Samsung Galaxy S4 Exynos 5 Octa CPU to Run at 1.8GHz in South Korea

South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics has already been confirmed to plan on launching the Galaxy S4 smartphone in its homeland market with an 8-core Exynos 5 Octa processor inside, and it seems that it also plans on clocking it in at 1.8GHz.

The smartphone was spotted at the FCC as Samsung SHV-E300S/K, and was listed there with a CPU running at 1.8GHz, which would make it 200MHz faster when compared to the global Exynos-based Galaxy S4 (GT-I9500). Furthermore, it appears that the device was also confirmed to arrive on shelves in South Korea with multi-band LTE (Band 3, 5, 1, 7, 17) capabilities, SamMobile notes.

No specific info on when Galaxy S4 will land on shelves in the country has been provided as of now, but late April or early May appear to be the best candidates at the moment.

Samsung Galaxy S4

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Plus Leaks in Live Pictures

The latest tablet launched by Samsung, the Galaxy Note 8.0 has yet to hit shelves, but the South Korean company is already readying another tablet, the Galaxy Tab 3 Plus.

The folks over at SamMobile have just been tipped on the upcoming release of the tablet, which is expected to be renamed Samsung Galaxy S Tab, given the success of the company’s Galaxy S lineup. The tablet shown in the pictures strongly resembles the Galaxy Note 8.0, which is about to make its debut on the market, so we can’t say if this is indeed the Galaxy Tab 3 Plus or not. Anyway, the tablet is said to ship with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system out of the box and the powerful Samsung Exynos 5410 Octa chipset featuring two quad-core processors.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Plus will boast a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports 2560 x 1600 resolution and 300ppi, as well as 2GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear camera. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Plus
Images credits to SAMMobile

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First ARM Cortex-A57 64-Bit Processor Taped Out

The ARMv8 architecture was what opened the door for ARM Holdings on the computer industry, as it adds support for 64-bit instructions, a must on modern PCs. Now, though, we get to see the first optimizations.

ARM Holdings is collaborating with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), which happens to be the world's largest foundry. ARM provided the Artisan physical IP, while TSMC implemented its memory macros. Everything was combined with RDA technologies enabled by the TSMC Open Innovation Platform design ecosystem. Neither company said when the Cortex-A57 processor would be seen in devices, and this information probably won't be released for a while. They did confirm, or at least ARM did, that the chip was taped out, meaning that the first manufacturing stages have kicked off. It is the first so-called milestone in the cooperation between ARM and TSMC to optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture using the 16nm FinFET process technology. For those unaware, Cortex-A57 is the highest-performing chip that ARM has ever designed and will be used in mobile and enterprise computing devices.

We may even spot it in the occasional laptop. Right now, AMD and Intel still own that market segment, but ARM has been trying to get into it for years, and made the ARMv8 architecture with it specifically in mind, not just enterprise devices. That said, given the usual stages of manufacturing, we believe the first Cortex-A57 products will be seen before the year is out. “The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM’s highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing applications including compute intensive 64-bit applications such as high end computer, tablet and server products,” the company wrote.

Cortex-A57 has ARM Mali graphics and up to 16 cores. Extra information, though not much, can be found on the product page.

ARM logo
Image credits to ARM

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Nokia Lumia 720T Approved in China with TD-SCDMA Connectivity

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is gearing up for the launch of more handsets in China before the end of this year, and Nokia Lumia 720 appears to be one of them.

Made official at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, the smartphone has received the necessary approvals in China as Lumia 720T, a post on CNMO reads, and is expected to hit shelves at China Mobile. Featuring support for the operator’s TD-SCDMA technology, the mobile phone will pack all the features and capabilities that the international Lumia 720 was announced with, UnwiredView reports.

Thus, the Windows Phone 8-based device will feature a 4.3-inch touchscreen, a 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor with Adreno 305 GPU, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, microSD card slot, and NFC, as well as a 6.7-megapixel camera on the back, and a front camera for making video calls.

Nokia Lumia 720T for China Mobile
Image credits to CNMO

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Sony Xperia CyberShot is Codenamed Honami, Possible Specs Leak

Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Mobile might be set to revive its CyberShot series of mobile phones soon, with a new device set to be launched in the Xperia lineup with high-end imaging capabilities, and some more info on the matter appears to have emerged.

The handset hasn’t been officially confirmed as of now, but rumor has it that it would be known internally as Honami, and that it would land on shelves with a 5-inch full HD screen. Furthermore, new reports on the matter suggest that it would include a Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 3000 mAh battery, and possibly a back camera of around 20 megapixels.

These are only rumored specs for the time being, and we’ll take them with a grain of salt. However, the handset was said before to pack hardware similar with that of Xperia Z, and the above might pan out in the end.

Xperia logo
Image credits to Sony

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ASUS P9X79-E WS, Motherboard with Seven PCI Express Slots

There are high-end PCs and then there are the truly ludicrous configurations that actually come close to the April Fools’ prank that Eurocom tried to play.

What we have here, though, is a motherboard for desktops, not a laptop. Called P9X79-E WS, it stands apart from most others because it has no fewer than seven PCI Express 3.0 slots. It is more than enough for 4-way NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossFireX multi-GPU hardware setups.

The mainboard also has dual-server grade Ethernet, up to 91% power efficiency, enhanced heat removal and the ASUS Dr. Power technology, which monitors power supply health and notifies users accordingly, thus preventing sudden shutdowns. Onboard LED shows codes for power-related issues too, for when the system fails to boot.

ASUS P9X79-E WS Motherboard
Image credits to ASUS

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Intel Ivy Bridge-E HEDT CPU Lineup

The LGA 2011 socket, supported by the X79 chipset, was invented by Intel for its high-end collection of central processing units, higher than even the Core i7 line of CPUs. Those top-tier CPUs have now been detailed.

The marketing name of the next HEDT series of central processing units, where HEDT means high-end desktop, is called Ivy Bridge-E. Ivy Bridge-E will be to the Haswell collection of CPUs what Sandy Bridge-E/EP is for the Ivy Bridge collection. The HEDT line is one architecture behind the “normal” desktop chips, but nonetheless much stronger. The Ivy Bridge-E series will power computers based on LGA 2011 motherboards (X79 chipset) and will probably include models priced at $300-400 / 300-400 Euro, $500-600 / 500-600 Euro, and $1,000 / 1,000 Euro. VR-Zone actually has all the details on the processors, from the top-tier Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition to the Core i7-4820K. The Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition is, as one might guess, the strongest of the lot, with six 22nm cores, 15 MB cache, and an unlocked BClk multiplier that will allow enthusiasts to overclock it well beyond the base 3.6 GHz.

Speaking of overclocking, people who don't intend to do any tweaking will be glad to learn that the Turbo Boost technology will automatically do it, when appropriate. The top rate is 4 GHz. In case anyone has forgotten, this is the $1,000 / 1,000 Euro part. The “mid-range” chip, called Core i7-4930K, also has six cores and unlocked BClk multiplier, but speeds of 2.4 / 3.9 GHz and 12 MB L3 cache. Finally, the Core i7-4820K is a quad-core unit with 3.7 / 3.9 GHz speed and 10 MB L3 cache. All three processors will be released in November 2013 and will have TDP (thermal design power) of 130W. That's several months after the Haswell (June).

Intel Ivy Bridge-E HEDT roadmap
Image credits to VR-Zone

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Samsung to Unveil Galaxy S4 Mini This Week

Following the official launch of Galaxy S4 in mid-March, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics could announce a smaller flavor of the device before the end of this week, new reports on the matter suggest.

The handset, supposedly called Galaxy S4 Mini, should pack a 4.3-inch touchscreen display, while being expected to arrive in Black Mist and White Frost color flavors, the same as its larger brother. According to SamMobile, the upcoming device will pack a quad-core processor inside, an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, and will be released in both single and dual-SIM flavors.

Additionally, the phone is said to run under Google’s Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean platform, while also featuring Samsung’s new TouchWiz Nature UX on top. Galaxy S4 Mini should be released in May – June, it seems. With no official confirmation available on any of the above, we’ll take the info with a grain of salt for the time being.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini next to Galaxy S4
Image credits to Sammobile

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The iOS 7 Jailbreak is Ready Before iOS 7 Even Gets Released

Great news from Joshua Hill today, the internationally-known iOS jailbreaker has issued a couple of tweets informing the masses that we’re in for a new jailbreak. And we’re pretty sure he’s referring to iOS 7.

“Well, so far it looks like the next jailbreak might be created entirely by me,” Joshua Hill (@p0sixninja) boasted on Twitter. “Evad3rs haven't gone anywhere, I've just discovered all the needed exploits on my own over the past few months,” he added in a subsequent message sent out to his 153K followers. Mr. Hill doesn’t specifically mention iOS 7, but he’s obviously referring to Apple’s next major iOS release. While Apple has closed the evasi0n jailbreak exploits in iOS 6.1.3, it makes no sense for Hill to burn his precious new bugs for a jailbreak that almost nobody needs at the moment.

iOS 7, on the other hand, will be a totally different matter. Considering that some security researchers are more inclined to sell these exploits for hard cash (rather than publicly release them as a jailbreak), Joshua might be in for quite some hype in the coming months.

Joshua Hill tweets
Image credits to Joshua Hill's Twitter stream (@p0sixninja)

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Texas Instruments Makes Chip That Reduces Battery Recharge Time by 50%

Batteries have been gaining longer and longer charge lifespans, but as odd as it may sound, this didn't bring only joy. It also caused a complication: it takes longer for them to recharge when they do deplete.

Or at least they would have that problem if technology companies didn't routinely look into ways of speeding up recharge time. Texas Instruments has just revealed a series of lithium-ion battery charger integrated circuits (ICs) that reduce recharging time by half in smartphones and tablets. They are called fast-charge units and bear the part numbers of bq24190, bq24192, bq24192i, bq24193, bq24195, bq24195L and bq24196. All of them are 4.5A output, 20V input-rated switch-mode chargers with I2C interface and USB on-the-go (OTG) support. Single-cell lithium battery packs are recharged fast thanks to a unique battery pack impedance compensation.

Overvoltage is prevented, according to JEITA guidelines, and the efficiency is high. The 4.5A switch-mode charger achieves 92% efficiency at 2 A and up to 90% efficiency at 4 A of output current. Energy Star and European Union charging specifications are, of course, met as well, and system-level design benefits from programmable thermal regulation temperature also. That the chips are simple to design is just the icing on the cake. All of them have Power Path management, synchronous FETs, integrated current sensing, internal loop compensation and bootstrap diode. In addition to phones and tablets, the new chips from Texas Instruments will help 4G LTE routers, power banks, Wi-Fi speakers, portable medical equipment, etc.

The TI bq2419x battery chargers for single-cell Li-Ion batteries should be available to product designers for $2.5 / 1.95 Euro in 1000 quantities. No details exist on deals between TI and other companies, but Texas Instruments has been known to branch out. It definitely has contacts thanks to how many power management and analog signal chain products it sold over the years, and the wireless power, audio, health technology, gesture recognition, touch feedback, and energy harvesting hardware.

Texas Instruments bq24190 charger chip
Image credits to Texas Instruments

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