Intel used such a technology, called Speedstep, since 2000, but is now being asked to pay damages, license fees, and attorney’s fees in a patent infringement suit.
The suit was filed by Frisco, Texas-based Power Management Systems, which claims rights to a patent that describes a “power management apparatus collocated on the same integrated circuit as the functional unit that it manages.”
The patent was filed in January 1994 by Dublin, California-based Electronics Products Company and was granted in April of 1996. There was no information how that patent found its way to Power Management Systems and why the patent infringements complaints are now filed more than 10 years after Intel introduced this technology in its products. It is interesting to note that the plaintiff does not target the entire processor line of Intel, but just the Atom 600-series of CPUs.
However, the case could set precedence and may only be limited because of simplicity and cost reasons at this time. If a patent violation is confirmed, Intel (and others) may be on the hook for substantial damages and license payments. Regardless, it’s unlikely that Freescale, Marvell and Intel will simply roll over and pay.
Apple has pulled the plug on TV episode rentals via iTunes, abruptly leaving customers with only the option of purchasing per episode — good thing you can watch those on your Apple TV streamed from the cloud — or a Season Pass where available.
AllThingsD has a quote from spokesman Tom Neumayr indicating this was in response to customers that “overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows.” Making the timing of the move particularly curious are once-again renewed rumors of an Apple HDTV and a WSJ profile of new CEO Tim Cook that indicates the company is “working on new technology to deliver video to televisions, and has been discussing whether to try to launch a subscription TV service.”
Like Google, any move depends on its success in negotiating a new delivery model from the networks, who so far have been averse to anything that threatens their existing relationship with pay-TV providers. It appears 99-cent rentals didn’t move the needle, so we’ll wait and see what the folks from Cupertino have up their sleeve next.
This one comes with a health warning: even if the leaked screenshot above is legit, it’s easy to over-interpret. Nevertheless, it purports to show the account setup page from BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 and it distinctly lacks any option to sync with BlackBerry Enterprise Server or Internet Service. Instead, you’re able to configure Exchange/Active Sync, IMAP, POP, CalDAV and CardDAV accounts, which suggests that RIM is switching to the same integrated email, contacts and calendar solutions as everyone else. Of course, it could be that the BES/BIS simply isn’t enabled on this particular device, or that it’ll be added in a later version of the OS. Then again, we can’t help but recall those Colt rumors which also hinted that RIM’s in-house service would be incompatible with QNX. And oh, see that green robot icon in the second picture below? I wonder what that does.
One of the great things about GUI operating systems is dealing with file management. While some of us from the old days became pretty good at shuffling files around via the command line, seeing graphical representations of files and dragging and dropping them made things much faster and easier.
Microsoft has changes planned for the way Windows 8 handles the copying and moving of files. Microsoft cites add-ons TeraCopy, FastCopy, and Copy Handler as software it has looked at for file copying. The company found that less than 0.45 percent of Windows 7 PCs are running such software, but still sees it as
Despite the importance of our air ducts and ventilation systems, most of us rarely get them cleaned as often as we should. Although the insides of air ducts seem to be wildly popular in spy and horror movies, who knows what kind of dust creatures are actually lurking around in there?
Hoping to make the whole process a bit less troublesome, Czech company Neovision has created an air duct-cleaning robot named Jetty. It may look like a laser-equipped human-hunting floating robot straight from the Matrix or Terminator, but the only thing Jetty will be blasting is dirt. This dry ice shooting robot is controlled via remote joystick and equipped with a 1024×768 camera for easy navigation.
Currently the robot’s range is limited by its Ethernet-over-Cat5 power cable, but Neovision researchers hope to remove this limitation from future models. Jetty may not be the most efficient way to clean your ducts, but it would definitely be a convenient way for home and business owners to keep their air ducts nice and clean without having to do too much work.
And it’s easily available for only $145,000! PC-Aero’s brand new electric aircraft is an impressive plane that is sure to jump to the top of every environmentally-conscious aviation enthusiast’s wish list. Capable of flying up to three hours on a single charge while cruising at 100mph, the Elektra One is quite the impressive development in eco-friendly flying.
Of course to maximize its efficiency, the plane is only capable of seating one person with a maximum cargo weight of 220 pounds (that’s including the pilot). This means you won’t be able to fly your friends around in your shiny new $145,000 toy, but at least you’ll be cutting down on air pollution.
The plane has been successful in its testing phases last spring and is intended to go on sale in the middle of next year, though it is still pending certification as a brand new ultralight aircraft in Germany. Check out the video below to see the Elektra One in action.
Crucial has issued a firmware update for its m4 series of SSDs and promises a range of performance improvements beyond your normal firmware fixes. The company is claiming up to a 20 percent performance increase in sequential read speeds. It is like “having your cake and eating it too” – You get those little firmware bugs fixed and you get a nice performance increase for free.
SSDs rely heavily on their firmware for their performance, along with controller-related features such as Garbage Collection, Wear-leveling, to name a couple. Other improvements in the firmware upgrade includes; increased throughput performance, lower write latency, improved chipset compatibility, improvement for cold boot failures, and faster boot up time. The firmware comes through an ISO image that is installed through a CD or DVD. (This is one area I would’ve like to see Crucial take a page from OCZ and provide its firmware updates from a “Crucial Toolbox”.)
Crucial’s Official Release Notes:
Release Date: 08/25/2011
Change Log:
Changes made in version 0002 (m4 can be updated to revision 0009 directly from either revision 0001 or 0002)
Improved throughput performance.
Increase in PCMark Vantage benchmark score, resulting in improved user experience in most operating systems.
Improved write latency for better performance under heavy write workloads.
Faster boot up times.
Improved compatibility with latest chipsets.
Compensation for SATA speed negotiation issues between some SATA-II chipsets and the SATA-III device.
Improvement for intermittent failures in cold boot up related to some specific host systems.
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