Giada Presents the Smallest Sandy Bridge Mainboard in the World

The small piece of hardware supports Intel’s Core i5 and i3 series CPUs along with the new Celeron 867.

It is based on the Intel HM65 Express chipset and has only one SO-DIMM DDR3 memory slot that supports up to 4 GB or RAM.

For expansion we have two Mini-PCIe connectors; one being Mini-PCIe and one is mSATA. The board also has one SATA III 6 Gb/s port and one RTL8111E Gigabit controller made by Realtek.

Audio is supported by the ALC662 High Definition Audio Codec  also made by Realtek and has S/PDIF Optical ports next to the two USB 2.0 ports on the rear side.

The small Nano-ITX mainboard also comes with an HDMI port and a DC-in power jack for a 12V/19V power adapter and has one COM connector and one Fan header.

All this comes in a 12 cm by 12.8 cm package. That is 4.7 inch by 5 inch in imperial.

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Mysterious Nokia Fluid Emerges, Possibly Powered by Windows Phone Platform

It looks like Nokia plans to further expand its Windows Phone lineup with new devices. A certain Nokia Fluid has just emerged, though no details on the device’s specs sheet are available for the moment.

The folks at MyNokiaBlog were tipped on the mysterious Nokia Fluid’s appearance at Occasional Gamer site, a place where various handsets are spotted before their official announcement.

Nokia Fluid is listed among other phones that are powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, which might suggest that this is some sort of Lumia device that has yet to be announced.

A little bit above the Nokia Fluid’s name, one can also notice the “Qualcomm Fluid” name, which probably means the handset is equipped with a Qualcomm chipset inside. Stay tuned for more updates on the subject.

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7 GHz Ivy Bridge Intel Chip Tears Through Super Pi

Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs are really painting themselves as hardcore chips, even now. 

Of course, it might be more accurate to say that the people who got their hands on them early on are to blame for the hype. 

Then again, when a chip turns out to be an overclocking beast like Core i7-3770K, you really don't need to put too much effort into marketing anymore. 

Sure, only a handful of enthusiasts will buy the thing, but everyone else also has a cause to gawk. 

After all, it isn't every day that a CPU reaches 7 GHz and smashes through one of the most challenging benchmarks ever. 

Long story short, the Core i7-3770K was pushed to 6961.6 MHz and finished the Super Pi 1M test in 5.187 seconds. 

Likewise, the same chip, working at 6650.1 MHz, did the Super Pi 1 32M in 5 minutes, 2.843 seconds.

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Tyan Announces the Newest Generation of Platforms Supporting the E5-2600 Intel Processor

Tyan unveiled eight new platforms supporting the new Intel E5-2600 processor on their official website. This new line of products comprises five models of motherboards with different options each and four barebones.

The dual socket Intel Xeon E5-2600 mainboards are designed for various applications including HPC, GPU computing, virtualization and high-density servers. They are all based on Intel’s C600 chipset and feature two high-speed QPI links and Quad Chanel DDR3 support.

The smallest mainboard family member is the TYAN S7050 (S7050A2NRF) and has 16 DIMM slots in dual 4 + 4 configuration for each CPU socket, the aforementioned Intel C602 PCH, the Nuvoton 5577D Super I/O chip and a Pericom PI3PCIE3412 PCI-E Switch.

It supports up to 128GB UDIMM and 512 LRDIMM and has two Gigabit LAN ports controlled by Intel ‘s 82574L chip and it still has a 32-bit PCI slot on the bottom.

The biggest brother is TYAN S7056 (S7056WGM3NR5 [BTO]) that comes with SAS capabilities, made possible by Intel’s C602 chip, complete with an upgrade ROM module and three Gigabit LAN ports controlled by Intel’s 82574L and i350-BT2 chips.

The SAS chip has support for RAID modes 0, 1, 10 and 5. There is also a TYAN S7056 version that comes with one Gigabit port and two 10G ports called S7056WGM3NR-2T.

As for the barebones, they all come in 2U form factor and have eight hard drive bays complete with hot-swap HDD trays. They weigh in at around 25 Kg (around 55 pounds) when empty and have four 6 cm fans.

Moreover, the new barebones have two redundant 770 watts PSUs and can support a maximum of 512 GB of LRDIMM DDR3 1333 MHz memory. If you only need 256 GB or RAM, you can clock it at a maximum of 1600MHz, but you have to use RDIMM modules.

Here too, the differentiating characteristics are directly related to the barebone’s networking capabilities as the smallest one comes with three Gigabit LAN ports and the most powerful solution had one Gigabit port and two 10G ones.

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Samsung Releases HMX-QF20 Wireless Camcorder

Samsung made second spot on the list of greatest semiconductor providers (which Intel leads), but it deals in many other sorts of products as well, like cameras.

As it happens, a camera is precisely what the company has recently revealed for the South Korean market.

True, the item isn't selling just yet, but it won't be long before that either.

The name of the camera is HMX-Q10, although it's more of a camcorder really.

It has a 5MB BSI CMOS sensor, optical image stabilization and Schneider-KREUZNACH lens with 20x optical zoom and 40x digital zoom.

Also, Wi-Fi is present, for easy streaming and access to social networking sites.

Furthermore, Samsung tossed in an enhanced Switch grip function, an accelerometer and a 2.17-inch touchscreen.

Prospective buyers should have 449,000 won ready ($396.01 / 297 Euro).

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Synology Intros the RackStation RS812+ and RS812RP Server NAS Solutions

The new Synology RackStation RS812/RS812RP+ rackable solution offers a very scalable and high-performance alternative for your network attached storage needs.

This is a very fast unit that can deliver an average writing speed of around 175 MB/s and an average read speed of approximately 202 MB/s, as claimed by Synology on their own official website.  The tests were performed in RAID 5 mode with Link Aggregation enabled.

The unit offers two LAN connectors with fail over support and hot swap capabilities for fast changing of the hard disk drives.

The CPU driving the whole device is working at a frequency of 2133 MHz and it is fed by 1 GB of DDR3 RAM that can be further expanded to 3 GB.

The maximum internal capacity is 16 TB, being made of four 4 TB hard disk drives, but that can be expanded by the means of a Synology RX410 expansion enclosure, thus being able to host up to 32 TB of data.

The RX410 expansion unit is, of course, optional and it communicates with the RS812+ via an eSATA cable with specially designed locking connectors.

The CPU is passively cooled and the whole system is iSCSI and virtualization ready while being very energy efficient, thus consuming only 46.2 watts in operation mode and only 25.5 watts when all the HDDs are in hibernation.

The device offers printing server support for up to two printers and has two USB 2.0 ports along with the eSATA port.

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Official MIUI ROM for Samsung GALAXY Nexus Now Available for Download

The first MIUI ROM for Samsung Galaxy Nexus has just been released online and is now available for download. 

Although it’s still in beta, this ROM is less laggy than last week’s version. However, don’t expect it to be as smooth as ICS builds officially released by Google. One of the most popular custom ROMs for Android devices, MIUI is also known for its stylish look. 

The latest ROM for Galaxy Nexus, which was developed by RootzWiki forum user leech, does not feature an app drawer, but those who are not content with this fact can go ahead and install Nova launcher or anything else instead.

Another alternative would be to simply put all applications into a folder and place the folder on the dock, so that when the folder is opened, users would be able to access any apps placed there. 

Even though many Android tech-savvy consider this ROM too laggy to be used on a daily basis, in the end it’s just a matter of taste. 

The developer also notes that the new MIUI ROM for Galaxy NEXUS doesn’t have such “a horrible amount of lag were it couldn’t be used as a daily driver since I have actually used it as a daily driver for over two weeks. Well got to take the good with the bad.”

To flash this MIUI ROM for Samsung Galaxy Nexus, simply download and copy the .zip file on an SD card and boot the phone in recovery mode. 

Make sure to create a backup and then factory reset the Galaxy Nexus. Install .zip from SD card and let the phone reboot in order to be able to use the custom MIUI ROM.

For more details on the first official MIUI ROM for Samsung Galaxy Nexus, head over to the original thread.

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iPhone 5, Proview, Foxconn Now on Tim Cook’s Agenda

Reports have emerged regarding Tim Cook’s mysterious visit to China, with several sources confirming that Apple’s CEO is there on business.

"Tim is in China meeting with government officials. China is very important to us and we look forward to even greater investment and growth there," said Carolyn Wu, Apple’s China spokeswoman. Wu did not offer any details.

During a quarterly earnings call, last year Cook said China had become the company's second largest market trailing only the United States. 

Research carried out by IDC says the country is expected to become the world's largest smartphone market this year.

Apple currently has deals in place with two wireless operators in China to sell the iPhone. However, the California company hasn’t yet tapped China Mobile, the country’s largest provider of wireless services. It is believed this deal is now on Cook’s agenda for the iPhone 5.

Apple is also embroiled in a trademark dispute with Proview, a Chinese company that is hemorrhaging money, but is alleging that it owns the iPad trademark in the country.

One source close to Proview said, “He should be here to also understand more of the iPad issue and handle the situation.”

Finally, Apple’s CEO is in China to get personally involved with the reviewing of labor standards at assembly firms, sources indicate. One of those is the famous Foxconn Technology Group, which assembles most of Apple’s iPhones and iPads.

In light of Cook’s visit to China, a Hong Kong-based activist group published an open letter, demanding "that Apple ensure decent working conditions at all its suppliers".

In the letter, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior cited "poverty wages" and long work hours.

Citing some of the workers they interviewed, the group said: "They describe their daily routine as work, eat and sleep. They described themselves as machines that repeated the same monotonous motion for thousands (of) times a day. With all its success in the global marketplace, Apple undoubtedly has (the) ability to rectify these problems."

Mark Natkin, managing director for Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting, believes Cook's visit should help clear up the company's image in China.

"I think they realize on multiple fronts, it's very important for them to establish strong relationships and then project the most positive image as possible," he said. "If they are smart, they will be working very hard to strengthen their government relations."

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Teso K116 Is an Ultrabook-Tablet Halfbreed

There's something to say about companies that make x86 products, namely that they are definitely tenacious when it comes to developing mobile devices that don't use an ARM chip. 

On this particular occasion, we get to look at the info available on the Teso K116 Tablet/Ultrabook, from the company by the same name (Teso). 

Measuring 11.6 inches in diagonal, it is actually a tablet, of sorts, with a keyboard dock. 

In other words, the design idea is more or less similar to the one used by the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablets. 

Since we're on the subject, the LCD panel offers a native resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels and capacitive touch support. 

The insides are what really matter though, starting with the Intel Ivy Bridge processor (the exact model is unmentioned). 

4GB of DDR3 RAM (random access memory) back the chip up, while an SSD (solid state drive) provides the necessary storage space. 

The capacity isn't much though, definitely not ultrabook-level, although the upper limit comes close (the possibilities range from 16 to 128 GB). 

Moving on, Teso tossed in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a fingerprint reader, NFC, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, a card reader and optional 3G support. 

Needless to say, a bunch of USB ports can be found as well, both of the USB 2.0 and of the USB 3.0 variety. 

Finally, the operating system is Windows 8, although running Windows 7 on it is perfectly possible as well, and more probable if the release happens prior to the arrival of Microsoft's next-generation OS. 

As for battery life, we can't know for sure how many hours this thing could last. The battery isn't mentioned after all. Still, we are quite certain it won't be on par with that of Android devices, given the difference in the CPU power needs. 

The price listed on Alibaba is $400 to $600 (299.53 – 449 Euro). Don't get too excited now. That's what distributors and resellers need to pay when getting shipments of 1,000 pieces. In other words, customers will have to fork up $800 to $1000 (599 – 749 Euro).

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ECS Shows the Thinnest Sandy Bridge Socket 1155 Mainboard

What’s Thin Mini-ITX exactly? Well, it’s a standard Mini-ITX format mobo that is ensured to fit its IO panel into the height limitations of a standard motherboard RJ45 LAN connector.

The standard is quite new and it likely attempts to achieve complete clearance to half of the height of the usual IO shield.

ECS showed two new boards in its Thin Mini-ITX family: the ECS CDC-TI based on a fanless design of the Atom D2700 / D2550 / D2500 Dual Core processors and the ECS H61H2-TI Thin Mini-ITX motherboard can support socket LGA1155 Intel 2nd and 3rd Generation Core processors.

The ECS CDC-TI pictured here has Solid Capacitors to better support its CPU and memory and features two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots that offer support for up to 4GB of RAM. It can work with two SATA 2 3Gb/s devices, has two USB 2.0 ports, two Mini-PCIe slots that are Full Height and Half Height respectively.

It also offers one VGA output, one HDMI and support for LVDS.

The CPU TPD of less than 10W, the fan-less design and low overall height of the motherboard makes it a perfect fit for AIO and SFF systems.

The ECS H61H2-TI is based on the Intel H61 Express chipset and comes with two SATA2 3Gb/s connectors, two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots with support for up to 16 GB of RAM and two USB 3.0 inputs. It also gets you two Mini-PCIe slots, 1 Full and 1 Half Height along with one mSATA connector and HDMI.

That’s quite a lot of performance for a mainboard of just 17cm by 17cm with a height below 2 cm.

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