Chipmakers have been applying lessons learned in mobile computing to servers in an effort to increase efficiency by lowering power consumption. But a noted Google engineer threw some cold water on the approach on Monday, arguing the two styles of computing are too different.
“The datacentre is a different device than the key targets for mobile electronics, laptops and mobile devices,” said Luis Barroso, a Google engineer who closely studies the company’s power consumption, speaking at the O’Reilly Velocity conference in California.
Naturally, with at least hundreds of thousands of servers in operation and its datacentres placed near power plants to cut electricity costs, Google is trying to get computing-equipment makers more excited about efficiency.
“Maybe, if you call this a land-held computer, perhaps they’ll help us,” he quipped, showing an aerial view of a sprawling Google datacentre.
The basic problem is that mobile devices and servers have different modes of activity.
Mobile devices have been improving through better exploitation of the fact that they spend a lot of time dormant, with occasional bursts of activity.
(Full article ‘Google urges rethink on server efficiency’)
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced today the mass production of the world’s highest capacity hard drive for laptops - the new Spinpoint M6. It features a stunning 500GB priced at $299 MSRP.
The Spinpoint M6 fits the industry’s standard 9.5mm height dimension and is armed with a massive 500GB capacity consisting of three 167GB platters, notebook PC manufacturers can integrate the Spinpoint M6 into the tens of millions of notebook PCs that ship every quarter as well as slim form factor PCs and high density mobile applications.
The Spinpoint M6 500GB hard drive features Perpendicular Magnetic Recording technology, a 5400rpm spindle speed, a 8MB cache, and 3.0Gbps SATA interface with a Free-Fall-Sensor available as an optional feature.
"The Spinpoint M6 is ideal for notebook power users who require vast amounts of storage space for their data, video and music files," said Hubbert Smith, Samsung Semiconductor’s director of storage.
(Full article ‘Half-TB Mobile HDD from Samsung in Mass Production’)
Hon Hai Precision Industry is one the world’s largest contract manufacturer of personal computer components, however, it is not very well known as supplier of Foxconn-branded computer parts. However, this may change as the company prepares to roll-out a new brand called AFox which will manufacture a number of product families and is expected to establish a new revenue stream for Hon Hai.
AFox will initially produce a lineup of mainboards as well as graphics cards based on chips from Advanced Micro Devices, Intel Corp.
(Full article ‘AFox: Hon Hai Precision Industry Readies New “A Friend of Foxconn” Components Brand’)
HP, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, rolled out 50 new products on Tuesday at a conference in Berlin, the largest such product refresh in the Personal Systems Group’s history.
The company added new touches to just about all the group’s products, freshening up its TouchSmart all-in-one desktop, commercial and consumer notebook lines, as well as two machines within its high-end gaming brand, VoodooPC.
While June is not the usual time of year for product refreshes, HP’s announcement is more than the usual tweak of product specifications. Though competitors like Dell, Acer and Lenovo are increasingly focusing on consumer retail PCs, HP has shown that it doesn’t want to give up any of the ground it’s gained over the last two quarters.
“They’re fortunate for being in the right place at the right time: being in consumer and being in retail,” said Richard Shim, PC analyst with IDC.
(Full article ‘HP launches new PCs in major product rollout’)
On this occasion, AMD is ready with a major product launch on schedule and is enjoying a bit of good fortune as well.
Notebook makers are getting ready to launch systems based on AMD’s Puma notebook technology, which consists of a new processor, a mobile chipset, and wireless chips from AMD’s partners.
The official announcement is expected to come later on Wednesday at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. Notebooks with the chips will be arriving over the next several weeks from companies like Acer, Dell, HP, and Toshiba, said Bahr Mahony, director of AMD’s mobile business.
Assuming those notebooks ship without incident, Puma will arrive in far better shape than Barcelona, the quad-core server processor that arrived a year late after running into major technical glitches.
(Full article ‘AMD ready to unleash Puma’)