Jon Peddie Research reports 2010's WW PC graphics devices shipments show only a 4.3% Y-o-Y growth-- a result it describes as disappointing. 2010 started strong start with analysts (including Gartner and IDC) predicting the year ending with 13-15% growth.

As device shipments declined, pc graphics chip shipments fell 7.8% in Q4. To make results worse, market leader Intel shows decline (instead of the traditional seasonal pickup) with 52.5% market share for Q4, a decline of -7.3% (compared to Q3 2 Continue reading...

Gartner reports EMEA Q4 2010 PC shipments total 32m units-- a 6.2% increase over Q4 2009.

Meanwhile  W.W. Q4 2010 PC shipments total 93.5m-- a 3.1% increase over Q4 2009. This figure is below Gartner's earlier prediction of 4.8% for the same period

W. Europe's consumer market remains weak as consumers' preferences shift towards other CE devices. The professional market is picking up, even if PC pricing (due to increased Euro/Dollar exchange rates) remains an issue.

The professional sector sees Continue reading...

The VIA eH1 is a PCI-E add-in board bringing the latest graphic technology and HD video to embedded applications using more than 1 display.

The board carries the latest graphics standards-- DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.1-- in its OpenCL ES compatible 64-bit architecture.

A S3 Chrome 5400E graphics processor powers the board.

It supports resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 and can also decode and multi-stream HD video and stereoscopic 3D.

Outputs come from dual-link DVI and HDMI (with HDCP).

Go VIA Continue reading...

Light Peak promises to move data at 10Gb/s-- fast enough to transfer a full blu-ray movie in less than 30 seconds.

However, no existing data transfer technologies support those speeds yet. The technology adapts optical cable technology (used in data centers and telecom communications) for the mainstream computing and CE markets.

Intel, Sony and Apple back the technology, and Intel expects it to be in PCs and peripherals by 2011. Rumours currently go on Apple adopting Light Peak by 2011's first Continue reading...

Zotac claims its GeForce GTX 580 is the fastest DirectX 11 video card on the market. NVidia's Fermi architecture powers the card.

The GTX 580 consits of a new graphics processor with 512 unified shaders. A 384-bit memory interface connects a 1536MB frame buffer.

It is also NVidia 3D Vision ready and HDMI 1.4a compliant to connect to 3DTV displays for hardware accelerated 3D Blu-ray playback, x.v. colour, deepcolour and 8-channel digital surround sound (when paired with compatible software).

The Continue reading...

Gartner reports Q3 2010 PC shipments total 27.3 million. This is an increase of 7.3% over Q3 2009.

This single-digit growth shows consumers and business are delaying PC purchases as choice broadens. Ranjit Atwal, Gartner research director says consumers are also waiting attractive seasonal offerings in Q4.

Tablet media hype makes consumers consider tablets as a complementary purchase, if not a replacement.

PC market cannibalization due to tablets is minimal, but PC purchase delays increase Continue reading...

HP joins forces with Hynix Semiconductors to bring memristor to market. HP is just 3 years away from bringing the memristor to market as a new product called ReRAM.

ReRaMs' first application will be as an alternative to flash memory, since memristors consume less power and potentially more reliable.

The memristor, or 'memory resistor' is a new circuit element. Memristors require less energy, are faster than present storage technologies and retain information even when the power is off. Continue reading...

Digital computer chips think in 2 ways - yes or no. Lyric Semiconductor's "probability processor" adds "quite often" and "very rarely" - meaning it potentially does a much better job than Intel or AMD's products.

Lyric claims its LEC specialised flash memory processor offers 30X reduction in size and a 12X improvement in power consumption. It is based on 10 years' worth of research by MIT and Lyric.

Today's world requires more predictions based on behaviour changes, from traffic route Continue reading...