fusion

Intel considered buying graphics heavyweights Nvidia, ATI

As rival AMD was preparing to snap up graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies, Intel was considering topping AMD's offer or going after Nvidia, according to one of the company's top executives.

In an interview with The Inquirer, Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group, said Intel looked "pretty closely" at making a play for Nvidia or ATI, the two largest graphics chip companies in the world. Obviously, that never happened, as AMD closed its acquisition of ATI last year and Nvidia continues on as a standalone company.

Intel had some … Read more

Yuraku's portable wireless Net radio

In journalism as in technology, one learns early to K.I.S.S. ass. That is, you Keep It Short and Simple, or end up feeling like an ass. So what's with the convoluted naming convention from some tech vendors? Take, for example, the "Yur.Beat Fusion Stream" from Singapore-based Yuraku. Who needs a lobotomy after that?

Names aside, Yuraku claims this is the world's first portable wireless Internet radio with full multmedia features. And there lies the catch. Want Internet radio? Well, you need a wireless hot spot to connect to. Although once online, you … Read more

More money for fusion energy

Canada's General Fusion has received $1.2 million in venture funding to conduct further research on its fusion reactors, according to VentureWire.

The company's ultimate plan is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The plants would cost around $50 million. That could allow the company to generate electricity at about 4 cents per kilowatt hour, relatively low. (By contrast, roughly $250 million was spent on a 64-megawatt solar thermal plant in Las Vegas recently.)

General Fusion has adopted the Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) model. In this scenario, an electric current is … Read more

AMD fusing chip plans for 2009

PALO ALTO, Calif.--AMD's pretty sure we all want better graphics on our PCs, and knowing us, they're pretty sure we don't want to cough up a lot of money to get it.

Phil Hester, AMD's chief technology officer, stopped by the Hot Chips conference here at Stanford University on Tuesday to talk a little more about Fusion, AMD's plan to integrate a graphics processor and PC processor onto the same chip. By the time the chip is ready around 2009, Hester thinks the growing explosion of video and 3D graphics on PCs these days … Read more

Live from Hot Chips 19: Keynote 2, AMD

This is the eighth in a series of posts from the Hot Chips conference at Stanford. The previous installments looked at wireless networking, technology and software, process technology, multicore designs, IBM's Power 6 efforts, Vernor Vinge's keynote address, and Nvidia. Other CNET coverage may be found here. This is sort of an experiment for me; I usually prefer to have time to review my work before I publish it. If you see anything wrong, please leave a comment!

The second keynote here comes from Phil Hester, the chief technical officer at AMD. It's titled "Multicore and Beyond: Evolving the x86 Architecture."

He began by describing the… Read more

Virtualization--threat or menace?

VMware is in the news these days for two related reasons.

First, VMware Fusion for Mac OS X recently went on sale. Fusion enables Mac users to run Windows and other operating systems simultaneously with their regular Mac applications, which pretty much solves the old problem of… Read more

Inside CNET Labs: Yet another way to get Windows on your Mac

VMware announced today that its virtualization software for the Mac, VMware Fusion--which has been in beta since December 2006--will start shipping as of Monday, August 6. Fusion joins SWsoft's Parallels Desktop for Mac as available options to run additional, concurrent operating systems on Intel-based Macs as virtual machines.

VMware claims that Fusion supports more than 60 operating systems--both 32- and 64-bit--with dual-core processor support. While some users will benefit from being able to run Novell Netware or Linux as virtual machines on their Intel Macs, the largest user-base will mostly consist of those looking to run Windows Vista … Read more

AMD's Fusion construction project takes shape

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--AMD's Fusion chip will come in two varieties, one for PCs and servers and another for consumer electronics devices.

Bulldozer is the code name for the Fusion chip that will be designed for everything from servers to handhelds, said Phil Hester, AMD's chief technology officer. Bobcat is the name for a sub 10-watt x86 chip that AMD believes can power ultramobile PCs, cell phones and existing consumer electronics chips using the ARM or MIPS architectures.

You call in a bulldozer when you need a lot of earth moved in a short amount of time, Hester said. … Read more

LeapFrog's FLY Fusion is pretty fly

LeapFrog's original FLY pentop computer garnered some attention when it was announced in late 2005, but truth be told, we kind of forgot about it after it came out. Well, the company has a new FLY--the FLY Fusion ($80)--and, as you might expect from a second-generation product, it's sleeker and has more features.

While the product isn't due to ship until early August, it can already be pre-ordered at Amazon. Here are the highlights, according to the site:

With the FLY Fusion Pentop Computer, everything you write on FLY Paper is automatically scanned and digitized. With … Read more