Sony rumoured to launch Chrome notebook and hybrid PC

Details of what is said to be future VAIO notebooks from Sony have turned up online and if they turn out to be true, we have a couple of rather unusual and intriguing products to look forward to from Sony later this year. Apparently Sony is not only working on a Chrome notebook powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 SoC, but also some kind of hybrid notebook/desktop solution which is said to feature support for Intel’s Thunderbolt interface.

The Google Chrome OS model is interesting in more than one way, as Google’s on Cr-48 notebook is using an Intel Atom CPU, whereas apparently Sony is going for an ARM based Tegra 2 SoC from Nvidia. We’re not sure how demanding Google’s Chrome OS is, but 1GB of RAM seems a bit on the stingy side, but might very well prove to be sufficient. We doubt that this will be upgradable, although this wouldn’t be impossible, just improbable.

For storage Sony has gone with 16GB of eMMC memory which is an embedded type of memory that doesn’t quite offer the performance of an embedded SSD such as the one on offer from SanDisk, mainly due to the different interface used for the Flash memory. Other features include an 11.6-inch display, Wi-Fi of some kind, a regular notebook size keyboard said to be similar to that on Google’s Cr-48 notebook and finally it’s said to feature both a GPS and Bluetooth functionality, but neither will apparently be working from day one. The notebook is said to be weighing in at around 1kg, yet offer up to 8h worth of battery life.

As for the hybrid PC, well, here things get complicated. The notebook part is said to feature an Intel Core i7 CPU, an SSD and Intel’s Thunderbolt technology. This means that it’ll have a mini DisplayPort connector, although it’s also said to have an HDMI port and support for Intel’s second generation WiDi technology. It’s meant to weigh a mere 1.13kg yet offer 8h battery life, although this can be extended to 16.5h presumably via an optical battery solution of some kind.

However, this is said to be only half of the system, so if that wasn’t impressive enough, Sony will be offering an add-on unit which presumably connects via Thunderbolt and is said to feature a Radeon HD 6700M series graphics card with 1GB of memory, a Blu-ray drive, a further HDMI port, a D-sub connector, Ethernet port, USB ports and presumably a mini DisplayPort connector, although oddly enough this isn’t mentioned specifically. This units weighs in at 680g although presumably it’ll be some kind of dock that you’d leave at home most of the time, hence the duplicated ports.

It sure sounds like Sony will have some interesting toys coming later this year, although we’d expect the hybrid PC to be quite expensive while the Chrome OS notebook might be the cheapest notebook yet from Sony.

Source: SonyInsider

SiS Chipsets Roadmap

PlatformChipsetsMemory InterfaceGFX InterfaceInt. GfxHyperStreamingLaunchIntelSiS655TXDDR400AGP8X-Advanced
HyperStreamingOct '03SiSR6594ch PC1066AGP8X-Advanced
HyperStreamingNov '03SiS656DDR2-667PCI Express x16-Advanced
HyperStreamingMar '04SiS662DDR2-667PCI Express x16SiS DX9 GPUHyperStreamingJun '04SiS656FXDDR2-800PCI Express x16-Advanced
HyperStreamingQ4 '04AMDSiS755DDR400AGP8XHyperStreamingQ4 '03SiS760DDR400AGP8XUltra256 GPUHyperStreamingQ4 '03SiS756DDR400PCI Express x16-HyperStreamingMar '04SiS761DDR400PCI Express x16SiS DX9 GPUHyperStreamingJun '04

Southbridges

SiS964 : MuTIOL 1G, (8) USB ports, (4) ATA133, (2)SATA with RAID, 10/100, and AC97 2.3SiS965 : MuTIOL 1G, (8) USB2.0, (4) ATA133, (4) SATAwith RAID, (2) PCI express x1, 10/100/1000 LAN, and AC97 2.3 audio, Mar '04SiS 966 : MuTIOL 2G, (8) USB2.0, (4) ATA133, (4)SATA with RAID, (4) PCI Express x1, 10/100/1000 LAN, Azalia'/AC972.3, Aug '04

UPDATED [Rumour] AMD Radeon HD 6700 Specification Chart leaked

A PCinlife forum member has leaked what is purported to be chartcomparing the specifications of Radeon HD 5700/5800 series to theupcoming Radeon HD 6700 series. The latest leak suggests a massiveupgrade from the HD 5700 series. Codenamed Barts XT, the HD 6770features 320 VLIW-4 shader clusters, i.e. 1280 SP. It features the sameROP count (32) and memory bus (256-bit) as the HD 5870, though TMU countis dropped to 64 (from 80). The core clock is a whopping 900 MHz,making it the fastest stock speed of any discrete GPU. The memory clockand thus bandwidth is a shade lower than the HD 5870, at 134.4 GB/s.Barts Pro, branded HD 6750, features 280 clusters, or 1120 SP and 56 TMUand a much lower clock speed of 725 MHz, though the memory speed isonly 50 MHz lower at 1 GHz. Incidentally, these clock speeds areidentical to the HD 5850.



The chart also reveals details about the SIMD structure of the Barts core. The Evergreen series SIMD featured 16 VLIW-5 clusters of 5 shaders each, for a total of 80 SP. Each SIMD also featured 4 TMU. The top part, Cypress XT / HD 5870, thus comprised of 20 SIMD, which is 320 clusters = 1600 SP and 80 TMU. The first major change, that has already been widely speculated, is the structure of each shader cluster. It now features only 4 shaders. However, each cluster is now more efficient, providing equal or greater performance for a smaller die area. Each SIMD now oddly consists of 20 such VLIW-4 clusters. (8, 16, 32... are usually expected) The total shaders per SIMD, thus remains the same - 80 - though they are arranged differently. Barts XT features 16 SIMD, or 320 clusters with 4 shaders each. I.e. a total of 1280 SP. The TMU per SIMD ratio remains constant at 4. Hence, Barts XT features 64 TMU. If these specifications are true, the end result is a HD 6770 card which soundly defeats a HD 5850, as recent rumours suggest, and gets very close to a HD 5870. Thanks to the more efficient shader clusters, all of this performance is achieved from a smaller die than Cypress using lower power - despite the same 40nm process. These are pretty staggering improvements for what was once rumoured to be a "minor refresh", which further questions the accuracy of these new rumours...

Of course, it is worth remembering that these leaks must be taken with a big, big bag of salt. Previous leaks have suggested 960 SP and 1120 SP. Now we have another purported leak suggesting 1280 SP. Obviously, not all of these are accurate, and maybe none of them are. Still, if this chart was a fake, it is a rather well made fake and worth of rumour mill fodder.

Reference: PCinlife

UPDATE: Over at Chiphell, the source of most leaks, Napoleon, has leaked the full version of the same table. Two very similar tables coming from different sources certainly lends much more credibility to this chart than previous ones. The full chart reveals further details - power consumption. While notably higher than HD 5700, the HD 6770 is also lower than HD 5850, a GPU it will most likely beat comfortably. The HD 6770 features a TDP of 146W and the HD 6750 a very reasonable 116W. Idle power usage is 23W and 20W respectively. This means the HD 6770, while under 150W, will probably release with 2-pin PCI-e connectors, while the HD 6750 can easily do with just one.

Patriot Debuts 128Gb USB 3.0 Supersonic Magnum Flash Drive

PATRIOT PRESS RELEASE

FREMONT, CALIF., USA - March 1, 2011 - Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash, storage and enthusiast computer products, today unleashes the Supersonic Magnum -- a 128GB USB 3.0 SuperSpeed flash drive that combines lightning-fast performance with massive storage capacities.

The Patriot Supersonic Magnum combines a single-chip native USB 3.0 controller with eight-channels of memory to deliver sequential read and write speeds up to 200MB/s and 110MB/s respectively - beyond the performance capabilities of internal hard drives.

"We continually try to raise the performance bar when it comes to our flash drives. With our new eight-channel memory controller, we are able to reach read and write performance levels previously impossible with external storage," says Les Henry, Patriot Memorys Vice President of Engineering.

A lightweight and durable aluminium enclosure enables the Patriot Supersonic Magnum to survive up to 15Gs of shock for safe transportation of your data with added style.

Expect the Patriot Supersonic Magnum to ship in Q22011 in 64GB and 128GB capacities.

General details:

• Patriot Supersonic Series Magnum
• Eight-Channel technology
• Blazing-fast performance
• 64GB and 128GB capacities
• Sequential read speed: Up to 200MB/s
• Sequential write speed: Up to 110MB/s


About Patriot Memory

Patriot Memory designs, manufactures and markets high performance, enthusiast memory modules, flash products, and computing technologies worldwide. Patriot products have become world renown for their extreme performance, reliability and innovation. Patriot Memory sells its products through original equipment manufacturers, retailers, e-tailers and distributors. It has operations in North America, Asia and Europe. Patriot Memory LLC was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Fremont, California, USA.

Sharp Announces New Mebius Laptop Series

Sharp Japanhas announced a new Mebius series laptop that is coming soon and they are allowing up to 100 applicants to subscribe and enjoy previewing the laptop.

The application starts from 14 April to 13 May 2009, after which the lucky 100 subscribers chosen will get to preview for 90 days before returning the preview hardware.

Not much information was given about the upcoming specification but based on their catchphrase - "You have changed, Change Mebius" and their mini word games that involves the user to write, it might be a touchscreen feature included in their series of laptop.

Sony and Ericsson part ways, remain friends

In a not entirely unexpected move, Sony is set to buy out Ericsson from the joint Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB joint venture for a not insignificant €1.05 billion and will turn Sony Ericsson into a wholly-owned subsidiary that will fall under its network-connected consumer electronics division. The two companies remain friendly though, the deal also includes an IP cross-licensing agreement and theyll also create a joint wireless connectivity initiative.

Its been 10 years since Sony and Ericsson decided to team up and create Sony Ericsson and between then and now, the mobile device market has changed and is still changing at a rapid pace. Sony Ericsson has sadly gone from third position to a 10th position when it comes to mobile handset market share or from 8.5 percent to 1.7 percent of the global market share. Back in 2008 Sony Ericsson said that their goal was to become the third biggest mobile handset maker within the next five year, but instead the company dropped from fifth to 10th position since then.

Last year the company went out and said that they wanted to be number one in Android handsets and although as with Motorola, it seems like Android has been a saviour to a degree for Sony Ericsson, its clear that the company is far from the market leader. Its easy to point fingers as to what went wrong, but some of it has been Sonys unwillingness to use some of its brand names, most significantly the Playstation brand for Sony Ericsson products, at least until its generally been too little too late. The Playstation phone didnt exactly take the world with a storm, but in all fairness some of Sony Ericssons other Xperia handsets arent half bad.

The new Sony mobile handset division which has yet to get an official name – although all future handsets will only carry the Sony brand – has a tough job ahead of it. Currently a lot of its R&D is located in Sweden, although its expected that this division will be closed down over time with most, if not all of it being moved to Japan. With tough competition from both the big Korean handset manufacturers, especially Samsung, as well as HTC and lets not forget Apple, its clear that Sony is going to have to come up with some pretty impressive hardware and get it out in the market in a timely fashion. With what happened in Japan earlier this year, most of Sony Ericssons handsets were delayed, some by as much as six months and in an industry thats moving in leaps and bounds on almost a monthly basis when it comes to new handsets, this is the kind of thing that just isnt allowed to happen.

As for Ericsson, well, theyll go on their merry way and continue to build the network infrastructure which is its core competence these days and the company is also busy doing various projects involving digital content delivery which ties in nicely with its network infrastructure business. As for ST Ericsson, Ericssons joint venture to develop various device end solutions with STMicroelectronics for handsets and wireless modems, well, its likely to take a potential hit from the split from Sony, although it should be said that none of Sony Ericssons handsets used the ST Ericsson ARM processors, at least not to our knowledge. That said, wed expect this business venture to continue to develop modem technology for handsets, especially as we slowly continue to move towards more LTE enabled devices where ST Ericsson has some potentially strong solutions.

The press release doesnt go into any details about the IP cross-licensing deal, except to mention that it involves five essential patent families. This should involve baseband technology for 2G, 3G and 4G networks, as well as other handset related technology that Ericsson holds patents for. With regards to the wireless connectivity initiative the press release simply reads "Ericsson and Sony will work to drive and develop the markets adoption of connectivity across multiple platforms" which really doesnt explain what the two companies will be doing together. The deal is expected to close in January 2012 pending the usual regulatory and shareholder approval.

Source: Ericsson