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Radeon RX 480 at $200 beats the nVIDIA GTX 970 in VR and 1080p

Radeon RX 480 is the most cost efficient 1080p video card

AMD’s Radeon RX 480 is so good, nVIDIA had to retaliate with the GTX 1060.

The Radeon RX 480 is AMD’s low-cost solution for a common problem of most PC users today.

The majority of home PC Users in 2016 are gamers. However, they are not avid gamers who want to play and stream the newest titles with all settings on Ultra or higher. They do want their gaming experience to be done at a comfortable 60 fps, the main reason why they chose a desktop and not a console in the first place.

Nevertheless, the big turn off for desktop users is the price of video cards. Even though it is very much worth it, PC users often have difficulty in paying $300 or more for a single component in their rig.

The Radeon RX 480 is currently available for $200. This is the lowest price tech of this level has ever been at.

Earlier this year, nVIDIA announced their 1070 and GTX 1080 models, guaranteeing better graphics at lower prices than ever before. The world was in shock to learn that quality ultra gaming and VR gaming were so much more accessible than initially believed. This accessibility still came with a hefty price but it was in the range of a much broader audience.

Radeon RX vs nVIDIA GTX

The Radeon RX 480 is not meant to be the card that competes with the GTX 1080 and takes it down both in quality in price. It is, however, winning the race against the nVIDIA GTX 970, a solid choice model which came out in the second half of 2014.

So why is it good that a new Radeon card is better than a two-year-old card from nVIDIA?

First of all, a newer card means newer core architecture, as well as more solid compatibility with newer titles and driver compatibility with operating systems.

Secondly, the Radeon RX 480 was designed and benchmarked with released VR technology and games, while older video cards either did not account for it or ran benchmarks with previous more buggy models.

Last,y. the price of the nVIDIA GTX 970 has gone down in the past couple of years since its release but is still nowhere near the price of a Radeon RX 480.

After logically looking at the performance benchmarks users only need to ask themselves if they would rather choose nVIDIA or save more than $100 on their video card purchase.

Nevertheless, nVIDIA has not been sitting idly in regards to Radeon’s endeavors. While prices for the GTX 970 will remain the same, nVIDIA announced their GTX 1060 model. The GTX 1060 currently is rated at being at least 15% more efficient in 1080p ultra gaming and in VR gaming than the RX 480. It will be priced at $249

While the Radeon RX 480 will still retain the best tech/price ratio, the nVIDIA GTX 1060 wants to be seen as doing the same for the current generation of gaming. The Radeon RX 480 is already available with the nVIDIA GTX 1060 coming July 19th.

Image Courtesy of AMD’s YouTube Channel.

A “Look Inside” Intel and Its Itseez Acquisition

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A “Look Inside” Intel and Its Itseez Acquisition

Intel just bought Russian startup Itseez to reach another stepping stone in the Internet of Things market and dive into connected markets like the automotive and its autonomous driving applications.

The San Francisco-based company Itseez is a machine learning and a computer vision firm that makes vision algorithms and software. Founded in 2005, Itseez creates implementations for embedded and specialized computer hardware and will help Intel optimize navigation for autonomous cars.

The computer vision technology is a system through which images from the real world are acquired and processed to make automated actions.

Among its products, Itseez has a line of algorithms called “advanced driver assistance systems,” that makes car hardware detect pedestrians and traffic signs and warn the driver. Itseez also produces code for robotics, smartphones, surveillance and sports analytics.

Although the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, the price of Intel’s “restructuring” is high, the company laying off around eleven percent or 12,000 of its employees (a process started in April).

This deal announcement comes one month after the acquisition of Yogitech, an IoT-related business. Through the help of this functional safety for semiconductors specializing company, Intel sees that its technology will ensure the security of the chips powering the self-driving vehicles.

The Santa Clara Company also improved its software and chips production with the purchase of chips making for smart objects company Lantiq.

Global financial services firm, Morgan Stanley, evaluates a $507 billion gains in productivity from self-driving cars, with Americans alone spending annually around 75 billion hours driving.

Doug Davis, senior vice president, said in the Intel announcement that key ingredient firm, Itseez, will improve their “IoT roadmap” and their services offered for self-driving technology, digital security and surveillance, and much more.

To achieve business impact, experts believe you need an integrated approach, both hardware and software, and with this new software deal, Intel passes through the gates of the autonomous vehicles arena.

Intel’s transaction moves are strategic shifts from being a computer chip maker to powering the cloud computing, the IoT and data analytics offered by these devices. The cloud computing and Internet of Things deals already make 40 percent of the company’s total profit (a $2.2 billion in revenue last year alone, to be specific).

Image source: Wikimedia

Facebook Launches Open-Source Deep Learning Modules

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Social media platform Facebook launched a bundle of software libraries on Friday. Dubbed by the company as open-source deep learning modules, the move is basically going for empowering clients to make greater, speedier profound learning models, as contrasted with the models they can construct using existing features.

The Facebook open-source modules have the capacity to speed picture recognition, language modelling, word installing and other desktop learning undertakings; in this way underscoring a potential headway of machine artificial intelligence (AI) for the organization and also for others.

The new programming modules which Facebook has discharged as open source run on the organization’s Torch system – an open source development structure which encourages the production of profound learning apps. The Torch system has been utilized by some fat- cat organizations, including Google, Twitter, Nvidia and Intel.

The open-sourced programming modules from Facebook can serve as a swap for the default software libraries available in the Torch computer learning milieu. The modules have been enhanced to run on Nvidia representation chip units.

As indicated by Facebook exploration engineer Soumith Chintala, the product modules which have been open-sourced by Facebook could be utilized by new businesses or different organizations which are interested in building AI-based items and apps, but fail to offer the “deep designing” know-how needed for the in-house development of such features.

According to Chintala, Facebook does not yet fuse AI innovations into its social media platform. However, the procedures being currently designed at FAIR may be utilized to enhance client experience in the future.

The module that Chintala was most eager to present was one that was designed to identify objects in pictures. While there are a lot of programming libraries that already do it, this set of code does it considerably more rapidly than different methodologies, using procedures Facebook analysts created alongside Nvidia’s cuFFT library.

The module, which was developed to run on GPUs, can be utilized to design convolutional systems, a developing sort of neural system appropriate for machine vision.

An alternate module, called Hierarchical SoftMax, can speed the training of a machine-learning system to comprehend the connections among countless articles .This module could be used to anticipate the following word in a sentence, given the initial couple of expressions of a sentence. SoftMax expands on work done at Microsoft’s labs.

Facebook likewise discharged an upgraded lookup table that can help AI memorizing vast quantities of articles. A machine software looking to discover the relationship between related words, like “food” and “hunger” could utilize the table to speed the procedure of joining them together.Facebook itself has tried this module for naturally creating potential hashtags for a given content.

Image Source: Gigaom

Future Google Glass 2 Powered by Intel Chips. Is This True?

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Both giants Intel and Google made the tech headlines in the past weeks, each with its own shortcomings and achievements. The leading chipmaker Intel recently revealed the MICA smartbracelet and the Synapse smartdress, entering the tech – fashion smart devices world with a bang. In the opposite corner, Google is struggling with its Glass, as peoples’ interest in the device diminished substantially. So what do two companies when they want to succeed? They put the basis of an alliance. Recent news tell us that the future Google Glass 2 powered by Intel chips is not just a rumor, but will become a fact.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel partnered up with Google in order to provide the Google Glass 2 with a still unnamed chipset and associated hardware. The Intel chips will replace the current Texas Instruments processors which fuel the existing generation of Google Glasses. Analysts don’t know yet what kind of Intel mobile chip will revive the Google Glass 2, but they all suspect it will be the Quark. This is an ultra-small x86 class processor based on Edison technology and it is currently embedded in Intel’s Synapse dress.

How will this alliance change anything? The future Google Glass 2 powered by Intel chips may be used in the workplace with substantial benefits for the healthcare and manufacturing industries. The most interesting aspect of this partnership is that Intel is ready not only to provide Google with new hardware, but also with marketing and sales strategies. Since the augmented reality technology is something of a big deal in certain working fields, Intel seems to be ready to promote the enhanced Google Glass 2 to hospitals and manufacturers.

Will Google give up the Glass as a niche consumers’ product and focus its strategy on turning the spectacles into working tools? Sources familiar with the matter stated the Google would not change its initial perspective of the Glass, no matter if Intel pushes the device to become an important part of the healthcare, manufacturing and construction industries. The Glass will remain a smart device dedicated to a narrow niche of people, despite the controversy surrounding the gadget.

It seems that the holly union between Google and Intel is taking a step forward. The two tech giants are already working together, as Intel powers Google’s self – driving car and the Nexus Player media-streaming device. Now the two companies focus on Google’s dearest project, the Glass. However, there is no official information regarding the technology Intel will deliver to Google, nor a time frame for the release of the upgraded Google Glass 2 powered by Intel chips.

The Intel MICA Smartbracelet Will Win All Women’s Hearts

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When it comes to wearable devices and haute couture, one would expect Apple to release yet another cool product for the young generation and receive public appraisal for it. Along the years, some independent companies also showcased a few innovative products and they were appreciated for their efforts. But it is safe to assume that nobody expected tech giant Intel to unveil a stylish, golden – plated, luxurious gadget dedicated to women, and yet, it did: the Intel MICA smarbracelet is a tech and fashion work of art.

Intel is not a company famous for its smartphones or tablets. Actually, the world’s top chipmaker was left behind on the mobile and wearable devices market by many other companies. However, playing the “surprise card”, just like Amazon does sometimes, Intel and fashion retailer Open Ceremony presented the world with the Intel MICA smartbracelet. According to those present at the event, MICA is a piece of hi – tech jewelry which doesn’t need an added smartphone.

My Intelligent Communication Accessory (MICA) is a snakeskin bracelet adorned with semi- precious stones, all complimented by an 18k gold coating. It comes in two luxurious versions:

“One style features black water snake skin, pearls from China and lapis stones from Madagascar, while the other style features white water snake skin, tiger’s eye from South Africa and obsidian from Russia”.

From a tech point of view, the Intel MICA smartbracelet features a curved sapphire 1.6 inch OLED screen and comes with an AT&T Sim card paid for two years in advance by Intel.

What else does the bracelet do? MICA sends vibration – based alerts, allows the user to accept or reject appointments, displays Google Calendar and Facebook event notifications, offers smart reminders and access to local search (with the help of Intel, TomTom and Yelp) and filters notifications and text messages by curating the VIP contact list. Security isn’t a concern either: the user can remotely access, locate and lock the bracelet, and work on its configurations via a web – based portal.

Since the Intel MICA smartbracelet is dedicated to connected, busy, sociable and highly fashion – conscious women, the bracelet comes with a high – end price too: it was launched at the sum of $495 and promised to hit the market in early December this year. This spectacular Christmas gift powered by Intel can be found in Opening Ceremony and Barney’s fashion stores.

The Intel MICA launch event represented a good occasion for the company to release other news: besides the partnership with Open Ceremony, Intel announced they acquired Basis, a smartwatch manufacturer, and teamed up with Fossil in order to create hi – tech, fashionable accessories.

Intel Launches the fourth-generation of Core-i7 Extreme Edition

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Desktop performance are improving increasingly despite the fact that followers of mobile devices are already preparing for its funeral. The fact the desktops are dying is not news heard by the people at Intel, as the manufacturer is preparing to launch a new dedicated processor: the fourth-generation of Core-i7 Extreme Edition. And what better place to do so than the Game Developer’s Conference?

The fourth-generation of Core-i7 Extreme Edition: 8 cores and 16 threads

The new dedicated processor will boast eight unlocked cores and 16 threads (unlike the previous model, which only had six). Of course, the new Core-i7 Extreme Edition will be compatible with DDR4 memories, providing higher transfer rate at a low energy consumption.

Regarding the price, Haswell architecture-based processors are more expensive than those launched last year, where the most expensive microprocessor cost somewhere around $ 657. With 8 cores and 16 threads, the new fourth-generation of Core-i7 Extreme Edition will not come cheap.

Along with the fourth-generation of Core-i7 Extreme Edition, Intel will also release a top all-in-one PC equipped with RealSense 3D camera, an unlocked 4^th generation Devil’s Canyon Core chip for overclockers and the fifth generation of Broadwell processors, 14-nanometer, available unlocked and with IRIS graphics

Core-i7 Extreme looks like it will reach users in the middle of the year, so maybe you should postpone upgrades if you have already planned them.

Like with all other Extreme editions, Intel, the manufacturing company aims at reaching gaming enthusiasts. And by the looks of the soon to be fourth-generation of the Core-i7 Extreme Edition, Intel has pulled out all the stops to make sure its target audience is interested in the new processor. Not to mention the fact that Intel started that the new fourth-generation Core-i7 Extreme Edition will have an improved thermal interface, which will enable overclocking and increased performance. Are you curious to test it for yourself?

Intel Smart Bowl is the weird gadget everyone is talking about

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Intel’s CES went a bit crazy, the processor maker decided to show weird product after weird product, all in the name of innovation. Out of all the different tech gadgets, including a computer inside the size of an SD card and Jarvis and a new wireless Bluetooth headset that can listen to commands, Intel’s Smart Bowl is the one everyone seems to be interested in actually acquiring.

The Smart Bowl is a neat idea and to many it feels like a familiar experience, having all the useless tech and non-tech items in a random bowl in the house. Instead of throwing smartphones, watches and anything else in the bowl to rot, Intel believes they have a solution that would charge all the tech products.

Implementation of the Smart Bowl may a lot harder, not only does Intel have their own wireless standard for the device, it would require third party device manufacturers to actually add the wireless charging technology onto their devices, something we cannot see a lot of them doing, unless Intel’s Smart Bowl is a massive hit with consumers.

There is one way to really make the Smart Bowl compatible and that would be making it Qi standard wireless charging. This way, most all smartphones running wireless charging would be compatible with the Smart Bowl and Intel could still first party manufacturer and sell the device.

This is part of Intel’s “make everything smart” project and they have kickstarted it off with Edison and Quark. The chip and computer are small enough to fit in just about any device or non-tech product and could be used by thousands of different industries, looking to make their products smart.

If Intel doesn’t grab onto the idea and fly, we may see another company or even a Kickstarter project make the Smart Bowl a reality. Lots of people seem to be interested in the idea and even though they may not become buyers, it shows that consumers like the Smart Bowl more than Jarvis or any of the other features in Intel’s CES keynote.

Intel unveils Jarvis, Edison and dual-OS processors

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Intel had a lot of innovation to shove into our faces at CES, including a computer inside an SD card, an always listening smart headset and the confirmation of processors being able to dual-boot Windows and Android OS.

The CEO of Intel, Brain Krzanich, did say he wanted to get his company back on the right innovative track and will be looking into wearable and tablet technology, citing the mobile industry as basically out, unless they were able to grab either Samsung or Apple’s attention.

Edison

Starting with Edison, Intel has basically designed a computer to run on the size on an SD card. Using a dual-core Quark chip and with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, they are able to make even the smallest things “smart”. For the demonstration, Edison was being used to show when a babies temperature changes and when it does it would change the color of a coffee mug, an odd demonstration.

Edison looks to be the next step in wearables and smart things – products that are small and can be used in plenty of different areas. This could be the start of the smart home revolution, where everything is a sensor connected to a hub, all working through Bluetooth and WiFi.

Jarvis

In another move to make everything smart, Jarvis, a new Bluetooth headset, looks to take parts of Google Now and Siri and parts of the traditional Bluetooth headset design and mesh them together, into something paying customers would want.

Jarvis can be paired with an Android smartphone and will allow the user to perform certain tasks by speaking, rather than using their smartphone. They can look up places, get directions and other functionality voice recognition is able to achieve.

Intel will not start selling Jarvis, it is just a base design to get their partners interested, who will then fund the design team and Intel to make this a marketable product. We wonder if any partner is actually interested in a smart Bluetooth headset, the market seems thin.

Dual-OS

Intel also made the announcement that their processors would be able to work on dual-OS systems. Dual-OS is where two operating systems are loaded into the machine and at the touch of a button, users can switch between Windows OS and Android OS.

This is good timing, Intel has already seen the growing market for OEM partners who want to build dual-OS laptops and tablets running both operating systems. Their rival, AMD, also said they would support dual-OS, meaning the race is officially over.

Intel CEO says $99 tablets are on the way

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Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has been all for cheap tablets invading the market, with his last prediction pointing at $150 tablets in the holiday season. We have yet to see a big influx, but now the CEO has dropped the price and claims they are coming.

Krzanich has now said the tablets are coming and they will be around $99, very cheap for the holiday season. He also believes $299 Haswell processor laptops and $349 two-in-one hybrid tablet laptops will be available soon.

With the latest announcement on Intel Bay Trail, we can see more tablets getting the new processor from Intel, with low energy saving and more graphical horsepower, matching the two other rivals from Nvidia and Qualcomm.

Haswell has already made a scene on high-end tablets and laptops, with most new Windows 8 devices fitting the chipset inside. Apple has also added the new Haswell processor to their MacBook Air and are likely to add it to the new MacBook Pro.

Intel has only just started this movement to more affordable technology, with Bay Trail overtaking Atom as a more powerful and affordable chipset for smartphones and tablets. Intel has also developed Quark, a powerful chipset for smartwatches and digestible pills.

It feels like Intel is looking to grab markets before others take over the position. Qualcomm already has a good hold of the smartphone market, with almost every high-end device running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 CPU.

Android tablets still have little significant value, with the Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 and some Samsung tablets the only ones gaining any market share. Intel Bay Trail could still be a prominent player in this market and has lots of influence in Windows 8/RT.

With Windows 8.1, we may see some new tablets from Samsung and other Microsoft OEM partners. Microsoft has said the next operating system move will happen in 2015, Intel will need to capitalise on these new markets before too long.

Intel Plans To Launch Online TV Service This Year

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We all know Intel as the chip making Silicon Valley company that has become synonymous with PCs over the last 10 to 20 years. However, the company has announced that is has now formed a new division called Intel Media and it intends to join the internet TV party.

The announcement from Intel comes after a series of negotiations with companies that control the content, as these TV studios and companies will give Intel the freedom to offer choice on what it calls Intel Web TV. This will be a full web TV experience, if you think along the lines of Hulu or Netflix then you should have a good idea as to what Intel Web TV will be.

However, it seems that Intel is joining the internet TV party with a trick up its sleeve. The company will be launching its Web TV service and will be offering live TV content, which will make it unique in the current market, as the likes of Hulu and Netflix only show previously aired TV shows and movies. Of course, Intel’s product will also show those older shows, but the live TV could be the thing that makes Intel Web TV a hit.

Intel was quick to boast that it had acquired the services of employees from Google, Apple, and Netflix, so Web TV should be in good hands. Alongside Intel Web TV, the company will also launch a set-top box, which will likely bring such things as TV guides, show programming, and channel timing. Intel Web TV chief Erik Huggers says that the company has been working with the biggest names in the industry and the mandate is to “Build the best Internet television service ever.”

Huggers has said this week that Intel Web TV will be available during 2013, but he offered no specific dates, although he did promise that the product would also be compatible with a series of apps, much like Smart TV’s.