Agam Shah, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Agam Shah

Author Archives: Agam Shah

Hands on Acer’s Switch 5, a competitor to Microsoft’s Surface Pro

Microsoft has set the gold standard for tablet-style 2-in-1 devices with its Surface Pro, and other PC vendors have followed suit with their own designs. Acer's latest Surface-style device, the Switch 5, offers a couple of advantages but lacks in other areas.I had a chance to play with the Switch 5 at an Acer event in New York City, where new PCs and tablets were announced. The Switch 5 is a tablet first, but a keyboard attachment can be hooked up to make it a laptop.As a tablet, the Switch 5 is quite light, about the equivalent of the Surface Pro 4. The device doesn't look as polished as the Surface Pro, nor does it have the premium finish. But it does have solid technologies, like the latest Intel processor and liquid cooling, that set it apart from rival devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Acer’s new Holo 360 is a 360-degree camera in a smartphone

The effort to grow in the virtual reality market has Acer chasing weird, but rather interesting, devices.The company introduced the Holo 360 camera, which is first and foremost a 360-degree camera. It can capture 3D content, much like other 360-degree cameras, and could be used to capture, view, and create content for VR headsets.But, seemingly as an afterthought, the device also has WiFi and LTE connectivity. The device itself looks like a bulky smartphone and can be used to make phone calls. It has a small screen, much like those on candy-bar phones.It's clearly not designed to be a full-fledged smartphone. No information about the chipset was provided. Different countries have different types of networks, and not all modems support all networks, especially in countries like China.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How HP reclaimed the title of world’s top PC maker from Lenovo

In late 2015, HP was reborn as a PC maker following a split of its parent organization, Hewlett-Packard. At the time, HP was a lost cause, and its double-digit decline in PC shipments was a main reason for the split.The new HP then set out to reclaim its spot as the world's top PC maker from Lenovo, a title it lost in 2013. It reached the goal in the first quarter of 2017, during which its PC shipments grew by 13.1 percent year over year.A series of cool products and decisions to cut off low-margin products helped HP return to the top. Lenovo's struggles also played a part, but HP's strong performance in North America was a deciding factor, IDC said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Huawei, Google supercharge Android with new Raspberry Pi-like board

Prepare to run Android at blazing fast speeds on a new Raspberry Pi-like computer developed by Huawei.Huawei's HiKey 960 computer board is priced at US$239 but has some of the latest CPU and GPU technologies. Google, ARM, Huawei, Archermind, and LeMaker all played roles in developing the board.The HiKey 960 is meant to be a go-to PC for Android or a tool to develop software and drivers for the OS. The board development was backed by Linaro, an organization that develops software packages for the Android OS and ARM architecture.Linaro CEO George Grey recently said it was sad that Android developers had to write code on x86 chips. He encouraged the organization's members to build a superfast computer so developers could build ARM software on ARM architecture. Intel has scaled back Android support on x86 PCs and isn't making smartphone chips.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This is the closest thing Intel has built to a discrete GPU

Intel doesn't make its own discrete GPU but has built something that specializes in processing 4K graphics. But that product isn't powerful enough to run Crysis, if you were wondering.The chipmaker showed off its Intel Visual Compute Accelerator 2 at the NAB show in Las Vegas this week. It has the build of a GPU but is designed for server applications and not for PCs.The VCA 2 is aimed at cloud streaming 4K video, graphics, and virtual reality content. Servers with the graphics accelerator installed could be used to stream video or broadcast content.The VCA 2 uses the 4K-capable Iris Pro Graphics P580 graphics chip and three Intel Xeon E3-1500 v5 processors. The P580 is also used in Intel's mini-PC called Skull Canyon, which is designed for gaming.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This is the closest thing Intel has built to a discrete GPU

AMD shows off Vega’s ability to handle 8K graphics at NAB

AMD is giving a demonstration of the brute force of its upcoming Vega GPU, showing its ability to handle 4K and 8K graphics.The company is showing off its next-generation Radeon Pro professional graphics card based on the Vega GPU at the NAB show in the Las Vegas this week.One demonstration has the Vega GPU handling 8K video processing in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017. The other focuses on 4K post-processing with Radeon ProRender, which renders high-end graphics.The NAB show is targeted at the TV and film industry, in which 8K is a growing trend. AMD has been wooing the industry to adopt its GPUs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AMD’s new Polaris-based Radeon Pro Duo is slower than its predecessor

AMD's new Radeon Pro Duo graphics packs two of the company's fastest GPUs, but surprisingly, is slower than its 2016 predecessor.The Pro Duo, announced on Monday, is based on the Polaris architecture. It provides 11.45 teraflops of single-precision performance, which is a downgrade from the 16 teraflops of performance offered by last year's Pro Duo, based on the Fiji architecture.Performance usually goes up with each new GPU generation, but AMD opted to lower the power draw and the number of processing cores in the Pro Duo; as result, the product generates less heat. The Pro Duo draws 250 watts of power, compared to 350 watts by its predecessor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s Mac Pro gets crushed on features by new HP Zbook laptops

Apple's Mac Pro has been ignored for so long that even Windows 10 mobile workstations are catching up on features and performance.Take HP's latest Zbook laptop workstations , which were announced on Friday. These heavy built laptops -- which is why they are called mobile workstations -- have comparable memory and storage capacity technology to the Mac Pro, but excel in other areas.The laptops feature Thunderbolt 3 ports, DDR4 memory, Intel's latest Kaby Lake-based Core and Xeon processors, and the latest GPUs from Nvidia and AMD.By comparison the Mac Pro has Thunderbolt 2 ports, an old AMD GPU, DDR3 memory and Intel Xeon processors based on the Ivy Bridge architecture, which were released in 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple will return heat generated by data center to warm up homes

Apple is building a new data center in Denmark, and it has some interesting ideas on how to power the data center with renewable energy, while also giving back to the community.Excess heat generated by the data center will be captured and returned to the local district's heating system, which will warm up homes in the community.The data center in the Jutland region will be partly powered by recycling waste products from farms. Apple is working with Aarhus University on a system that passes agricultural waste through a digester to generate methane, which is then used to power the data center.The digester reaction turns some of the waste into nutrient-rich fertilizer, which Apple returns to local farmers to use on their fields. It's a "mutually beneficial relationship," Apple said in its environment report for 2016, released this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple will return heat generated by data center to warm up homes

Qualcomm: First Windows 10 ARM PC coming in the fourth quarter

If you want a Windows 10 PC that doesn't have an x86 chip from Intel or AMD, your wish will be granted in the fourth quarter.Qualcomm said the first cellular laptop with Windows 10 and its ARM-based Snapdragon 835 will come by the end of the year."Our Snapdragon 835 is expanding into mobile PC designs running Windows 10," and it's scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter, said Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm, according to a transcript of a Wednesday earnings call posted on Seeking Alpha. Until now, Windows 10 has worked only on x86 chips. Qualcomm and Microsoft are collaborating to make the ARM-based Windows 10 PCs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook’s Caffe2 AI tools come to iPhone, Android, and Raspberry Pi

New intelligence can be added to mobile devices like the iPhone, Android devices, and low-power computers like Raspberry Pi with Facebook's new open-source Caffe2 deep-learning framework.Caffe2 can be used to program artificial intelligence features into smartphones and tablets, allowing them to recognize images, video, text, and speech and be more situationally aware.It's important to note that Caffe2 is not an AI program, but a tool allowing AI to be programmed into smartphones. It takes just a few lines of code to write learning models, which can then be bundled into apps.The release of Caffe2 is significant. It means users will be able to get image recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision directly on their phone. That task is typically offloaded to remote servers in the cloud, with smartphones then connecting to it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s cool quantum computing plan embraces cryogenic memory

Microsoft has crazy quantum computing plans. It is building hardware based on a particle that hasn't been discovered, and the company now wants to make super-cool memory for quantum computers.The company is working with Rambus to develop and build prototype computers with memory subsystems that can be cooled at cryogenic temperatures. Cryogenic temperatures typically are below minus 180 degrees Celsius or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.Quantum computers could eventually replace today's PCs and servers and promise to be significantly faster. But the systems are notoriously unstable and need to be stored in refrigerators for faster and secure operation. As an example, D-Wave's 2000Q quantum computer needs to be kept significantly cooler than supercomputers so operations don't break down.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s cool quantum computing plan embraces cryogenic memory

Intel scraps annual IDF event as it looks beyond PCs

After 20 years, Intel is scrapping its marquee annual Intel Developer Forum event, where tech enthusiasts gathered to load up on the chipmaker's news and technologies.IDF started off in 1997 as a small event in Palm Springs, California. The show was later moved to San Francisco and vastly expanded during a boom in the PC market.But with the PC market slowing down, the attraction of IDF has also dwindled. Intel's future isn't tied to PCs but instead to areas like data centers, autonomous cars, modems, the internet of things, and manufacturing. Last year, IDF events were held in San Francisco and Beijing, and neither will happen this year. An event was scheduled this year from Aug. 15 to 17 in San Francisco, according to a calendar for Moscone Convention Center, but it has been canceled.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Prices of SSDs and DRAM will crash in 2019, Gartner predicts

The prices of PCs, smartphones, and tablets are going up, with higher component prices to blame. Shortages in DRAM, flash, batteries and displays are hitting buyers in the wallet.Minor relief is in sight next year when prices of memory and NAND flash -- which is used in SSDs -- will start to gradually decline. But prices will plummet big time in 2019, predicted Jon Erensen, research director for semiconductors at Gartner.The impact could be felt on the prices of PCs and mobile devices. But it's too early to predict the exact impact of the projected NAND and DRAM price crashes on PCs and mobile devices, Erensen said.If the prices drop, it may be affordable for computer users to acquire components off the shelf and build PCs at home. But the prices of pre-made devices, in the end, depend on what PC makers do with the savings resulting from cheaper component pricing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP to ship its Omen X VR backpack PC in June

HP will make a major virtual reality push in June, when it will start shipping its Omen X VR backpack PC.The backpack PC has already been announced, but the company until now had not provided a shipping date. HP is accepting applications from gamers and commercial developers to test the product.There will be two types of Omen X backpack PCs, Ron Coughlin, president of the Personal Systems Business at HP, said in an interview. HP will release a VR backpack for gamers, and one for commercial customers, he said.Users will be able to carry the PC like a backpack and hook up a VR headset like HTC's Vive. Wearing the backpack PC allows users to move around freely.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP’s new Pavilions can supercharge gaming with optional GPUs

Just two days after Microsoft's Windows 10 Creators Update arrived, HP announced two PCs that will come pre-loaded with the new OS.HP refreshed its Pavilion laptops and X360 2-in-1s with new processors and also is offering optional discrete GPUs with the new PCs.You'll be able to select AMD Radeon or Nvidia 940MX graphics when configuring the PCs. Intel or AMD chips (but not Ryzen) can be selected with the PCs.HP realizes entry-level gaming is becoming a basic prerequisite for many laptop users, and discrete GPUs will provide serious graphics punch that integrated graphics can't match. The Pavilion x360 is primarily a laptop but can be used a tablet after you fold the screen. Prices for an entry-level 11.6-inch model, which has only a 720p screen option, will start at US$399.99 with a Pentium N4200 processor, but it can be upgraded to Intel Core i3 or i5 processors. The 14-inch model with Core i3 starts at $499.99, while the 15.6-inch model with Core i5 starts at $699.99. The 14- and 15-inch models can be upgraded to full HD screens.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Just for fun: Program Commodore 64 games for Windows 10 PCs

You don't need to go searching for a Commodore 64 on Ebay to relive the vintage PC's glory days.Avid gamer Petri Wilhelmsen is providing a way to write and run C64 programs on Windows PCs for tech-savvy gamers who want to go old-school.Wilhelmsen has put up a primer on Github for coding Commodore 64 applications for Windows PCs. Wilhelmsen holds a day job as a senior program manager for gaming at Microsoft.The guide provides basic instructions on how to put a game together by writing applications, creating graphics and compiling music.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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