On Wednesday at the Intel Developers’ Forum, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) unveiled its plan to remove wires from the PC workplace.

During a keynote on Wednesday, Intel executives announced that Skylake — the Desktop and notebook-focused successor to Broadwell — would be “fully wireless”. That means that the future, according to Intel, is one where the daily activities for devices of docking, connecting one’s computer to a display, as well as charging will all be done without the use of wires for devices that use the company’s next-generation CPU platform.

This wireless experience will be done via a suite of technologies. For charging, Intel will jump onboard the Rezence standard — an alliance with members from most major manufacturers including Asus, Lenovo and Dell — while for wireless display Intel will use its own standard called “WiDi”.

The slide below explains specifically how Rezence will work on future Intel platforms. The coils on both ends will be tuned to 6.78 MHz, and Intel says that measures will be in place to prevent overheating of the coils or interference from other metallic objects that may be near the two devices. For example, the resonant coupling frequency will be set to 6.78 Mhz which apparently is a safe zone to avoid interference.

For wireless displays, Intel is pushing a self-developed standard called WiDi Pro. WiDi isn’t an inherently new standard, but Intel is looking for a mea culpa and redo for this new effort, that’s now GPU accelerated, starting next year with the fifth generation of Intel Core chips.  Intel is targeting this platform for enterprise environments, removing the hassle of plugging in displays, projectors and other such devices.

Lastly, Intel’s solution for wireless docking is called WiGig. WiGig is Intel’s solution for a wireless dongle free world where devices such as mice or keyboards connect to the user’s computer via a 60 GHz connection. Intel says the range for WiGig connected devices will be between 2 and 3 feet.

While these are all promising technologies, the real question is if this is the best direction for connectivity.

Wireless soup

Cluttering of the electromagnetic spectrum is a big problem for all users, especially those in an EM-crowded environment that are trying to connect to a wireless network.

In environments with hundreds of users attempting to connect to the internet via WiFi, WiFi quickly becomes overcrowded and unreliable. Technology journalists that attend big conferences such as CES of Computex will gripe non-stop about the unreliability of WiFi since the rush of people attempting to connect to the network overwhelms routers and leaves bandwidth something something to be desired.

An increase in EM traffic from a move away from cables means an increase in interference. In environments where the network is densely packed — such as a tradeshow — the potential for things stopping in their tracks due to EM crowding is immense. Any mission critical applications, such as an executive’s keynote, would always be done via traditional wired connections.

In the end this wireless suite of products may have its applications and usages. But institutional mistrust — particularly because of possibilities of technical failures or security issues with the wireless projectors — will stop these devices from going mainstream.

The post Wireless Connectivity Means We’re In For a Buggy, Laggy And Insecure Future appeared first on VR World.

With the introduction of the next-generation of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) platforms, DDR 4 is finally getting its time to shine.

At IDF 2014, memory maker G.Skill turned up to show off its high-end DDR 4 RAM that came complete with a clockspeed of 3333 MHz in a 4GB x 8 modules configuration. G.Skill also brought with it to the show 8GB modules running at 3200 MHz in a 32 GB configuration. The RAM was running on a Intel i7-5960X CPU along with Rampage V Extreme X99 and X99-Deluxe motherboards from Asus (TPE: 2357).

The 3333 MHz chips have a 1.35V and latency of 16-16-16-36, which are the same as the 3200 MHz DIMMs.

“It’s very exciting to show the world what we can do with the new DDR4 memory standard for the latest Intel X99 platform. There is no doubt that breaking the 3000MHz memory barrier with ease is the next big thing in desktop performance, effectively doubling bandwidth throughput compared to the previous DDR3 memory standard,” Frank Hung, Product Marketing at G.SKILL, said in a press release.

This RAM comes with a price tag of $700 for the 16GB 3333 MHz kit. The kits are available now for pre-order with availability expected later this year.

The post G. Skill Demos High-End DDR 4 RAM at IDF 2014 appeared first on VR World.

After the close of the first day of Intel’s Developer Forum in San Francisco, long term shareholders of Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) may be left with mixed feelings.

After all, the company put equal, but not equally prominent time, into its traditional high-margin market — servers — and also to the unproven, currently unprofitable, market of wearables and mobile. Granted, the much awaited and much needed refresh of Intel’s Xeon CPU was Intel’s first announcement of the show — but that occurred at a day zero event before IDF kicked off which lacked the prominence or importance of the forum’s opening keynote.

The reason for this is simple: Xeons don’t attract the attention from the usual mainstream consumer press that fashion-buzzword topics such as wearables and mobile do. Even though Xeons are essentially the brains that power the hundreds of millions of web-connected smart devices and their respective app stores, they don’t get the attention they deserve because the public simply is not interested in them. Instead, a market where Intel has yet to make a dollar — in fact is spending billions just to acquire its first customers — steals the show.

While it may be that the unproven markets of wearables, mobile, and the amalgam,  Internet of Things, one day proves to be a profitable division that day is not yet here. Intel does have some promising advancements with x86 in low-power (traditionally ARM dominated) fields, but these advancements really won’t be shown until Broadwell makes its way to these devices after the Atom line. Which, of course, relies on customers signing up to make devices that incorporates these chips. And that, of course, relies on Intel’s chips being the more competitive option than ARM.

All this is certainly possible. It could be that the next-generation of x86 — in the form of Broadwell and later Skylake — powers award winning devices of all form factors. There always could be high-end or extreme versions of ultra-mobile devices running on Core-class processors. But it’s also possible that this does not happen leaving Intel with an investment that would have been better spent elsewhere.

The post Intel’s Seeming New Focus: Low Margins But High Growth appeared first on VR World.

On Monday VR World reported on some irregularities with the “extra pin” found on Asus’ (TPE: 2357) X99 motherboards.

Asus claims that the additional undocumented pins found on Haswell-E and the sockets of Asus’ compatible boards are used to give users extra stability during overclocking. As documented by VR World’s Nebojsa Novakovic, in its own documentation Asus claims that these pins, better known as “socket 2084,” have numerous advantages when used including better monitoring of voltage, more strapping ability, higher frequency, and maximum Vcore.

However, sources that have spoken to VR World say these pins aren’t as special as Asus says they are and are merely used for CPU debugging  — and present a crash risk or even damage risk if used for other purposes. Further, sources say that Asus is attempting to patent the particular usage of the pins to keep them away from Foxconn (TPE: 2354).

But Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), for its part, has come out fairly neutral on the issue.

Lisa Graff, Intel’s boss of its desktop group, said in an interview with VR World that Intel was investigating the issue and won’t have an answer for some time.

“We understand that Asus has done some different things — and we understand that some of our customers will do different things with their boards — and beyond that at this point there’s nothing much we can say except talk to Asus about it,” she said.

Considering the number of reports of burned or otherwise dead Haswell-E chips that have appeared in the press shortly after the launch of X99, one might conclude that this was the cause. Graff doesn’t think this is the case and says that Intel won’t have an answer until it completes its own investigation.

“We have heard there have been some issues with Haswell-E based systems, but we do not know what the cause is at this point. We investigate all these kind of things. We don’t know, so we’re going to investigate,” she said.

“There’s no way to make a call on what exactly it is until we do an engineering analysis on it.”

The post Intel: No Answer Yet on Asus’ Extra Pin Situation appeared first on VR World.

Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) second developer forum of the year — the first taking place during April in Shenzhen — officially kicked off in San Francisco Tuesday with a mobile theme as the event’s keynote was anchored around Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and other Intel executives taking the stage to announce the availability of Intel’s XMM 7260 LTE baseband in its first hardware win, as well as a series of developer tools for Android developers, as well as other mobile themed announcements.

On stage Intel’s Kirk Skaugen, Vice President of the PC Client Group,  said that the first hardware win for Intel’s XMM 7260 baseband will be in Samsung’s Galaxy Alpha smartphone, which is now shipping in Europe, Asia (excluding China/Korea/Japan), Australia and Latin America. The XMM 7260 and the 7262 modems are Intel’s first LTE Category 6 compatible basebands.

Sticking with the mobile theme, Intel executives also said on stage that Intel would be providing Android developers with an Intel reference design program to assist developers in developing hardware and apps for Intel-powered Android platforms. Intel’s Doug Fisher, the company’s general manager of software, said that Intel is committed to providing updates to Android two weeks after Google pushes out updates to AOSP.

Another tablet win

Later during the keynote Krzanich was joined on stage by Michael Dell to show off the Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet which contains Intel’s new RealSense snapshot technology. This creates a depthmap and allows users to fine tune focus adjustments to create a more accurate and true-to-life picture. Exact specs, pricing on the tablet have yet to be released but Dell did mention on stage that it would have a 2K resolution (2560 × 1440 pixels) and an 8.4-inch OLED screen.

A rendering of the Dell 8 7000 series.

At the Shenzhen IDF conference earlier this year, Intel’s Krzanich said that Intel was targeting to have 40 million Intel-powered tablets shipped by year’s end. Krzanich did not provide much in the line of in-depth information detailing exactly how many tablets had been shipped to date, or how close the company is to meeting its goal,

Always a place for the PC

While the bulk of the keynote at IDF was about mobile, and emerging markets from mobile such as wearables, Intel’s Skaugen also gave attendees the first official preview of Skylake — Intel’s next-generation architecture that’s due out next year. While there were no technical specifications disclosed, Skaugen did demonstrate a reference design of a 2-in-1 notebook powered by Skylake playing 4K video.

In contrast to Broadwell — which is largely targeted at low-power mobile platforms — Skylake will broadly target Intel’s customers and will find a place in a variety of form factors. Skylake will be built on Intel’s 14nm process node, and Skaugen said that development of the platform is progressing and its “health is great.”

Edison finally available

Intel kicked off the year at CES by announcing Edison, a tiny computer the size of an SD card that comes packed with WiFi, Bluetooth, and an Intel SoC.

Targeted at a variety of use cases from wearables to makers, Intel hopes that the system would revolutionize hyper small form factor computing. At IDF, Krzanich said that Edison is now available with pricing starting at $50.

Check back later for more from San Francisco as IDF continues. 

The post Mobile Takes Center Stage at IDF 2014 appeared first on VR World.

While flying from Taipei to San Francisco for the usual September round of tech events, one story in this month’s MacWorld caught my attention: one of the editors was speculating how nice it would be to have a true full Mac in an iPhone size. Of course, Apple may be a little farther from merging the OS X and iOS than we thought earlier, but, what about looking at the same thing on the Wintel platform?

It could be argued that one big mistake Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)  did with Windows Phone is to compete with Android and Apple (NASDAQ: APPL). Windows OS, as imperfect as it is, has one big advantage over both Android and iOS: it is a content creation-oriented environment, compared to content-playback environments on the other two. After all, Apple has OS X for content creation, while Google, well, searches for already made content, isn’t it?

Come back to the increasingly popular phablets, seemingly the smallest true computer format one can accept for everyday use. A 6-inch 2015 phablet, with a Bluetooth keyboard embedded inside its protective cover instead of wasting the screen space, can also have a say quad core 14-nm Atom processor, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB flash storage, not to mention Full HD or better screen resolution. Hmm, looks as good as today’s UltraBooks, doesn’t it? So technically it should be able to run a full version of Windows 8.1 or later, including Office and many other apps, without a hitch – something utterly impossible for any ARM-based phone, phablet or tablet, no matter how powerful it is.

Now, if I want to modify my Word document, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation on the go, and I don’t want to open my PC for that, trying to do the job on those small Android ‘Office’ apps, including Microsoft’s own one, is either pain in the neck or just not doable. But, with true Office on true Windows, on an Intel (NASDAQ: INTC)-inside phablet the ultra-compact content creation and editing becomes possible.

Now, will Intel and Microsoft jump on this advantage while they have it, before the Android world catches up?

The post IDF 2014 Murmurings: A True Windows Phablet for Content Creationists? appeared first on VR World.

While flying from Taipei to San Francisco for the usual September round of tech events, one story in this month’s MacWorld caught my attention: one of the editors was speculating how nice it would be to have a true full Mac in an iPhone size. Of course, Apple may be a little farther from merging the OS X and iOS than we thought earlier, but, what about looking at the same thing on the Wintel platform? Perhaps a Windows Phablet?

It could be argued that one big mistake Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) did with Windows Phone is to compete with Android and Apple (NASDAQ: APPL). Windows OS, as imperfect as it is, has one big advantage over both Android and iOS: it is a content creation-oriented environment, compared to content-playback environments on the other two. After all, Apple has OS X for content creation, while Google, well, searches for already made content, isn’t it?

Come back to the increasingly popular phablets, seemingly the smallest true computer format one can accept for everyday use. A 6-inch 2015 phablet, with a Bluetooth keyboard embedded inside its protective cover instead of wasting the screen space, can also have a say quad core 14-nm Atom processor, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB flash storage, not to mention FullHD or better screen resolution. Hmm, looks as good as today’s UltraBooks, doesn’t it? So technically it should be able to run a full version of Windows 8.1 or later, including Office and many other apps, without a hitch – something utterly impossible for any ARM-based phone, phablet or tablet, no matter how powerful it is.

Now, if I want to modify my Word document, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation on the go, and I don’t want to open my PC for that, trying to do the job on those small Android ‘Office’ apps, including Microsoft’s own one, is either pain in the neck or just not doable. But, with true Office on true Windows, on an Intel (NASDAQ: INTC)-inside phable, the ultra-compact content creation and editing becomes possible.

Now, will Intel and Microsoft jump on this advantage while they have it, before the Android world catches up?

The post IDF 2014 Murmurings: A True Windows Phablet for Content Creationists? appeared first on VR World.

A day before Intel’s Developer Forum kicked off in San Francisco, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) officially unveiled the Xeon E5-2600 v3 known previously by its code name of Grantley.

On stage, Intel’s Diane Bryant, the company’s general manager of its Data Center Group, said that the “big data” economy was driving demand for a new series of Xeon Chips.

“The digital services economy imposes new requirements on the data center, requirements for automated, dynamic and scalable service delivery,” Bryant said on stage. “Our new Intel processors deliver unmatched performance, energy efficiency and security, as well as provide visibility into the hardware resources required to enable software defined infrastructure.

“We are continuing to be the most energy efficient processor on the planet,” she continued,” promising 27 world records in performance across the product line.”

“[Intel is] excited about the role this platform is going to play as we all collectively re-architect the datacentre from static to dynamic and from proprietary to open standards,” she later said on stage.

While the previous generation of Intel Xeon chips had a core count that went as high as 12, the third generation of Xeons offers up to 18 cores with clock speeds of up to 3.7 GHz . The Xeon E5-2600 v3 will also be the first in the series to support DDR4 RAM, which offers substantial clock speeds above DDR3’s JEDEC speeds as well as power savings due to lower operating voltages.

Another new feature of the Xeon E5-2600 v3 is the update of Intel’s Quickpath Interconnect (QPI) that’s capable of transferring data at 9.6 GTps, much faster than existing front side bus (FSB) technology.

To aid in the inquiry of fault detection, Intel is including a new range of telemetry sensors to give administrators more information and metrics on CPU usage, memory and I/O.

The new Xeon is available in 22 different versions that vary wildly depending on required clock speed and cores. Pricing begins at $213 and tops out at $2,072. For the workstation, the chip is available as the Xeon E5-1600 with pricing ranging from $295 to $1,723.

The post Intel Officially Unveils Haswell-Powered Xeon at IDF 2014 appeared first on VR World.