Intel - page 9

Intel is losing against ARM when it comes to mobile. This is incontrovertible. In smartphones and tablets, Intel’s chips just haven’t been able to compete with the likes of Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Nvidia…. despite the billions of dollars Intel has spent trying to heavily subsidize things like Atom-powered Android phones.

Not so surprisingly, Intel’s mobile and tablet business isn’t profitable. But Intel’s about to do a little bit of creative accounting to make it’s mobile and tablet divisions profitable: merge them into the PC division.

Cupertino has its chic Apple Watch, Redmond has its Microsoft Band, and now Intel has unveiled its own female-friendly take on the wearable phenomenon with a $495 smart bracelet — which will allow users to receive and respond to text messages, emails and other notifications.

Called the MICA, the fashion-conscious bracelet boasts a sapphire 1.6-inch, 256 x 160 OLED curved screen on the inside of the wrist. As with the Apple Watch there are multiple styles available — ranging from black and white water snake skin, Chinese pearls, Madagascan lapis stones, South African tiger’s eye, and Russian obsidian.

When it comes to mobile communication chips, Qualcomm has cemented itself as Apple’s go-to supplier.

The San Diego-based semi-conductor company dominates the mobile chips business like Apple dominates tablets, but Intel is ready to steal a large chunk of it, and according to the president of Intel Korea, Lee Hee-sung, it’s only a matter of time before Apple converts.

Apple and Google have resumed mediation talks with tech workers who are suing Silicon Valley’s top tech firms for an alleged anti-hiring agreement orchestrated by Steve Jobs.

Court filings indicate that Intel and Adobe are also participating in the talks as the companies attempt to reach a new settlement for the class action case, after U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected the companies’ proposed settlement of $324.5 million last month.

The Apple rumor mill has been abuzz for months with whispers that the company plans to release an even thinner MacBook Air with a Retina display, and Intel’s new line of Broadwell processors could be the vital component that makes that makes wafer-thin MacBooks a reality.

Intel’s Broadwell chips have been delayed b early manufacturing problems, but today Intel revealed new details on its new 14-nanometer processors that combine the high-performance of the Haswell Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, with low power improvements that may allow Jony Ive to slim the next MacBook Air down to just 9mm thick.

Over the years, I’ve seen rumor after rumor that Apple would eventually abandon Intel chips in favor of ARM chips. And time after time, I’ve refuted those arguments, saying that a Mac running ARM processors is not likely to happen anytime soon.

But maybe I’m wrong. Former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée — himself a longtime skeptic of Apple’s transition to ARM chips for its desktop and laptop computers — says he’s recently been convinced, and even believes that Apple could release ARM-based Macs as soon as 2016.

We may be on the verge of receiving a refreshed 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro line, according to a leaked pricing chart apparently from Apple’s Chongqing, China store.

The chart shows three different configurations of the MacBook. The first of these features an Intel Core i7 2.2 GHz processor and 16GB of RAM standard (the current 15-inch base model Retina MacBook Pro has 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8GB of RAM.) The second features a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM (compared to the current 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 processor.)

A third, higher-end Retina MacBook is also included — boasting Intel’s new 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of flash storage, and Intel’s Iris Pro graphics, alongside a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M.

People waiting for the rumored 12-inch Retina MacBook may just have to keep right on waiting, according to a new report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, which blames the wait on Intel’s delayed 14-nanometer Broadwell chips, which are reportedly used in the computers.

Because of these production delays, the report claims that the 12-inch MacBook may not ship until Q3 2014 or even early 2015, when the chips will be in greater supply.

If you plan on buying one of Apple’s new 21.5-inch iMacs for $1,099 and then upgrading internal components yourself later on, then listen up. Upgrade experts OWC have torn down the new entry-level all-in-one and discovered that its memory is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded.

Since the airing of Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial to launch the Macintosh, tech companies have had a special relationship with the Super Bowl. Now Apple is one of several tech giants — including Google, Yahoo and Intel — which have chipped in $2 million each in cash and services to help offset taxpayer dollars involved with bringing the historic 50th Super Bowl to the San Francisco 49ers stadium in Santa Clara, California.

In an age of Facetime, Skype and Google Hangouts, video calling is pretty much ubiquitous — an aspect of technology that we simply take for granted. But it wasn’t always this way.

Eighteen years ago today, AT&T and Intel held a May 30 meeting to announce a system that would allow personal computers to make and receive video phone calls over standard telephone lines.

“It sounds futuristic, but it’s here,” Intel noted in its annual report for 1996. “For the first time, a simple low-cost, PC-based video phone.”

Apple hasn’t shied from going toe-to-toe in a heavy legal battle for months or years if need be, but rather than seeing its latest class action lawsuit go to trial, Apple has relented to settle instead.

Four major tech companies including Apple and Google reached a settlement this morning with the 64,000 tech workers who filed a class action lawsuit on the grounds that the Silicon Valley firms had conspired to keep wages artificially low through no-hire agreements.

Apple is still waging a legal war with Samsung, but the company is already bracing for a new battle that threatens to entangle Apple with its foes Google, Adobe and Intel against a pack of angry tech workers who say the four companies were in cahoots on a no-hire agreement.

According to the latest court filings, the 64,000 tech workers represented in the class-action lawsuit claim that Apple and the other companies should not be allowed to limit evidence about Steve Jobs in the upcoming trial, no matter how unsavory it may be.

Intel has reportedly acquired wristwatch health tracking company Basis Science for between $100 – $150 million.

Basis — which was allegedly shopping itself around to potential buyers including Apple, Google, and Microsoft —  currently occupies around 7% of the market with its Basis Health Tracker Watch, versus competitor Jawbone’s 21%.

Everyone knows Apple didn’t come up with the name iPhone. Cisco owned the trademark on what they called I-phone long before Steve Jobs unveiled the smartphone that would change the world back in 2007. But did you know that Apple didn’t come up with the name iPad? In fact, Intel was hawking a device they called the I-pad — or “information pad” — way back in 1994.

Acer has today announced two new Android-powered tablets that it will introduce at CES in Las Vegas next week, one of which is a $180 iPad mini clone. It’s called the Iconia A1-830 and it sports a “premium aluminum” chassis that houses a 7.9-inch display, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, and 1GB of RAM.

Acer also announced the Iconia B1-720, an entry-level device with a $129 price tag that looks a lot like the 2012 Nexus 7, and has a 7-inch display and a 1.3GHz dual-core processor.

Apple’s “fastest Mac ever” is now available to order from the Apple online store, with prices starting at $2,999. The high-end desktop, which is assembled in the United States in Austin, Texas, is currently shipping before the end of the year.

You can also pick one up today from your local Apple retail store, or from an Apple authorized reseller.

Apple’s latest Mac Pro, the high-end desktop built in the U.S. that you’ve been anticipating for years, will finally go on sale tomorrow. Announced at WWDC back in June, the new machine sports a brand new design and cutting-edge hardware throughout, and it will start at $2,999.

While Android hardware manufacturers were busy trying to pack as many cores as they could into their smartphone and tablet processors, Apple took a different route and decided to go 64-bit instead. It’s a move that makes the iPhone 5s and the latest iPads some of the fastest mobile devices on the market, and so it’s no surprise that its rivals are getting ready to follow suit.

Intel has promised that you’ll be able to buy Android-powered tablets with 64-bit “Bay Trail” processors next year.

Intel has been rumored for years to start building ARM chips. Now they actually are doing so, and will begin fabrication of 64-bit ARM processors in 2014, but not for Apple.

Apple has today announced a new iMac update which sees the latest fourth-generation Intel quad-core Haswell processors, new graphics, next-generation Wi-Fi, and faster PCIe flash storage options added to the popular all-in-one desktop.

Some Apple fans were holding on to hope that Cupertino would unleash new iPads on the world at last week’s keynote, but even though the keynote came and went without so much as a glimpse of a new iPad, we might only have to wait a month until the next Apple event.

According to the French Apple-blog MacGeneration, Apple will host an event on October 15th to present the new iPad. While the site has got some rumors right, it’s also missed the mark on quite a few – including when they claimed new Mac Pros would be launch in Spring 2013 – so don’t put too much hope in this rumor just yet.

A couple months ago, a series of benchmarks for the new Mac Pro popped up on Geekbench, showing off what Apple’s new machine could do. And just what could it do? Not much more than the current top-of-the-line 2012 Mac Pro, disappointing many who thought even the old Mac Pro was a dog at launch.

However, there’s a caveat. The hardware was prototype. The machine was running OS X Mavericks, which had just released its first beta. And the version of Geekbench being run against the new Mac Pro was 32-bit, and therefore not designed to fully exploit the Mac Pro’s 64-bit architecture. Is the real Mac Pro really going to be so disappointing?

No. It’s going to be blazing fast.

There was a time when everyone complained that Apple wasn’t putting USB 3 ports in Macs. Then Apple not only put USB 3.0 in all of their Macs, they introduced Thunderbolt — an incredible new hardware interface that can sustain lightning-fast speeds of up to 10 Gbit per second across four devices simultaneously.

Once Thunderbolt came out, a lot of us forgot about USB 3, and let the USB 3 ports we’d once clamored for get crusty. Thunderbolt was the new hotness. It looks like the group behind the USB 3.0 spec isn’t going to let that stand, though: They’re supercharging USB 3.0 by 400%.

Thanks to Samsung and the International Trade Commission, Apple will be banned from importing the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 into the United States from Sunday, August 4. The Cupertino company has been trying to fight the ban since it was confirmed last October, but it’s had little success.

Now it is seeing unlikely support from Microsoft, Intel, and Oracle, which all agree that the use of standards-essential patents to ban products should not be allowed.