| Foxconn builds a fanless nano PC, forgets to put someone else's name on it May 3rd 2012, 15:24  Two nano PCs, actually, and both expected to be announced officially this week according to FanlessTech. The first is the Foxconn AT-5300, running off a 2.13GHz dual-core Cedar Trail D2700, while the second -- the AT-5600 -- is powered by AMD's popular (but last-gen) 1.65GHz E450 APU. Each one consumes around 15W idle and 24W under load, which is the equivalent of somewhere between an Ultrabook and a regular laptop and low enough to be passively cooled. What's distinctly unlaptop-like, though, is the 190 x 135 x 38mm form factor, which should sit discreetly on your desk, below your TV or on a VESA mount, and also the price, which is expected to be under $200 with worldwide availability. As with similar mini-ATX budget barebones, you'll need to add your own HDD (or maybe a hybrid) to that, but you do get a pair of USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit LAN, a multilingual card reader and built-in 802.11n WiFi. The only thing missing? You guessed it. Foxconn builds a fanless nano PC, forgets to put someone else's name on it originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 May 2012 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink |  FanlessTech | Email this | Comments | | FCC to dole out up to $300 million to help carriers expand service in rural areas May 3rd 2012, 14:22  It seems like almost every day that we receive a press release announcing Verizon or AT&T is planning to expand its LTE coverage to three, five, eleven new markets. But in some remote pockets of the country, you'd be lucky to latch onto even a solid 3G signal. In a bid to make sure those folks in the boonies get their due, the Federal Communications Commission is establishing a fund to encourage carriers to roll out service in sparser areas. All told, the agency plans to award up to $300 million to mobile operators, with funds going to the providers offering the lowest rates. The winners will be decided in a sealed, single-round auction, which opens June 27th and is set to close July 11th. As a condition for receiving the funds, carriers must agree to cover at least 75 percent of the road miles within a given census tract. While it's unclear at this early stage which mobile players will take the bait, the FCC's already signaled which parts of the country will be first in line for upgraded service -- namely, Rocky Mountain states like Utah and Idaho, along with Maine, Appalachia and upstate New York. FCC to dole out up to $300 million to help carriers expand service in rural areas originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 May 2012 10:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Computerworld, Eligiblity map (Mobility Fund Phase 1) | Email this | Comments | | TSMC ramps 28nm ARM Cortex-A9 chip to 3.1GHz, gives your desktop jitters May 3rd 2012, 13:54  We know TSMC's energy-miser 28-nanometer manufacturing process has a lot of headroom, but the company just ratcheted expectations up by a few notches. Lab workers at Taiwan's semiconductor giant have successfully run a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor at 3.1GHz under normal conditions. That's a 55 percent higher clock speed than the 2GHz maximum that TSMC normally offers, folks, and about twice as fast as a 40nm chip under the same workload. Don't expect that kind of clock speed from your next smartphone or tablet, though: expect processors of this caliber to find "high-performance uses," which takes us that much closer to NVIDIA's Project Denver as well as other ARM-based desktops, notebooks and servers that should give x86 chips a run for their money. TSMC ramps 28nm ARM Cortex-A9 chip to 3.1GHz, gives your desktop jitters originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 May 2012 09:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | TSMC | Email this | Comments | |
