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2012: The Year everything gets disrupted
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Features, Handhelds, PC / Laptop
Normally at this time of the year, I predict tech trends for the New Year. As I think about 2012, I realize that over the next 12 months, the personal computing and consumer electronics industries are poised to see some big disruptions that could change their course for the next five years.
In fact, I believe that when we end 2012, we will look back and realize that it was the most disruptive year we will have had in personal computing in over a decade. In the next 12 months, the market for personal computers of all shapes and sizes will have changed dramatically.
So, what will be the major forces that could reshape the PC business in 2012? There are four technologies and trends in the works that I believe will force the computer industry in a new direction.
The first will be Intel's huge push to make ultraportables 40 percent of its laptop mix by the end of 2012. Although I don't believe it will achieve that goal, especially if ultrabooks are priced above $899, the fact is that ultrabooks are the future of portable computing. Instead of thin and light laptops driving the market as they are now, ultrabooks, which are thinner and lighter, with SSDs and longer battery life, will eventually be what all laptops will look like in five years. The heavier and more powerful laptops that exist now won't go away completely since there are power users who will still need that kind of processing power. But ultrabooks will be the laptops of the future and 2012 will be the first year of their major push to change the portable computing landscape.
There is an interesting twist with ultraportables that could be even more important starting next year: the introduction of ultraportables with detachable screens that turn into tablets. In the past, this hybrid, as it is called, ran Windows when in laptop mode and Android when in tablet mode. But this approach was dead in the water from the start. With Windows 8 tablets ready to hit the market next fall, you will see ultraportables with detachable screens that will run Windows 8 with the Metro UI both on the laptop and in tablet mode. This will bring a level of OS consistency across both device modes and I think that this concept is a sleeper. In fact, if done right, this alone could reshape the traditional PC market in the near term.
Click to continue reading 2012: The Year everything gets disrupted
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Intel Ivy Bridge benchmarks leak
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: PC / Laptop
Ivy Bridge is on its way. For the uninformed, that's the codename of the latest iteration of Intel processors, a die-shrink of the company's current Sandy Bridge lineup that blends higher performance – including new integrated graphics support for DirectX 11 – with lower power use. And did we say higher performance? Intel's previously hinted that Ivy Bridge's graphical prowess could be up to 60 percent higher than the chips' sandy predecessors.
AnandTech got its hands on a leaked roadmap of all the Ivy Bridge chips that are expected to hit in 2012 – April, say the current predictions – and the listed, mainstream processors number eight in total. Six quad-core, i5-branded chips can be found in the lineup, ranging from the 3.0-GHz i5-3330 on the lowest end all the way up to the 3.4-GHz i5-3570K on the highest. All of the i5 chips, save for the i5-3330, can Turbo Boost their clock speeds up by 0.4 GHz when necessary, whereas the i5-3330 can only jump from 3.0 GHz to 3.2 GHz.
The only unlocked processor in the Ivy Bridge i5 lineup is the aforementioned i5-3570K, meaning that aspiring overclockers will have to settle for fiddling around with the processor's Base Clock instead of hacking away at the chip's multiplier. And none of the i5-series chips support Intel's hyperthreading, a split of the chip's four physical cores into eight virtual cores within the operating system.
Click to continue reading Intel Ivy Bridge benchmarks leak
Bleeding Edge TV 395: Apple Thunderbolt Display review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Full Episodes, Gizmatic, Apple, Features, Peripherals, Podcasts, Product Reviews, Videocasts, Videos
We give you a look at Apple's new Thunderbolt Display in this episode. The Thunderbolt Display allows you to connect a host of peripherals to it, and then run them all to your MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, or Mac mini using a single Thunderbolt cable. We show all the Thunderbolt I/O inputs and explain how the monitor works in this episode. You can pick up the Thunderbolt Display for $999 from Apple.
Big thank you to GoToMeeting and JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out! As for JackThreads, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like.
Apple, Google, Lucasfilm, Intel and more sued for secretly conspiring to fix employee pay
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Google
A former Lucasfilm software engineer on Wednesday filed a class-action lawsuit against a who's who of Silicon Valley tech giants, alleging a conspiracy to fix employee pay and not poach staff away from each other in violation of anti-trust laws.
Siddharth Hariharan, a former Lucasfilm employee who is the founder and CEO of game developer InEarth, is suing Lucasfilm, Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar.
Hariharan is represented by Joseph Saveri of the national plaintiffs' law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein.
The suit claims that an alleged "no-solicitation" agreement between the named companies resulted in employee compensation being reduced by "10 to 15 percent" as compared to "what would have prevailed in a properly functioning labor market where employers compete for workers."
Apple patents dock connector with Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 connectivity
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Handhelds
The United States Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday awarded Apple a patent that suggests Apple is working on an iPhone and iPod that supports Intel Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.
The invention, which in 2009 Apple called a "Reduced Size Multi-Pin Male Plug Connector" describes a 30-pin dock connector for "high-speed communication standards," citing USB 3.0 and a "dual channel" DisplayPort.
The name "Thunderbolt" wasn't mentioned (unsurprisingly, given that it only launched in February 2011 on the new MacBook Pro) but the patent's multiple mentions of a "dual channel" DisplayPort suggests the same technology.
Thunderbolt combines Intel's PCI Express and DisplayPort into a single connector for theoretical transfer speeds of 10 Gbps (fast enough to download a full-length Blu-ray movie in under 30 seconds).
Click to continue reading Apple patents dock connector with Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 connectivity
MacBook Pro purchasers reporting problems with Thunderbolt and Cinema Displays
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop
A series of rainclouds has descended over Apple. Purchasers of the company's latest Macbook Pros—featuring Intel's brand-new Thunderbolt ports—are reporting issues when they go to hook up their Apple Cinema Displays to their laptops via a Displayport-to-Thunderbolt connection.
"I have a new MBP with a thunderbolt port, which is connected to an Apple 24" cinema display, using the new thunderbolt port," writes user "Streitz" on Apple's support forums. "I am experiencing one second black outs every few minutes, and fairly regular jitters once the computer starts warming up and crunching some numbers. The shift never occurs on the 15" monitor, only the external. I also still have my old MBP with a mini-display port, and the external monitor works perfect with it."
The display flickering issue allegedly affects all editions of the latest Thunderbolt-laden MacBook Pros. And as the above comment illustrates, it seems to be a problem involving the combined Thunderbolt/DisplayPort connection. The only fix, so far, appears to be the time-honored tradition of waiting it out.
Intel’s 510 Series SSD sports500 MBps transfer over 6 Gbps SATA
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: PC / Laptop, Peripherals, Storage
Intel today announced the latest solid-state drive (SSD) family in its product line: the Intel SSD 510 Series, which is also the company's first to use the 6-Gbps SATA III interface.
According to Intel, the drives in the 510 Series offer "the fastest sequential read and write speeds of any consumer SATA SSD available today," and feature read speeds of up to 500 Mbps and write speeds of up to 315 Mbps—respectively more than twice and more than three times the rates of Intel's current 3-Gbps SSDs. (OCZ announced its own 6-Gbps SSD series, the Vertex 3, last week, and made similar performance claims.)
The 510 Series SSDs are constructed using Intel's 34nm NAND Flash memory, and are targeted at gamers, enthusiasts, and professionals (particularly media creators) who need fast transfer rates. Intel claims the 510 Series is just one of a number of major SSD products it plans to introduce in 2011.
Click to continue reading Intel’s 510 Series SSD sports500 MBps transfer over 6 Gbps SATA
New MacBook Pro teardown gives us a look at Thunderbolt
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Design, PC / Laptop
The teardown crew at iFixit got its hands on Apple's new MacBook Pro, providing a sneak peek at a new connection technology known as "Thunderbolt."
The new MacBooks are the first Apple portable to include a quad-core processor, Intel's Core i7. The devices also include more RAM, iFixit discovered. Thunderbolt, meanwhile, combines PCI Express and DisplayPort into a single connector.
On the new machines, you can chain up to six Thunderbolt devices. For comparison, FireWire supports 63 devices and USB supports up to 127 devices. But as iFixit noted, this might not be an issue since "we're not even aware of six products that support Thunderbolt yet." But if the connection becomes more popular, it might become a problem.
The RAM in the MacBooks is PC3-10600. That's the same RAM found in the 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs released last year, but different from earlier Apple laptops, iFixit said. PC3-10600 can be used in older MacBook Pro machines, but the RAM found in those older machines - PC3-8500 - will not work in the new MacBook Pros.
Click to continue reading New MacBook Pro teardown gives us a look at Thunderbolt
Intel launches 10Gbps Thunderbolt data transfer technology
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, PC / Laptop
Intel today officially announced the availability of Thunderbolt, its new PC connection technology capable of running at speeds of 10Gbps—more than twice the speed of USB 3.0, and fast enough to transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds.
First introduced at IDF 2009 under the code name "Light Peak," Thunderbolt is based on fiber optics and was originally designed to transmit data over thin glass cables rather than traditional electrical ones. (Intel announced last month, however, that the initial iterations would use copper rather than fiber-optic cabling.) Powered by an Intel controller chip, it unites the PCI Express (PCIe) and DisplayPort protocols to send data and video transmissions in two directions at once over a single cable.
Thunderbolt's first commercial application is on Apple's just-released refresh of its MacBook Pro laptop line. There had been speculation for a while that Apple would introduce the technology commercially, as Steve Jobs declared in October that because of lackluster support the company would not implement USB 3.0 right away.
Click to continue reading Intel launches 10Gbps Thunderbolt data transfer technology
Will the new MacBook Pro sport Light Peak?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Rumors
It's time to insert another quarter in the Apple rumor-machine. In addition to the rumored Macbook Pro refresh coming in a week or two—we've reported a possible March 1 date for an introduction of Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU lineup into the line, though other sites are indicating that this could occur as early as February 24—it's time to throw a new connector into the fray as well.
CNet is reporting that an undisclosed source has told the site that Apple plans to introduce a new connection technology "soon." The site then goes on to speculate that this may or may not be a part of the rumored Macbook refresh—rumors upon rumors!—and that the technology may or may not be the Apple-renamed version of Intel's Light Peak connection technology.
Just to refresh, Apple's been balking at adding USB 3.0 to its product lineups for some time now. "We don't see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example," Apple CEO Steve Jobs allegedly replied when asked about USB 3.0 in an e-mailed question by a customer last year.
Click to continue reading Will the new MacBook Pro sport Light Peak?
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