IBM z Processors Climb to 5.5 GHz

The core of IBM's venerable mainframe architecture, the z196 chip, is currently shipping as a 5.2 GHz quad-core processor. The next product generation will apparently climb to 5.5 GHz, according to a report published earlier this month by the Wall Street Journal.
There was no clock speed information on the next Power chip, currently called Power7+. Power7 runs at up to 4.14 GHz today and IBM says that the next generation will be 10 to 20 percent faster and it is more than likely that a slight upward adjustment of the clock speed will arrive as well.
IBM's zEnterprise servers have a starting configuration price point of about $75,000 for the z114 (up to 14 processors at 3.8 GHz) and scale into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for z196 systems with 24 processors/96 cores. A single 5.2 GHz quad-core z196 processor, called central processing complex (CPC) is rated at a power consumption of about 300 watts.
In comparison, a 4.14 GHz Power7 chip is rated at 190 watts thermal design power.

DRAM Prices Continue to Decline

MarketWatch reported that DRAM prices have just hit a new five-month low. According to DRAMeXchange, a 4GB DDR3 chip module sold for $18.75 last week and may drop to $18 this week.

Typically, there is a seasonal uptick in DRAM pricing in the September time frame due to increased demand from PC makers that are preparing for the Christmas season. However, there appears to be little to no increased demand, which could be caused by high inventory levels.

While there was no information how much inventory there is, there are implications that Windows 8 has not jumpstarted PC manufacturing enough to stimulate DRAM demand. At this time, DRAM prices are still falling and customers looking to upgrade the memory in their PCs may get even better deals toward the end of the year.

Samsung Said to Be Prepping Android 4.0 Galaxy S Camera

Samsung has had a rough couple of days but it seems the company isn't going to let last week's billion dollar ruling in Apple's favor mess with its plans for IFA. Rumor has it the company is preparing to announce a brand new Galaxy device and, despite the company's tendency to double up on product lines (we can't be the only ones puzzled by the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Note 10.1) this is unlike anything the company has released before.

GSMArena reports that Samsung is working on a Galaxy S III-based point-and-shoot camera. Dubbed the Samsung Galaxy S Camera, the device features a 4.8-inch SuperAMOLED screen and is based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. GSMArena says this information comes from a tipster that has proven reliable on previous occasions. It's described as a Galaxy S III glued to the back of a point-and-shoot with the resulting device measuring roughly one and a half or two times as thick as the GSIII.

Set for an IFA unveiling, GSMArena's source says the camera will pack both WiFi and 3G connectivity, as well as a 16-megapixel sensor and a 10x zoom. Other than this, details were a bit scarce, but with IFA kicking off later this week, we're hoping to learn more soon. Samsung is scheduled to debut the Galaxy Note 2 at its Unpacked event tomorrow, and the Galaxy S Camera is apparently going to be shown alongside the 5.5-inch phone/tablet.

Apple Wins $1 Billion Patent Damages From Samsung In US Court

Apple wins big – but Samsung will appeal

Samsung products found to have violated Apple patents included the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets and such smartphone models as the Captivate, the Galaxy S line, the Fascinate and the Epic 4 G. In the case of most patents, the jury ruled that Samsung’s infringement of them was “willful.” If the jury verdict is upheld after the inevitable appeals, the $1.05 billion damages award has the potential to take a significant bite out of Samsung’s cash reserves, which totaled $23.8 billion (£15bn) according to its second quarter earnings report released on July 27. The verdict was handed down by a jury in US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose after a three-week trial and three days of deliberations. Neither Samsung or Apple representatives spoke to reporters after the verdict, but Samsung issued a statement. “Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices,” Samsung’s statement said. “It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies.” The statement also asserted that “this is not the final word in this case,” while not specifically stating whether Samsung plans to appeal these verdicts. However, Samsung noted that some of the rulings and appeals other Apple patent lawsuits in the US and in courts overseas have actually gone against Apple.Only this week, a South Korean court penalised both companies. Apple sued Samsung over multiple infringements of its patents on the iPhone smartphone and the iPad tablet computer, seeking at least $2.5 billion in damages.

But during the trial, Samsung made counterclaims that Apple infringed on some of its patents and also tried to invalidate some Apple patents by arguing that they were based on “prior art,” meaning that the innovations Apple believed were unique were already on the market. Apple, on the other hand, presented evidence that it claimed showed Samsung was obviously copying its design for the iPhone. Its lawyers produced several Samsung smartphones released before the iPhone came out in 2007 that were of various shapes and sizes, but that after the iPhone came out, new Samsung smartphones began looking more like the iPhone. Apple also introduced a 132-page internal Samsung document itemising multiple features of the iPhone and noting how Samsung models in development at the time fell short of the design of the iPhone. After the verdict was read, US District Judge Lucy Koh asked the jury to reconsider apparent inconsistencies in two of the verdicts where the jury found that Samsung had not infringed on an Apple patent, but awarded damages anyway. The jury reduced the damages in those two verdicts to zero. The change reduced the final damages award to $1,049,343,540. The Apple vs. Samsung case has been closely watched by many in the Silicon Valley technology community because of its implications for competition in the multi-billion dollar mobile device market. Samsung and Apple are the first and second best selling smartphone vendors in the market, respectively, according to figures from the research firm IDC. In the second quarter of 2012, Samsung smartphone sales jumped by 173 percent over the second quarter of 2011 to 50.2 million units. Apple’s sales grew by 27.5 percent to 26 million units. The next two vendors on the list, Nokia and HTC, both suffered double-digit sales declines as customers gravitated to the top-selling Samsung and Apple devices. Apple, however, holds a substantial lead in the sale of tablets according to a report from IHS. In the fourth quarter, Apple held a 62 percent share of the global tablet market, with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab line a distant second at 6.4 percent.

Introducing the World’s first ever Linux Ultrabook, the Ultralap 430

So you are shopping around for an Ultrabook when it hits you that there really are no decent machines on the market running a Linux distro out of the box. Logic dictates then that you buy a Windows machine, install a new OS on it, and live happily ever after dual-booting two different however practical operating systems. The question is, why has nobody released a Linux Ultrabook yet which runs an open-source distro out of the box?

Introducing the ZaReason Ultralap 430, the first ever Linux powered Ultrabook, which has some decent hardware behind it and something rather unique; ZaReason will install any open-source operating system you like on it. That means that (as taken from the official ZaReason website) Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Kubuntu 12.04 LTS, Edubuntu 12.04 LTS, Debian 6, Linux Mint 13, Fedora 17 or any other open-source distro can be installed on your machine, seemingly bringing an end to one of the fun parts of developing and running custom computers; installing a new OS on a brand new machine.

Keeping in line with current Intel hardware requirements for current 2012 generation Ultrabooks, the Ultralap 430 runs Intel Core Ivy Bridge processors (Core i3 as standard, can be upgraded to Core i5) and rocks two USB 3.0 ports. Other features include a 3.5mm headphone socket, a Kensington lock port, a HDMI port and a 3-in-1 card reader, supporting SD, MMC and MS.

Overall the ZaReason Ultralap looks like a very decent machine, and a tempting purchase all round. Prices start at $899.00 in the US however expect that price to balloon if upgrading parts, of which RAM (standard 4GB) and processor (standard core i3) should be on your list of to-dos.

Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III is able to be unlocked

The folks at xda-developers have a knack with Android devices and have cracked open yet another locked down handset. The latest to fall is the Galaxy S III on Verizon, which is one of the only S III models in the US to ship with a locked boot loader.

The ability to unlock the boot loader will now let S III owners replace the stock Verizon ROM with one from individual developers. To unlock your boot loader, you’ll want to head to xda-developers and follow the instructions in this post. You’ll need a Mac or Linux box to do the unlocking, which may be a deterrent for Windows users. Now that the boot loader has been unlocked look for an explosion of ROMs compatible with the handset.

Google Play Tightens Developer Rules

Google recently updated its developer content policies in order to clean up Google Play – the app and media hub for all Android devices. Google Play has branched out to include music, books, movies, TV shows, and of course apps. However, Google Play’s biggest problem is that there are many rouge apps out there – repeat, copies or spam apps. Google hopes by updating the developer agreement they can begin to clean up Google Play’s app market.

According to Mashable Google sent an email to the developer community explaining that Google Play was in the process of policy changes in order to “crack down on shady behavior in the Android market.” Some of Google Play’s new policies tackle issues such as advertisement, payment for apps and spam. Google indicated that all payment for apps must be done through Google’s own payment system. Another change tries to eliminate duplicated or “copycat” apps. The new policy states, “don’t pretend to be someone else, and don’t represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization if that is not the case.” The next big change to Google’s policy directly takes on spamming and viruses. Google’s previous policy asked developers to avoid “dangerous products,” but the new policy takes that a step further by defining exactly what they. The new policy reads, “don’t transmit viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses, malware, or any other items that may introduce security vulnerabilities to or harm user devices, applications, or personal data.” This additional step declares in no uncertain terms that Google Play will no longer play host to apps or programs that can harm their users’ devices. Google Play has become clogged with much content that the company does not want to be responsible for. In addition to enforcing these guidelines on new apps, Google will apply the new terms for existing apps in order to clean the clutter that has already formed. If developers have not complied with the new terms within 30 days of receiving their notification from Google, their app will be at risk of deletion. With these additions to Google Play Android users can feel safer downloading apps in the future and Google Play should be easier to navigate through with less clutter and spam.

Acer CloudMobile coming to the UK in early September

The Acer CloudMobile Android smartphone, which was announced back in February, will finally be available in early September. That’s at least in the UK with Expansys already accepting preorders, asking 289.99 GBP (about $454) for the unlocked device. Specs wise, we’re talking about the best smartphone Acer has ever made. It comes with a 4.3-inch HD screen, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, DLNA, GPS, Dolby Sound technology and a microSD expansion slot. If all this sounds cool to you, hit this link to preorder your CloudMobile device. Hopefully the rest of Europe will follow shortly…

Acer CloudMobile: 4.3 inch 720p Android 4.1 smartphone that won a design award

Ask someone, anyone, about which companies are synonymous with the word design, and you’d be hard pressed to hear a single person mention Acer. Things can change though, and the Acer CloudMobile might be the start of a new era for the company. It won the 2012 iF design award, which isn’t really saying much, but we’ll give Acer the benefit of the doubt. Their new smartphone will ship in Q3 of this year running Android 4.1, it’ll have a 4.3 inch 720p resolution screen, and from the pair of photos we have of the device it looks like it isn’t going to feature any hardware buttons on the front. There’s not too many details about what’s under the hood, we’ll likely hear that at Mobile World Congress later this month, but don’t be surprised to find out that it’s running a typical dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip with 1 GB of RAM on board.

The bigger question is what’s Acer going to do to Android? That design award that their phone won was was due to the fact that it looks pretty. There’s only so much being pretty will take you in smartphone land however. If people can’t use your device, then forget about it, no one is going to buy it. We’re hoping Acer will ship the CloudMobile with stock Android, but we know that’s not going to be the case. All we can do is click our red shoes together with our eyes closed and wait and see what happens.

Featured: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Student Edition Is Now Available At Best Buy

The trending topic nowadays is the Student Version of the Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 tablet. The device was launched a couple of months ago, though the student version took some time to become available. The Student Version promises to bring some extra accessories that would be useful for the students who are just going back to school. There hasn’t been any modifications in the slate, all the features and the hardware remains same. In addition to the tablet, Samsung would be giving away a free keyboard as well as a USB dongle. It was anticipated that the device would hit the shelves of the stores by August 19th. An user over at Android Forums has claimed that he has been able to get the device earlier than the release date. The device he bought was from Best Buy and apparently it has started shipping out the product. Additionally, the user has also uploaded a video of Unboxing of the product. With these proofs in hand, we can surely say that you should check out the Best Buy Shop near you and if you are lucky, you’d get your hands on this shiny tablet.

More iPhone 5 Parts Leaked From China

Leaked iPhone parts photo confirms a few previous rumors.

Late July and early August have been busy times for the iPhone 5 rumor mill. With the September announcement inching closer and closer, more photos and videos appear, detailing everything there is to know about the upcoming device. By now, we'd say it is petty safe to assume the new iPhone will be sporting a longer screen, capable of displaying 5 rows of icons on the home screen as opposed to the current 4. Now, another leaked photo is making its rounds from Chinese forum iColorOS. If the photo turns out to be real, it could prove to be a clear confirmation of the information reported from the previous video released by iPhone parts manufacturer ETrade. In addition to confirming screen dimensions and design, the photo also backs up some other rumors, such as a new micro-SIM card slot and smaller home buttons. With all of the rumors buzzing about, we can now paint a possible picture of what's to come: a longer, stronger scratch-resistant screen, miniaturized dock connector, 5 rows on the home screen, two-tone metal casing and updated speaker arrangement. However, if history has shown us anything it's that we can never be too sure. We'll just have to wait until the rumored September 12th announcement to find out. Until then, expect more rumors and leaks to generate additional buzz.