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Message started by Oldfeller on 12/23/15 at 06:36:23

Title: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 12/23/15 at 06:36:23

http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/22/samsung-building-chips-for-amd/

http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/50fed8732e7a7008afa0e9345ce00659/203167971/samsung-amd-2015-12-22-01.jpg

AMD's incoming CPUs should be more competitive with Intel thanks to the smaller 14-nanometer process, and could be as much as 40 percent faster and more efficient than its current generation. If AMD continues to work with Samsung (assuming the rumors are true), it might actually get a leg up on Intel in the PC market, because Samsung expects to ship even more efficient 10-nanometer chips by next year, while Intel recently confirmed that its own 10-nanometer chips won't arrive until 2017.

Why is this important? AMD has killer graphics capability and as Samsung builds these chips they will learn all about AMD's tricks.

Better graphics for Samsung kicks around a lot of possible progress in years to come, especially if the current deal includes any IP sharing.

Also be aware that Samsung lifts stuff whether you have an IP agreement or not, and is not afraid to let the courts settle it later on (year and years and years later on).

Next, AMD already has strong ties with FOSS, having given over its gaming standard Vulcan (which included all the previous standards) to FOSS to forestall a hostile take over by Microsoft a few months back.

Vulcan and the hardware behind it is valuable IP, and is mostly what AMD has that is worthwhile to share to insure its continuing existence.

Second, this action unhooks Intel from AMD's neck since Intel has been sucking AMD dry for decades now. AMD is now free to leave CISC (and Intel IP sharing) behind them.

Third, it makes AMD a core player in ARM space, designing and building ARM based chipsets that compete against Intel.

Fourth, this is a trouble sign for Nvidia, as a 40% faster AMD chipset makes it potentially as good or better than Nvidia's best units. Nvidia has no production deal with Samsung and is stuck with TSMC's not quite as good production processes. Nvidia may wind up being #2 if they don't watch out.

Lastly, does this move mark the start of the increasing slippery slope part of Intel's slide into irrelevance? Has Intel finally lost the "arm up behind the back" coercion power that they once wielded?

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 12/25/15 at 09:53:20

Intel in 2016 and 2017

In attempting to cope with thermal throttling, Intel will take their 14nm process off into multiple multiple multiple cores, attempting to keep processing throughput up even as the chips throttle down to half speed when they get warm (to have far less throughput per core than the old 22nm process had).

All during 2016 Intel will release chipsets with more and more cores that will get tested and rated right along with existing 22nm products that are 4 years old now.

Meanwhile, the entire PC class of products is SHRINKING 6-10% year on year on year.

By the time Intel puts out their first 10nm chipset, Samsung will have been pushing 10nm ARM chipsets out for over a year, taking more long term customers away from Intel in the process.

Non-silicon chipsets will be threatening by the time Intel makes its next lithography shift.

Google's next OS will be another looming threat, as it will run on ARM chipsets, removing even more market share from Intel.

Microsoft has started its move to Qualcomm ARM based products already, and Intel has no response to this threat at all at this point in time.

Intel still fires off their brown vapor cannon monthly, but nobody is hearing it any more -- nobody cares.

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 12/25/15 at 19:45:05

http://www.androidauthority.com/best-soc-intel-vs-qualcomm-vs-samsung-658684/

Forget about what is coming out next year (when and if it makes it) how about what is shipping in products right now?

Can a comparison of what we have available RIGHT NOW explain why there are no Intel chipset equipped phone products anywhere anymore?

For these tests, Android Authority got hold of different phones using these three SoCs. The phones are:

Snapdragon 810 – Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
Exynos 7420 – Samsung Galaxy Note 5
Atom Z3580 – Asus Zenfone 2

Here are the test results:

http://cdn01.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-AnTuTu-840x528.jpg

http://cdn02.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-Geekbench-singlecore-840x512.jpg

http://cdn03.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-Geekbench-multicore-840x530.jpg
and
http://cdn01.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-cpu-prime-benchmark-840x514.jpg

http://cdn04.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-needforspeed-840x515.jpg

http://cdn02.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-kraken-840x513.jpg

http://cdn02.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-Hashes_bubble_sorts_tables_and_primes-840x510.jpgand

http://cdn01.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-water-sim-840x512.jpg

http://cdn04.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-battery-tests-840x516.jpg

http://cdn04.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Intel-vs-Qualcomm-vs-Samsung-SoCs-battery-ratios-840x514.jpg

Wrap-up

"Intel’s biggest problem is that it is trying to use the same microarchitecture that it uses on the desktop and squeeze it into a mobile SoC. Creating high performance, power efficient processors is a complex business and ARM has specialized in this field. Every ARM processor is designed specifically for power efficiency while delivering the maximum performance. Intel’s focus is the desktop and servers, places where big ventilation fans are the norm and power usage isn’t as critical as on mobile. Until Intel starts to take mobile seriously it will always come in second, just as demonstrated by the Atom Z3580.

Yeah, performance-wise it ain't even close any more --- the "new improved" 14nm Intel mobile chipset lost in every test against its competition, even those run at older larger nanometer lithography levels.

No wonder Microsoft dumped Intel.

No wonder no one puts Intel chipsets in phones any more --- they were sorry back when Intel was giving out 10's of billions in bribe money and now that the bribe money has stopped NOBODY WANTS INTEL MOBILE CHIPSETS FOR ANYTHING FOR MUCH ANY MORE.

Now here is the icing on the poo pie --- Intel mobile chipsets have issues running some elements of standard Android due to their CISC construction that requires the use of a software abstraction layer to do some native Android calls. And that abstraction layer goes buggy/strange every time Android changes and Intel is getting slower and slower fixing it.

Intel is 95+% good for all native Android functions, and that last ~5% says it simply isn't good enough for you to buy one.

So, in short Intel is slow and buggy/crappy in Android mobile uses.

And that is why you don't see many Intel mobile chipset phones any more.

Last reason is Microsoft kicked them out of the Wintel marriage bed for Qualcomm, who makes a better, faster more flexible chipset that is a full system on a chip (something Intel still hasn't done right yet).

My apologies to those who own gen 1 Asus Zenphones and who like them just fine for the less than $300 you paid for them.

(Intel paid out the other hundred dollars that the phone actually cost to build, BTW)

But since Intel has stopped shelling out the big bribes, Asus Zenphone went with a faster, more energy efficient ARM chipset and the new Zenphone is now a lighter, cheaper, simply better phone for it.

:)

The cries of the Intel fanboys have split the net-waves. "Unfair comparison, you should be comparing the Z3580 to mid-range ARM processors from last year."

OK, let's run with that logic a bit. We should take the current state of the art very best Intel mobile chipset that exists (or is planned to exist since Intel has given up on mobile) and only compare it to the MID-RANGE ARM CHIPSETS from last year in order to have a fair comparison (i.e. to allow Intel to win a few of the tests).

So, by their own fanboy protests Intel fans are saying Intel is a full year and a bit out of date and about half the pack behind the OLD last year's primo phone chipsets from the ARM world.

So what is Intel's very best mobile chipset compared to what's being announced next week at the big CES computer show?

Answer: dog poo

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 12/28/15 at 08:48:59

http://www.macworld.com/article/2983385/ipad/the-ipad-pro-is-a-pilot-fish-for-apples-arm-laptop.html

The iPad Pro is a pilot fish for Apple's ARM Laptop this is MacWorld saying this, not me

http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/09/ipad-pro-microsoft-office-100613594-large.jpg

ARMed and ready

"Ever since Apple began designing its A-series chips, we’ve heard rumors that the company is working on a laptop powered by an ARM chip. Certainly, Apple tests all kinds of ideas in locked-down labs. The iPad was built years before it finally shipped, and the iPhone actually came out of its development, not the other way around. Similarly, Apple had a group building OS X on Intel chips long before the PowerPC processor line was dropped.

And thus we can be sure that OS X is running on prototype ARM-based hardware somewhere at One or Two Infinite Loop. While Intel ticks away at producing faster and more efficient processors, Apple focuses on controlling its own destiny. It’s been this way since the return of Steve Jobs, and slowly reducing the need for Intel processors would be a reasonable path.

http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2015/09/ipad_pro_cpu_chart-100614584-large.png

"Desktop-class," Phil Schiller said about the iPad Pro's performance.
Please note that in last week’s keynote, Phil Schiller discussed iPad performance in a way Apple has previously avoided. The new tablet has a 64-bit chip that offers “desktop-class performance.” The iPad Pro’s CPU is 22 times faster than the original iPad’s chip, and twice as fast as the iPad Air 2’s processor. The new tablet also has twice as much memory—we know it’s 4GB thanks to an accidental disclosure by Adobe. Graphics performance is also 360 times faster than the original iPad.

Apple even noted the Pro has better performance than 80 percent of the laptops on the market. That 20 percent is key, though. Apple’s laptop sales are just above 10 percent of unit shipments worldwide, and Apple’s lowest-performing model is faster than most other laptops. Thus Apple doesn’t sell any laptops slower than the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro hasn’t yet been benchmarked against notebook computers, but its performance is likely competitive with an entry-level MacBook Air.

Why praise the Pro in this context if it isn’t a test to see whether the market is waiting for something that combines attributes of a laptop and a tablet without the drawbacks of either?"

The A-10 generation of Apple chipsets is under production as we speak, and Apple is building an A-10X variant that is known to be a fully laptop capable chipset.

Intel is soon going to get another booster push to jest fly on down the steeper part of their slide to irrelevance ...... after all, MS has gotten separation papers served on Intel and has taken Qualcomm into their bed to replace Intel.

And now Apple is kicking Intel to the curb very soon as well.

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by verslagen1 on 12/30/15 at 09:42:55

lenovo tiny desktop w/win7pro

http://www.woot.com/offers/lenovo-quad-core-win-7-pro-tiny-desktop-7?ref=w_cnt_gw_dly_img

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Art Webb on 12/31/15 at 07:30:11

wow durned good price too

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 12/31/15 at 08:07:23

Steam is changing and getting better too as the steam boxes roll into play.

(and also having some right ugly growing pains with their net based service along the way).

Steam now has a BUNCH of Steam box titles showing now (and what is neat is all these steam box titles will run on the Steam installation you can get from your Linux distro).

The Christmas sale is neat too, with 75% off and 80% off on some relatively current items. $8.49 for Unwritten Tales 2, a 20 hour point and click that was new this year is a pretty good Christmas sale.

The old stuff is really cheap, with the older classic series like Serious Sam and Half Life going for less than $3, and with them selling the entire series and all the add on packs for like $13 for the lot (which is really really cheap per individual title).

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 12/31/15 at 19:34:00

When I run into letters that You know what they mean, but I don't, from there on, im lost.
Try to go with the Readers Digest approach. Pretend that I am a fifth grade kid, only, a fifth grade kid would likely know what ARM is.
There's a few folks here who I wish I could spend a few days with. You're one of them.
Start playing with nanometers and pretty soon you're messing with some skinny stuff. That part I understand.

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 01/08/16 at 09:48:25

http://liliputing.com/2016/01/blu-launches-vivo-5-and-vivo-xl-octa-core-phones-for-149-and-up.html

http://www.androidauthority.com/blu-vivo-5-vivo-xl-hands-on-666223/

Blu defines low end phones and the low end really isn't so low any more ......

http://liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/blu-vivo-5-and-xl.jpg

http://cdn01.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/BLU-Vivo-5-Vivo-XL-hands-on-AA-4-840x468.jpg

Why worth noting? Blu at $200 list retail outspecs some of last year's premium phones and we also note that the new Vivo 5 comes with a Mediatek octacore processor, a complete "world modem/radio", Mali 720 graphics, 3 gigs of system memory and a type C port capable of running input/output to a separate screen through a multiport jack for keyboard / mouse.

Yep, smells kinda like Android PC/phone turf .....

ANDROID IS NOT THERE YET, but will be by year's end most likely. By then this one will be a $125 phone, not a $200 phone. Android 7.0 series will likely support PC style device docking, keyboards and mice and other PC/phone stuff.

Blu defines low end phones and the low end really isn't so low any more ......

..... and jest look at the wonderful cheap shot Mediatek just took at Qualcomm in response to Qualcomm's cheap shot they just took at Mediatek during their main CES presentations ......

http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Qualcomm-Snapdragon3.jpg

This image insinuates that Qualcomm's recent renaming of the 820 chipset to the 852 chipset was indeed because early 820 testing at Mediatek showed the 820 had thermal throttling and overheating issues just like the last Qualcomm 810 chipset, a situation which allowed Mediatek 10 and 12 core chipsets to roundly trounce the Qualcomm 820 in Mediatek testing.....

Qualcomm's quick renaming of the 820 doesn't really fix any of the thermal issues but gives the illusion that "something was done about the issues".

You know, Intel style brown smoke and mirrors stuff while Qualcomm works on the issues.
Samsung will just have to be careful to spec their chipsets at the full warmed up state, just like they did l
If independent reviews show the 852 chipset still has these overheating thermal issues when it is shipped in volume then Qualcomm is in for a very bad 2016 year and Qualcomm will likely be #3 at the end of it, with Samsung #1 and Mediatek at #2.

:P

Samsung will just have to be careful to spec their chipsets at the full warmed up state, just like they did last year.

Why Qualcomm cannot simply do this, nobody knows (unless it is really that the Qualcomm warmed up state is NOT COMPETITIVE AT ALL, which is what Mediatek is taking the cheap shots at them about at the moment).

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by verslagen1 on 01/08/16 at 10:55:15

Mom got the BLU phone you last linked and it's a nice phone, needs a sim card though.
Dad has issues with iphone and can't press the screen buttons. But this phone works with him well.
So we're going to try and get the "free" service.

Title: Re: Tech news for 2016
Post by Oldfeller on 01/08/16 at 14:49:08

So you bought the $99 special? Good deal, that.

Keep us all posted on the Freedom Pop "free service" and tell us if it has any warts & uglies. First reviews say if you stay inside your wifi zone at home it works great, issues on the road take place when you need cell service and don't have it.

If it pans out good for home bodies, that might be my next phone and service too.