processors

Support for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 800M collection of graphics processors is now ready alongside several other sets of processing hardware for the NVIDIA GameStream experience. What this means for NVIDIA SHIELD owners is that their gaming laptop, if too large for any given situation, can be used to stream games to their NVIDIA SHIELD. This ability will be activated immediately if not soon for a number of Kepler and Maxwell based GPU-toting notebooks.

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In the quarter of the year that ended on the 29th of December, 2013 - the financial quarter, that is - Qualcomm reported this week that they'd pulled in record numbers. Record quarterly revenues, MSM chip shipments, and device sales reported by licensees, each of them higher than Qualcomm had ever seen for this particular quarter any year previous. This stacks up well with a quarterly revenue of $6.62 billion USD - that's up 2% compared to the quarter before this one and up 10% year-over-year.

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Bringing on a 192-core processor in the NVIDIA Tegra K1 wasn't a big enough release for NVIDIA at CES 2014. Instead they had to go beyond a single Quad-core A15 iteration - they decided to deliver two iterations of this mobile processor this week - one is that quad-core version, the other is a dual-CPU-core processor based on NVIDIA Denver. Denver, if you did not know, works with 64-bit architecture.

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In what could end up being a blow to Intel, Google is contemplating both designing and using its own server processors, according to a source who spoke to the folks at Bloomberg. There would be several benefits for the Internet giant if it decides to undertake such efforts, particularly the control offered over the crossroads betwixt software and hardware. Nothing has been set in stone, however, and the source says plans could end up changing.

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Having pushed the Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor earlier this year and seeing applied to a relatively large cross-section of top-tier smartphones and tablets alike, Qualcomm has brought on the next step in the Snapdragon 805 here at the tail end of 2013. This processor will work in machines inside 2014 and will bring on - first and foremost - support for Ultra HD video playback. What's especially interesting about this ability is the fact that while some mobile smart devices have already been able to record Ultra HD starting at 4K, they've not been able to play it back - Qualcomm makes it so here with the 805.

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It's a big month for quantum computing. Earlier today we reported that scientists had sustained a quantum computer for 39 minutes at room temperature instead of having to cool it to near-absolute-zero first, meaning we are that much closer to Ludicrous Speed consumer computers. Now it has come to light that photons can be measured, measured, and measured again--without having to absorb and thus destroy them. The upshot? It's a big month for quantum computing. Explanation after the jump.

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Scientists have just taken quantum computing a big leap closer to consumer viability. In a paper published in Science, it was shown that qubits--the atomic particles used in ludicrously fast quantum computers--can be made to retain their "superposed" state--that is, a state of both 1 and 0 or multiple 1's and 0's--for 39 minutes at room temperature, instead of the approximately three minutes they could hold out for earlier. In other words, your computers and devices are now that much closer to being tens of thousands of times faster than they currently are with their old-fashioned bit-based processors.

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AMD yesterday announced some new details about the company's third-generation accelerated processing unit (APU), "Kaveri," for notebooks and desktops. Kaveri is the first APU using heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) in combination with AMD's new TrueAudio technology and the Mantle API, the company said. The Kaveri is scheduled to start shipping Jan. 14, 2014.

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Apple will soon be contracting with GlobalFoundries in the backwoods of New York to have them produce A-series logic chips for iPhones and iPads, GlobalFoundries sources close to the the Albany Times Union have tipped. This represents a major expansion on the part of Apple to include more companies in its chip manufacturing, all of which it outsources. GlobalFoundries will be added to Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) as Apple's A-series chip suppliers.

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Intel has been trying to compete in the mobile world with its own processors from the Atom line. The problem Intel has run into is that it's chips are typically not as power efficient as ARM offerings meaning devices using Intel hardware often lack the battery life needed to compete in today's market. Intel has tried for years to pare down the power usage of its chips with varying degrees of success.

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The iPhone 5s beat out the LG G2 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 in Which? magazine's latest independent speed test of top-performing smartphones. Using a phone simulation program called Geekbench, the test found that the iPhone outperformed the competition in both single-core and multi-core performance benchmarks. Notably, the S4 slipped to third place after having scored top honors in June of this year.

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This week at an event in Montreal, NVIDIA showed off the high-powered demo software called Faceworks (previously working on NVIDIA Titan processors for PC) working on the next-generation mobile-aimed processor Project Logan. This processor will almost certainly be re-named Tegra 5 as each "Project" codename has been re-named "Tegra #", and what we've seen here is an ultra high-powered graphics-intensive beast of a demo on it running just as smoothly as we've seen it run on some of the most powerful graphics processors available from NVIDIA for desktop machines.

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