen currently lists the Windows RT version of the Surface at 6,990 SEK ($1,000 / €830) for the 32GB model, and at 9,990SEK ($1,430 / €1,180) for the 64GB...

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Intel Works on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Port to Intel Atom CPUs

Even though Windows 8 will offer a whole new marketing venue for tablet makers, Intel does not intend to slow down on the Android market, not after how firmly the OS has established itself on the mobile front. In fact, Chipzilla has already begun porting the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system to its Atom CPU line. Unfortunately, the reports on the matter do not give a time frame for when the software will be ready. Don't think Clover Trail will be part of this though. While Medfield will support Jelly Bean, Clover Trail is a Windows 8-only platform. Apparently, Intel feels that 20 is a good number of design wins for the CPU line. We suppose there is always a chance that the Santa Clara, California-based company...

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Apple Launch iPhone 5 on September 21st, 2012

The next iPhone model is expected to become official on September 21st, just in time for a commercial availability starting with the fourth quarter of the year. Apple has already confirmed that the next iOS version would arrive this fall, but it did not offer specific info on new devices that would be launched running under it. Many of the rumors on the matter suggested that the company might be set to launch the new device in September, without a specific date set as of yet. However, it appears that Apple has actually got all things down on paper, and that the new iPhone will be unveiled to the world on September 21st. The info comes from App4phone.fr, which cites a large accessory maker from China, also said to...

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VIA ARM-Based Pico-ITX Motherboard

VIA Technologies continues to move forward in its small niche, that of embedded and low-power processors and platforms, and the latest product is quite the interesting sight among pico-ITX motherboards. ARM's deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has removed the final barrier between the architecture and the PC maker: 64-bit processing. It will take a while for the fruits of their labors to show though, but that doesn't mean the architecture is going to stagnate in the meantime. Indeed, there are other areas where ARM processors are sought after, and VIA is all too eager to extend their usefulness and get some sales in the process. The company has launched the VAB-800, a pico-ITX motherboard (10 cm...

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RIM Readying BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 Launch, New Features Included in Final Version

The latest rumors point to a possible July 31 release for the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G LTE tablet, but RIM also plans to release the next version of PlayBook operating system, OS 2.1. Since the first details on the beta build of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 emerged a while ago, RIM fans have been quite excited by the new features it promises to bring. The good news is that the folks over at CrackBerry managed to get their hands on the documentation of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1, but these do not mention any release date for the platform. However, if previous rumors on the upcoming availability of the PlayBook 4G LTE launch are accurate and the tablet will hit shelves on July 31, we could see the BlackBerry PlayBook...

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AMD Jaguar Comes with AVX, BMI, SSE 4.2, AES Instructions

Famous Texas-based fabless CPU designer, Advanced Micro Devices, is now working hard to finalize its Jaguar project. The AMD Jaguar is the company’s successor to the very successful low-power Bobcat architecture found inside today’s Brazos and Brazos 2.0 platforms. Unlike AMD’s Piledriver, the Jaguar micro-architecture will be a radical evolution from today’s Bobcat. The Piledriver architecture is regarded as an evolutionary step of Bulldozer and many think of it as what Bulldozer should have been in the first place. The low-power Bobcat architecture was a complete success, and the latest numbers showed AMD is ruling over 43% of the desktop PC market. Bobcat was targeted against Intel’s Atom, and the first-generation...

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