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IBM Scientist Unveil Terabit Optical Chip
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IBM has designed a prototype optical chipset that transfers one terabit of data per second (1Tbit/s).
IBM scientists revealed today that the chipset, dubbed “Holey Optochip”, is the first parallel optical transceiver to transfer one trillion bits of information – or 500 HD movies – per second.
Speaking at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference taking place in Los Angeles today, the scientists reported that the chipset is eight times faster than other parallel optical components available today.
They estimate that the raw speed of one transceiver is equivalent to the bandwidth consumed by 100,000 users at today’s typical 10Mb/s broadband internet access speed. This means it would take just around an hour to transfer the entire US Library of Congress web archive through the transceiver.
According to the boffins, optical networking offers the potential to significantly improve data transfer rates by speeding the flow of data using light pulses instead of sending electrons over wires.
A single 90nm IBM CMOS transceiver IC with 24 receiver and 24 transmitter circuits becomes a Holey Optochip with the fabrication of 48 through-silicon holes, or “optical vias” – one for each transmitter and receiver channel. Simple post-processing on completed CMOS wafers with all devices and standard wiring levels results in an entire wafer populated with Holey Optochips.
The transceiver chip measures only 5.2×5.8mm. Twenty-four channel, industry-standard 850nm VCSEL (vertical cavity surface emitting laser) and photodiode arrays are directly flip-chip soldered to the Optochip. This direct packaging produces high-performance, chip-scale optical engines. The Holey Optochips are designed for direct coupling to a standard 48 channel multimode fibre array through a microlens optical system that can be assembled with conventional high-volume packaging tools.
Hitachi Bringing New Xeon Servers To Market
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Hitachi Data Systems announced that it will expand its family of blade and rack server products for the enterprise market. The forthcoming Hitachi Compute Systems will be based on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 family.
Roberto Basilio, vice president, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems said that by leveraging the new Intel Xeon processor E5 family, upcoming Hitachi Compute Systems will feature faster performance, higher density and greater energy efficiency. The servers are being designed for converged data centres. They come pre-configured and optimised for leading applications such as Microsoft Exchange 2010, SAP HANA and solutions with VMware.
He said that the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family provides exceptional energy efficiency, increased security, flexible performance and the opportunity for streamlining customer’s data centres. The current range of Hitachi Compute Systems consists of two blade server product lines, Hitachi Compute Blade 2000 and Hitachi Compute Blade 320, both of which are intended for high performance, high availability applications. The portfolio also includes a family of rack-optimised servers, Hitachi Compute Rack, that are the foundation for dedicated, packaged solutions such as the company’s award-winning object store, Hitachi Content Platform (HCP).
Google Had Developed Own Currency
March 5, 2012 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Google once contemplated the idea of issuing its own currency, to be called Google Bucks, company Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said on stage at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,Spain on Tuesday.
At the end of his keynote speech, Schmidt hit on a wide array of topics in response to audience questions. “We’ve had various proposals to have our own currency we were going to call Google Bucks,” Schmidt said.
The idea was to implement a “peer-to-peer money” system. However, Google discovered that the concept is illegal in most areas, he said. Governments are typically wary of the potential for money laundering with such proposals.
“Ultimately we decided we didn’t want to get into that because of these issues,” Schmidt said.
He also hinted that Google might be preparing for a battle in China once its acquisition of Motorola is complete.
“Google’s been willing to take on China pretty well,” he said in response to a question about whether Google expected to continue to ignore theft of Motorola intellectual property in China, as Motorola has been doing. The acquisition hasn’t closed yet, Schmidt noted. “We’ve taken a pretty strong position on IP. We are well aware of the issues and we are considering your question,” he said.
Google is still waiting for some government approvals of its proposed acquisition of Motorola.
New Chip To Cut Cost Of LTE Smartphones
February 22, 2012 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Chip manufacturer Renesas Mobile has unveiled the MP5232, a processor that will allow vendors to build LTE (Long Term Evolution)smartphones with a price tag between $150 and $300, the company said Wednesday.
The big advantage of the 1.5GHz dual-core processor is that it is a single-chip product that can do both 3G and LTE, eliminating the need to use separate chipsets for the two technologies. A more integrated device results in a cheaper product that takes up less space and uses less power, according to Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media.
The cost is important, because for LTE to take off, there is a need for smartphones that cost less than current products, according to Renesas.
In addition to smartphones, the MP5232 can also be used to power tablets, said Renesas.
One of the challenges of developing chipsets for LTE is the plethora of frequencies used. Renesas hasn’t specified which bands the MP5232 can handle, but says it is designed to support all major operators and their respective requirements.
Experts Think iPad 3 Coming in March
February 18, 2012 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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Apple will debut a new iPad some time in early March, and will start selling it the following week, according to reports and industry analyst expectations.
The March debut of the iPad 3, as some have called it, was first reported today by AllThingsD, the blog owned by Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed sources, the blog said Apple will host a launch event the first week of March, likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, a regular venue for the company’s press announcements.
Last year, then-CEO Steve Jobs returned from medical leave to lead the launch event of the iPad 2 on March 2. Apple started selling the new tablet on March 11, 2011 via its online store.
If Apple follows the same timeline, it will probably conduct the event the week of March 5-9, and begin selling the new model the following week.
It’s possible that Apple will trot out a new iPad on one of the first two days of March — Thursday, March 1 or Friday, March 2 — but Apple usually hosts events earlier in the week.
Next month’s iPad introduction, if it does take place, will be the first without Jobs, who died last October at the age of 56 of complications from his long-running battle with pancreatic cancer.
iPhone Adds To Sprint’s Losses
February 14, 2012 by admin
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Sprint Nextel posted a bigger loss, reflecting the higher costs of offering Apple Inc’s iPhone. But the loss was smaller than expected because its signed up fewer new customers than expected.
Since Sprint subsidizes the cost of some of its phone sales, its costs rise and profit dwindles the more customers it wins. But since subscriptions fell short of expectations, its loss was smaller than expected.
Sprint’s loss was 35 cents per share excluding unusual items compared with Wall Street expectations for a loss of 37 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.
Its profit margin based on operating earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) fell to 9.5 percent from 16 percent a year earlier but beat expectations for 8.6 percent, according to eight analyst estimates Reuters compiled.
“It’s still unbelievably depressed and subscribers were below expectations,” said Roe Equity Research analyst Kevin Roe who also noted that Sprint’s targets for the full year were not particularly impressive.
The margin decline was hurt by the hefty cost of selling the iPhone.
Hacked Companies Still Not Alerting Investors
February 9, 2012 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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At least a half-dozen major U.S. companies whose computer networks have been breached by cyber criminals or international spies have not admitted to the incidents despite new guidance from securities regulators urging such disclosures.
Top U.S. cybersecurity officials believe corporate hacking is widespread, and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a lengthy “guidance” document on October 13 outlining how and when publicly traded companies should report hacking incidents and cybersecurity risk.
But with one full quarter having elapsed since the SEC request, some major companies that are known to have had significant digital security breaches have said nothing about the incidents in their regulatory filings.
Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp, for example, said last May that it had fended off a “significant and tenacious” cyber attack on its networks. But Lockheed’s most recent 10-Q quarterly filing, like its filing for the period that included the attack, does not even list hacking as a generic risk, let alone state that it has been targeted.
A Reuters review of more than 2,000 filings since the SEC guidance found some companies, including Internet infrastructure company VeriSign Inc and credit card and debit card transaction processor VeriFone Systems Inc, revealed significant new information about hacking incidents.
Yet the vast majority of companies addressing the issue only used new boilerplate language to describe a general risk. Some hacking victims did not even do that.
FCC Changes Phone Policy
February 7, 2012 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved an overhaul to its Lifeline program, which subsidizes telephone service for economically disadvantaged people. The goals are to save money and allow the subsidy to be applied toward broadband service.
The FCC on Tuesday voted to make several changes to the program, including the launch of a $25 million pilot program to use Lifeline for broadband. The pilot program will solicit proposals from broadband providers starting this year, the FCC said. Under the changes approved by the commission, recipients of Lifeline subsidies could use the money for bundled services, including voice and broadband packages.
In addition, the FCC set a 2012 savings target of $200 million for the program, which costs about $2.1 billion a year, and the commission will create a national Lifeline database to prevent multiple telecom carriers from receiving program support for the same consumer. Critics of the program have complained that there’s significant abuse, with recipients getting subsidies for multiple phone and mobile lines.
The FCC will also create an eligible database, using government data, focused on verifying recipients’ initial and ongoing eligibility for the program. The database should reduce the potential for fraud and cut red tape for both recipients and carriers, the FCC said.
Commissioners set a goal of saving up to $2 billion over the next three years, but Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican, said he doubted the FCC can achieve that goal. McDowell questioned the “assumptions and models” FCC staff used to predict the savings.
Nevertheless, McDowell voted to approve the changes. The changes will help Lifeline better fulfill its purpose of helping low-income U.S. residents stay connected, he said.
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Intel Buys RealNetworks Patents
February 4, 2012 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Intel on Thursday said it had agreed to acquire RealNetworks streaming media patents and video codecs in a move aimed at improving the multimedia experience delivered through devices based on its chips.
The chip maker has agreed to purchase video codec software and about 190 patents and 170 patent applications worldwide, for $120 million. RealNetworks is best known for its RealPlayer multimedia software, which offers multimedia streaming based on its own codec.
The purchase will help Intel offer “richer experiences” across a wide spectrum of devices, including through laptops and smartphones, the company said in a statement. A company spokeswoman declined further comment on specific plans for patents and software.
Intel has been beefing up its on-chip multimedia capabilities to handle more realistic graphics as the company develops newer generations of chips. The new laptop chips code-named Ivy Bridge due later this year for ultrabooks will be the first to have integrated support for Microsoft’s DirectX 11. Smartphones and tablets based on Intel’s Atom chip code-named Medfield will be released later this year.
Motorola Goes After Apple
February 1, 2012 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics, Smartphones
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Motorola has filed a new lawsuit in Florida charging Apple with six patent infringements in the iPhone 4S and four of those patents in iCloud.
The suit names the same six patents that Motorola cited in its complaint against Apple filed in 2010 in the same court. Motorola tried to add the iPhone 4S and iCloud to the list of Apple products in the original suit but the judge ruled that it was too late to do so.
The new suit is notable amid the lengthy battle between Motorola and Apple because it must have been sanctioned by Google, noted Florian Mueller, who has been closely following mobile patent lawsuits, in a blog post. Mueller is a patent expert who is sometimes paid by companies including Microsoft for his work.
The merger agreement between Google and Motorola stipulates that Motorola not assert any new intellectual property actions without an agreement in writing by Google. That means Google must have expressly authorized Motorola to pursue this new case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Many experts believe that Google may have agreed to purchase Motorola for the cellphone maker’s extensive intellectual property portfolio, since Android has come under attack in the courts by companies including Microsoft and Apple.