Samsung Is Preparing Smartphone with 3GB of RAM

South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung is reportedly gearing up for the release of a new smartphone, one that would pack even more raw power than before.

Apparently, the company plans on including 3GB of RAM inside this new device, which would be 50% more RAM than in some of the current high-end smartphones. One of the prototype units of this new smartphone has been already photographed, yet no other details on what it might include have been provided.

According to SamMobile, the company might plan adding some new features to its future devices, and some of these could require a higher amount of RAM than the already sufficient 1GB in most of today’s devices. The 3GB-of-RAM-smartphone from the South Korean vendor might become official in 2013, rumor has it.

Samsung plans new smartphone with 3GB of RAM inside
Image credits to SAMMOBILE

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Android 4.2 Is Already Loaded on Galaxy Nexus, New Motorola Devices

Google is getting ready to celebrate five years of Android, and the company is expected to do so with the launch of a new flavor of the operating system.

Previously believed to be Android 5.0, the new OS version has been recently discovered to be en-route to the market as Android 4.2, and some new info on the devices that it might be loaded on has started to emerge. Apparently, Google is already testing the platform on a number of devices, while getting ready to have it loaded on new Nexus smartphones. One of these has been long rumored to be coming from LG, and is currently said to be a version of the LG Optimus G that arrived on shelves only a few weeks ago.   However, it appears that Galaxy Nexus will also get a taste of the new platform release, and that Google has already loaded the platform on last year’s device. Furthermore, the first tablet PC in the Nexus series, none other than the Nexus 7, is being tested with the OS on board as well, server traffic logs from Android Police unveil.

New devices that are powered by the platform were also spotted, including a smartphone that sports the codename of Occam, and which is said to be a Motorola handset. The phone was seen accessing the website with various builds loaded on it, such as JOO92B, JOP04B and JOP04C, the same as another Motorola device, a tablet PC this time, codenamed Manta. These devices sported different IPs when accessing the site, which suggests not only that they are real, but also that Google and Motorola have various people testing them in the field.

Since these details cannot be verified at the moment, there is a chances that they won’t pan out, but the sure thing is that Android 4.2 is nearing its release. After all, it has been said a few times before to be slated for a November launch on a new Nexus phone, and it shouldn’t be too long before all the necessary info on the matter will be officially unveiled.

Android Logo
Image credits to Android Developers

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Motorola RAZR i Goes Official in Brazil

Unveiled back in September, Motorola RAZR i has just been launched in Brazil. This is the first South American country to get the Intel-based smartphone launched by Motorola Mobility.

Although the smartphone is not yet available for purchase, Motorola confirmed the RAZR i would soon go on sale for R$ 1,299 ($640 USD or €490) off-contract. Following the same design line as the RAZR family, the smartphone is built to last. The back cover of Motorola RAZR i is made of DuPont KEVLAR fiber, while the front side is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass coating for extra protection. The entire frame of the smartphone is made of aircraft-grade aluminum, while the inside of the device features splash-guard coating. Design aside, the phone's main selling point is the Intel Atom processor clocked at 2 GHz. On the back, the phone boasts an impressive 8-megapixel photo snapper, which features autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording.

“An instant launch camera that takes 10 pictures in less than a second and Web pages that load blazingly fast on a device that’s the perfect balance of screen size that fits in the palm of your hand. RAZR i delivers as well the first Intel-fast processor in Latin America in a beautifully designed phone and extra-long battery life,” said Sergio Buniac, vice president, Motorola Mobility Brazil. Motorola RAZR i sports a more than decent 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED Advanced capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixels resolution and 16 million colors. On the inside, the smartphone packs 1GB of RAM, 8GB storage (only 5GB available for users), and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB). Powered by Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, Motorola RAZR i has been confirmed to receive a Jelly Bean update soon after launch, so stay tuned for more updates on this one.

Motorola RAZR i
Image credits to Motorola

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Club3D Exposes Future Dual-GPU Graphics Card

As far as high-end graphics adapters go, there is one breed that always manages to stay above, performance-wise, even later-generation models, due to their sheer horsepower.

We are, of course, speaking of video boards with two graphics processing units instead of just one, like the one PowerColor released (sort of) a couple of days ago. By “sort of” we mean that the card is officially out, but its price hasn't been provided yet. Nevertheless, the specifications, at least, are clearly enough spelled out, something that Club3D's HD 7990 cannot claim. Though the card has been revealed through Club3D's Facebook page, the performance numbers have yet to be exposed. Fortunately, speculation will avail us where facts cannot, and at least we can, with reasonable accuracy, examine the cooler. It is likely that the clock speed of the two Tahiti XT GPUs is 900 MHz, although an OC boost through the BIOS switch (located at the I/O panel) will push them a bit beyond that.

Meanwhile, the two memory interfaces of 384 bits (one for each GPU) should have 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM at the other end, for a total of 6 GB. The clock speed is of 5.5 GHz if past dual-Tahiti projects are anything to go by. Furthermore, the triple-slot graphics card gets a 12+2+2 phase VRM and not one or two, but three 8-pin PCI Express power inputs on the PCB. As for the cooler, it has several heatpipes, a large aluminum heatsink and three fans. High-end motherboards should have enough room between the primary and secondary PCI Express x16 slots to allow CrossFireX. Alas, we have no idea when sales will begin or at what price. Buyers will probably need $800 or more (€800), but that's just our guess. It's a shame AMD doesn't have a “reference” 7990 that can act as a price setter.

Club3D Radeon HD 7990
Image credits to Club3D

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WP8 Launcher for Android

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform won’t be available on shelves for another month or so, yet owners of Android devices can already get a taste of the looks and feel of the platform on their handsets.

A new WP8 Launcher is now available for download in the Google Play Store, and can be found on this page. While looking and working pretty well, the app comes only with a Chinese user interface at the moment, which is a major drawback, that’s for sure. With the new app, users will get a tile-based interface on their Android devices, and will also provide them with the option to use Windows Phone 8 gestures to move around menus.

Additionally, the WP8 Launcher comes with support for pinning apps to the homescreen, and also features a lockscreen, the same as Microsoft’s mobile platform does.

WP8 Launcher for Android
Images credits to AndroidPipe

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French Company Presents 256-Core, 28 nm Processor

Consumers who think six or 8 cores are many in a processor probably never had a reason to look up parallel chips and digital signal processors (DSP), but French company Kalray may change that. 

What they've announced is a DSP chip which, thanks to its 256 individual cores (yes, that many) can perform 500 billion operations per second (200 GigaFLOPS). One would think that something like that would require a lot of power, but that does not apply here. The processor actually makes do with 4W, less than the average mobile chip. For comparison, a mighty Tesla series GPU has a performance of 1,030 to 2,280 (single-precision). A factor of 5-10 isn't bad at all really. Granted, being a digital signal processor, Kalray's chip (MPPA 256) has a narrower range of uses (accelerating multimedia codecs and filters) than, say, CPUs (can process pretty much anything) and GPUs (are best at parallel tasks).

To make things even more interesting, the newcomer is manufactured on the 28nm manufacturing process from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the same foundry that makes those Tesla chips mentioned above, and all the other GPUs that NVIDIA uses. Still, that doesn't change the fact that this is one strong chip that may endanger other many-core projects, like Adapteva's Parallella “supercomputer.”  "Kalray's technology has been developed with many OEM partners across several vertical markets, as well as through partnering with third party software vendors,” says Joël Monnier, CEO.

“Our first processor achieves a global processing power of 500 billion operations per second, along with a much lower power consumption than competitive solutions. Embedded designers will get the benefit of high processing power, low power consumption and high level programming to develop innovative applications in the fields of image processing, signal processing, control, communications and data security. The access cost of MPPA processors makes them optimum for all low to medium volume applications.” Kalray expects to have customers from the fields of image processing, signal processing, control, communications and data security. Go here to read more.

Kalray MPPA 256
Image credits to Kalray

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AMD FX-4130 Zambezi Quad-Core CPU Shipping

Though AMD is releasing Trinity-based Athlon II X4 CPUs with no integrated graphics, people may not like the idea of an FM2 socket motherboard being equipped with them. After all, that defeats the purpose of having video outputs wired to the CPU socket.

That means that, should people decide against buying an A-Series APU system for some reason, they should have means to build a different sort of quad-core PC. AMD is offering that means: the FX-4130 quad-core Zambezi CPU. With a frequency of 3.8 GHz and 8 MB total cache memory, it is up for order online at last, at TigerDirect.

The price is of $119.99 though (119.99 Euro), higher than the tags of the Athlon II X4 700-Series and, to add insult to injury, the same as that of the stronger FX-4170.

AMD quad-core FX CPU
Image credits to AMD

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MeeGo-Based OS Handset for November Confirmed by Jolla

Next month, we’ll have the chance to have a better look at the future of MeeGo, the Linux-based operating system that Nokia dropped from its plans not too long ago.

The company has just confirmed plans to showcase the Jolla user interface for the platform next month in Helsinki, Finland. The company’s interface is based on the Sailfish alliance OS and will be demoed at the Slush event on November 21-22. Moreover, the company announced plans to unveil more info on the Jolla SDK at the event, and that it will also talk the application ecosystem with developers. The first handset running under the OS was already expected to become official before the end of this year, and now Jolla confirmed that it would unveil all on it before Christmas. Peter Vesterbacka, a founder of Slush, commented: “Slush has grown up to be the biggest entrepreneurship event in Northern Europe. It’s great to see hot new startups like Jolla use Slush as the venue for their major announcements. New business creation and innovation is alive and kicking at Slush and in the region”.

At the same time, Jolla announced a separate, in-depth session aimed at detailing the user interface, as well as a Q&A session with the press. The user interface is meant to be included in the aforementioned Sailfish alliance software. The UI has been scaled based on the MeeGo user experience to provide support for multiple device categories, the company announced. The development has finally reached the point in which the Jolla user interface can be showcased, so that the world becomes aware of the changes it brings when compared to existing mobile UIs, the company said.

“Jolla is a great example of what happens, when you combine the extreme technical talent found in Finland with the right attitude and ambition level of companies like Rovio,” Mikko Kuusi, CEO of Startup Sauna, said. “I’m thrilled to finally be able to show the user interface we have been working on, and it will be exciting to open the developer story with SDK and applications to the public,” Jussi Hurmola, CEO of Jolla, added.

Jolla logo
Image credits to Jolla

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AMD Athlon II X4 700-Series Trinity Processors

Since AMD has to do something with all those chips who come out of the factory with faulty GPUs, it is releasing them as Athlon II X4 CPUs.

One UK online store lists two Athlon X4 central processors of this type: AMD Trinity Athlon X4 740X and AMD Trinity Athlon X4 750K. Both of them have 4 MB of L2 cache, but their clock frequencies differ. The former is a 3.2 GHz chip but, when Turbo Core technology activates, it jumps to 3.7 GHz. The latter has a base core clock speed of 3.4 GHz and can reach 4 GHz in a pinch.

Needless to say, both are compatible with Socket FM2 motherboards, but they will let the video ports wired to the CPU socket go to waste, since they, as we already said, lack the integrated Radeon HD 7000. On that note, their prices of £46.95 ($75 / 58.45 Euro) and £53.50 ($86 / 66.61 Euro) don't help them much, not with full-featured A-Series Trinity so cheap.

AMD Athlon II X4 Trinity processors
Image credits to AMD

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Transcend 32GB DDR3 RDIMM and Very Low Profile Modules

Well-known memory company transcend has just announced two new DDR3 DRAM modules. The first one is a Registered dual inline memory module (DIMM) with a capacity of 32 gigabytes and the second one is a 16 GB DDR3 Registered DIMM with a very low profile PCB.

The Transcend TS4GKR72V3P 32 GB DDR3 1333 MHz RDIMM includes the professional thermal sensor that such modules usually have and enables medium servers such as IBM's System x3850/3950 X5 and BladeCenter HX5 to achieve RAM capacities up to 2 TB.

The Transcend TS2GKR72V6PL 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz Very Low Profile RDIMM includes the professional thermal sensor that TS4GKR72V3P also has and will enable a lower power consumption inside the server and better air flow, thus resulting in better overall cooling. Both models are backed by Transcend’s usual Lifetime warranty and work at the standard 1.5V.

Transcend DDR3 Memory Modules
Images credits to Transcend

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