fusion

Forget about the CPU (Central Processing Unit). Chipmaker AMD would like you to think instead about what it calls the APU, its Accelerated Processing Unit. The combo product uses a single die to contain, according to AMD, "a multicore CPU, a powerful DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics and parallel processing engine, a dedicated high-definition video acceleration block, and a high-speed bus that speeds data across the differing types of processor cores within the design."

That means AMD hopes a Fusion APU in a laptop will take the place of the traditional dedicated CPU/dedicated GPU combo, as well as improve on laptops with a CPU and mediocre integrated graphics. Interestingly, Intel is aiming at some of the same goals by vastly improving the integrated graphics in its new Sandy Bridge line of processors.

Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of the AMD Products Group, says, "In one major step, we enable users to experience HD everywhere as well as personal supercomputing capabilities in notebooks that can deliver all-day battery life. It's a new category, a new approach, and opens up exciting new experiences for consumers."

AMD calls the combined processor/graphics platform Fusion, and says it will support 1080p video playback, DirectX graphics, and 3D video and game content. … Read more

Just about a year ago, Lenovo introduced the ThinkPad Edge series, an updated, low-cost redesign of the ThinkPad targeted at small businesses. The 2011 updates to the ThinkPad Edge series, announced today, bring new second-generation Intel Core i processors as well as a bolder, sleeker design in the 12- and 14-inch Edge E220s and E420s.

The ThinkPad Edge E220s, perhaps the most attractive of the bunch, has an unusually sized 12.5-inch screen but dimensions and weight that more closely match an 11.6-incher. The E220s is less than an inch thick and weighs under 3.5 pounds but lacks … Read more

In items like camera memory cards, flash memory is a ho-hum commodity. But when it comes to building flash directly into a computer, the disruption is probably just beginning.

That's why I find Fusion-io an intriguing company.

Fusion-io builds flash memory onto PCI Express cards that plug into server expansion slots, letting customers move beyond hard drives' physical enclosures and SATA interface. That means data can be written and read faster overall, in part because SATA has worse overhead--in other words, bandwidth that must be used to run the communication protocol rather than for the actual data being read or written.

The Salt Lake City start-up isn't the only PCIe storage maker in the market--Texas Memory Solutions' RamSan-10 and the RamSan-20 and OCZ Technology's Z-Drive products are competitors. But Fusion-io has clout: in addition to sales partnerships with IBM, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, and more than 50 patent applications filed, it's got an investment from flash memory maker Samsung.

Flash crashes the party For all the change in the computer industry, it's actually pretty rare that a hardware difference comes along that actually is more than an evolutionary tweak to the existing setup.

Flash memory, which has displaced the hard drive in corners of the market such as iPods and high-end laptops and has the potential to do so elsewhere, is one of those changes. It combines the world of conventional computer memory--dynamic random access memory, or DRAM--with the world of hard drives.

DRAM needs a constant supply of electrical power to remember its data, but it can read and write data quickly; hard drives store data even when the power is switched off, and can store much larger amounts of data, but they're relatively slow. Intermediate between the two is flash memory, in terms of data transfer speeds and cost per gigabyte, and like a hard drive it can store data when the computer is switched off.

The first large-scale arrival of flash memory in computers took the form of solid-state drives, or SSDs. They packed flash memory into the type of enclosure that in the past housed a hard drive, and they communicated with the rest of the computer system with the standard hard drive interface, called SATA. Advatages of SSDs include faster data transfer, better ruggedness because of the absence of moving parts, and lower power consumption because the physical platters of hard drives don't need to be rotated all the time. … Read more

Earlier today an Asian tech blog, e27, moved forward the story of the Fusion Garage JooJoo tablet demise. It's now officially obsolete. So where are the old JooJoos going?

A Fusion Garage spokesperson told me that the reason the JooJoos are being removed from the market is that there is actually a buyer (perhaps more than one), for the whole lot of leftover tablets. They're going to be repurposed into vertical-market equipment "like medical devices," I was told.

At this point, we don't know how much of the JooJoo operating system will survive on these … Read more

Ford just launched a new Web site to educate people about electric vehicles in an interactive way.

The site is designed to inform visitors about the differences between hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and pure battery electric vehicles like the Ford Fusion Hybrid, the Ford Focus Electric, and other plug-in vehicles Ford has in the works.

Using videos and diagrams, the Web site demonstrates how gasoline, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles work and lets visitors make their own conclusions about which vehicle is right for them. The Web site also offers links to other sites, such as EcoBoost and MyFord Touch, … Read more

It may be carrying a heavy lawsuit on its shoulders, but Singapore company Fusion Garage is not ready to throw in the towel yet.

While its first stab at the slate market, the JooJoo tablet (pictured at right), did not go down well with the market, the company is getting ready to launch a second wave. But instead of Fusion Garage's custom interface, the new device will be based on the Google Android operating system.

Still, it will not exactly be an Android tablet, as the company intends to customize the operating system so much that the device may … Read more

Ford's booth at the SEMA Show is never a disappointment. Often it's filled to the brim with custom Mustangs, crazy F-Series pickups, more Mustangs, the occasional low-slung GT, and a few classic Mustangs. This year, however, it appears that Ford is giving center stage to the smallest of its lineup, the 2011 Ford Fiesta, bringing no fewer than eight examples of the little guy to the show in the desert. Other freshly updated models will also have their time in the aftermarket spotlight, including the Taurus SHO, the new Explorer, and the Edge, featuring upgrades running the gamut … Read more

Oracle on Monday took the wraps off its Fusion applications, a software suite designed to give all of those acquired PeopleSoft, Siebel, and J.D. Edwards customers an upgrade path.

Fusion has been talked about for years and now is finally hitting the market in a complete form. In a nutshell, Fusion is a parallel path that rides along with Oracle software. Oracle is hoping that customers will ultimately move to Fusion. Of course, Oracle will allow you to stay on existing apps too.

Add it up and it's an interesting sell job. Can Oracle dangle enough goodies to … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Among a hotel ballroom full of enterprise, cloud, and mobile apps, one product stood out at Demo Fall 2010: The gas pump at the E-Fuel stand.

An upgrade from the EFuel100 Microfueler we covered in 2008, which converted sugars and discarded alcohols into ethanol fuel, the new MicroFusion Reactor can process nearly any "cellulosic waste" into ethanol. Said waste is pretty much anything that'd otherwise go into a compost bin.

CEO Thomas Quinn explained the fuel pump part of the Reactor in the video in this post, as well as a companion product, an … Read more