AMD details first ARM-based server chip: up to 16 helpings of Cortex-A57 clocked at 2GHz

AMD plans lowpower server chips based on ARM CortexA57, new Steamroller design

It’s hardly a secret that AMD has stepped out of its x86 comfort zone to develop an ARM-based server chip, but now we know a little more about it. Going by the name of “Seattle” and scheduled for launch in the second half of next year, it’ll be built around ARM’s 64-bit Cortex-A57 in either 8- or 16-core configurations, which will likely be clocked at a minimum of 2GHz. In an apparent acknowledgement of ARM’s superiority at low wattages, we’re told that this design has the potential to deliver 4x the performance of AMD’s current Opteron X processors, with improved compute-per-watt. There’s a clear limit to AMD’s reliance on ARM, however, as it’ll use Seattle to up against Intel’s little Atoms, but will continue to sell its own x86 designs for higher-power applications. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting on something more interesting from this union, which might be an ARM CPU paired with a Radeon HD graphics processor in some sort of mobile-class SoC. Guess we’ll just have to be patient.

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How the Hell Does a Quantum Computer Work?

You’ve probably heard people—including us—banging on about quantum computers for a long ol’ time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you know exactly how they work. Fortunately this video is here to help.

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Tesla battery-swap demo this week confirms Elon Musk

Tesla will show off its battery-swap system in a live demonstration this week, founder Elon Musk has revealed, as the electric car company experiments with alternative ways to power its vehicles. The demo will be done live, Musk confirmed, at the company’s Hawthorne design studio. Given the recent failure of Better Place, however, all eyes

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Views Don’t Get Any Better Than This

Views Don't Get Any Better Than This

Some people claim to have a great view from their bedroom window or work desk. Their claims are worth nothing compared to the view the astronauts in the ISS get.

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Raspbmc’s June build brings a slew of tweaks: cloud backups and more coming in July

The Raspberry Pi-focused XBMC port Raspbmc’s June changelog is a lengthy one. Among the changes are new settings, new skins, support for the Stealth Nighthawk F117A device and changes to make booting up faster, among many other things. Getting this month’s update should only require rebooting one’s Raspberry Pi, and a few new mirrors that have joined the network should make downloading the updated software even faster. That’s not all however, because the July update is promising Linux kernel updates, Raspbmc “Cloud” features with automatic settings backup / restore across multiple devices and an unspecified “special announcement.”

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Source: Raspbmc

HTC Desire 200 official with palm-sized Android

The HTC Desire 200 has been officially revealed, the company’s newest handset and one that brings Android in a form-factor a little larger than a credit card. Fronted by a 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen, and running Android on a 1GHz Snapdragon S1 processor, the Desire 200 obviously isn’t going to break any speed records or, for

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Worried Who’s Watching Your Web Browsing? Adafruit’s Onion Pi Tor Proxy Project Creates A Private, Portable Wi-Fi Access Point

onionpi

Adafruit Industries has put together a weekend project for people worried the NSA is monitoring how many reruns of Seinfeld they watch on their tablet. The Onion Pi Tor Proxy is a weekend project that uses the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, along with a USB WiFi adapter and Ethernet cable to create “a small, low-power and portable privacy Pi” for using with portable or other computing devices (e.g. your work laptop) that can’t otherwise run the anonymising Tor network.

In the Onion Pi configuration, the Pi creates a secure access point which automatically routes any web browsing through Tor’s distributed network of relays. The Tor network is designed to disrupt web surveillance by preventing web snoopers from learning which sites you visit, and also the sites you visit from learning your physical location. It does this by ensuring every Internet packet goes through three layers of relays before going on to its intended destination. Hence Tor’s many layered onion motif.

Adafruit says the Onion Pi is good for those who…

…want to browse anonymously on a netbook, tablet, phone, or other mobile or console device that cannot run Tor and does not have an Ethernet connection. If you do not want to or cannot install Tor on your work laptop or loan computer. If you have a guest or friend who wants to use Tor but doesn’t have the ability or time to run Tor on their computer, this gift will make the first step much easier.

Getting the Onion Pi access point up and running means plugging the Ethernet cable into any Internet access point and powering up the Pi via its micro USB cable plugged into your laptop/the wall adapter. The Pi will then create the Onion Pi access point. Connect to that for a less NSA-friendly browsing session.

That said, Adafruit’s Onion Pi page does contain caveats regarding exactly how anonymous this set-up is — noting: “We can’t guarantee that it is 100% anonymous and secure! Be smart & paranoid about your TOR usage.”

Other Adafruit tips for keeping your web browsing on the down-low include:

AMD Seattle chips ditch x86 for ARM to undermine Intel’s server market

AMD has revealed its new “Seattle” chips, processors headed to power-dense servers, and using for the first time ARM architecture as commonly found in smartphones and tablets, rather than x86. AMD Seattle, which is expected to show up in systems from the second half of 2014, will initially offer eight ARM Cortex-A57 cores running at

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This Could Maybe Possibly Be the Next iPhone’s Screen and Guts

This Could Maybe Possibly Be the Next iPhone's Screen and Guts

It’s that time of the year again, where Apple’s next iPhone is probably being built in factories all over China, resulting in random parts being spat out onto the Internets. Today we have both a screen and logic board supposedly from the incoming iPhone 5S or whatever it ends up being called.

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Nintendo 3DS update adds save backups, new StreetPass game store

If the madness of E3 (and the promise of some big titles) has recently pulled you back to Nintendo’s handheld, you might be greeted with a firmware update next time you open up that well-worn 3DS. Aside from improved stability and bug fixes, there’s new save data backup feature which will hold on to save files for your downloaded 3DS titles as well as Virtual Console games. Appearing already in Europe, version 6.0.0-11 also bundles in a new shop for the Mii Plaza, with StreetPass Squad, StreetPass Garden, StreetPass Battle, StreetPass Mansion all priced at 5 euros, or 15 euros for the whole set. No word on yet on when the update will arrive on the other side of the Atlantic, but given past form, we’d expect it to arrive some time this month.

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Source: Nintendo Life, VG247