Intel's New Atom Chips Peak on Performance, Power Consumption
Intel's upcoming Atom chips with new CPU architecture will be up to three times faster and five times more power efficient than their predecessors and break the "myth" that ARM processors are more power efficient, Intel said.
Intel's upcoming Atom chips with new CPU architecture
will be up to three times faster and five times more power efficient
than their predecessors and break the "myth" that ARM processors are
more power efficient, Intel said.
Intel expects the new architecture, code-named Silvermont, to be in
smartphones, tablets, PCs and servers starting this year. Atom chips
code-named Bay Trail will appear in tablets this holiday season. They
will support the Android and Microsoft operating systems.
Tablet chips based on Silvermont are two times faster on
single-threaded performance than comparable chips based on the current
Atom architecture code-named Saltwell, said Belli Kuttanna, an Intel
fellow during a briefing Monday that was webcast. Using the same metric,
Kuttanna said that Silvermont tablet chips use 4.7 times less power
than their predecessors.
Bay Trail chips will also appear in hybrid laptops with detachable
and folding screens, and in low-cost desktops priced from US$200 to
$599. Users can choose between long battery or performance in
Silvermount smartphones or tablets, Kuttanna said.
"Silvermont is a complete redefinition of the Atom architecture," Kuttanna said.
Silvermont CPUs can scale up to eight cores and represent the first
major redesign of the Atom architecture since the first netbook chip
release in 2008. Atom chips with Silvermont will also include new
performance and power management features.
Silvermont comes at a time when the chip maker is trying to find its
footing in the smartphone and tablet markets. Intel hopes that Bay Trail
will attract a new set of PC buyers and give it a legitimate shot to
compete against ARM, which rules the smartphone and tablet markets.
Previous Atom chips were panned for poor performance compared to ARM,
whose reputation lies with maximizing power efficiency on chips. Intel
has maintained that it has already caught up with ARM on power
efficiency with the recent Atom chips code-named Medfield, which are
used in smartphones.
But during the webcast, Intel Chief Product Officer Dadi Perlmutter
said that Atom chips based on Silvermont will offer better
performance-per-watt and break the "myth" that ARM processors are more
power efficient.
"We see that this kind of solution will be even better," said
Perlmutter, who is also the executive vice president and general manager
of the Intel Architecture Group.
Silvermont CPUs incorporate a number of improvements. Out-of-order
execution enables more efficient processing of instructions via clock
cycles and chips will have more internal bandwidth, with a faster fabric
that connects the CPU to other processors such as GPUs. In addition,
Silvermont is able to move data faster from the shared cache into DRAM,
which enables quicker task execution.
Silvermont also includes the latest virtualization and security
technologies, some of which has been borrowed from previous Intel chip
architectures for servers and PCs.
The cores are also flexible on performance and power consumption. CPU
cores can be clocked up or shut down if idle. Intel said the
flexibility provided by its cores is a better option than ARM's
Big.Little, which incorporates different types of CPU cores to meet
power and performance needs. Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa eight-core
processor incorporates a Big.Little design with four high-power cores
for demanding tasks and four low-power cores for tasks MP3 playback and
voice calls.
With Intel's chip, no switching would be needed between low-power and
high-power cores to meet different performance needs, Kuttanna said. A
single Silvermont core can cover different ranges of power and
performance, with no algorithms required to switch between cores.
"We can go up and down the range and cover the entire performance range," Kuttanna said. "You don't pay the complexity price."
The new architecture is also able to share power between CPUs,
graphics processors and other cores in a chip. Algorithms can also
monitor power delivery, thermal and electrical features, and bring power
consumption down based on the device type. Tablets and smartphones will
also be able to resume from idle mode a lot quicker with new Silvermont
features.
Atom chips based on Silvermont will be made using the 22-nanometer
process, in which a 3D transistor allows more transistors in a smaller
space. The chip will be smaller and more power efficient than the
current Atom chips code-named Clover Trail, which are based on the 32-nm
process.
Intel is advancing to the 14-nm process later this year, but the
company hasn't said when new smartphone and tablet chips based on the
process will be released. Intel Atom's chips made using 14-nm
manufacturing technology are called "Airmont."
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @abintjose. Agam's e-mail address is abintjosen@gmail.com
VMware Virtualizing Hadoop Via Project Serengeti
By Abin, 13-Jun-2012
VMware announces open source Project Serengeti to extend Hadoop compatibility to vSphere private clouds.
VMware on Wednesday announced Project Serengeti, open source code that optimizes Hadoop for use in VMware virtualized environments.
Bringing cloud-like benefits to the leading big data analytics tool will make it faster and easier to deploy and manage a variety of Hadoop distributions on VMware machines, company officials say.
"VMware has been working on cloud computing and virtualization for quite some time, and big data is one of the hottest trends in IT. Now, we're bringing those worlds together," says Fausto Ibarra, senior director of product management for VMware. "With these announcements, Hadoop can become a first-class client in IT infrastructures."
Hadoop, which is an open source software framework for managing massive amounts of unstructured data, is used by some of the top IT shops in the world, such as Yahoo and Facebook, but is still in its early stages of adoption across most mid- to large-size enterprises. Experts say VMware's announcement today, along with other Hadoop-related news this week, further legitimizes the Hadoop market and could spur more companies to begin exploring the potential value of big data analytics.
With Project Serengeti, VMware has optimized Hadoop to run on virtualized infrastructure, compared to physical servers which do not run a hypervisor. While Hadoop clusters are currently running on virtualized machines in some instances now, VMware says supporting Hadoop clusters on its series of market-leading virtualization products will open Hadoop up to be more easily deployed in enterprise settings. Using virtualized servers allows additional virtual machines to be deployed quickly and scale elastically while ensuring high availability and optimal hardware utilization, the company says.
Hadoop support is initially programmed to run on VMware vSphere virtualization products and it is compatible with Hadoop distributions such as those from Cloudera, MapR, IBM and Greenplum. Ibarra says there will be continued advancement of Project Serengeti to extend support to new Hadoop distributions and feature sets.
Making Project Serengeti available free through Apache also continues a trend by VMware to embrace open standards. Its platform-as-as-service (PaaS) offering, Cloud Foundry, for example, is also open source. Ibarra says VMware wants Project Serengeti to be widely adopted within the Hadoop community and compatible with all the various Hadoop distributions, so open source was the way to go.
Project Serengeti is an important move to make Hadoop enterprise-friendly, says Tony Baer, an analyst at Ovum. "This will help Hadoop become more mainstream," he says. There are a variety of use cases where Hadoop could benefit from running in a virtualized environment, such as if an enterprise wants to experiment with a new feature on a dataset, but not expose the entire cluster.
Ibarra says VMware officials have seen three major use cases for Hadoop among customers: One is in companies that are testing the platform and have less than 20 nodes or so. These customers, he says, are ideal for virtualized distributions of Hadoop because it will not require large new capital expenses if Hadoop can run on legacy vShphere private clouds.
A second customer set has an expanded use of Hadoop, up to 100 nodes or so, Ibarra says, and may be looking to take advantage of the dynamic elasticity Project Serengeti allows Haddop to leverage. A third use case is for the early Hadoop adopters, who are running hundreds of nodes and are looking for advanced uses. Almost any business today, he says, will find some use for Hadoop given the vast amounts of unstructured data produced through web traffic that can be analyzed.
Carl Brooks, a cloud analyst at the 451 Research Group, says VMware is not the first to run Hadoop on virtualized machines, so the more significant news is that more vendors are recognizing Hadoop's importance and potential, and are offering services around it. HortonWorks, for example, announced on Tuesday a Hadoop distribution compatible with VMware vSphere.
Hadoop is still early on its enterprise adoption phase though, says Ovum's Baer. A lack of skilled workers to manage Hadoop clusters and interpret the data Hadoop creates is another challenge for curious enterprises, he says.
iOS 6 Features you Might Have Missed
A new Share screen
New Siri functionality
Reminders improvements
Apple introduced the Reminders app in iOS 5, and it looks to score some helpful updates in iOS 6. Apple says that you’ll be able to set location-based reminders from the iPad. Even better, you’ll be able to tap in addresses where you’d like to be reminded manually, a feature currently missing from Reminders; at present, you can only set reminders for locations linked to addresses for your existing contacts.
Also new in Reminders will be the ability to reorder your tasks as desired. And Apple told developers that iOS 6 includes a new Reminders API, which should make it possible for third-party apps to integrate with the Reminders database. That means that you could use Siri to set Reminders which would in turn be visible in your third-party task management app of choice.
Call rejection
Sometimes, you can’t take a call when your iPhone starts ringing. You can already quickly send a call to voicemail by tapping the Ignore button, but iOS 6 adds more powerful options for when you’re too busy to answer. When your phone rings, you’ll see a button on the screen akin to the new camera shortcut on the lock screen in iOS 5.1—a switch that you slide up to trigger.
When you do so, you’ll see options to send the caller a message, or to remind yourself to call the person back later. If you choose to send a message, iOS offers several default options; you can also save custom responses. Your iPhone will then attempt to iMessage or SMS the caller with your note, while also sending them straight to your voicemail.
Other features
Near the end of the iOS portion of the keynote, Apple showed a slide listing a host of other features included in the iOS 6 update. Among those were Game Center challenges, the ability to connect Game Center friends from Facebook, VoiceOver improvements, personal dictionary in iCloud (for adding your own terms to the dictionary, which can sync between devices), and per-account signatures in Mail. Also on the list was improved privacy, which—as a new option in Settings—will let you control which apps can access which bits of personal data, like your Contacts, Calendar, or Photos. Other features on the list included autocorrection for every keyboard, Bluetooth MAP support (which is commonly used to help cars better offer hands-free communication with Bluetooth devices), kernel ASLR (which aims to make data even more impervious to snooping from malicious attackers), custom vibrations for alerts, redesigned stores (for the App and iTunes stores), IPv6 support for Wi-Fi and LTE, word highlights for speak selection, improved keyboard layouts, alarms with songs, and faster JavaScript in Safari. Apple also says iOS 6 includes a global HTTP proxy option, which would supplant the current approach, limited as it is to per-connection proxy settings.
Other features for developers include audio and video sampling during playback, Pass Kit (for interacting with Passbook), VoiceOver gestures, the ability to control camera focus and exposure, a Web Audio API, Game Center in-app experience, game groups, video stabilization, frame drop data, pull-to-refresh on Table views, a means of supporting in-app purchases of iTunes Store-hosted content, in-app Bluetooth pairing, remote Web Inspector, rich text on label fields and text views, CSS filters, crossfade with CSS animations, and a face detection API.
Call Free- Next Generation Toll Free
CallFree is a new generation communication website gateway, where a new or an existing customer can contact a company for free of cost. The researches show that there is 85% of increase in sales leads generation after implementing "CallFree" service in a company or product website. The biggest advantage of "CallFree" service is that people from anywhere in the world can communicate with a business by just clicking on a "CallFree" button on a website and the service will be available on a 24x7 basis without any interruption. For business the biggest advantage is that, their customers are happy to talk with the company representatives with their question in mind, because they are not losing a single penny to get the information. The expert business people who are well versed in marketing can convert those conversations into business leads by using the "CallFree" service.
SMS 2 Call
SMS 2 Call Me is a a new generation communication system where Customer / web visitor sends an call me call request via SMS to a short code or long code number to receive a call back. SMS 2Call help Customers/Business prospects/web visitors can get connected to the company agent instantly by sending an SMS. This can be used in advertisements /Notices in any media(web, brochure, newspaper etc).Our Server receives the SMS .Server generates a call to sender of an SMS and another call to Company agent and both calls are bridged and now both the parties can make the conversation.
Google buys social startup Meebo
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Google is buying the social startup Meebo, the company announced Monday, in a move to boost its Google+ networking service.
Meebo, which was founded in 2005, started as a Web-based instant-messaging company. That "Messenger" service is still available, but Meebo has since expanded to offer social and advertising products.
Meebo announced its acquisition in a blog post Monday. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The tech blog All Things Digital posted a report in May that said Google was considering a $100 million price tag at that time.
Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) declined to comment on the financials, though it did release a short statement strongly hinting that Meebo employees will be integrated with its own Google+ social networking team. Google did not reply to a request for comment on how many Meebo employees will join its ranks.
"We are always looking for better ways to help users share content and connect with others across the Web," a Google spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement. "With the Meebo team's expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google+ team."
Flagship features added to Siri include the voice-driven personal assistant’s arrival on the third-generation iPad. Siri also gains the ability to answer questions about sports and movies in iOS 6, and it will be integrated with turn-by-turn directions in Maps. But the virtual assistant gains several other new features as well that might have escaped your attention.
In iOS 6, you’ll be able to compose new tweets and Facebook status updates with Siri—and both capabilities appear to be implemented smartly: If you link your friends’ Twitter usernames to their Contacts entries, Siri automatically translates their real names as you dictate. That is, if I say, “Tweet ‘Excellent dinner last night with Jason Snell, Dan Moren, and Serenity Caldwell,’” Siri will automatically compose a tweet like “Excellent dinner last night with @jsnell, @dmoren, and @settern.”
On the new iPad, Siri can answer questions about weather and stocks, even though Apple hasn’t (yet) ported its Weather and Stocks apps to the iPad. Apple did show a glimpse of a new default Clock app for the iPad, so we won’t be shocked if Stocks and Weather finally make the leap to the big screen before iOS 6’s official release, too.
Spotlight tweak
If you have lots of apps, sometimes it’s hard to figure out precisely which homescreen they’re located on. In iOS 6, Spotlight makes that at least a smidgen easier, by listing the name of the folder a particular app is nestled inside when it appears in the search results.
In iOS 5, when you tap to share a photo, you get a long list of sharing actions to choose from—whether it’s posting to Twitter, sending an email or iMessage, or some other option. iOS 6 adds Facebook sharing as an option, along with sharing to various Chinese social networks. (That’s a nod to how important the Chinese market has become to Apple.) But Apple decided against cramming more buttons into that panel.
Instead, iOS 6 presents you with a new, icon-based sharing screen. It uses icons to represent the apps and services that you can share your content with and looks quite a bit like the iPhone’s home screen.
Apple says iOS 6 contains more than 200 new features and enhancements, so here's a closer look at less-publicized new iOS features coming this fall.
On Monday, Apple offered the first glimpse of iOS 6 during the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. Though the updated mobile operating system won’t arrive until sometime this fall, it’s never too early to start drooling over the new features. We already covered the flagship features of iOS 6—like seriously updated Siri, majorly overhauled Maps, and systemwide Facebook integration—so here’s a look at some cool features coming in iOS 6 that you may have missed.
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