Reduction of manufacturing of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) in late 2011 stabilized memory price in the second half of December despite of seasonally low demand.
According to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce, while the market has entered the traditionally weak PC shipment season, compared with the first half of December, in the second half of December contract price showed a flat price trend. DDR3 4GB and DDR3 2GB average selling price was $16.5 and $9.25, respectively.
Average 2Gb chip price stayed at the $0.88 level. From the market perspective, although there has been no concrete evidence showing that demand will recover significantly in Q1 2012, the decrease in shipment volume caused by several DRAM makers’ previous capacity cuts will undoubtedly benefit demand recovery; some PC OEMs have increased their DRAM purchase volume in order to avoid possible supply insufficiency in the near future.
As Chinese New Year is around the corner, January transaction volume is expected to be affected slightly by the decrease in the number of work days. Luckily, the effects of the prior capacity cuts will gradually be seen, and as concerns of the HDD supply shortage slowly dissipate as well, it is likely that DRAM contract price will see a stable price trend in the near future.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Apple's Jonathan Ive Becomes UK's Knight.
The designer behind Apple iPhone, iPad and various Macs - Jonathan Ive - has just got Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) title from the Queen. Mr. Ive has been working at Apple for over fifteen years.
"I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making. I discovered at an early age that all I've ever wanted to do is design," said Jonathan Ive, the head of design at Apple, in an interview with BBC.
London-born designer Jonathan Ive is the senior vice president of industrial design at Apple. Since 1996, he has been responsible for leading a design team widely regarded as one of the world’s best. Mr. Ive holds a Bachelor of Arts and an honorary doctorate from Newcastle Polytechnic. In 2003, he was named designer of the year by the design museum London and awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts.
Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple, described Mr Ive as his "spiritual partner" in his biography written by Walter Isaacson. However, some say that Mr. Ive was "hurt" by Mr. Jobs taking credit for innovations that came from the design team, according to BBC.
"I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making. I discovered at an early age that all I've ever wanted to do is design," said Jonathan Ive, the head of design at Apple, in an interview with BBC.
London-born designer Jonathan Ive is the senior vice president of industrial design at Apple. Since 1996, he has been responsible for leading a design team widely regarded as one of the world’s best. Mr. Ive holds a Bachelor of Arts and an honorary doctorate from Newcastle Polytechnic. In 2003, he was named designer of the year by the design museum London and awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts.
Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple, described Mr Ive as his "spiritual partner" in his biography written by Walter Isaacson. However, some say that Mr. Ive was "hurt" by Mr. Jobs taking credit for innovations that came from the design team, according to BBC.
AMD Readies “Sea Islands” Family of Graphics Processors.
The recent firings from Advanced Micro Devices apparently reduced not only marketing and PR personnel, but also engineers. Fired in November, 2011, a hardware designer from AMD has disclosed the code-name of the company’s next-generation of graphics processors – Sea Islands – over at his profile in LinkedIn social network.
Alexander Shternshain, a former MTS design engineer at AMD, who is looking for a new job now, has unveiled the name of AMD’s future graphics processors: Sea Islands. The new family will likely emerge in 2012 or in 2013 and will be most probably be made using 28nm fabrication process at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. According to VR-Zone web-site, Sea Islands name “directly refers to the chain of islands on the USA's Atlantic coast”.
Based on his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Shternshain was involved in design of the latest AMD families of graphic processors starting with Evergreen and Northern Islands (Radeon HD) GPU families, Fusion APUs (Ontario, Llano, Krishna), and the Southern Islands and Sea Islands GPU families.
Actual specifications or peculiarities of the Sea Islands product family remain unknown. What is natural to expect is further development of GCN [graphics core next] architecture with the addition of multimedia-related features, gneral purpose computing and graphics performance improvements. The Sea Islands lineup will likely continue to belong to DirectX 11.1 generation of GPUs.
AMD did not comment on the news-story.
Alexander Shternshain, a former MTS design engineer at AMD, who is looking for a new job now, has unveiled the name of AMD’s future graphics processors: Sea Islands. The new family will likely emerge in 2012 or in 2013 and will be most probably be made using 28nm fabrication process at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. According to VR-Zone web-site, Sea Islands name “directly refers to the chain of islands on the USA's Atlantic coast”.
Based on his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Shternshain was involved in design of the latest AMD families of graphic processors starting with Evergreen and Northern Islands (Radeon HD) GPU families, Fusion APUs (Ontario, Llano, Krishna), and the Southern Islands and Sea Islands GPU families.
Actual specifications or peculiarities of the Sea Islands product family remain unknown. What is natural to expect is further development of GCN [graphics core next] architecture with the addition of multimedia-related features, gneral purpose computing and graphics performance improvements. The Sea Islands lineup will likely continue to belong to DirectX 11.1 generation of GPUs.
AMD did not comment on the news-story.
Gingerbread, Froyo still dominant Android versions
According to Android developers, the vast majority of Android devices are currently running various Gingerbread variants, with no ICS update in sight.
Overall, Gingerbread 2.3.x is happily running on 55.5 percent of all Android devices out there, but Froyo is still going strong, with 30.4, while 8.5 percent of users are, for lack of a better word, stuck with Éclair.
Only 0.6 percent of Android devices run Ice Cream Sandwich versions, which is hardly surprising given the fact that only one phone ships with the new OS and updates are rolling out at the pace of a tired snail returning home from a funeral.
Android tablet sales in 2011 were not too impressive, and the tablet-centric Honeycomb is used on 3.3 percent of all Android devices. This is actually a good score, as Honeycomb’s share was under 1 percent just a few months ago.
Overall, Gingerbread 2.3.x is happily running on 55.5 percent of all Android devices out there, but Froyo is still going strong, with 30.4, while 8.5 percent of users are, for lack of a better word, stuck with Éclair.
Only 0.6 percent of Android devices run Ice Cream Sandwich versions, which is hardly surprising given the fact that only one phone ships with the new OS and updates are rolling out at the pace of a tired snail returning home from a funeral.
Android tablet sales in 2011 were not too impressive, and the tablet-centric Honeycomb is used on 3.3 percent of all Android devices. This is actually a good score, as Honeycomb’s share was under 1 percent just a few months ago.
Xbox Live Indie guidelines revised
Larger titles and removal of pricing restrictions
Microsoft has announced some changes today for its Xbox Live Indie Game development program. The road has been difficult for Indie game developers with a less than ideal situation when competing head to head with the commercial offerings; and Microsoft has listened to Indie Game developers and made some changes to its guidelines.
The biggest change is that Microsoft has raised the size limit for a project from 150MB to 500MB, which will give Indie developers significantly more room to work with to create new projects. The next change is that Microsoft has removed the restriction that all games greater than 50MB had to be priced at $3 or $5, which made many titles a more difficult sell when compared against the other offerings. In addition, the minimum price has been lowered to just $1, or 80 Microsoft Points, which should also help Indie developers be more competitive.
Beyond these changes, Microsoft also finally raised the cap on the number games a developer is allowed to host on the Indie Game service. It has now doubled to 20 total titles, which should allow some developers more room to move.
Microsoft is hoping that these changes will be well received and will help the Indie development community continue to create even better games. We think that these moves are good and address the needs of Indie developers. If Microsoft could only find a way to call more attention to their offerings from within the dashboard, then we think Indie developers would be even happier.
Microsoft has announced some changes today for its Xbox Live Indie Game development program. The road has been difficult for Indie game developers with a less than ideal situation when competing head to head with the commercial offerings; and Microsoft has listened to Indie Game developers and made some changes to its guidelines.
The biggest change is that Microsoft has raised the size limit for a project from 150MB to 500MB, which will give Indie developers significantly more room to work with to create new projects. The next change is that Microsoft has removed the restriction that all games greater than 50MB had to be priced at $3 or $5, which made many titles a more difficult sell when compared against the other offerings. In addition, the minimum price has been lowered to just $1, or 80 Microsoft Points, which should also help Indie developers be more competitive.
Beyond these changes, Microsoft also finally raised the cap on the number games a developer is allowed to host on the Indie Game service. It has now doubled to 20 total titles, which should allow some developers more room to move.
Microsoft is hoping that these changes will be well received and will help the Indie development community continue to create even better games. We think that these moves are good and address the needs of Indie developers. If Microsoft could only find a way to call more attention to their offerings from within the dashboard, then we think Indie developers would be even happier.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Lenovo unveils all-new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid
Lenovo is gearing up for the Consumer Electronics Show just like every other PC hardware manufacturer on the planet. But rather than waiting four more days to unveil its products to the public, the company has decided to give the press and its prospective consumers a sneak peek of what to expect on the show floors this year.
Back in November 2011, rumors abounded of a new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid that would essentially be “2 notebooks in 1” – a full-fledged notebook running Windows 7 (or Windows 8), and a low-power mode called “Instant Media Mode” (think netbook) running a custom Linux based OS. The rumors turned out to be true, and the device unveiled by the company today is essentially a flagship rehash of the current ThinkPad X1.
Lenovo's new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid, however, takes dual-booting to the next level by switching between operating system environments at the click of an icon, with no rebooting required, and by running Linux on its own dual-core Qualcomm processor.
In terms of hardware, the notebook features a 13.3-inch display coated with Gorilla Glass, the same material used on the iPhone. It comes with your choice of a Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor as the main CPU, additional dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB of internal storage to power the secondary “Instant Media Mode” based on the custom Linux OS, a spill-resistant backlit keyboard, USB 3.0 and an optional SSD.
Lenovo claims that the new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid can run with up to 5 hours battery life on the Intel Core processor and up to 10 hours battery life on the Snapdragon APQ8060. Additionally, the notebook features “Rapid Charge” technology which allows it to hit an 80-percent charge in just 30 minutes. If these battery life numbers are tested and confirmed to be true, we may see Lenovo gain the upper hand in competition with the likes of Apple’s MacBook Air and several other Intel-based ultrabooks debuting over the next few months.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Hybrid will start at $1,599 USD and is targeted at home users, students and professional business users. It will be available for purchase sometime in Q2 2012.
Back in November 2011, rumors abounded of a new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid that would essentially be “2 notebooks in 1” – a full-fledged notebook running Windows 7 (or Windows 8), and a low-power mode called “Instant Media Mode” (think netbook) running a custom Linux based OS. The rumors turned out to be true, and the device unveiled by the company today is essentially a flagship rehash of the current ThinkPad X1.
Lenovo's new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid, however, takes dual-booting to the next level by switching between operating system environments at the click of an icon, with no rebooting required, and by running Linux on its own dual-core Qualcomm processor.
In terms of hardware, the notebook features a 13.3-inch display coated with Gorilla Glass, the same material used on the iPhone. It comes with your choice of a Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor as the main CPU, additional dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB of internal storage to power the secondary “Instant Media Mode” based on the custom Linux OS, a spill-resistant backlit keyboard, USB 3.0 and an optional SSD.
Lenovo claims that the new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid can run with up to 5 hours battery life on the Intel Core processor and up to 10 hours battery life on the Snapdragon APQ8060. Additionally, the notebook features “Rapid Charge” technology which allows it to hit an 80-percent charge in just 30 minutes. If these battery life numbers are tested and confirmed to be true, we may see Lenovo gain the upper hand in competition with the likes of Apple’s MacBook Air and several other Intel-based ultrabooks debuting over the next few months.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Hybrid will start at $1,599 USD and is targeted at home users, students and professional business users. It will be available for purchase sometime in Q2 2012.
Intel to discontinue 25 desktop CPUs in 1H 2012
Suppliers prepare for 22nm Ivy Bridge in April
According to industry sources in Taiwan, Intel has notified its hardware partners that it will cease production of 25 desktop CPU models in order to pave the way for its upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge desktop CPUs, which are expected to launch in April 2012.
The report states that Intel will cease production and then terminate production of these CPUs in two major segments over the first half of 2012. Between January 2011 and March 2011 (Q1 2012), Core i7 875K, Core i7 860S, Core i5 760, Core i5 750S, Core i5 655K, Celeron 450 and Celeron 430 production will be terminated. During the same timeframe, Core i5 661, Core i5 660, Core i3 530, Pentium E5700 and Celeron E3500 production will all be suspended, and production will be terminated in Q2 2012.
Between April and June (Q2 2012), Core i7 960, Core i7 950, Core i7 930, Core i7 870 and Pentium G960 production will all be suspended and terminated. During the same timeframe, Core i7 880S, Core i7 870S, Core Duo E7500, Core Duo E7600, Pentium E6600, Pentium E550 and Celeron E3300 production will be terminated.
According to industry sources in Taiwan, Intel has notified its hardware partners that it will cease production of 25 desktop CPU models in order to pave the way for its upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge desktop CPUs, which are expected to launch in April 2012.
The report states that Intel will cease production and then terminate production of these CPUs in two major segments over the first half of 2012. Between January 2011 and March 2011 (Q1 2012), Core i7 875K, Core i7 860S, Core i5 760, Core i5 750S, Core i5 655K, Celeron 450 and Celeron 430 production will be terminated. During the same timeframe, Core i5 661, Core i5 660, Core i3 530, Pentium E5700 and Celeron E3500 production will all be suspended, and production will be terminated in Q2 2012.
Between April and June (Q2 2012), Core i7 960, Core i7 950, Core i7 930, Core i7 870 and Pentium G960 production will all be suspended and terminated. During the same timeframe, Core i7 880S, Core i7 870S, Core Duo E7500, Core Duo E7600, Pentium E6600, Pentium E550 and Celeron E3300 production will be terminated.
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