Nokia Explains Why No MicroSD Slot for Lumia 920

Lumia 920, the future flagship Windows Phone 8 handset from Nokia, will arrive on shelves without a microSD memory card slot packed inside, leaving users with only 32GB of internal memory to take advantage of. With the support for MicroSD memory cards newly included in Windows Phone 8, one would have wanted for Nokia’s flagship to include the feature as well. However, it appears that the handset vendor decided to go without it, in an attempt to maintain the phone’s outer design untouched. “We started with the premise that we wanted an uncompromised physical form,” Kevin Shields, executive vice president at Nokia told PC Pro, adding that the card slot “would have defiled it.” Of course, the phone can be connected to...

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The Likely Winners in Apple vs. Samsung War – TSMC and GlobalFoundries

As the legal clashes between the two companies are getting tougher and come about significantly more often than it happened before, Apple and Samsung are apparently becoming bitter enemies that won’t collaborate on virtually anything. For those that might not know, Samsung is the maker of most of components inside Apple’s iPad tablets and iPhone smartphones, but the Cupertino-based giant is not willing to be a good client for the Korean company anymore. As the costs of designing a mobile SoC are considerably high and it takes quite a bit of time for the company to move manufacturing from one FAB to a different FAB, Samsung is still making the processors inside Apple’s both bestselling devices, the iPad and iPhone. Leaving...

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Lumia 920 Can Shoot Professional Stills (Nokia Wants)

Lumia 920, Nokia's first Windows Phone 8 handset, features the same PureView technology that made the Symbian-based 808 a popular device among enthusiasts, and Nokia wants us to believe that it can live up to its name. Nokia has published a video to showcase the phone's recording capabilities, yet it has been proved to be a simulated one. Nokia has already admitted to that, but it seems that there's even more to it. The still images that are being shown in the clip at a certain point were not shot with Lumia 920 either. Nokia shot these images with a DSLR camera with a smaller aperture like f/22, Youssef Sarhan notes in a blog post. Basically, the entire clip is fraudulent, he explains, and a photo showing the entire set appears to confirm that.  Since the video is...

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Intel Atom “Centerton” Servers, Space- and Power-Efficient Ships This Year's End

US consumers mostly care about Intel's Atom line because it is the series of low-end CPUs found in nettops, netbooks and some of the few Wintel tablets lurking around the market. We already know that the Santa Clara, California-based company is losing the support of PC brand vendors, like ASUS and Acer. There is one side of its Atom business that doesn't appear to be suffering as much though: that of server-class chips. Though the Xeon line of CPUs is the one that heavy workloads need, Atom chips can work better in servers that need to be small and easy on the power bill. This is the reason why Intel is creating the “Centerton” class of Atom CPUs, and why Quanta QCT will ship a microserver powered by one such unit....

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Nokia 808 PureView Belle FP2 Update Spotted in Navifirm

Nokia 808 PureView, the Symbian-based smartphone that Nokia has launched in early 2012 with a 41-megapixel photo snapper on the back, has just received a new software update, Belle FP2.  The operating system refresh has emerged in Navifirm as version 113.010.1506, and users should be able to download it from there, should they choose to do so. However, it should not be too long before the update starts rolling out to users, as it usually happens with new firmware in Navifirm. Those users who are interested in getting a taste of the latest platform enhancements as soon as possible should head over to Navifirm to grab the update and manually install it on their mobile phones. According to the guys over at Nokia...

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Gigabyte GV-R785OC-1GD, AMD Radeon HD 7850 1GB pre-overclocked video card

Well-known mainboard manufacturer, Taiwanese company Gigabyte is trying to make AMD’s Radeon HD 7850 video cards a little bit more attractive in the light of the incoming Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 launch. The GK106 GPU is directly targeted at AMD’s $300 solutions and generally brings better performance, thus making AMD-based solutions look modest. Gigabyte is apparently adopting an original strategy as the company slashes the memory amount on a Radeon HD 7850 video card, thus reducing costs and price, but clocks the GPU significantly higher to compensate and make it more attractive. The name of the new model is Gigabyte GV-R785OC-1GD and this is a quality video card featuring the company’s Ultra Durable 2 design...

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Windows Phone 8X by HTC, New Alleged Photo

HTC Accord has been long rumored to be one of the first Windows Phone 8 devices coming from the Taiwanese mobile phone maker this fall, and it seems that we’re indeed nearing its official unveiling. Moreover, a newly leaked rendering that allegedly shows the device (courtesy of Football4PDA) also confirms that HTC would be set to bring it to the market under the name of 8X, as WMPoweruser reports. The phone’s full marketing name might be Windows Phone 8X by HTC, rumor has it, and September 19th could be the day when it is set to become official. When released, the new device would be able to impress uses a lot, a leaked hardware specification list for it unveils. Thus, we would see HTC launching the smartphone with...

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Raspberry Pi Revision 2.0 is Ready

The Raspberry Pi foundation has finished developing the second version of the Raspberry Pi PC, based on feedback from customers who bought the first one. Saying that the foundation has released a new version is a bit of a stretch though. After all, the miniature system has the same processor, the same overall design, and no extra memory compared to the original. True to form, the product is not being marketed as a distinct device. That means that those who place an order for a Raspberry Pi from this point on may or may not get it. Waiting for a few weeks, or months, before the originals clear out may be a good idea, especially now that, with Sony's involvement, manufacturing is moving to the UK. Depending on luck...

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Upcoming Intel Haswell Xeon CPUs Roundup

We've been writing on and off about Intel's upcoming CPU line, codenamed Haswell, the one that will succeed Ivy Bridge in 2013, and it may be time for a synthesis of what we haven't analyzed too deeply yet. We already know that the TDP of the processors will go as low as 10 Watts, but that's only for ultrabooks and other mobile PCs. This time we are looking at the Xeon E3-1200 v3 line, the so-called Denlow platform, which will be used in servers, workstations, low-power applications and Virtual Hosted Desktops (VHD). We've counted nine so far, and we aren't the only ones. Their thermal design power ranges from 15 to 95 Watts and the cache from 3 to 8 MB. That last part isn't quite true though. All processors use 8 MB cache,...

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Firefox OS Demoed on Handsets

Mozilla has been long working on the release of its own mobile operating system, which is based entirely on web technologies, the Firefox OS. The platform, which started as the Boot2Gecko initiative, is nearing an official release, a move expected for the beginning of the next year. In the meantime, however, Mozilla is beginning to show to the world some of the latest development advancements it has made with the new OS, including the manner in which it performs on actual devices. On Thursday, the company showcased working Firefox OS-based devices at its San Francisco office, reiterating plans to have the phones available for purchase in Brazil in 2013. According to AllThingsD, the platform feels more like a mobile...

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