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Based on information leaked from Chiphell, the new Ivy Bridge processors will have a maximum of 77 watts TDP (thermal design power), which is down from 95 watts for the current Sandy Bridge.

VR-Zone has provided what looks to be leaked roadmaps for the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors for 2012. The information is coming out of a Chinese forum (Chiphell), so the information can be taken as such, until official word from Intel. Based on the information provided, the new Ivy Bridge processors look to a have a peak TDP (thermal design power) of 77W for their extreme processors. The Ivy Bridge TDP looks to range from 77W down to 35W on their "power optimized" CPUs.   

The roadmap shows a complex diagram on Intel's plans for late Q1/early Q2 2012. The information on the left looks to be information on Intel's marketing segmentations for each processor. The map shows there will be the standard unlocked K SKU's, just like with current gen Sandy Bridge processors.  Intel's shrink to 22nm, alongside with its new "3D transistors", looks to be helping push down the TDP on the new Ivy Bridge processors. The quad core 65W S and 45W T SKU's are similar to what we are seeing on current Sandy Bridge CPUs. The new Pentium Ivy Bridge SKU's gain DDR3 1600MHz memory support, along with the rest of the Ivy Bridge chips.

There doesn't seem to be much of a format change for the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs and their name format. The higher-end CPUs will start with the i7 tag with unlocked versions followed by a "K" and lower power models followed by "S/I". Medium range CPUs will start with the i5 tag and the lower ranges will have the usual i3 tag. The CPUs will start with Core i7 37xx, Core i5 35xx, 34xx and 33xx, Core i3 31xx.  The Pentiums and Celerons are expected to get a fourth digit in front which will be a 2, so they will be Pentium G2xxx.

Intel looks to be taking a page from AMD on making the Ivy Bridge CPU scompatible with current gen Sandy Bridge platforms (though there are things to watch for). The easiest method is to go with the newer 7-series chipsets, which will support current gen Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs, according to Intel. If you are wanting to use your current motherboard, things get a little more difficult for the end-user. Bad news first, the Q67, Q65 and B65 chipsets will not support Ivy Bridge even with a motherboard firmware update. The Z68, P67, H67 and H61 chipsets look to all be compatible with a required UEFI update (this can be seen by recent announcements of motherboard makers coming out the PCIe Gen 3 support, which require the Ivy Bridge CPU). This will require a flash to Intel's ME8L (L for Legacy) UEFI code to provide support for Ivy Bridge on the motherboards (VR-Zone hints that the ME8L may not be available for updating at initial launch of Ivy Bridge).

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Asus’ ROG (Republic of Gamers) is set to release Rampage IV Extreme, its flagship motherboard for the upcoming release of Intel's LGA2011 (Sandy Bridge E) processors.

The Rampage IV Extreme has the standard red/black color scheme and comes packed with OC features and goodies.

The motherboard supports both the LGA-2011 and LGA 1366 CPU coolers by switching out the standard LGA-2011 bracket with a custom Asus bracket, which provides support for LGA-1366 coolers. As you look at the CPU socket, you’ll quickly notice the four DDR3 DIMM slots (two per channel) on either side of the socket for a total of eight DDR3 DIMM slots (DDR3-2400 OC). The CPU and memory VRM areas are located along three sides of the socket, all cooled by heatsinks that are connected by heat pipes. These VRM heatsinks share heat with the one over the X79 PCH, which is actively cooled by a fan.

The Rampage IV Extreme have four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (red) that operate at x16,x16 in SLI / CrossFireX mode and x8,x8,x8,x8 when in 4-way SLI or CrossFireX. There is one PCI-Express 2.0 x4 and one PCI-Express x1 to round out the expansion slots.

The I/O panel offers 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit LAN, Bluetooth V2.1+EDR, 4 USB 3.0 ports, 2 eSATA ports, PS/2, 8 USB 2.0 ports, S/PDIF out (optical), and 2 buttons to activate ROG Connect and reset CMOS.  

There are two SATA 6 Gb/s (red) and four SATA 3 Gb/s (black) powered by the Intel X79 chipset, and 2 more SATA 6Gbps ports (red) provided by an ASMedia controller. In addition, you can plug in the "Subzero Sense" (black block on the right) to get the readings from the motherboard's temperature diodes during extreme LN2 sessions.

As with all ROG motherboards, the Rampage IV Extreme is packed with goodies for overclockers.  A “GO" Button to trigger MEMOK! before POST or O/C Profiles after POST, a DIP switch to enable/disable PCIe slots, Power/Reset Buttons, a PORT 80 display, LN2 "slow boot" switch and LEDs next to each voltage measurement point for easy troubleshooting of OC failures. An OC Key device (bundled with the motherboard) connects to your graphics card, which allows an adjustment to overclock settings in real-time without using additional software or hardware.

The motherboard’s power is drawn by the standard 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS but ROG adds an additional 4-pin ATX (CPU power) and a 6-pin PCIe to help with electrical stability during overclocking. The ROG connect feature lets you monitor and overclock your board from Bluetooth-enabled smartphones. 

The Rampage IV Extreme is slated to come with a free copy of Battlefield 3 Special Edition, upon its release. Pricing hasn’t been released but users should expect the motherboard to be around the $300 range.

Raidmax will be releasing the new Seiran series mid-tower case in mid-November.

The Raidmax Seiran is set to offer "tool-less installation, simple cable management, plus great expandability" in white, red or black. The case measures 18.9 (L) X 7.3 (W) X 18.9 (H) inches, and has a front panel with a 2-channel fan controller, USB 3.0 (x 1), USB 2.0 (x 2), audio ports, and LED light adjuster. It supports nine 5.25-inch bays (tool-free mounting system) with removed meshed bay covers for the possibility of nine external drive bays. The case has a space that's convenient for gripping, making it easy to transport or move. 

Cooling is provided by two 120mm fans (one with LEDs in front and one without lighting at the back) and an optional side window fan (120mm or 180mm fan). There is support for water cooling through three back panel tube outlets. It has a bottom mounted PSU with a removal dust filter, for ease of cleaning.

SYSTEM BOARD:10” X 12” Max Size ATX Form Factor / Micro ATXI/O PORTS:2 X USB 2.0 / 2 x AUDIO / 1 x USB 3.0DIMENSIONS:18.9 (L) X 7.3 (W) X 18.9 (H) Inches
SIDE:1 x 120mm LED fan or 1 x 180mm LED fan (optional)BACK:Black: 1 x 120mm Black frame with Red leaves fan
White & Red :1 x 120mm Black fan

Seiran should be available at release for a price around $79.99. Lean more about the RAIDMAX::Seiran at its product page.  

Does your system have the latest drivers for Battlefield 3 yet?

The wait is finally over. Battlefield 3 is here and ready to accept your countless hours of first-person gaming. This is what your gaming rig was meant to do.

EA estimates that there were close to 3 million pre-sales, making Battlefield 3 the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history. 9.5 million gamers downloaded the September beta and collectively set new social online play records for EA with 42 billion shots fired and 1.6 billion kills registered, 21 million exploded M-Com stations and 19 million dog tags lost at the end of a knife.

Before you jump into the game any further, however, you should make sure that you have all the most current drivers for your game. Such is the joy of being a PC gamer.

Nvidia yesterday released a new driver set that's optimized for Battlefield 3, Rage and Arkham City. Battlefield 3 players will enjoy a performance boost of up to 11 percent GeForce 285.38 beta drivers.

AMD doesn't have an official new driver set yet, but those looking for best performance (along with Eyefinity 5x1 support) should get the latest Catalyst preview driver that's been tuned for Battlefield 3 and Rage.

Speaking of which, here's a bonus video of Battlefield 3 running in Eyefinity:

Battlefield 3 running on AMD Eyefinity

Happy gaming, everyone!

Intel sees pricing of ultrabooks as a major barrier for the adoption of this evolutionary notebook form factor.

An Intel executive recently called for an industry-wide effort to bring the prices of the devices down and indicated that it will not be up to the chipmaker to hit price points that resonate with consumers.

"More work needs to happen in the ecosystem. Even if we're giving the chips away for free, we couldn't hit the price point we want to hit if we don't work with the rest of the industry," vice president of sales and marketing and general manager for the Asia-Pacific region Navin Shenoy told Reuters in an interview.

That is a bold statement that may not sit too well with some of Intel's best customers, who are scrambling to get ultrabooks out for retail prices of less than $1000, which means that the actual cost to build those devices is somewhere in the $600 to $700 range.

According to Shenoy, about 40 percent of the consumer PC market may be occupied by ultrabooks by the end of next year, but this price-aggressive approach indicates that all Intel may be shooting for is a replacement of an existing market and not the opening of a new market - or a future market that builds on currently evolving trends, such as touch input models. As thin as ultrabooks are, they still follow the same general idea the original notebook, the 1984 Compaq LTE had: a keyboard and an attached screen. Touch never made sense on mainstream notebooks before and I would express some doubt that touch will suddenly make sense if notebooks are simply as thin as a Macbook Air, which the ultrabook trend aims to replicate.

New drivers provided by Nvidia are optimized for RAGE, Battlefield 3 and the new Batman title, Arkham City.

Monday Nvidia announced the release of its new GeForce 285.62 WHQL drivers that reportedly offer performance improvements in Battlefield 3, RAGE and Batman: Arkham City. The new drivers also bundle together all the enhancements and updates contained within the 285.27 and 285.38 beta releases, in addition to new SLI and 3D Vision profiles for many of today’s most popular games.

"For Battlefield 3 we’ve improved performance by up to 11-percent since the release of the GeForce 285.38 beta drivers, have included several compatibility enhancements, a new and improved SLI profile, and a 3D Vision profile," the company said. "Similarly, RAGE has received enhancements since the release of the same drivers, and Batman: Arkham City compatibility has been implemented."

In addition to a long list of improvements, Nvidia said that the driver timeouts experienced with the R285 beta drivers have been fixed, and that World of Warcraft players using an SLI system will no longer experience a flickering death. On Optimus notebooks, a Halo 2 crash has been rectified, as has an audio error that occurred when switching between 1080p and 480p resolutions.

"Updates contained within the earlier beta drivers have been carried over, such as the many performance improvements made to games --between the release of the 280.26 WHQL drivers and today’s 285.62 WHQL drivers-- when running on our entire range of 500-Series graphics cards," Nvidia said.

Gamers using a GeForce GTX 580 should see a 13-percent performance boost in Metro 2033, 8-percent in STALKER: Call of Pripyat, 7-percent in Civilization V, 5-percent in Crysis 2 with the DirectX 11 Ultra Update enabled, and more. GeForce GTX 560 users should see a 11-percent performance jump in STALKER but a mere 7-percent boost in Metro 2033.

To see Nvidia's long list of performance gains, head here.

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Infineon says it is the first company to have successfully produced chips on 300 mm thin wafers, which will be used for high-voltage semiconductors.

According to the manufacturer, these Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) offer the same behavior as those previously manufactured on 200 mm wafers (in diameter, not thickness), but will enable the company to produce the chips much more efficiently.

“Our engineers’ achievement marks a quantum leap in production technology,” said Reinhard Ploss, Operations, Research & Development and Labor Director at Infineon Technologies. “Innovation lays the foundation for profitable growth. Innovation secures our edge over the competition.”

300 mm wafers have been used for common chips such as CPUs for more than a decade, but certain individual segments still rely on 200 mm technology as the production volume does not justify a switch to the more expensive 300 mm technology.

However, Infineon had the advantage of already having a 300mm production plant; the thin wafers are produced in the former Qimonda DRAM plant in Villach, Austria.

Two major CPU cooler manufacturers, Noctua and Thermaltake, are offering their users a free upgrade mounting kit for the LGA-2011 socket.

If you look at the differences between the LGA-2011 and LGA-1366 socket, the first thing you see is the lack of mounting holes on the LGA-2011 motherboard. On current gen Intel motherboards, the CPU cooler mounting bracket passes through the motherboard and is retained by either push-pins or variations of backplates and mounting screws. The LGA-2011 socket will utilize the CPU retention bracket for the mounting of the CPU cooler through threaded tabs. These changes will required users to make a switch to a new bracket for mounting their coolers on the new LGA-2011 socket. 

Thermaltake and Noctua are offering a free mounting kit upgrade for the LGA-2011 socket. There are specific requirements that each manufacturer requires the users to meet for the upgrade on selected CPU coolers.

Thermaltake:

Terms and Conditions:

 FreeUp product will be shipped shortly after launch of the LGA 2011 processor  FreeUp eligibility requires proof of purchase of: a. Qualified Thermaltake LGA 2011 compatible cooling solution b. LGA-2011 compatible motherboard or processor  FreeUp product can take up to 2 weeks for shipping depending upon location  Qualified Thermaltake product must be purchased on or after September 1st 2011 to qualify for the FreeUp program  The Thermaltake FreeUp Program is only available for customers in North America.

Intel LGA-2011 compatible coolers:

Thermaltake Bigwater 760 PlusThermaltake Frio OCKThermaltake FrioThermaltake Contac 30

Noctua: The NM-I2011 SecuFirm2 mounting kit

Terms and Conditions:

Delivery may take up to 2 weeks depending on your destination.The Noctua NM-I2011 SecuFirm2™ Mounting-Kit is also available for purchase at a list of resellers. If you need the kit urgently, please consider ordering it via a local reseller.We strictly require a valid proof of purchase (scan, photo or screenshot of the invoice) of both a Noctua CPU cooler and either a LGA2011 mainboard or LGA2011 CPU in order to process your request. In case you've lost the invoice of your Noctua CPU cooler, please upload a photo of the cooler next to an ID card (passport, driver's licence, etc.) as proof of purchase. Please note that your name has to be clearly readable and that we can't process requests without proper proof of purchase.

Intel LGA-2011 compatible coolers:

All Noctua CPU coolers since 2005

To get your free mounting kit upgrade, visit Thermaltake's and Noctua's respective product pages.

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A patent licensing company has hit Acer, Gateway, Acer as well as Dell with a patent infringement lawsuit that targets most of their product offerings.

In three separate filings, Round Rock Research claims that Acer, Gateway and Dell are violating eight of its patents, while Asus is infringing on nine.

All patents appear to have been acquired by Round Rock Research in a package deal from Micron on December 23, 2009. They affect inventions that were filed with the U.S. Patent Office between 1992 to 2005. The eight patents mentioned in the suit mainly refer to memory and storage technologies and include:

5,255,109: Heat dissipating LCD display

5,781,174: Image synthesizer and image pointing system

5,938,764: Apparatus for improved storage of computer system configuration information

5,991,843: Method and system for concurrent computer transaction processing

6,002,613: Data communication for memory

7,138,823: Method of generating a pulsed output signal from a periodic ramp signal and a reference voltage, and a switch mode power converter

7,285,979: Apparatus and method for independent control of on-die termination for output buffers of a memory device

7,389,369: Active termination control

The ninth patent played against Asus describes a "passivation planarization" technology that refers to a CMOS imaging device with a passivation layer providing a surface for a filter array.

Dell is accused of infringing the patents with its entire product line, including smartphones, tablets, notebooks, desktop and workstation systems computers. The suit targets Acer's H243 LCD, as well as the Aspire and Predator notebooks and Revo and Veriton desktop systems. The affected Asus devices include the VW246H LCD, the Essentio andd Eee desktop computers, all notebooks, T and R series servers and all motherboards manufactured by the company.

Acer, Asus and Dell declined to comment on the suit.

EVGA has caused quite some buzz when it displayed one of the first X79 motherboards at the GeForce LAN 6 party.

Gamers attending got a first peek at a prototype of its flagship X79 Classified board, which will be supporting Intel Sandy Bridge-E Core i7-3000 series processors. Besides the displayed E779 model, EVGA will also be offering the E775 (X79 SLI) and the E777 (X79 FTW).

According to pictures that are making the rounds on the Internet, the E779 will have four DDR3 slots, five PCIe x16 3.0 and one PCIe x1 3.0 interface, as well as two SATA 6 Gbps, four SATA 3 Gbps and two eSATA ports. EVGA integrates VIA's Superspeed USB controller and will offer eight USB 3.0 ports on the E779. Additionally, there are two USB 2.0 connectors as well as a Bluetooth radio.

Targeted at overclockers, EVGA told visitors that the board will pass the most stringent requirements for CPU tuning, including deep freezing. Last month, we ran a first review of Intel's upcoming X79 platform. Check out the review of Intel's Core i7-3960X here.

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ARM has revealed a new processor and a technology that will switch between two processors within a single SoC for better performance and battery life.

Sub-$100 entry level smartphones will soon get a little extra skip in their step thanks to the ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore processor. Revealed on Wednesday, ARM claims the new chip is the most energy-efficient application class processor ARM has developed to date, delivering 5x the energy-efficiency and significantly greater performance while remaining one-fifth the size of the Cortex-A8 processor.

The company also revealed what it calls big.LITTLE processing which essentially controls two compatible but different processors installed within a single SoC. Power management software will select the appropriate processor for the task at hand, using the "LITTLE" lowest-power processor like the new Cortex-A7 for running the operating system and basic apps. Gaming and navigation would be handled by the faster Cortex-A15 processor, or both, depending on the app's hardware demand.

"The time for this migration is in the order of 20 microseconds," the company explained on Wednesday. "The efficient and seamless switching of workloads between the two processors is supported by advanced ARM system IP, such as AMBA 4 ACE Coherency Extensions. This ensures full cache, I/O and processor-to-processor coherency between the Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7, and across the complete system. Software and applications can therefore continue to run unhindered, and unnoticed by the user, as the tasks are rebalanced to provide the optimum big.LITTLE user experience."

As for the new processor, ARM claims that it will deliver sub-$100 entry level smartphones in the 2013-2014 timeframe with an equivalent level of processing performance to today’s $500 high-end smartphones. Manufactured using 28-nm process technology, it will occupy less than 0.5mm2 of space. ARM Partners already supporting both technologies include Broadcom, Compal, Freescale, HiSilicon, LG Electronics, Linaro, OK Labs, QNX, Redbend, Samsung, Sprint, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.

"TI's OMAP platform success relies on superior mobile computing at ultra-low power to deliver extraordinary experiences on smartphones, tablets and ultrathin laptops," said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president, OMAP platform business unit, Texas Instruments. "Our mobile processors' smart multicore architectures have long been complementing main ARM processors with specialized engines and accelerators better suited to perform certain tasks at the lowest possible power. We are excited to see ARM's introduction of Cortex-A7 with big.LITTLE processing. We see it as a natural continuation of our innovative approach to smart mobile computing as it presents new opportunities to advance the industry overall enabling even lower power general purpose CPU performance."

For more information on the Cortex-A7, head here. Further details regarding big.LITTLE processing can be acquired here.

We have been talking for more than two years about the next great processor war, a confrontation between Intel and ARM.

We haven't seen much more than saber rattling and scatter shooting so far and it appears that both sides are still preparing their first targeted shot at the other side, while prepping their defenses against a likely retaliatory move. Intel leaked some strategic information during the most recent earnings call. Still, I am wondering if Intel is taking the ARM threat seriously enough?

I would be lying if I said that I am not disappointed that a much more dramatic confrontation between ARM and Intel has not taken place yet. It's a battle between two incredibly strong and established ecosystems that will draw blood on both sides and has the potential to be drawn out over years. The benefit goes to the consumer, who will see unprecedented innovation in the product segments Intel and ARM will be fighting over. One of the reasons why this fight has not been very visible yet is because it is unlikely that the companies will be going into battle without a proper plan. Both are guarding their crown jewels and are positioning their strongest assets on the field.

If we were to compare ARM's and Intel's key assets, you'd be dealing with a long list of accomplishments and capabilities, but I believe that the fight will come down to ARM's vendor ecosystem as well as Intel's manufacturing capabilities. The big question on Intel's side has always been, "How will they deal with an armada of ARM vendors, a vast array of tailored processors, which not include powerful vendors such as Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments, but especially Nvidia (which is just waiting to throw another can of whoopass into Intel's face)?" In the end, ARM has the luxury that its vendors will go to battle, not ARM itself.

On the other side, Intel is one of the very few remaining independent chip manufacturers. It has, by far, the most advanced production process and immense capability to produce and adjust the production of microchips. Based on revenue, Samsung is the only other semiconductor company that may be able to afford $5 billion fabs down the road - and upgrade them every two years to accommodate a new shrink. How will ARM vendors compete with Intel?

We are still waiting for an answer about ARM production capability and flexibility, but Intel has given some answers about its strategy.

CEO Paul Otellini just confirmed once more that there will be cell phone chips from Intel next year. He acknowledged that there are many ARM vendors and his idea is to counter that competition by offering multiple flavors of Intel processors. "Just like there's no one ARM, there's no one version of Atom going into these devices," he told an analyst over the phone. "Intel has tailored Atom for low-end PCs, it's now tailoring it for tablets. We're tailoring different versions of it for handsets and cell phones, and other versions for embedded and automotive implementations."

While this is a clear scenario on how Intel intends to compete initially, the hope is that the cell phone processor will move upmarket and move closer to what Intel is really good at, while it is moving away from the generally lower performance of ARM processors. In other words, Intel believes that achieving higher performance will be more difficult for ARM vendors than lower power consumption for Intel.

"As the need for computing performance goes up, both the Intel architecture and the ARM architectures face the same fundamental physics problems, which is more performance requires more transistors. So at the end of the day, to deliver multi-core performance, better graphics performance in a battery-constrained environment is going to be a function of the transistors more than the micro-architecture," Otellini explained. Translation: Intel's capability to design processors and put them into an advanced production process will decide the battle.

There have also been some notes that AMD may be moving into the ARM market, which could make a lot of sense for the green team. However, it was interesting to hear that Intel believes that it can sell its products for higher prices because of a certain perception value, which includes "more performance," "features, "reliability", and "high quality levels," according to CFO Stacy Smith. In the particular example from the earnings call, Smith mentioned a $20 to $30 price advantage for a processor kit for a low-end target market.

Smith went on to say that those values would allow Intel to "shine" in the ARM market as well. He got carried away a bit, in my personal opinion, when he compared AMD with ARM and described Intel's advantages as the main weapons against the new rival: "It's going to be the same issue with ARM," he said. "All of those advantages will be even more so against ARM. […] As Paul [Otellini] said, at the end, it all comes down to we're solving these problems of physics two years ahead of the rest of the industry, that gives us a cause-to-performance a future advantage that become very difficult for people to match."

The problem, of course, is that some of Intel's advantages only work in the PC market, not in the smartphone and tablet market, where Intel is the new kid on the block. Performance of Intel processors has not been proven in the smartphone/tablet market yet, and reliability has not been proven and features have not been proven either. Then there are issues about power consumption and the right balance between power consumption and performance. Intel is the unknown factor in this game and would be a risk for a smartphone designer, not ARM. Plus, there have not been Intel products that have been especially compelling in this space, even if Intel has been talking about the development of smartphone chips since the release of the first Atom processor more than three years ago. Intel will need a processor to back up its claims to create a foundation for future opportunity in the smartphone/tablet space. I cannot help but say that the current claims are not really convincing.

Even if we assume that an Intel processor is faster than a certain ARM processor from a certain vendor, ARM will remain a moving target with quite a bit of design capability at several large players out there. Intel has tremendous design resources at hand, but it would be naïve to believe that the ARM armada can easily be beaten on the perception of performance, reliability and quality in a different market. I am wondering: Could Intel be underestimating ARM, or were Otellini's and Smith's claims simply part of an evolving marketing phrase?

HP and Calxeda have teamed up to build servers based on ARM's low-power design.

Dow Jones Newswires reports that HP has teamed up with semiconductor start-up Calxeda to develop servers based on ultra low-power ARM chips. These servers will be focused on companies who build large data centers and need to lower both their physical footprint and overall energy consumption. These companies include those who deal with cloud computing, the Internet, and those looking to do analysis on their data.

According to sources close to the project, HP and Calxeda will soon unveil a prototype server and plans for a proof-of-concept program as well as more details about partnerships. Sample chips produced by the partnership will likely make an appearance by the end of the year, and then ramp up to a full-fledged volume production by the second half of 2012. These chips will consume about 90-percent less energy, take up around 90-percent less space and have a lower overall cost of ownership compared to Intel's mid-range server processors.

ARM is actually an investor in the Austin, Texas-based Calxeda. According to reports, the first reference design will be based on an ARM Cortex-A9 quad-core SoC. Server builders will be able to design systems as dense as 120 ARM quad-core nodes (480 cores) in a 2U enclosure, with an average consumption of around 5W per node (1.25W per core). The chips may be manufactured at Globalfoundries using 45-nm or 28-nm process technology.

Naturally HP, ARM and Calxeda declined to comment on partnerships that have not been made public. However last week ARM Vice President Michael Inglis said that ARM-based chips will first appear in server machines used to support basic access to websites, and then move up to more powerful systems. "As we move forward into 2014, you'll begin to see systems emerging," he said.

Meanwhile Intel seemingly doesn't take ARM's entry into the server market as an immediate threat. "We don't take any threats to our server business lightly, but there are a number of challenges for the ARM architecture to be successful in the server market," Intel spokesman Bill Calder said. "We believe the best-performing platform will win."

In addition to working with HP, unnamed sources report that Calxeda is also talking with other major server makers, storage vendors and other companies about using its processors in their products. Partnerships are expected to be announced within the next few months. Karl Freund, Calxeda vice president of marketing, said the company is in various stages of discussions with many partners about bringing products to market.

AMD is eying the ultrabook form factor with its Deccan and Kerala platforms.

AMD has reportedly made plans to launch the Deccan platform in 2012 followed by the Kerala platform in 2013, both aimed for the ultrabook-like form factor. The company is supposedly looking to increase its current 10-percent share of the global notebook CPU market by jumping into the new ultrabook craze.

According to reports, the company is slated to launch its Deccan platform in June 2012 which will feature 28-nm Krishna and Wichita-based APUs. It will then upgrade to the Kerala platform featuring Kabini-based APUs in 2013. However once AMD upgrades with the latter Kerala platform, the "extraordinary" improvement in overall performance and power consumption will supposedly put the company in a better position to compete with Intel's Ivy Bridge platform in 2012 and its Haswell platform in 2013.

On the traditional notebook front, the company has already launched its Llano-based Sabine platform to replace Danube. However, due to weak 32-nm yield rates and production issues stemming from Globalfoundaries, supplies of Llano APUs has been limited, which in turn may have an impact AMD's plans for the notebook market. Still, But AMD is pushing forward nonetheless with its Comal platform featuring Trinity-based APUs in 2012 followed by the Indus platform featuring Kaven-based APUs in 2013.

As for tablets, AMD is attacking the business sector this year with the Brazos platform and Windows 7. However by Q2 2012, AMD will launch the Brazos-T platform featuring Hondo APUs, and then the Samara platform in 2013.

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ARM just reported a solid earnings result with licensing revenue of about $192.3 million for Q3.

During the call, CEO Warren East responded to some concerns that Intel is now entering ARM's processor market within the Android ecosystem much more aggressively.

While he recognized that Intel is pouring huge resources into making its Atom chips work on Android, he told analysts that ARM's product architecture is "more appropriate" for Android systems and will continue to be "more appropriate" than Intel's products. One of the major advantages East sees for ARM are Mali (acceleration) cores, which are beginning to ship into the market now. "We are expecting tens of millions of Mali products shipping in 2011, driving the maturity of that ecosystem."

ARM reported 1.9 billion ARM processors shipped in the third quarter of 2011. 1 billion of those chips were shipped into mobile phones and mobile computers, the company said. Cortex A processor shipments were up 300 percent year-over-year. East also disclosed that dual-core Cortex-A9 chips can now be found in 14 percent of smartphones that shipped in Q2.

On concerns that Intel is moving to 22 nm processors, and that the company is heavily relying on its manufacturing process as competitive advantage, East responded that ARM processors at 28 nm will be "happening really very, very soon." However, 28 nm processor won't account for a substantial margin of the market for 18 to 24 months he noted. 20 nm products are "a couple of years out as well", East told analysts. He did not seem to be especially worried about Intel's 22 nm processors.

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TSMC's 28-nm processing is now officially open for business.

Monday Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, said that its 28-nm process is now in volume production, and that production wafers have already been shipped to customers.

According to the company, the new process includes 28-nm High Performance (28HP), 28-nm High Performance Low Power (28HPL) and 28-nm Low Power (28LP) which are in volume production now. It also includes 28-nm High Performance Mobile Computing (28HPM) which will be ready for production by the end of this year.

Monday TSMC said that the number of customer 28-nm production tape outs has more than doubled as compared with that of 40-nm, residing at more than 80 tape-outs so far. "The TSMC 28-nm process has surpassed the previous generation’s production ramps and product yield at the same point in time due to closer and earlier collaboration with customers," the company stated in a press release.

"We applaud TSMC’s success bringing a robust 28nm process to market, and we look forward to leveraging the benefits of this new process when we ship our next-generation discrete graphics products," said Matt Skynner, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, GPU Division, AMD. "The combination of AMD’s industry-leading graphics IP and TSMC’s manufacturing prowess will enable the next big leap in graphics performance with the parallel compute horsepower and power efficiency designed to meet the needs of even the most demanding gamer."

TSMC's 28-nm design ecosystem is now available through its Open Innovation Platform, with qualified EDA design tools and third-party IP ready for customer designs, the company said.

The BlueStacks App Player for Windows is getting support for AMD's APU platforms.

Thursday AMD said that it has teamed up with BlueStacks to help bring Android applications to Windows-based devices. The chip maker will lend a hand in optimizing the BlueStacks App Player for Windows so that the more than 200,000 apps currently available in the Android Market will perform at their peak when running on APUs powered with AMD VISION technology.

"BlueStacks is a visionary software company that is, seamlessly, making the emerging Android mobile apps market part of the broader computing ecosystem and enhancing such experiences on our award-winning APU platforms," said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, AMD Fusion Experience Program. "AMD is committed to support such game changing innovators through investment and other activity as we work together to usher in new experiences that allow consumers to enjoy the full capabilities of the brilliant graphics and computing performance enabled by AMD."

As reported last week, BlueStacks launched an alpha version of its App Player that allows Windows 7-based PCs and tablets to run Android apps within the Windows environment without having to install the Android SDK or modify the original software. The App Player also allows PCs and tablets to install apps synced from an Android device thanks to the company's Android-based Cloud Connect technology.

The current alpha version of BlueStacks' App Player comes packed with free Android apps including Words Free, Aporkalypse, Talking Tom 2 Free, Bubble Buster and seven others. Users can also download an additional 31 free apps from the BlueStacks website, but given that the software is still in alpha, users will discover some problems running the apps. For example, Talking Tom doesn't actually talk, but spurts out a garbled electronic mess instead.

Support for premium apps like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja is still in the works, BlueStacks said.

What comes after Kal-El?

All things D has brought a lot of mobile news, the biggest being the arrival of the newest Nexus handset along with Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. Today in Hong Kong, Nvidia did a little revealing of its own, as the company's CEO revealed a few details of its Tegra roadmap.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang today sat down for an interview with Walt Mossberg and during his talk confirmed that the next generation range of Tegra chips is already being produced internally. Aside from Kal-El, which we've already heard plenty about, the company is working on several new chips with the superhero inspired codenames of Wayne, Logan and Stark. With Stark we should see the first taste of Nvidia's exciting Project Denver.

While Jen-Hsun did confirm that Nvidia is currently producing all three, don't get too excited. These chips are still a long way off. Huang said that it's necessary to work on three at once because they take years to develop and they want to have a new one Tegra each year.

So when will we see the next Tegra? Well, as we've heard numerous times before, Kal-El is the next Tegra chip (or Tegra 3), and will be a quad-core affair. Asus this week showed off a quad-core tablet dubbed the Eee Pad Transformer Prime that is supposedly coming out in November. Engadget reports that when asked if it will be Tegra-powered, Nvidia's Jen-Hsun responded 'probably.' Exciting stuff, eh?

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang discussed his Tegra processors at the AsiaD conference and noted that the development of mobile smartphone and tablet processors is getting quite expensive.

In Nvidia's case, Tegra raked up a cost of more than $2 billion over the past five years, Huang said.

The cost for developing such a chip is likely to go up over time, Huang said, and is driven by an approach to come up with "something magical" and "unexpected" in every product generation. For example, while Kal-El will be moving to four cores, with one additional supporting core, the cores in the succeeding product generation will offer more performance and there will be a feature that catches Nvidia's rivals "off-guard", the executive said.

He also speculated that, as tablet and smartphone markets expand, they may segment and there may be reasons for companies such as Apple to actually buy third-party processors that accommodate the requirements of those segments.

While Gartner is expecting NAND Flash memory to surpass DRAM sales by 2014, analysts from IHS say that DRAM manufacturers will see massive growth in demand from the smartphone segment.

The firm expects DRAM shipments to climb to 1.7 billion Gb this year, up from just 672 million Gb in 2010. By 2015, the industry will be shipping about 13.9 billion Gb, IHS predicts

"DRAM usage in smartphones is rising at a rapid clip, as a result of high memory densities in these devices, along with ever-rising sales to consumers," said Clifford Leimbach, analyst for memory demand forecasting at IHS. "Compared to this year’s stunning DRAM growth in smartphones, a shipment expansion amounting to a much less spectacular 50% is expected for the total DRAM market, which is dominated by sales to the PC business."

Leimback believes that smartphone DRAM will be increasinging its market share within the overall DRAM market in the future. This year 7.6% of all DRAM memory will end up in smartphones. By 2015, that share will grow to 16.0%, according to IHS.

The average smartphone currently has 461 MB in memory. Next year, that number will increase to 715 MB, IHS predicts.

Despite this impressive growth outlook, there are analysts who believe that the DRAM market will actually shrink. Gartner analyst Andrew Norwood recently said that NAND Flash is likely to surpass DRAM by 2016 in sales volume. Gartner believes that overall 2010-2011 DRAM sales will decline by 26.6% to $29.0 billion, while Flash sales will grow by 20.6% to $24.8 billion. Only Flash will be able to sustain positive grown over the next few years and the two technologies may reach sales parity at about $35.4 billion by 2015, Gartner said.

Apple has ever so quietly rolled out an update that gives its MacBook Pro line a nice boost.

The tech world might be buzzing about the release of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography, but Apple is carrying on, business as usual. The Cupertino-based company kicked the last week of October off with improved specs for the MacBook Pro laptops, upgrading the processors and graphics for its slightly bulkier line.

Starting today, shoppers looking to pick up a new MacBook Pro can opt for a 13-inch model with a 2.4GHz Core i5 or a 2.8GHz Core i7 dual-core processor, instead of the previous 2.3GHz and 2.7GHz, and a bump in HDD capacity for the entry-level model, which will now come with 500GB of space. The 15-inch model doesn't see any change to storage space, but the laptop does get a processor upgrade, increasing from 2.0GHz and 2.2GHz Core i7 CPUs to 2.2GHz or 2.4GHz i7s. New 15-inchers will also either an AMD Radeon HD 6750M GPU with 512MB on GDDR5 memory, compared to the 256MB 6490M, or a 1GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6770M, as opposed to a 1GB GDDR5 6750M. Those shelling out big bucks for the massive 17-inch MacBook Pro will also see some changes. Again, the graphics are going from a 1GB 6770M, up from a 6750M, and the CPU is going up to a 2.4GHz i7 version from a 2.2GHz i7.

Head on over to Apple to check out the full specs for Apple's MacBook Pro line.

Researchers at Imperial College in London have created biological logic gates similar to those used in integrated circuits using E.Coli bacteria and DNA.

"Logic gates are the fundamental building blocks in silicon circuitry that our entire digital age is based on," said Richard Kitney co-author of the research project recently published in the journal nature Communications. "Without them, we could not process digital information. Now that we have demonstrated that we can replicate these parts using bacteria and DNA, we hope that our work could lead to a new generation of biological processors, whose applications in information processing could be as important as their electronic equivalents."

According to a press release, the project group performed a successful test in which they showed that their biological gates can replicate the process that is equivalent to an electronic transistor gate that can be switched on and off. While Kitney said that his gates are the most advanced biological logic gates ever created, he conceded that they are not close to actually producing them for actual products.

The next step in the development are multiple gates in "more complex circuitry", which could one day lead to building blocks for "microscopic biological computers". Kitney envisions, for example, sensors that swim inside arteries, or even devices that detect and destroy cancer cells inside the body. There could also be pollution monitors that detect and kill "dangerous toxins such as arsenic".

New Radeon HD drivers for your weekend gaming sessions.

UPDATE: AMD's now has version 3 of the preview driver for 11.10, now even better tweaked for Battlefield 3 and Rage:

AMD Catalyst 11.10 Version 3 Preview Driver Features:

Reduces random crashing and stability encountered when playing Rage on Windows® 7 32-bit editionReduces object / animation flickering and texture corruption encountered when playing RageReduces stuttering seen on Dual CPU and Tri CPU core systemsImproves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on single GPU configurations using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on AMD CrossFire™ configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.Improves performance in Rage on single GPU configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000, AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series and AMD Radeon HD 4000 series of products.Reduces intermittent crashing seen loading levels in RageReduces flickering of NPCs in RageEnables automatic Vsync for RageEnables support for AMD Eyefinity 5x1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations  using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.AMD Vision Engine Control Center: User Interface enhancements have been implemented for the AMD CrossfireX™, GPU AMD Overdrive™ and Information Center pages.

Get the version 3 drivers here.

Previous story:

Just in time for the weekend, AMD has unleashed an updated preview driver (version 2) of Catalyst 11.10.

Those playing the Battlefield 3 Open Beta or the newly released Rage with AMD Radeon HD 6000 and HD 5000 will like the features of this preview driver:

Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series for single GPU configurations.Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on AMD CrossFire™ configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.Improves performance in Rage on single GPU and AMD CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000, AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series and AMD Radeon HD 4000 series of products.Resolves intermittent crashing seen loading levels in RageResolves flickering of NPCs in RageEnables automatic Vsync for RageEnables support for AMD Eyefinity 5x1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations  using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.AMD Vision Engine Control Center: User Interface enhancements have been implemented for the AMD CrossfireX™, GPU AMD Overdrive™ and Information Center pages.

Stay tuned for a new look at AMD Eyefinity 5x1.

Nvidia's Tegra 3 will make its debut in the Asus Eee Pad Transformer 2 on November 9th.

While we already know that Nvidia's Tegra 3 quad-core SoC (aka Kal-El) will arrive in the 10-inch Asus Eee Pad Transformer 2 (Prime) tablet, Asus CEO Jonney Shih said that both the tablet and the highly-anticipated superpowered-chip will arrive on November 9.

Nvidia's Tegra 3 was previously reported to arrive by the end of summer or early September, but the company delayed its release due to a need for an increased validation timeframe. "It took a little more time than we thought to get the software optimized for the hardware,” a Nvidia spokesperson told EE Times. "We are on schedule."

Recent reports claim that the Transformer 2's quad-core Tegra 3 chip will clock at 1.3 GHz per core. It will also feature either 16 GB ($499) or 32 GB ($599) of internal storage, depending on your wallet. Other features will include Google 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" as the gadget's OS, a microSD card slot for up to 32 GB of extra storage, a USB port, a mini-HDMI port, a 14.5-hour battery, a rear-facing camera with an LED flash -- all packed within a 8.3-mm frame.

Computerworld - Over the Fourth of July weekend, while most of America was grilling burgers, watching parades or viewing fireworks, I was exploring HP's new TouchPad tablet. It arrived on the Friday before the holiday weekend and I spent much of the long weekend trying to see how it would fits into my life and work style.

The TouchPad combines the innovative webOS operating system with impressive hardware. The lack of add-on apps, however, means that it will have trouble taking on the iPad and risks being considered an also-ran in the increasingly crowded tablet market.

The device itself is a stunner. Its shiny black case, rounded edges and minimal buttons add up to an elegant look (although the glossy surface picks up fingerprints easily). There are cool design touches, like the backlit Home button, which is the only thing that mars an otherwise clean surface. When an app occupies the full screen, the button lights up.

It felt good in my hand, whether it was being used in portrait or landscape mode, but its surface was so slippery that I nearly it dropped once. I much prefer the rubberized surface of Fujitsu's Q550. I also tend to prefer the option of a pen for more exact work; the TouchPad doesn't come with one.

At 9.5 x 7.5 x 0.6 in. and 1.6 lb., the TouchPad is 0.2-in. wider, nearly twice as thick and 5 oz. heavier than the iPad 2. As a result, it felt a little heavy compared to the iPad 2, but despite that I was able to comfortably hold it for long periods of time. There's a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, but no rear-facing camera.

The TouchPad's display is very like that of the iPad 2. Both have rich and sharp 9.7-in. 1,028 x 768-pixel screens, although I found the iPad's to be brighter. Both also offer a capacitive multi-touch screen that works with two-finger gestures. They're both second-best, however, when compared to the 1,280 x 800 resolution boasted by the slightly larger Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The TouchPad is well equipped with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm dual-core Snapdragon processor and 1GB RAM. You can buy a model with 16GB of storage for $500 or 32GB for $600, but there's no 64GB version that matches the top-of-the-line iPad 2.

The TouchPad offers 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi networking; I easily connected with my office's Wi-Fi network as well as one at a library and with a mobile hotspot. The more itinerant among us won't be happy that there are no 3G mobile data options; HP says these will be available later this year.

You can use the included USB cable to connect the TouchPad to a PC or Mac and move files back and forth. It doesn't have an SD card slot or a USB port for plugging in a memory key or keyboard. It does, however, have Bluetooth.

To charge the TouchPad, you either plug in the micro-USB connector or place it on the optional $75 dock, which conveys electrical current to the tablet inductively while the tablet is held upright. It works like magic, but only when the pad is in the dock with the Home button facing down or to the right, which means users will have to be careful to get it right.

In tests, the 6,300 milli-amp hour lithium polymer battery played online videos for 5 hours and 50 minutes, nearly two hours longer than an iPad 2 (which ran for 4 hours and 3 minutes). Unfortunately, the battery isn't user-replaceable, and there is no battery gauge such as the one that graces Motion Computing's CL-900.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Computerworld - Google's Google+ social networking service, now out in a limited release, isn't the Facebook killer that Google no doubt hopes it will be. However, it's an innovative platform that takes a new approach to social networking by putting you in control of how you share with people. It also includes a number of intriguing features, such as one that makes it easy to ferret out content that interests you and share it with others.

Those who were put off by Google's previous failures in social networking, including Buzz and Wave, will be surprised at the usefulness and simplicity of Google+. It's a worthy enough product that you'd do well to sign up as soon as it's widely available.

In some ways, Google+ is the anti-Facebook. Facebook is predicated on the idea that all "friends" are created equal -- that you want to have the same online relationship with your mother, your best friend since high school, your boss and that person you never met but whose invitation to be a Facebook friend you absentmindedly accepted. Post an update or a photo, and every one of your "friends" sees them -- unless you remember to use Facebook's Custom Privacy box to specify who can or can't see the post.

Google+ takes the opposite tack. It lets you create "circles" of friends -- one for your family, one for friends, one for acquaintances, one for work, one for a book group and so on. That way, if you want to share plans for next Thanksgiving with your family and include photos of last Thanksgiving, you can share only with them, rather than with people you work with or people in your book group. You're put firmly in control of whom you communicate with and how you communicate with them.

[For additional views of Google+, check out our Image Gallery.]

And it doesn't hurt that Google+ ties into other Google services. Messages sent to you in Google+, for example, show up in Gmail, and chats in Google Talk show up in Google+ and vice versa. Google+ ties into Google's photo site, Picasa, as well.

At first glance, the user interface of Google+ does bear a superficial similarity to that of Facebook. The main part of the screen is taken up by your "stream" -- the messages and photos you've shared with others and that others have shared with you. It includes comments on those messages and photos as well.

There's a list of people who are your friends on the right-hand side of the screen, along with suggestions for other people whom you might want to be friends with. Near the top of the page there's a text box where you can type in messages for others to see, which includes buttons for uploading photos, videos and attachments, and for sharing your location. At the very top is a navigation bar.

But there's a big difference between the Google+ stream and Facebook's News Feed. The Google+ stream is actually an accumulation of many separate streams -- one for each of your circles. On the left-hand side of the page, there's a list of all the circles that you've created. Click any of those circles, and you'll immediately see the individual stream for that circle. (You can see a feed from just one Friends list in Facebook, but it's not as obvious or easy to do.)

To create a circle, you click the Circles icon in the navigation bar at the top of the page. This brings you to a page that has pre-built labels for circles such as Friends, Family and Acquaintances. Above those circles is a collection of contacts (names and photos) gleaned from your Google Contacts list. Drag any contact into a circle to add them to that group. You can create a new circle by clicking the empty circle to the left of the other circles. All you have to do then is name it and drag contacts into it.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

September 16, 2011 06:00 AM ETComputerworld - The mobile operating system Android for phones and tablets offers a wide variety of apps and can be quite useful in your professional and personal life. But after you've added a bunch of apps and used it for a while, Android can also get bogged down or unstable, run slowly and/or eat battery juice too quickly.

Like their larger computing counterparts, Android-based devices need to be maintained. Problems can start if the internal storage becomes full (or close to it) or if you're running too many apps or background processes at once (which also decreases battery life).

What follows is a description of 10 apps that can help increase the performance of your Android device. Note: A few of these apps require you to root your device -- in other words, you need to unlock the device, giving apps the ability to use full root permissions. (Keep in mind that there's the possibility that you could void your warranty.)

Price: Free (basic version), $1.29 (Pro version)

1Tap Cleaner comes with a Cache Cleaner, History Cleaner and a Default Cleaner.

The Cache Cleaner frees up storage space by removing temporary files left by apps. You can manually clear the cache for select apps or clear all apps at once. It lists apps sorted by their cache size so you can quickly see those taking up the most space. It also displays the total and available internal storage space so you can see how much space you need to free up.

1Tap Cleaner also supports automatic scheduled cache cleaning. The free version lets you choose an interval of every three days or every week. The Pro version ($1.29) offers more interval settings, from every hour to every two weeks. It also adds the ability to auto-clear app histories as well.

You can use the History Cleaner to clear the search history from your Web browser and other apps. This is more of a privacy issue, and is useful if you don't want others to be able to see where you're surfing or what you're looking up.

The Default Cleaner lists default settings that you've defined, such as using a third-party Web browser or launcher over the native ones included with Android. The Default Cleaner is useful if you'd like to revert back to the default.

Android Assistant offers a variety of utilities and tools to help monitor, clean and manage your Android device. It has three screens. The first is called the Monitor and shows you your CPU, memory and battery status. It also features a Quick Boost button that will automatically kill pre-selected apps/processes to free up system resources.

The second page is the Process Manager; it shows active apps/processes and lets you manually kill apps.

The remaining utilities are on the Tools page. The Cache Cleaner displays the size of the temporary files used by each app and lets you clear them to free up storage space. Batch Uninstall lists your apps and lets you select which ones to remove. It automatically starts the uninstall process for each app in succession, but you have to confirm each. (For a more efficient process, consider an app like Gemini App Manager or Silent App Uninstaller that takes advantage of root permissions, so you don't have to confirm each uninstall.)

The Startup Manager lets you stop select user and system apps from automatically loading when you turn on your Android device. The App 2 SD feature (which is not the same as the separate app included in this roundup) lists apps installed on the phone and to the SD card, and suggests which ones you can move from the phone to the SD card to help free up internal storage space.

I found Android Assistant to be straightforward and easy to use. Though it offers an abundance of tools, some (such as Battery Saving, Cache Cleaner or App2SD) don't do as much as some other third-party apps you could use separately. I found the most useful tool to be the Startup Manager, since you can prevent unwanted apps from starting rather than killing them later.

Price: Free (basic version), $1.49 (Pro version)

App 2 SD analyzes your installed apps and conveniently lists those that can be moved to your SD card, those already on the SD card and those that can't be moved from internal storage. Then it helps you move all appropriate apps to the SD card (either individually or as a group) to free up internal storage space. It can also monitor new apps you install in the future and notify you when they're movable.

The lists of apps are by default sorted by their file size, so you can quickly see those that are taking up the most space. Total space and free space of your device's internal storage and SD card are conveniently shown on the bottom of the app. App 2 SD also has a simple cache-clearing feature that prompts you to clear app cache if it's larger than 500KB.

Unfortunately, App 2 SD can't automatically move the apps to the SD card. It can only pop up the Application Info screen for each app you want to move; you must then manually hit the "Move to SD card" button, and (if moving multiple apps) then hit the back button to go to the next Application Info screen.

If your device is rooted, consider using Gemini App Manager instead of (or in addition to) App 2 SD, which can automatically list and move apps -- it doesn't, however, automatically notify you after installing a movable app like App 2 SD does.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Computerworld - If you're still using a traditional computer (as opposed to a tablet), you're probably also still using a traditional mouse. While laptops all come with touchpads to help us move our cursors around the screen, there's no denying that many users are more comfortable pushing a mouse around a desktop. However, sometimes there isn't a desktop -- and sometimes you need a mouse that is more portable or more powerful than the $20 piece of plastic that you picked up on sale.

To help deal with such issues, we've found six mice that break the design mold that most of today's mice are built from. They do have some things in common -- they are all laser mice and they all use wireless Bluetooth to connect with the computer. Otherwise, these cursor-control devices don't have a whole lot in common -- except possibly the ability to make computing more efficient.

You think a mouse is a simple device? You've got another thought coming. The Cyborg R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse is one of the most customizable mice around -- this is the mouse for gamers who are really, really serious about their pursuits. It offers a wide variety of tweaks, including interchangeable palm rests and pinkie grips; two batteries (one to power the mouse, the other to recharge in the wireless receiver/recharge dock); five 6-gram weights that you can subtract or add in order to get a perfectly weighted mouse (the knob that you unscrew to get at the weights doubles as a screwdriver to help you adjust other parts of the mouse); five programmable buttons; the ability to change the dpi rating (which goes up to an impressive 5600 dpi) -- and that's just for starters. This $150 device is the Maserati of mice.

Most of the mice in this roundup are styled differently than the traditional mouse that we -- or, at least, our computers -- have grown up with. The Logitech Couch Mouse, though, is a nice combination of the old and the new -- it resembles the larger old-fashioned mice that fit nicely in the hand, yet it offers a variety of interesting features. These include hand detection -- so that the mouse is only active when it is gripped -- good control no matter what surface you're moving it on and a scroll wheel that also tilts from right to left to let you move backwards and forwards through Web pages. Unlike most of the other mice in this roundup, the Logitech Couch Mouse uses traditional AA batteries, so you don't have to worry about recharging it (only replacing the batteries), and the battery compartment also has a handy little space for the tiny Bluetooth receiver. And it's less expensive than any of the others here -- in fact, at $50, it's a bargain.

Despite recent rumors that it was going to be phased out in favor of Apple's Magic Trackpad, the Magic Mouse is still available for those Mac fans who prefer the feel of a mouse to that of a trackpad. The Magic Mouse offers a multitouch surface that lets you click and swipe with one or two fingers, depending on what you want to do. You can also use it like a traditional mouse on any surface -- like the other mice in this roundup, it's a laser mouse and therefore doesn't require a mouse pad to be effective. And it has the smooth white styling that has become the signature of Apple products.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

September 21, 2011 06:00 AM ETComputerworld - Even if you're comfortable with the iPad 2's on-screen keyboard and can happily tap out a status update or quick email, you might not want to use it for tasks like writing a lengthy report. One option is to ditch the tablet for a full-fledged laptop -- but it might be just as easy to add a wireless Bluetooth keyboard to the iPad.

The ideal wireless keyboard would offer a full-keyboard typing feel while still being light and compact, making it easy to carry. Unfortunately, that's a little like asking for a 25-in. monitor with brilliant display, light weight and low cost -- chances are, you'll need to compromise somewhere. Which features you're willing to budge on depends on personal preference, but in any case, it makes little sense to get an iPad keyboard that's no better than the on-screen version or that's so bulky that it makes travel with the iPad no better than lugging a laptop.

After that, your preferences will likely vary considerably depending on whether you are an accomplished touch typist or use just a couple of fingers to pound the keys.

I got my hands on five portable wireless keyboards for the iPad 2, judging them on several factors likely to be important to a mobile user.

For mobility, I considered weight, form factor and how easy it was to carry around (all but one of these keyboards fit around the iPad 2 to form a single unit; only Apple's wireless keyboard remains a separate unit).

With keyboard function, I judged how the keys felt and how they responded. And, in ergonomics, I considered how it felt to actually use the system. Did it feel cramped? Could I use it in a comfortable position?

With that in mind, here's a rundown of five portable Bluetooth keyboards for the iPad 2. (Note: A roundup of keyboards for Android-based tablets is coming soon.)

At first glance, the Apple Wireless Keyboard doesn't seem like much of a mobile option. At 11.1 in., it's quite a bit longer than the iPad, increasing the traveling form factor significantly.

If you're looking for something that lets you use the iPad for serious content creation, the Apple Wireless Keyboard is a good choice.

However, the keyboard is lighter than it looks. With an affordable keyboard case (I like the $15 model from Waterfield Designs), I can easily pop it into my backpack when on the road. Two pieces can sometimes even be a plus while traveling, allowing you to use the iPad as a conventional tablet while in the plane, with keyboard packed away, and then more like a laptop once you reach your hotel.

Setup is a breeze, and the ergonomics are excellent. There's a reason this feels close to a standard keyboard: It is one (except that it's missing the number pad and three normally unused function keys). Keys are spaced for conventional touch typing and are responsive to the touch: not too stiff to require pounding, but not so soft as to produce letters while fingers are just resting.

Note that this keyboard is powered by two AA batteries, while the other keyboards reviewed here recharge via a USB connection. This is also the only one among the group that was not designed specifically for use with an iPad.

However, if you're looking for something that lets you use the iPad for more serious content creation while you're home -- or if you're traveling where size isn't an issue (for example, if you're driving) and you're willing to travel with two pieces instead of one -- this is a good choice.

Dimensions/Weight: 12.8 x 7.3 x 1.4 in./ 0.7 lb.Keyboard ergonomics: ExcellentBest for: Touch typists who are less concerned about packing efficiency than typing comfort. This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

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