Tech-Freak Stuff » Hardware

Next Gen Transparent and Flexible electrodes developed

Rohit Sane — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:18:49 +0000

As all the gadgets seem to grow smaller and smaller day by day, the need for thin-film and highly flexible material is on the rise. Due to the ever increasing demand of Smartphones touch screens, LED and LCD displays, Solar cells, etc; the need for transparent and highly flexible electrodes for creating Displays is on the rise.

South Korean and U.S scientists have jointly developed a transparent and flexible electrode which can be used for varied applications like LCD displays, Solar cells, Tablets and Smartphone touch screens, and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays for Televisions and Computer monitors.

<< Image Credit >>

These electrodes will soon act as a substitute to indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) displays earlier used in different display screens. This new substance is stretchable, flexible, and stiff and rigid at the same time, which will help in creating various stable deformed shapes.

This bendable electrode was created by scientists from Korea University and Ames Laboratory under the U.S Department of Energy.

World’s Smallest Transistor (2nm in size) developed by joint research of South Korean, Japanese and British scientists

Rohit Sane — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:44:17 +0000

Logic gates on Processors are created using Trasistors. And more the number of transistors present on the processor, more is the performance gain of the system. So, Scientists are always trying their level best to reduce the size of transistors to make them as small as possible, as it would lead to faster processing and greater performance by devices using them.

There was a joint research performed at the Chungbuk National University in South Korea, where the team of scientists from South Korea, Japan and Britain was led by professor Choi Jung-bum. This team worked on the applications of the quantum effect to successfully create the world’s smallest transistor.

A local researcher at the University said, “This transistor could be used to enhance the capabilities of mobile electronic devices”. So, even when we already have dual-core mobile processors with good processing capabilities, we can surely expect more!

Professor Choi Jung-bum said, “The quantum effect transistor, which is just 2 nanometers in size, can operate in regular room temperature and effectively changes the entire paradigm of such devices” (read: mobile devices)

No words regarding the mass production or the availability were mentioned.

Samsung’s Polyimide displays to be made under a Joint Venture

Rohit Sane — Fri, 27 May 2011 10:34:53 +0000

Samsung has always been on the forefront when it comes to manufacturing Display screen for Mobile devices. Samsung also supplies its Displays to a vast number of clients including industry leaders like Apple.

The AMOLED, Super AMOLED and Super AMOLED Plus displays manufactured by Samsung in recent history have made it possible to have an ultimate viewing experience even on a Mobile device as small as a Smartphone.

Now, Samsung has put its foot forward to manufacture a super heat-resistant resin which is called “Polyimide”. But this high-end chemical material wont be manufactured by Samsung Mobile Displays alone. Samsung has partnered with Ube Industries Ltd. and this Polyimide material will be made as a part of this Joint Venture.

Getting into some technical details, Polyimides are capable of withstanding a temperature of 450 °F (232 °C) with ease and as high as 900 °F (482 °C) for short durations. Also, they show the property of flexibility and exceptional mechanical strength!

After knowing the properties of this material, we can have a wild guess that Samsung may be planning to manufacture Flexible and Curved displays very soon!

[via Yonhap, Image credits ]

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 GPU and Faster GeForce R275 Drivers launched

Rohit Sane — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:55:30 +0000

About 2 months back, we told you about the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 590 which is claimed to be the World’s Fastest Graphics Card till date. Now, NVIDIA has come up with another Fermi architecture based GPU named GeForce GTX 560.

The GeForce GTX 560 GPU packs in some brilliant features which appeal to the Gaming enthusiasts and professional gamers. With the incorporation of brilliant technologies like NVIDIA PhysX, 3D Vision, SLI and Surround, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 makes the experience to playing games in 1080p resolution just awesome!

This GPU is priced from Rs. 12,399 onwards and is available through ASL, Asus, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle, Zotac and others.

Also, the GeForce R275 drivers were released, which can be downloaded from their official website.

These drivers have the ability to offer 525 3D Vision gaming profiles and to show Performance boost across a variety of games, including Crysis 2 (6%), Bulletstorm (15%) and Portal 2 (8%).

Improved resizing experience for HDTVs as well as Improved desktop scaling experience with new user interface and features, along with support for more than 65 3D Vision Ready displays, including desktop monitors, notebooks and projectors are some notable features of these new Drivers.

Sony MDR-DS6500 : 7.1 Surround-Sound Wireless Headphones

tirsina — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:04:10 +0000

Sony has recently announced that they have made available the headphones you are going to crave for: MDR-DS6500. They incorporate speakers associated with a Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound technology, using the Virtualphones technology (VPT), thus generating sounds that seem to come from every direction (surround sound).

A 3 hour charging period is necessary for the headphones to function for 20 hours. We’d better believe them since Sony rarely announces wrong specifications. As for the sound quality, no compromise was made and you can benefit from a very clear sound from a distance of up to 100 meters (330 feet). So, you can walk around the house and have the same highquality sound.

Such high quality sound can only come from a digital source. These headphone’s dock, a part from a 3.5 stereo, has a digital optic input, perfect for picking up sound from any station, blu-ray player or even a recent version PC’s soundboard. Irrespective of the source type, be it 2.0ch or 5.1, Sony MDR-DS6500 wireless headphones will always provide you with a surround sound due to a smart amplifying and multiplexing system.

In order to avoid interference, inherent to any wireless system, both the basis and the headphones dinamically change the emitting/receiving channel, without imparing sound quality. No aspect of a high-tech product can be neglected, therefore the design for these headphones is the same uniform design used for the whole range of Bravia TV sets for more than a year.

Sony is planning to officially launch these wireless headphones in May 2011.

Intel plans to target the Tablets and Netbook market with the new “Cedar Trail” Atom platform

tirsina — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:29:34 +0000

Intel has been the biggest mainstream microprocessor maker since the beginning. Their chips have been used by numerous companies for developing some of the most amazing machines in the past century. But today’s market has expanded itself in a niche that has been quite an uncharted territory for Intel.

It is quite hard to conceive the fact that the biggest microprocessor company is not making anything for the handheld devices(read Tablets). Well, technically they are making a product that is not a good choice to any of the manufacturers of these Handheld devices. We are talking about the Atom processor from Intel here which has not been that ‘mobile’ recently.

Devices with Atom are certain to have a battery life nearly half or less than that of other devices using processors from competitor companies. It was about time Intel responded to the huge demand in this sector with a possible evolution of Atom processors.

Adopting a strategy that is a clear violation of Moore’s law, Intel is planning to give Atom three makeovers (Atom Innovation) over the next 3 years. But the question that remains unanswered is that will it be fast enough to earn Intel the necessary revenue from this target market? Also, will it really cater to his Fan-less breed of devices?

There is a strong possibility that it will not since the competitions that are already ahead of Intel will not sit around and wait for them to catch up, they will continue to develop and come up with better choices. If Intel plans to win this market or part of it, it will undoubtedly have to employ a lot more effort into it.

Curently, they are working hard on the new Atom platform called “Cedar Trail” which is expected soon. With this new processor, Intel will be able to provide wireless music, wireless display, PC synch and Fast Boot, all of which is very netbook-ish. This is the key reason to believe that there might be a shot for Intel to hold onto the ground in this Handheld market.

NVIDIA Quadro 400 Launched (Features and Price) 10x faster performance

Rohit Sane — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:55:33 +0000

The NVIDIA Quadro 400 graphics processing unit (GPU) which is targeted towards designers and engineers was launched today. Specially built for usage with professional applications, such as Autodesk AutoCAD, the NVIDIA Quadro 400 GPU provides up to 5X faster performance over high-end consumer gaming cards. It also gives up to 10X improvement when running industry leading CAD/CAM applications.

Specifications of NVIDIA Quadro 400

The Quadro 400 is very energy efficient, consuming a maximum of 35 watts making it ideal for small systems and nearly any workstation.

With 512 MB of DDR3 memory, providing high visual fidelity, featuring a 30-bit (10-bits per color) color engine with a dynamic range of over one billion color variations, Quadro 400 drivers are optimized and certified on leading professional applications.

“Quadro cards have been widely accepted by professionals across various industries in India, from animation & film to automotives, medical imaging to manufacturing. The Quadro 400 is built to deliver fast performance and the best visual graphics at cost-effective rates and power efficient standards,” said Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Sales & Marketing, South Asia, NVIDIA.

Features of the new Quadro 400 GPU

Unified Driver Architecture – Guarantees forward and backward compatibility with professional application software drivers, and simplifies upgrading to a new solution.

Hardware 3D Window Clipping – Accelerated clip regions enable faster data transfer between a window and the frame buffer to improve overall graphics performance.

High-Quality Display Connectivity – Drives ultra-high-resolution panels, producing phenomenal image quality, supporting two active connectors, including dual-link DVI with up to 3840 x 2400 resolution at 24Hz on each panel, and DisplayPort (DP) with up to 2560 x 1600 resolution.

NVIDIA Mosaic Technology – Enhances workspace across up to eight displays (using one card per two displays), enabling seamless taskbar spanning, as well as transparent scaling of any application. Works over multiple displays or a single high-resolution display, and with NVIDIA nView desktop management software.

The NVIDIA Quadro 400 processor also supports NVIDIA 3D Vision and 3D Vision Pro active shutter glasses 3D technology that delivers amazing 3D experience on nearly any workstation.

Availability and Pricing
The Quadro 400 will be available at an affordable price of Rs. 10,140 by the end of April 2011 and will slowly make its way in the Work Stations manufactured by HP, Fujitsu, Lenovo, etc.

Samsung Promises 1080p (or more!) Resolution for PC Tablets

tirsina — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 04:05:04 +0000

Samsung, as you all know, is one of the biggest producers of LCD displays in the world. Their products range from LCD TV’s, monitors and all sort of mobile gadgets, but when it comes to PC tablets, Samsung has the upper edge: they manufacture their own displays, therefore they benefit first from new technologies they develop.

Now, they are working on a new generation of tablet PC’s displays, benefiting the NVIDIA Tegra 3 platform, scheduled to hit the market this year. Even if screen size is limited for ergonomic considerations, the number of pixels can be increased quite a lot, without exceeding the GPU specifications.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is a good example of the status Samsung has when it comes to displays. The image quality of Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes from a 170ppi (pixel per inch) display, while Apple had to satisfy with a 132ppi display for the iPad 2.

Samsung could push the number of ppi’s well beyond 1080p, which is the default ppi for Full HD. A high resolution in a tight space makes noticing details nearly impossible for the human eye. Happily for us, the enhanced resolution will improve the clarity of the image, not just cram more text or other graphic elements on the screen!!

Samsung states that the improvements will not shorten the battery life, or the fluidity of the OS. So, this is a real good add-on!

World’s Fastest Graphics Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 590 (3GB GDDR5 with Dual GPU)

Rohit Sane — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:08:28 +0000

Amazing Games come with Amazing Graphics! And to play such high-quality games you need to have brilliant graphic cards.. All this said, Let me bring to your notice the World’s Fastest Graphics Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 590 powered by dual NVIDIA Fermi class GPUs.

Along with being the World’s fastest, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 590 is also the Quietest Graphic card available today.

Features and Specifications of NVIDIA Geforce GTX 590:

1024 NVIDIA CUDA architecture cores
3GB of GDDR5 memory
6 billion transistors
Dual NVIDIA Fermi-class GPUs
Ability to play DX 11 games at 2560×1600 px and higher resolution
Four separate video outputs
Ability to work simultaneously with 3 3D displays supporting NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology
World’s fastest performance for DX11 games
Support for NVIDIA SLI technology
Special cooling system
Dual vapor chambers
Only 48dB on standard decibel meter under full load.

“The GTX 590 is the best dual GPU product ever built,” said Drew Henry, General Manager of GeForce GPU business at NVIDIA. “With leading performance, support for multi-monitor 3D gaming, Quad SLI, and an acoustic envelope that begs to be heard for how quiet it is, the GTX 590 epitomizes what a perfect dual graphics card looks, performs, and sounds.”

The GTX 590 will be available through Asus, Gainward, Gigabyte, MSI, POV, Palit, Zotac, etc; to mention a few.

The starting e-tail price including taxes is Rs. 44,250 .

Intel’s Netbook Prototype [Canoe Lake] is slimmer than the Apple Macbook Air

Rohit Sane — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:15:03 +0000

Recently, Intel organised an Exclusive event for demonstration of the various features of their latest 2nd Generation Core processor family. It was a brilliant event where officials from Intel namely Mr. Binay Ackalloor (Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Platform Marketing), Mr. Thaine Creitz (Platform Architecture Specialist) and Mr. Paul Rietze (Director, Technical Sales & Architecture Enabling) showed the various amazing features of the 2nd Generation Core family.

Also, A lot of prototypes as well as different Netbooks, Tablets and Notebooks were showcased.

The one that really caught my eye was the Canoe Lake Netbook prototype from Intel. It is slimmer than the Apple Macbook Air. It is just 14mm in thickness at its thickest part (actually, it is of uniform thickness)

Here are some of the Photos of the Canoe Lake Netbook prototype from Intel:

While talking about this Netbook prototype, Mr. Binay Ackalloor said, “Unlike Steve Jobs removing the Macbook Air from an Envelope for its launch, Two of these Netbook prototypes were removed from the same envelope when it was first revealed.”