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2010-09-01

IBM launching world's fastest microprocessor Semi-Related
5.2GHz chip dubbed z196 will drink your milkshake

Big Blue says that the shiny new System z10 you just installed in your basement yesterday is officially obsolete and should be relegated to household media streaming/torrent duty in the wake of its replacement.  Behold the zEnterprise System, and its central compute server the zEnterprise 196, capable of processing more instructions than your puny humanoid mind could ever dream of issuing.  Don't look now, but your girly-man netbook just peed itself.

full story | 11 comments

IBM z196 Chip

 
     
Your next car security system might include an antivirus app Semi-Related
S|A recommends bicycles and tin-foil hats instead

Back in the good old days paint chips contained healthy quantities of lead, cars ran on leaded gasoline, and a lead foot directly pulled open the throttle of your hot-pink '59 Cadillac without any pesky computers interfering.  It also meant that 'hackers' were limited to methods such as bricks and slim jims to steal your music.  Well, the times, they are changing.

full story | 4 comments

Haxxoring Cars

Intel + McAfee... Hmmmm

S|A

 
     

2010-08-20

Study says that Internet trolls may die... sooner... probably Semi-Related
Perhaps we should resume feeding them?

Happy Friday everyone, aNd what a decisiVely glorious day it is turning out to be. It has been reporteD that people who feel the irresistible urge to be antagonIstic may in fact be whittling hours off their life spans faster thAn a chain-Smoker rUnning with sCissors through an airport security checKpoint.  So pop a couple quarters into the troll food machine, and let the feeding frenzy begin.

full story | 21 comments

Perhaps Someday...

 
     

2010-08-17

Nvidia to announce x86 chip next week Semi-Related
Not IDF San Francicsco: So say the whispers

Nvidia world iconEditors Note: From time to time, SemiAccurate will be republishing some older articles by its authors, some with additional commentary, updates and information.  We are mainly reprinting some of the oft referenced articles that originally appeared on the Inquirer. Some will have added content, but all will be re-edited from the originals as per contractual obligations. You may see some slight differences between the two versions.

This article has had some of the original links removed, and was published on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 10:07 AM.

full story | 2 comments

S|A

 
     

2010-08-12

Tegra 3 tapes out Semi-Related
Expect the same success as the last two

Nvidia world iconMOLES IN SANTA CLARA tell SemiAccurate that Nvidia's latest wonderchip, Tegra 3, has taped out. Expect the PR announcement storm to kick up soon, but don't look for product this year.

full story | 21 comments

Fall Guy

Laugh Riot

Great Show

Four For

Good Humor

 
     

2010-08-05

Hear Ye Hear Ye... Free Stuff! Semi-Related
CoolIT Systems has excess inventory

Brethren, the CPU cooling gods are smiling down upon us today.  For it is so written that he who crameth many GHz into small spaces must surely encounter heat dissipation problems.  Enter our merciful savior CoolIT Systems, whose compassion for the cooling challenged ends at 100 people... on August 18th.

full story | 1 comment

Check Out The Prize

Contest Information

 
     

2010-08-02

HP settles with U.S. DOJ over 2007 fraud suit Semi-Related
Mark Hurd hands over his lunch money

After over 3 years of running around the legal jungle gym, the United Stated Department of Justice has finally caught up with Hewlett-Packard, the world's current leading provider of technological stuff, and reached a settlement after rubbing HP's face in the sand a couple of times [ DOJ -1 | HP -0 ].  The settlement lays to rest 2007 allegations of kickbacks and fraud related to government contracts negotiated by technology contractor Accenture over the past decade.

full story | 5 comments

HP's Official Release

2007 Case Details

Mark Hurd Knows Kung-Fu

 
     
Intel and GE up to something terribly exciting Semi-Related
Damned if we know what it is though

Intel Stars IconINTEL AND GE have are doing something with healthcare today, and there is a webcast going on as this is written. Thoughtfully, Intel and GE have saved us from the excitement of that webcast through advanced technical features.

full story | 3 comments

S|A

 
     

2010-07-29

Nvidia's mistakes catch up to the bottom line Semi-Related
Huge self-inflicted financial hole for Q2

Nvidia world iconNVIDIA HAS A curious take on the causes of their latest financial meltdown, one that doesn't seem to mirror what is happening in the rest of the industry. The almost 20% drop in expected revenue announced at the last minute seems to be a largely self-inflicted wound.

full story | 58 comments

Size Matters

Doors Hurt

Last Time

Not Mentioned

Video Games

 
     

2010-07-27

Apple does kick Nvidia to the curb Semi-Related
Door meet *ss, like we said

Nvidia world iconAS WE PREDICTED last summer, it looks like Apple has kicked Nvidia to the curb. The new line of iMacs is out, and they all have, wait for it, ATI graphics.

full story | 35 comments

Live Blogs

Historic Discussion

Only Rumors?

Told Ya

Peddling Stuff

 
     

2010-07-24

Storage-n-Harddrives. Where are we and where are we going? Semi-Related
Grab a fifth or your favorite 70 proof or higher beverage and read on

iconRecently hard drives and the storage industry in general has been a tough thing to write about, because frankly, nobody really cares!  It’s much more fun and exciting to get caught up in the hype surrounding the latest multi-core CPUs running at orgasmic clock speeds, or exotic video cards that need their own power reactors but have enough FLOPs under the hood to calculate the single precision meaning of life.  In fact the only time we give our trusty storage things a second thought (and exhaust our dictionaries of naughty words) is when they die and take our data along with them.  Well, to help remedy this journalistic conundrum, we've developed a drinking game to aid in your consumption of this article.  Every time you see a storage related suffix (MB, GB, TB, etc.) you take a shot.  Ready?  Good, because you’re up to three already.

UPDATED

 

full story | 19 comments

Seagate Financial Results

Bigger GeeBees

 
     

2010-07-15

AMD releases Q2 financial results, and Ontario details galore Semi-Related
40nm supply problems persist

Another day, another quarterly earnings conference call.  AMD came in with their latest and greatest batch of numbers, tidbits of product information, and future guidance for the company.  While your man was unable to squeeze any questions in this time around, (and apparently vuvuzelas are frowned upon during these conference calls for some reason) there were still plenty of interesting nuggets of information dropped along the way, so let’s begin.

full story | 41 comments

GloFo 15nm

Opteron 4000/6000

Intel Q2 Results

Not Related

 
     

2010-07-14

Intel blames datacenter group for record quarterly profits Semi-Related
Increased Gibson hacking not a factor they claim

While listening in on hour-long industry financial conference calls should be the most fulfilling part of any geek's day, for some reason people expect outfits like us to break it all down into nice bite-size chunks that they can assimilate over morning coffee. Whatever, who are we to judge?  Bottom line, Intel is on a tear this year and has just announced record quarterly; revenue ($10.8B), gross margin (67%), operating income ($4.0B), and earnings per share ($0.51).

full story | 5 comments

S|A

 
     
Sony's PSP2 is powered by Nvidia's Tegra line Semi-Related
Unfortunately, Tegra also explains PSP2's delays

Sony iconTHE ANNUAL RUNNING of the moles in Santa Clara yesterday had some surprising results, not just in the record number of IC engineers gored, but also the information leaked by those trying save their backsides. One of them even leaked some details about the upcoming PSP2's CPU, but it didn't save him.

full story | 22 comments

Fireflies Extinct

Burnt Kindling

Wins != Release

ARMada Ahoy

Woodscrew Car

 

 
     

2010-07-11

Nvidia chips show underfill problems Semi-Related
Bumpgate: Electron microscopes reveal a lot

Nvidia world iconEditors Note: From time to time, SemiAccurate will be republishing some older articles by its authors, some with additional commentary, updates and information.  We are mainly reprinting some of the oft referenced articles that originally appeared on the Inquirer. Some will have added content, but all will be re-edited from the originals as per contractual obligations. You may see some slight differences between the two versions.

This article has had some of the original links removed, and was published on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 10:37AM.

full story | add comments

S|A

 
     

2010-07-09

Super Talent Announces 4GB DDR3 DIMMs with 2000MHz Special Sauce Semi-Related
Beef patties, pickles, lettuce and seasame seed buns optional

The year was 2000.  Will Smith's horrid "Will 2K" jam was finally fading from the radio waves and the scarred minds of millions across the globe.  In March, CPU underdog AMD dropped the gigahertz bomb on us, sending shockwaves throughout the tech community, and lighting a fire under Intel's ass so intense, the heat wasn't fully dissipated until the last Prescott chip rolled off the assembly lines.  AMD had (inadvertently or not) ignited what we all came to know as the GHz war, with Intel fighting for consumer mindshare by turning the GHz dial up to 11 (well, 3.8 anyway), while AMD desperately tried to keep up by ratcheting up their own clock speeds, and slapping on performance rating numbers to show the average Joe that they could still play with the big boys.

full story | 6 comments

S|A

 
     

2010-07-07

Nvidia purposefully hobbles PhysX on the CPU Semi-Related
Real World Tech proves Nvidia's de-optimizations

Nvidia world iconNVIDIA JUST HAD one of their most sleazy marketing tactics exposed, that PhysX is faster on a GPU than a CPU. As David Kanter at Real World Tech proves, the only reason that PhysX is faster on a GPU is because Nvidia purposely hobbles it on the CPU. If they didn't, PhysX would run faster on a modern CPU.

full story | 56 comments

Typical Honesty

Another Example

And Another

Need More?

Target Audience

 
     

2010-07-05

Apple's respone to iPhone 4 antenna problems is unacceptable Semi-Related
Blame everyone but themselves, they are perfect

Apple LogoTHE SMUG ONES from Cupertino have finally done the right thing for iPhone 4 owners with reception problems, that would basically be everyone who owns one. No, they didn't fix the design flaw, but they did issue a sickly self-congratulatory press release, publicly blame their customers, then deny that the problem is real. How typical.

full story | 24 comments

Lefties Left

MS Worse

Faster Charges

Play By Play

More Volume

 
     

2010-07-01

Shotgun-Wielding Balmer Escorts 'Kin' Behind the Woodshed Semi-Related
nVidia hugs Tegra and cries softly

Microsoft Company LogoIt seems that Verizon's rabid pet wolf was able to sink its teeth into Microsoft's 'Kin' phone not even two months after Arlis traded in his prized horny toad, $49.99 and a home-cooked meal for the privilege of owning one.  This unfortunate turn of events prompted Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer to don his executioner's mask and place a 12-gauge slug between the eyes of the hydrophobic phone series.  When asked to comment on the sudden death sentence, we couldn't quite make out his reply due to all the laughter and bad music coming from the Apple camp across the street, but it sounded something like, "developers, developers, developers, developers…"

full story | 3 comments

Sammy Dumps Teggy

Target Audience

 
     

2010-06-25

iPhone 4 Black-Balls Right Handed Porn Seekers Semi-Related
...or should that be blue?

Apple LogoAPPLE INC., ESTEEMED purveyor of glass-covered shiny objects, has launched its latest salvo against the pornography industry with the release of its new “retina-display” packing iPhone 4.  The all new fingerprint collector has the highest pixel-density of any phone to date, offering a 4X improvement in areolic-clarity compared to previous models.  The appeal of this feature is immediately apparent, however Lord Steve-o has built in a special surprise for his right-handed lackeys.

full story | 10 comments

S|A

 
     

2010-06-24

The Epic Debate Part 5: Weapons unsheathed Semi-Related
Tim Sweeney vs Andrew Richards on graphics and programmability

Epic Games LogoTHE SECOND TO last part of the Epic debate/casual conversation between Tim Sweeney and Andrew Richards gets a bit testy at times, to the point of making the camera man nervously pan to the provided weapons. The two also talk about tech as well, and in the end, no one dies, that has to wait for Part 6.

full story | 10 comments

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Mindblowing Graphics

 
     

2010-06-23

The Epic Debate Part 4: Does Cell unfail? Semi-Related
Our heroes go over how to thread an engine for beginners

Epic Games LogoIN THE LATEST chunk of the GDC chat with Tim Sweeney of Epic and Andrew Richards of Codeplay, the topics are Cell and the cost of threading. If you want to know what the coders and engine guys think of many cores, here you are.

full story | 8 comments

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Oh Pooh

 
     

2010-06-22

Google Voice Opens Up To All U.S. Residents Semi-Related
Space-Time Continuum Suffers

Gas up the Delorean (premium Libyan plutonium only please), make sure you have enough road to get up to 88 MPH, and get ready to see some serious shiitake mushrooms with bacon sauce.  In a blog post from the future (seriously), Google announced that today officially marks the public opening of its Voice service (formerly Grand Central) to any life form with a Google account currently living in the U.S.  So if you’re a fan of time-travel and (mostly) free stuff, you can get started right here, right now.

full story | 9 comments

S|A

 
     

2010-06-21

Intel ups core counts for Westmere servers Semi-Related
Hint: Beckton has 8, Westmere-EX has more

Xeon LogoHOW DO YOU follow an 8-core Nehalem-EX server chip? If you are Intel, you do it with more cores, and that is exactly what Westmere-EX does.

full story | 8 comments

Way More

Cool Sh*rt

Gesher II

Rings Around

Science Abounds

 
     
What are Nvidia's GF104, GF106 and GF108? Semi-Related
Cut and paste GF100 into new shapes

Nvidia world iconA LOT OF people are talking about Nvidia's new GPUs, the GF104, GF106, and GF108, but very few people understand why the parts are going to underwhelm. The reason is simple, the architecture is broken, and hasn't been changed much.

Updated

full story | 27 comments

Tape Out!

Half Promised

Killer Queen

Little Slow

Heart Attack