AMD May Prepare 8-Core Phenom II X8 Processors

It seems like AMD’s Phenom brand is not yet ready to pass into oblivion, as it now seems like the chip maker is preparing a new series of eight-core CPUs that will use this moniker.

The chips have popped up in the support list of some Jetway and ECS motherboards , and according to Xbit Labs these will be based on the Bulldozer architecture.

Four models are mentioned in the documents provided by the two mobo makers, three featuring a 95W TDP while the fourth fits inside a 125W thermal envelope.

Clock speeds vary between 2.4GHz and 3.0GHz, but there’s no mention of Turbo Core or other AMD technologies that will be supported by these CPUs.

Keeping the Phenom around is definitely good news for all the nostalgics out there, but what I would like to see now from AMD is some kind of performance boost that will make Bulldozer a contender to Intel’s Core i7 CPUs.

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Firmware 4.0.2.A.0.62 Now Ready for Xperia Handsets

Sony Ericsson's Xperia devices should soon get a taste of a software update, and it appears that the build is already prepared for shipping. 

A new firmware is ready for Xperia handsets, namely software version number 4.0.2.A.0.62, the PTCRB site unveils. 

Unfortunately, this is not the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform update that users might have been waiting for. 

Instead, it is only a maintenance update, aimed at delivering a series of bug fixes for Sony Ericsson Xperia arc and arc S, Xperia neo and neo V, and Xperia PLAY handsets.

The software is expected to be pushed to all devices in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region, but no specific info on when it will start to emerge has been unveiled so far. According to some reports, Sony Ericsson might have already begun to deliver the software.

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Samsung Galaxy S III Concept Device Emerges

Samsung already has two successful Galaxy S devices available on shelves, and the company is expected to launch new ones as soon as next year. 

Following Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, the next flagship Android model from the handset vendor is expected to be the Samsung Galaxy S III. 

The phone was rumored before, but no specific info on it has emerged to date. However, we can now make an idea of what the handset might look like when released, courtesy of a series of images coming from “Samsung Phones Owners’ Club” group on VKontakte.ru. 

Make no mistake about it, the device in these images is not the real Galaxy S III, but merely the result of an enthusiast's imagination. 

Nevertheless, this does not mean that the smartphone could not look like this when made official sometime in the coming months. 

Called Samsung GT-I9500 Universal, the concept device includes all that users would like to see packed with the next flagship model from Samsung. 

For example, there should be a 1.5GHz quad core Samsung Exynos 4412 application processor inside the handset. It will be powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, with TouchWiz 5 loaded on top of it. 

The smartphone was also imagined with a 5-inch touchscreen display on the front, featuring HD Super AMOLED technology and capable of delivering a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. 

On the back, the mobile phone would feature a 12-megapixel photo snapper, with LED and Xenon flash and HD video recording capabilities. A 2-megapixel photo snapper on the front will offer video calling capabilities.

Support for 4G LTE networks should also be included inside the new mobile phone, along with the usual 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth features, as well as NFC and USB 3.0.

All in all, this device would certainly prove a hit, provided that Samsung will actually consider bringing it to the market. 

For the time being, however, it remains nothing more than a concept, which was initially posted in the “Imagined Phones” section of “Samsung Phones Owners’ Club” group on VKontakte.ru.

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Nokia N9 UI Tweak Enables Landscape Mode

Nokia N9 can easily prove a great device, even if it has some drawbacks. One of them is the inability to show its three screens in landscape mode. 

Luckily, a N9Tweak application that resolves this issue has just emerged, and the MeeGo-based handset can now deliver its appealing capabilities in more ways than before. 

Not only would the tweak turn the three screens to landscape mode, but it will also enable users to easily switch from one to another via horizontal swipes. 

To benefit from these features, you will have to download the aforementioned N9Tweak, launch it and activate landscape through typing in L, and then enter the “rootme” password. You can find more info on the application on maemo.org.

You can have a look at the manner in which landscape mode works on Nokia N9 via the video embedded above.

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Samsung Galaxy S II DUOS Announced in China

Shortly after announcing two new Galaxy family smartphones with dual-SIM support, the Galaxy Y DUOS and Galaxy Y Pro DUOS, Samsung officially introduce a new dual-SIM smartphone, the Galaxy S II DUOS.

However, Samsung Galaxy S II DUOS will be launched in China with support for CDMA2000 and GSM bands. For the time being, it’s unclear if the smartphone will be released in other countries as well.

Anyway, the Galaxy S II DUOS is equipped with a 4.52-inch WVGA Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen and a dual core 1.2 GHz Exynos processor. There’s also an 8-megapixel camera on back, which features LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording.

Other highlights of the phone include 16GB onboard memory, microSD card slot for memory expansion, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, as well as 1800 mAh Li-Ion battery. The phone is powered by Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread platform.

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8-Core Sandy Bridge-E Performance Leaked by Intel

The first quarter of 2012 will mark the transition of the Sandy Bridge-E architecture into the server space in the form of the Xeon E5 series of CPUs, and a recent series of leaked Intel slides have come to detail the performance of this platform in comparison with Westmere-EP.

The new Xeon E5 chips are also known under the code name of Sandy Bridge-EP and feature a series of changes when compared with the desktop version of these CPUs.

These include support for up to eight processing cores, which can run a maximum of sixteen threads thanks to Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, up to 20 MB of L3 cache memory, as well as the presence of dual QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) links.

The latter feature was added to the specs list in order to enable multi-socket system support, as it provides the chips with a high-bandwidth inter-socket communication interface.

Just like their desktop counterparts, the Xeon E5 CPUs also feature a quad-channel DDR3 built-in controller, but this time the maximum amount of memory that can be addressed by each processor was increased to 384GB, providing a total of 768GB of memory for dual-socket systems.

Together with the details regarding the Xeon E5-series chips, the slides, which have come into the possession of TechPowerUp website, also show some performance estimates for these chips when compared to the Xeon X5690.

Depending on the task run, the performance boost offered by the upcoming Xeon E5-2600 series CPUs varies between 50 and a whopping 120 percent in comparison with that of the Westmere-EP chip.

A firm release date for these chips hasn't been mentioned, but Intel said recently that it has already starting sampling Xeon E5 chips to select number of cloud and HPC computer vendors, with mass availability expected in Q1 of 2012.

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iPhone 5: More Storage, Battery Life, Speed Thanks to Anobit

Apple’s $500 million acquisition of NAND Flash designer Anobit will translate into a number of key improvements for the next generation of iPhones, including increased storage capacity, faster access of music and video, a slimmer design, and perhaps even a slimmer price tag.

All this according to an analysis by InventHelp, whose technology publication churned up a piece that looks at five key improvements that we can expect to see in the iPhone 5, thanks to Apple’s acquisition of Israeli tech firm, Anobit.

The first bullet point is battery life. This will be improved, says InventHelp, mostly because “Anobit’s core speciality is increasing multi-level flash cell performance [and] both single-level and multi-level flash memory are efficient compared to DRAM storage which requires constant power.”

Storage capacity will be improved because Anobit also specializes in Memory Signal Processing, “which makes flash memory more reliable and efficient.”

And it’s not only the next iPhone that will benefit from the extra oomph, but also devices like the MacBook Air.

The Anobit acquisition is likely to yield a slimmer form factor as well. It is not specified how exactly, but improved Flash storage will most likely allow for better space preservation around the chassis.

InventHelp also opines that “Apple did not update the design of the iPhone 4S probably because it is working on flash technology that would allow for a reliable slim iPhone 5.”

Finally, the next iPhone may also be cheaper to produce, again, thanks to the new technologies stemming from Anobit.

While that may not translate into a lower retail price, Apple’s bill of materials may be reduced by a few percentage points, because it has NAND Flash technology which it doesn’t have to share “with the onslaught of Android competition.”

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Bricked Nexus S with Ice Cream Sandwich Can Now Be Recovered

A few days ago, Google started to push out the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS to its Nexus S users, causing a lot of issues on many devices, including rendering some of them unusable. 

Those who have tried to install the new OS flavor and ended up with a bricked Nexus S instead, have now the possibility to fix their devices, and get them back online. 

An unofficial tool for that is available for download, courtesy of XDA-Developers member AdamOutler. 

Called Unbreakable Resurrector, the application has just been upgraded with support for Nexus S devices that have been affected by the recent roll-out. 

The major drawback here is that you will need to run the tool on Linux, preferably on Ubuntu. The said recovery tool, along with instructions on what you need to do to use it, is available on this thread over on the XDA-Developers forum.

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Nokia Answers Symbian Belle Questions, Explains Name Change

It appears that Nokia received overwhelming feedback after the official announcement that confirmed Symbian Belle update will be released in February 2012. 

For this reason and others, the company came forward with some explanations for why the company decided to swap the name of the operating system and the reason behind its delay.

Vesa Jutila, head of Symbian Product Marketing at Nokia, is the person that explains why the Finnish handset maker decided to name its latest version of Symbian, Nokia Belle:

“We are still using Symbian Belle with some audiences like developers but now we also have the flexibility of using Nokia Belle when referring to our greatest and latest Symbian software update. We are really looking forward to making Belle available to people as it will truly bring a new experience to everybody.”

Basically, both Symbian Belle and Nokia Belle brands will continue to be used, but Nokia prefers end-users to refer to its proprietary mobile platform as Nokia Belle, rather than Symbian Belle.

Given the fact that Nokia Belle was scheduled to be released in January 2012 and the company has just announced it moved the launch to February 2012, Nokia took the time to explain its fans why they need to wait one more month for the update.

“Nokia Belle will make such a big difference in the user experience, and it is a major software update. We are progressing well in bringing Belle with a new look and feel to millions people across the markets at the same time, and are anxiously looking forward to delighting our consumers with Nokia Belle.”

It appears that Nokia wants to make sure that Symbian users will not be disappointed with Nokia Belle, so the company decided to take more time to include as many new features as possible.

In the same news, those wondering why Nokia 500 was not listed among the smartphones eligible for Nokia Belle have just received the answer.

“I am happy to say that Nokia 500 will also be one of those devices receiving Nokia Belle along with Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01,Nokia C7, and Nokia Oro.”

Probably based on users’ feedback, the company decided to put the Nokia 500 on the list of smartphones that will receive the Nokia Belle update in February 2012.

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Zalman Outs CNPS10X Optoma Multi-Platform CPU Cooler

Cooling specialist Zalman has just announced the introduction of a new CPU cooler, dubbed the CNPS10X Optoma, featuring direct touch heatpipes and support for a wide range of processors from both AMD’s and Intel’s camps.

The cooler itself is designed as a pretty standard tower heatsink, with four U-shaped copper heatpipes that are destined to draw the heat away from the CPU and into a large aluminum fin array, topped by a 120mm fan.

Like most other fans used for today's coolers, this one also is PWM controlled and its speed varies between 1000 and 1700 RPM, depending on the CPU temperature.

According to Zalman, the noise level should never go above 28dBA, while, at the minimum rotation speed supported, this generates only 17dBA of noise, in part thanks to its Shark Fin blade design.

To further improve the cooler's performance when paired with low-speed fans, the CNPS10X Optoma sports a specially designed base featuring the DTH technology which places the four heatpipes included in direct contact with the CPU’s heatspreader.

Performance freaks should be glad to know that Zalman’s latest creation can also be fitted with a secondary 120mm in a push-pull configuration.

Outside of the 120mm fan, the CNPS10X Optoma is also shipped together with a tube of high-performance Zalman ZM-STG2M thermal grease and with the required AMD and Intel CPU mounting clips. 

Speaking of the mounting clips, these are compatible with FM1, AM2/AM2+, and AM3/AM3+ AMD sockets as well as with Intel’s LGA 1155/1156, 1366 and 775 processors.

According to Zalman, pricing for the CNPS10X Optoma cooler is set at 27.50 EUR (including VAT, which translates into approximately $36 US. Availability is scheduled for the end of January, but no specific date was mentioned.

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