Tag Archives: low-power

Samsung teasing Series 5 Hybrid PC announcement at IFA

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While we fritter away our hours sharing cat pictures on Facebook, Samsung prefers to issue forth teasers for its forthcoming products. The latest is the above snap, raising hopes that its Series 5 Hybrid PC will be formally announced a teutonic trade show IFA this week. The 11-inch Transformer-esque device features a tablet that's magnetically-attached to a keyboard dock, running "full" Windows 8 on Intel's Clover Trail x86 architecture. In addition to Redmond's newest OS, it'll use native versions of the S-Pen apps we've used on the Galaxy Note 10.1, although it's probably too much to hope that it'll be able to make calls like its cousin.

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Samsung teasing Series 5 Hybrid PC announcement at IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 03:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook to backup its servers with low-power storage devices at ‘Sub-Zero’ data center

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Facebook to backup its servers with low-power storage devices at 'Sub-Zero' data center

Data backups come in all shapes and sizes. For some, they take the form of external hard drives or a slice of the amorphous cloud. As for Facebook, its upcoming solution is low-power deep-storage hardware contained within a 62,000 square-foot building in Prineville, Oregon near its existing Beaver State data center. Unofficially referred to as "Sub-Zero," the facility will store a copy of the social network's data in case its primary servers need to be restored in an emergency. Rather than continuously power HDDs that are only occasionally used, the new setup can conserve energy by lighting-up drives just when they're needed. One of the company's existing server racks eats up around 4.5 kilowatts, while those at Sub-Zero are each expected to consume approximately 1.5 kilowatts once they're up and running. Tom Furlong, Facebook's vice president of site operations, told Wired that there are hopes to create a similar structure alongside the firm's North Carolina data center. Since the Prineville project is still being planned, Zuckerberg & Co. have roughly six to nine months to suss out all the details before your photos are backed up at the new digs.

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Facebook to backup its servers with low-power storage devices at 'Sub-Zero' data center originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Aug 2012 20:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask Engadget: Best sub-$310 power-efficient HTPC for a caravan?

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Ask Engadget: Best sub-$310 power-efficient HTPC for a caravan?

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Is from Martin, who is looking for a hyper-efficient media streamer for his retro caravan. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"My partner and I are renovating a small '70s caravan and would like a power-efficient media center/PC purely to watch our library of movies and TV shows. We're in Australia, so getting hold of kit like the Raspberry Pi would be difficult, we're looking for something that's equally power efficient, even up to $300 AUD (around $310 USD). Cheers!""

That's this week's challenge, Engadgeteers -- do you feel up for it? Can you help our southern hemisphere friends find a power-efficient HTPC for under $310 that won't drain a retro-caravan's batteries? Can we help these people turn the temporary home into a rockin' media-streamin' paradise? Hit us up in the comments if you've got some expertise to share.

Ask Engadget: Best sub-$310 power-efficient HTPC for a caravan? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD announces 900MHz version of the Radeon HD 7750, calls it ‘the other 7750’

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AMD announces 900MHz version of the Radeon HD 7750, calls it 'the other 7750'

The original Radeon HD 7750 won plaudits for its low-wattage performance and $109 price tag, but now AMD's decided to put out an additional version with 100MHz more clock whizz. The new card also happens to be called the Radeon HD 7750, and it'll sit alongside its doppelganger on the shelves of the world's computer stores just daring you spot the difference. How will you do that? By checking if it requires a separate power supply: the original 7750 was powered entirely through the PCIe slot, limiting its power to 75W and hence its clock speed to 800MHz, while the new one accepts additional power to deliver slightly more grunt and stay ahead of looming competition from NVIDIA. XFX has already jumped aboard with the 7750 Black Edition Double Dissipation priced at $115 after a rebate, and AnandTech says other vendors will follow suit. So, unless you're totally out of power jacks, you know what to look for.

Image courtesy of Newegg.

AMD announces 900MHz version of the Radeon HD 7750, calls it 'the other 7750' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jun 2012 03:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung mass-produces 4-gigabit LPDDR2 memory, aims to make 2GB a common sight in smartphones

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Samsung started making 2GB low-power mobile memory last year, but as the 1GB-equipped phone you likely have in your hand shows, the chips weren't built on a wide-enough scale to get much use. The Korean company is hoping to fix that now that it's mass-producing 20-nanometer, 4-gigabit LPDDR2 RAM. Going to a smaller process than the 30-nanometer chips of old will not just slim the memory down by a fifth, helping your smartphone stay skinny: it should help 2GB of RAM become the "mainstream product" by the end of 2013, if Samsung gets its way. New chips should run at 1,066Mbps without chewing up any more power than the earlier parts, too, so there's no penalty for using the denser parts. It's hard to say whether or not the 20nm design is what's leading to the 2GB of RAM in the Japanese Galaxy S III; we just know that the upgraded NTT DoCoMo phone is now just the start of a rapidly approaching trend for smartphones and tablets.

Continue reading Samsung mass-produces 4-gigabit LPDDR2 memory, aims to make 2GB a common sight in smartphones

Samsung mass-produces 4-gigabit LPDDR2 memory, aims to make 2GB a common sight in smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic preps samples of next-gen ReRAM devices, NAND preps for early retirement

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The Galaxy S III may rock an impressive battery life, but if Panasonic has its way, even greater benchmarks could be on the horizon. The company is ready to start making samples of a new ReRAM microcontroller, and -- like Sharp and Elpida -- it could start mass production as soon as next year. Here's a little refresher: ReRAM is a new kind of memory with re-write speeds far superior to NAND because it doesn't need power to hold onto information. Panny's chip will initially be used in simple devices like fire alarms, but the tech could eventually find its way into our TVs and even smartphones and tablets. But seriously, are we even capable of living in a NAND-free world?

Panasonic preps samples of next-gen ReRAM devices, NAND preps for early retirement originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Series revisits ARM’s humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all

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Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all

If you read our interview with ARM co-founder John Biggs, you know the company behind the processor in most smartphones had quite modest beginnings, what with an office in a barn and all. But Biggs is only part of the story, and Reghardware fleshes the rest out with a two-part series on the "unsung heroes of tech": Sophie Wilson, Steve Furber and Herman Hauser, the team behind Acorn Computers, the British PC company that spawned ARM in the mid-80s. We'll let you click through to the source links to take the journey yourself, but here are a few highlights: earning a computer contract with the BBC, happening upon ARM chips' low power consumption by accident and striking gold thanks to a partnership with Apple.

Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 10:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Engadget Interview: AMD’s Sasa Marinkovic

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The Engadget Interview: AMD's Sasa Marinkovic

This isn't the easiest time to be an AMD fan. The company's eight-core FX-8150 desktop chip was widely panned on the review circuit, and then NVIDIA's GTX 680 graphics card ran off with Radeon HD's thunder. Even when you look at notebook processors, where AMD has long excelled with its Fusion APUs, the hype wars currently favor Ultrabooks and Ivy Bridge. Affection for the gamers' brand and its ATI back-story may make this stuff uncomfortable, but the predicament is already starting to mess with AMD's balance sheet. Which raises the obvious question: what's to be done?

Sasa Marinkovic, AMD's Head of Desktop and Software Product Marketing, bravely took up the challenge of providing his side of the story -- even after we warned him that we'd try to disrupt his flow with accusatory glances. In the end, we did get him to acknowledge some recent hard knocks, particularly with respect to the FX chips and their (lack of) single-threaded performance. But we also got some insight into the mind of a chap who remains genuinely and abundantly confident about his employer's future. Read on and see for yourself.

Continue reading The Engadget Interview: AMD's Sasa Marinkovic

The Engadget Interview: AMD's Sasa Marinkovic originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD confirms Trinity and Brazos 2.0 shipping now, globally available ‘soon’

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Any troglodytes out there who didn't know that AMD's next APU architecture is inbound? If so, we're gonna toast marshmallows outside your cave and give you a little pre-brief: Trinity will be a range of processors for "performance" notebooks and desktop PCs, which will continue in AMD's Fusion tradition of providing both the CPU and discrete-class graphics in a single-chip, power-efficient design. A potential rival to Ivy Bridge and the coming stampede of Ultrabooks? Yes indeed, although it's too early to say how closely matched these athletes will be, despite some early indications of 4GHz+ clock speeds. Judging from our recent look at a Trinity-packing Compal laptop, undercutting Ultrabooks on price will also be part of AMD's strategy -- along with throwing out Brazos 2.0 APUs to mop up the extreme low-power category. After all, Ivy Bridge probably won't offer truly discrete-class graphics until it's paired with an add-on GPU, which will inevitably bump up its price for gamers and multimedia types. If Trinity serves up great visuals and next-gen performance all in one go, AMD's accountants might be able to leave their subterranean hideouts too.

[Thanks, Tyler]

AMD confirms Trinity and Brazos 2.0 shipping now, globally available 'soon' originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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