HTC Desire SV (Dual-SIM) Now Official with Dual Core CPU and Android 4.0 ICS

Taiwanese handset maker HTC has just announced the upcoming availability of a new Android smartphone, the Desire SV.

The smartphone has been recently announced during a press event in Singapore and is aimed at emerging markets such as India and China. AndroidOS reports HTC Desire SV is likely to arrive in India by the end of the year for around Rs 25,000 (465 USD or 360 EUR) outright. Although HTC already launched two dual-SIM Android phones in India, the company wishes to expand its portfolio with a much better device that offers even better capabilities than the Desire V and Desire VC handsets. The new HTC Desire SV is expected to arrive on the market in the following weeks, though we’re still waiting for the handset maker to offer more details on the smartphone’s pricing options.

According to AndroidOS, HTC Desire SV ships with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system out of the box integrated with Sense 4.1 UI, but the company promised a Jelly Bean upgrade would be available soon after launch. Hardware-wise, the smartphone is equipped with a 1 GHz dual-core processor, 768MB of RAM and 4GB internal memory, which can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD memory card. It is also worth mentioning that HTC Desire SV only supports microSIM cards, so keep that in mind before purchasing the smartphone. Beats Audio technology is included as well for a richer audio experience. Furthermore, the device boasts an enhanced 5-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features autofocus, LED flash and HD video recording. No word on any front-facing cameras for video calls.

Last but not least, the Desire SV sports a decent 4.3-inch qHD WVGA LCD capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixels resolution and 16 million colors. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.

HTC Desire SV
Image credits to Ashish Bhatia

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Nvidia Decides to Make ARM-Based Tesla Supercomputer GPU Cards

The ARM architecture is really expanding its uses, even without ARM Holdings doing much directly. Calxeda, Advanced Micro Devices and NVIDIA, among others, are doing it instead.

This is the latest piece of proof that ARM only really needed to make a 64-bit capable architecture in order to enter markets beyond that of smartphones / portable consumer electronics devices. After AMD said it would create ARM CPUs, and with the first 64-Bit ARMv8 cores released, NVIDIA has made a move as well. To be fair, the Santa Clara, California-based GPU maker already has a couple of development initiatives going. One of them is the Tegra SoC series, while the other is known as project Denver. Project Denver is the idea that a GPU can be given one or more ARM cores, so that it may run an OS without the need for a CPU from AMD or Intel. Then there is Project Boulder, which might just turn out to be a genuine ARM-based CPU, possibly bereft of a GPU even.

The new idea that NVIDIA got, though, is for ARM Tesla GPU compute accelerators. In other words, NVIDIA is thinking of including ARM cores in its parallel computing modules for supercomputers. "Tegra is going to become GPU computing capable in the not-so-distant future. Sometime this decade we are also going to start bringing integrated CPUs and GPUs together in the Tesla line," said Steve Scott, chief technology officer for the Tesla product line at Nvidia, according to InfoWorld. Now that 64-bit instructions are supported by ARMv8, the better performance of x86 is no longer a strong enough argument against the use of ARM cores, especially with GPUs accounting for most of the processing power anyway.

For those who want proof, 90% of those 20 Petaflops produced by the Titan supercomputer are accounted for by Tesla GPUs. AMD Opteron x86 CPUs provide the rest. No date has been given for when Tesla cards, or chips with both ARM cores and GPUs, will be available.

NVIDIA Tesla cards and GPUs might get ARM cores
Image credits to Nvidia

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Sony to Bring Cyber-Shot Back on Its Android Line, CS8

Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Mobile is reportedly getting ready for the release of a new series of Android devices, Cyber-Shot, marking a separation from the already highly popular Xperia lineup.

Back in the days of Sony Ericsson, Cyber-Shot was the mark of handsets with appealing imaging capabilities, and Sony is now rumored to plan launching some more such devices, though with a twist. Cyber-Shot handsets were feature phones a few years back, yet they might become smartphones soon, a post on XinMin China suggests.

The first smartphone in the new series is said to be the Sony CS8 Cyber-Shot (shaped like C905, apparently), yet no specific info on the device has emerged so far. For what it’s worth, the launch of Android-based Cyber-Shot devices could help Sony regain some ground on the mobile phone market, though the move is nothing more than a rumor for the time being.

Sony preparing Android-based Cyber-Shot handsets
Image credits to XinMin

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