GIGABYTE shows their Cavium ThunderX2 Workstation, an upcoming product for ARM software developmers to optimize their code for the ARM server market. It will feature dual Cavium ThunderX2 processors with 4 channels of RDIMM/LRDIMM DDR4 2666/2400Mhz memory per socket, and total capacity of 16 x DIMMS. Networking will include a dedicated MLAN port. Other specifications are still under adjustment for the final product which is something that GIGABYTE and Cavium are discussing with potential customers to satisfy a demand.
Category: Windows
HDMI 2.1 features coming to Xbox One X (VRR and Auto Low Latency Mode)
HDMI 2.1 brings auto low latency mode (ALLM) and variable refresh rate (VRR) gaming here demonstrated on a Samsung QLED TV with a new firmware update to add that functionality support to the Microsoft Xbox One X. For more information about HDMI 2.1 features for gaming see my other video. That VRR functionality of HDMI 2.1 can be considered similar to dynamic refresh rate technologies like AMD’s FreeSync and NVIDIA’s G-Sync which are now popular for gamers buying new gaming PC monitors and new graphics cards, but the target market here for the HDMI 2.1 is also for gamers to be able to enjoy those features on the 4K TVs in the future. So expect upcoming 4K TVs to support it, if not it even being added to the firmware of existing 4K TVs on the market (like possibly as part of an evt firmware update for this Samsung QLED 4K TV), and here also updated with the firmware of gaming consoles like the Xbox One X.
faytech 86″ large format displays optically bonded at SID Display Week 2018
Posted by – June 27, 2018
Tour of the faytech booth at the SID Display Week 2018. In this exhibition faytech focuses on their large format displays and optical bonding expertise and service. In the video you can see several faytech products, but also their partner’s products, which are optically bonded by faytech.
In the video, they show several 86” Optically bonded “blackboard” devices with PCAP Capacitive touch technology for educational or multi-media purposes. During the tour a 75” outdoor IP65, (dust- and water-proof) Multi-media PC, as well as faytech’s own 55” Open Frame (HDK) Touch Monitor with 1000+ nits of brightness can be seen. This Open Frame is the perfect solution for integrating into a machine or wall. Eventually, the 65” FlatFrog In-Glass touch device bonded by faytech is shown, which is interesting, because only faytech possesses the bonding technology to do so. Then the 46” 2500+ nits outdoor kiosk from faytech’s partner, which is perfect for in- and outdoor use is presented. And at last, faytech’s 15.6” smart mirror with Capacitive touch technology is shown, which is perfect for the bathroom.
GIGABYTE shows Cavium ThunderX2 ARM Server Portfolio
The R181-T90 is a 1U height dual socket general purpose ThunderX2 rack server with 8 channels RDIMM / ECC UDIMM DDR4 memory, 24 x DIMM slots, 1 x 25GbE SFP28 LAN port, 1 x 10GbE SFP+ LAN port (optional), 12 x 2.5” hot-swap HDD bays, 2 x OCP mezzanine slots (PCIe 3.0 x16), Aspeed AST2500 management controller, and 1+1 1600W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU. The R281-T91 is a 2U height dual socket general purpose ThunderX2 rack server with 8 channels RDIMM / ECC UDIMM DDR4 memory, 24 x DIMM slots, 1 x 25GbE SFP28 LAN port, 1 x 10GbE SFP+ LAN port (optional), 24 x 2.5” hot-swap HDD bays, 8 x PCIe 3.0 expansion slots, Aspeed AST2500 management controller, and 1+1 1600W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU. The R181-T90 and R281-T91 will be available to order from July 2018. The H261-T60 is a 2U height 4 node density optimized ThunderX2 server with dual ThunderX2 CN9975 sockets for each node (8 x sockets in total) and rear access to the node trays. The sockets will support a CPU up to 195W TDP. Each node supports 4 channels RDIMM / ECC UDIMM DDR4 memory, with 64 x DIMM slots for the system in total. The system contains in total 8 x SFP28 10G/25G LAN ports, 4 dedicated management ports, 12 x 3.5” SATA/SAS hot-swap HDD/SSD bays, 8 x low profile PCIe Gen3 expansion slots, 4 x OCP Gen3 mezzanine slots, and the system includes Aspeed AST2500 remote management controller and 1 + 1 2200W 80 PLUS Platinum redundant PSU. The H261-T60 will be available for shipping in late September or early October 2018. Find more information on GIGABYTE’s server products at http://b2b.gigabyte.com
Qualcomm Press Conference at Computex 2018
Qualcomm launches the Snapdragon 850 for Windows 10, with representatives of Microsoft and Samsung participating in the keynote too. You can see my extensive video interview about Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 for Windows 10 Laptops here.
Cavium ThunderX2 benchmarks compared with Intel and AMD
Patrick Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief at ServeTheHome.com talks about the independent benchmarks on ThunderX2 that he published at ServeTheHome.com as Cavium announced General Availability of the ThunderX2 ARM Server at their event in San Francisco last month.
The ThunderX2 family includes over 40 different SKUs for both scale up and scale out applications, ranging from top bin 32 core 2.5GHz parts to 16-core 1.6GHz parts, mapping directly across Intel’s Xeon Skylake server CPUs from highest end Platinum to low end SKUs. With list prices for volume SKUs (32 core 2.2GHz and below) ranging from $1795 to $800, the ThunderX2 family offers 2-4X better performance per dollar compared to Xeon Skylake family of processors. The ThunderX2 family is fully compliant with Armv8-A architecture specifications as well as the Arm Server Base System Architecture and Arm Server Base Boot Requirements standards. The ThunderX2 SoC family is supported by a comprehensive software ecosystem, ranging from platform level systems management and firmware to commercial Operating Systems, Development Environments and Applications. Cavium has actively engaged in server industry standards groups such as UEFI and delivered numerous reference platforms to a broad array of community and corporate partners. Cavium has also demonstrated its leadership role in the Open Source software community driving upstream kernel enablement and toolchain optimization, actively contributing to Linaro’s Enterprise and Networking Groups, investing in key Linux Foundation projects such as DPDK, OpenHPC, OPNFV and Xen and sponsoring the FreeBSD Foundation’s Armv8 server implementation.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 for Windows 10 Laptops
35% performance upgrade compared with Snapdragon 835 Windows 10 Laptops such as the Asus Novago which I filmed here features Qualcomm Kyro 385 which is their customized Octa-core quad ARM Cortex-A75 and quad ARM Cortex-A55, going up to 2.95GHz with less throttling. Samsung announces that they will be making Windows 10 on Snapdragon 850 device. Other manufacturing partners Asus, HP and Lenovo are also going to release new devices featuring this chipset. The Snapdragon 850 features 1.2Gbit/s LTE using the X20 modem on SoC (20% faster than 835), fast Wi-Fi, 3x faster AI performance than 835, up to 25 hours of continuous usage. Qualcomm Aqstic enables virtual surround sound, native DSD support, aptX HD as well as 4K capture (possibly up to 4K video-conferencing possible). Microsoft has published this session video from their recent Build conference explaining how developers can compile, build and optimize ARMv8 versions of any Windows app, on stage they showed how to compile the Windows VLC app for the ARM64 Windows 10 platform. Working with Gemalto, Qualcomm demonstrates Integrated SIM (iSIM) on their Snapdragon 850 trusted secure hardware element, to be able to select, load Telecom packages full securely, perhaps eventually also load and store any SIM card into the device and switch between each one.
Aiptek APEX and i70 pico projectors
Posted by – May 10, 2018
Aiptek is a leading Chinse manufacturer of Projectors ranging in prices from $50 to $1000. One interesting device from Aiptek is the APEX projector with a built in Windows PC that is modular and detachable. The Aiptek i70 is the world’s smallest wireless projector.
$300 Sunchip All-in-one AR on RK3288 (like Hololens), $7 Wi-Fi power plug
Posted by – April 20, 2018
Category: Set-top-boxes, HDMI Sticks, VR, Internet of Things, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Rockchip, AmLogic, Intel, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Sunchip, Android, Windows
Sunchip shows some of their latest products including their all-in-one AR system based on Rockchip RK3288, RK3399 board for digital signage. $58 Amlogic S912 TV box, $26 RK3126 HDMI Stick, $200 Apollo Lake Box. 360 panoramic camera. $7 single Smart Wi-Fi Plug, $11 for dual Wi-Fi plug.
Microsoft Azure on Arm Servers Keynote at Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2018
Posted by – March 21, 2018
HKG18-300K1 – Keynote: Leendert van Doorn “Microsoft Azure: Operating at Hyper-Scale”
At scale everything changes. It is one thing to operate a datacenter of 10K nodes, it’s an entirely different thing to operate millions of nodes across 100’s of datacenters around the world. What works well for enterprises doesn’t necessarily work at scale.
Microsoft is currently deploying their 6th generation platform designs and at each generation their insights improve and in some cases entirely change leading to many specific requirements to silicon vendors, ODMs and system integrators. Over the years Microsoft effectively had to become its own OEM where they manage the entire system design from sheet metal, motherboards, firmware, hypervisors, operating systems, management stacks and corresponding higher-level services. They do this so they can control cost, quality, reduce complexity and drive their innovations.
In this talk he takes people through some of the lessons learned when Microsoft Azure’s scale increased over the years. He presents some of the rationale behind their ARM64 server plans and specifically the rational behind some of their ARM64 silicon requirements.
Leendert van Doorn is a distinguished engineer in Microsoft’s Azure organization where he is running a set of hyper-scale incubation projects. Before joining Microsoft he was a Corporate VP/Fellow at AMD driving various software and hardware initiatives. Leendert holds a Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
http://connect.linaro.org/resource/hkg18/hkg18-300k1/
Learn More at http://connect.linaro.org
Epson EB-710Ui, Laser interactive projector
Posted by – March 9, 2018
This is Epson’s best ultra short throw interactive FHD projector, generating up to a 100″ laser display at Full HD WUXGA resolution with Epson’s 0.67 inch with MLA (D10) 3LCD technology at 4000lumen, 2,500,000:1 Contrast Ratio, 20,000 Hours Durability.
Blade Shadow cloud gaming pc service launched in UK and California
Here I film at the UK launch of the Blade Shadow cloud PC gaming service, at the Meltdown London e-sports bar, where they have setup a bunch of Shadow PCs for cloud based gaming PC streaming service
here powering their League of Legends tournament. Blade Shadow is a French startup who I also interviewed at CES here they have now launched their service to cover the UK and they have also activated their West Coast USA server to serve customers in California. For about $35 per month you get remote access to “your own” Xeon gaming desktop with an Nvidia GTX1080 GPU, 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD running Windows 10 Pro.
Shadow Blade cloud PC Xeon/GTX1080 for cloud gaming, cloud 4K60/8K video-editing
French startup Blade presents their awesome Shadow cloud PC service at €30/month that streams a very powerful $2000 (equivalent) desktop PC hosted on their server powered by a high-end 8-threaded Intel Xeon server CPU with an Nvidia GTX1080 GPU, 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD (with harddrive/SSD storage expansion options available) running a full Windows 10 Pro desktop remotely in their server, using low-lag Internet technologies that they have developed, fast codecs (to have at least 15mbit/s Internet bandwidth available is recommended for a good experience), fast tricks that they have developed to make this all possible, to offer cloud gaming or high-end video-editing, 3D graphics rendering, audio processing, or anything else that might be useful to run on advanced PC hardware that you can think of, and you can then run that through client applications either running on their AMD APU based Shadow PC thin client that they offer to their subscribers (for a smooth up to 4K60 or 1080p144hz gaming experience), or you can run clients on a Chromebook, any Android phone, Android TV, Macbooks, any Windows machine, Linux, iPhone, iPad, their service runs on everything. Currently their service works well in France, initially it was just for French users who had Fiber to the home connections, but now it also runs smoothly onto any ADSL, Cable even LTE devices in France, the service is also supported in Belgium and a few other countries nearby France. Because for a good service, the user has to be within as few hops in the global backbone internet network as possible, to experience as little lag times as possible. Advanced professional gamers have tested this system and they have reported that they cannot feel any difference between the Shadow cloud gaming service and a local desktop gaming machine. The lag time are said to depend more on the speed of the PC monitor than of the internet back to their cloud server system. They are about to expand their offering to cover the whole of California as they are setting up a cloud server system right now in the Silicon Valley also. They plan to expand their services globally in the near future according to demand.
$999 Lenovo Thinkpad X280 (2018) on Gen8 Intel Kaby Lake
Posted by – January 15, 2018
The new 12.5″ Lenovo Thinkpad X280 (2018) is thinner at 1.17cm thickness and lighter at 1.13kg with now an integrated non-removable battery. With two Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, up to 16GB RAM, up to 1TB SSD, FHD or 1366×768 matte display with a matte touch on-cell option, compatible with Lenovo’s new 2018 side docking standard, with a native Ethernet dongle, it also has a physical sliding cover to cover the webcam.
$1709 Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 Gen6 (2018) HDR on Gen8 Intel Kaby Lake
Posted by – January 15, 2018
Lenovo launches their 6th Generation Thinkpad Carbon X1 with 8th Generation Intel Kaby Lake processor providing a 35% boost in performance, faster LPDDR3 2100Mhz RAM, optional LTE-A card, optional IR camera with Glance by Mirametrix merging face-tracking, eye-tracking, and gaze-tracking technology. Built with the same carbon-fiber reinforced chassis, Windows 10 Pro, dual Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C ports (with 65W Type-C RapidCharge and dongles), 14″ FHD or Quad- HD display with a Quad-HD Dolby Vision optimised HDR display as the top 500nit optional display. Intel HD Graphics 620, 720p webcam, Up to 16GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz, Up to 1TB SSD OPAL PCIe TLC, Up to 15 hours battery life, dTPM 2.0 Touch fingerprint reader, 2x Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C ports, 2x USB 3.0, HDMI, Native RJ45 (through dongle), MicroSD, MicroSIM (if WWAN card Qualcomm Snapdragon X7 LTE-A is installed), to be available in Silver and Black. It uses a new type of optional ThinkPad Pro Dock with its USB-C side mechanical docking station that spans a broad offering of 2018 ThinkPad devices with DisplayLink and extra USB ports and more. You can read more at: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-6th-Gen/p/22TP2TXX16G
$799 Lenovo Miix 630 Tablet convertible Windows 10 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
Lenovo releases their Tablet convertible running a full Windows 10 on the 64bit ARMv8 Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor with built-in LTE. Lenovo digital pen with 1024 levels of sensitivity with Windows Ink. 15.6mm thickness, 1.33kg weight, up to 20 hours of local video playback battery life. Comes with a 12.3″ WUXGA+ touchscreen to be priced starting at $799.
HP Envy x2 Tablet convertible Windows 10 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
HP Envy x2 is a detachable convertible Tablet PC running a full Windows 10 on the 64bit ARMv8 Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor with built-in always connected LTE and up to 22 hours of battery life. 90min 0% to 90% fast charging. Up to 1,000 hrs of connected stand-by time. Comes with the HP digital pen with Windows Ink for note taking and scribbling.
$1369 HP Spectre x360 15 (2018) with AMD RX Vega M GPU
The HP Spectre x360 15 (2018 version) comes with the first hybrid Intel/AMD processor with an 8th Generation Intel Kaby Lake-G CPU with an AMD RX Vega M GPU on the same package. It comes with a 15.6″ 4K Gorilla Glass 4 touch screen with support for HP’s Tilt Pen, a 360-degree hinge, Bang & Olufsen audio, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD and also the option to have the NVIDIA GeForce MX150 GPU instead of the AMD one.
Best of CES 2018: Asus NovaGo Snapdragon 835 Windows 10 at Qualcomm CES 2018 booth
Asus wins my prize of most important “best of CES 2018” device. This is the most powerful ARM Powered laptop yet. Finally, after years of work by thousands of Microsoft and Qualcomm engineers, true full Windows 10 on ARM is just about to be ready to be launched onto the worldwide market. Powered by the 10nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, with over 20 hours of battery life, while it comes on Windows 10 S by default it can quickly be “upgraded” to full Windows 10 Professional for ARM that gives support for the emulation of every x86 (32bit emulation supported only for now, 64bit x86 apps will be emulated once Microsoft updates the Windows software further) Windows 10 .exe application, hopefully we can run advanced video editing apps such as Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio, advanced music creation applications such as Ableton Live, Propellerhead Studio, advanced photo editing software such as Gimp and Adobe Photoshop. This Asus NovaGo comes with two full sized USB3 Host ports (sadly, no full sized SD card slot), a full sized HDMI output port, fingerprint reader in the corner of the mousepad and a full sized keyboard with a bright glossy 13.3″ 1080p display. At the Qualcomm CES 2018 booth, they are also showing the two other devices (though both Tablet based 2-in-1 devices with flimsy case/stands) that are being released running Windows 10 on Snapdragon 835 which are the HP Envy x2 and the Lenovo Miix 630. I was hoping that somehow this would be the time Lenovo would unveil an ARM Powered Thinkpad style laptop, but hopefully Lenovo will consider to do that soon enough! In my opinion, Lenovo should do a Thinkpad X1 Carbon and Thinkpad x280 style ARM Snapdragon 835 laptop, that would be great, if possible sold at 50 percent cheaper than the Intel version of each. Also if HP would make an ARM Powered version of their HP Spectre x360, that would also be awesome. Of course it would be really great if they would sell this with an unlockable bootloader (they can manage it “securely” through an approval kind of thing if they’d like) and that users could install among many flavors of Linux on it if they’d prefer (Qualcomm should support the community to still keep full GPU acceleration and full LTE support within any Linux). The Asus NovaGo is the only real Laptop form factor yet running this new very important full Windows 10 on ARM platform.
