texas

A University of Texas of supercomputer will tap a future Intel chip that contains more than 50 processor cores--the first instance of Intel supplying this novel technology to a commercial computer.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and University of Texas announced today that they will deploy a 10-Petaflop (or 10,000 trillion operations per second) supercomputer dubbed "Stampede."

When it arrives in early 2013, the supercomputer is expected to be among the world's most powerful computers for scientific and financial applications.

Inside will be an Intel chip design codenamed "Knights Corner," which will house … Read more

Intel will be as strong as ever despite the emergence of an alternative platform for Windows 8.

That's my forecast after bouncing between Northern and Southern California this week and attending two major tech conferences--the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco and the BUILD conference in Anaheim.

In the course of three days, I spoke with and listened to plenty of analysts, experts, and industry people. Though the tablet and laptop threat from the ARM camp of Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Nvidia is real, I believe Microsoft and ARM hardware companies have a pretty high mountain to climb.

Let'… Read more

Apple's iPad will likely have to contend this year with new Android tablets sporting the latest high-speed silicon coming off production lines in Asia.

Nvidia is on the record saying that tablets powered by its quad-core Kal-El chip are arriving this year. "Kal-El-powered tablets are coming this fall, and phones around the CES 2012 timeframe," Nvidia said in a statement to CNET on Friday.

It's safe to presume that Nvidia isn't just blowing smoke. Its processors today power all of the most popular Android Honeycomb tablets, including the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, … Read more

Welcome to Smartphones Unlocked, my new monthly column designed to explain the ins and outs of smartphones to help you better understand how they work. The world of smartphones is fast-paced and can sometimes be confusing and difficult to keep track of all the new technology in these devices, particularly if you're new to them, so if there are any topics you'd like to see covered here, please feel free to e-mail me at bonnie.cha@cnet.com.

There are a lot of things to consider when buying a smartphone--operating system, screen size, keyboard or no keyboard, camera--but … Read more

Here's something you can't get with an iPad: 250GB of internal storage. Archos' upcoming Android "Honeycomb" 3.2 tablet will pack a 250GB hard disk drive that's been tweaked to perform more like a flash drive.

The Archos G9 will sport a 250GB Seagate Momentus Thin 2.5-inch hard drive--a mere 7 millimeters thick. Though not as compact as a 1.8-inch HDD (like Apple once used in its MacBook Air and iPod), it's not as expensive either.

And Archos has tweaked the Seagate drive a bit to allow it to perform more like … Read more

Texas Instruments and Google are hooking up on Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Android that will run on both phones and tablets.

Though TI has been a player in Android phones (most notably the Motorola Droid series), it has been largely absent from Android tablets, which are populated with Nvidia's Tegra chips mostly. That is expected to change with Ice Cream Sandwich, however, which will finally fuse the phone and tablet versions of Android into one.

Ice Cream Sandwich will allow developers to create apps once. The operating system, due in the fourth quarter, will be smart … Read more

A federal jury in Eastern Texas, the same district where Lodsys has filed all of its patent suits, has ruled against Apple in a case accusing the iPod maker of infringing on patents for downloadable playlists.

Bloomberg first reported Friday on the verdict requiring Apple to award $8 million in damages to the patent holder, Personal Audio, a nonpracticing entity--meaning it licenses patents but doesn't actually have any other business. The jury found Apple liable for infringing on the patents and upheld their validity, Bloomberg reported, citing Personal Audio's lawyer, Ron Schutz.

Personal Audio, a patent licensing company … Read more

Microsoft may be thinking of hitting the market with its own Windows 8-branded tablet by the end of 2012, according to sources cited by Taiwan's DigiTimes.

If the rumor eventually holds true, the company would create the tablet by partnering with Texas Instruments and various Taiwanese equipment manufacturers to supply the hardware.

In response to CNET's request for comment on the matter, a Microsoft spokesperson said that "we have nothing more to share at this time."

The new tablet reportedly would borrow Microsoft's branding strategies from such products as the hugely successful Xbox 360, the … Read more

So, now there's even an app for planning your algae oil production.

The Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M has a free "Algae Production Conversion Calculator" to help with producing algae crops. The app is free via the iTunes app store. There is also a Web-based version that can be used on Android and other devices.

The app converts between grams per liter and grams per square meter. It also calculates the annual algae oil production possible for a given farm or site based on data that includes pond volume per acre feet, … Read more