LG Premiering Google TV Powered Televisions At CES

Our inboxes are filled to the brim with releases of all types; most hit the round file and never end up on the site, some are a bit more compelling. This one goes in the latter category, though the news will only sound good to some of you. LG will be introducing a 3D set that combines their own Smart TV platform with Google TV. The set will be previewed at the LG press conference on Monday, for now we have the linked PR below and a few glamour shots.

It is likely that the TV will feature the latest Google TV hardware we heard about earlier today. If the press shots are at all indicative, the Google TV platform may soon be customizable in the same fashion as Android on mobile phones is today. LG's Smart TV with Google TV appears to feature an entirely different interface than we've seen on prior Google TV hardware, looking like an amalgam of LG's prior Smart TV interface and Google TV. Most notably is an interface that includes current content being played back in a panel alongside the interface. Previously the interface was overlaid on content, and video coexisted alongside interface elements only within certain apps. 

We'll see how this all shakes out Monday. Till then, we'll keep sifting through our inboxes. 

UPDATE: Following up on LG's press release, Google posted an update to their Google TV Blog that expands on the announcement and reveals that LG will be using their own L9 SoC in their line of Smart TVs. In April, LG announced that they would become an ARM licensee, and this appears to be the first fruits of that agreement. We hadn't heard of the L9 previously, and suspect that it is an ARM Cortex-A9 derivative, though GPU and other specifications remain a mystery. Google's post reaffirmed commitments from Sony, Samsung and Vizio to include Google TV devices in their line-ups, and mentioned MediaTek as SoC manufacturer for Google TV based products. 

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Elgato's Thunderbolt SSD: Bus Powered, 120/240GB, Available in February

Elgato sent over info on its brand new Thunderbolt SSD available in February in 120GB and 240GB capacities. There's no word on the controller inside. If I had to speculate based on the capacities alone it sounds a lot like SandForce but it honestly could be anyone. The external drive is entirely bus powered and will retail for a hefty $429.95 for the 120GB model and $699.95 for the 240GB version. 

I'm still waiting for someone to make a BYOD external Thunderbolt chassis though...

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Samsung Galaxy S3 likely to be powered by 2GHz dual-core chip

Samsung has unveiled its latest chip to hit the mobile phone market – the Exynos 5250.

This dual-core toting, 2GHz beast is the successor to the 4210 which currently powers the Samsung Galaxy S2 and it is more than likely to be the chip that will make its way into the Samsung Galaxy S3.

When it comes to graphical performance, Samsung is claiming it is four times faster than its predecessor and will be 2560 x 1600 resolution compatible and it also supports stereoscopic 3D.

Tablet friendly

Because of its high resolution the chip will also find its way into a new generation of Samsung tablets and other big-screened devices such as the Galaxy Note line-up.

When it comes to technical specs, the Exynos 5250 has memory bandwidth up to 12.8 Gbps and has been built using the low-power HKMG 32nm process and has two ARM-based Cortex-A15 cores.

It is thought that this SoC will be the first of its type for mobile devices that actually manages to clock 2.0Ghz.

Back in October, it was thought that the Samsung Galaxy S3 specs had leaked out, with the processor set to be 1.8GHz.

The arrival of the 5250, however, may well mean that we can look forward to a higher specified model some time in 2012.

Computex 2011: SuperTalent Introduces SandForce Powered USB3 Stick

The very first enthusiast SSDs had their roots in USB drives. Memory vendors that were making USB sticks thought to put a bunch of NAND in parallel behind a rudimentary NAND to SATA controller and you had an SSD. Performance characteristics looked great on paper but of course there were teething problems.

These days the reverse has happened. High end USB sticks now look a lot like small SSDs. USB 3.0 SSDs were either too bulky to carry around or weren't that impressive from a performance standpoint, but SuperTalent just showed me one that is quite tempting. This is the SuperTalent USB 3.0 Express RC8, it's a USB stick that has a SF-1222 controller just like the previous generation of high end SSDs:

With four NAND devices on board, the RC8 actually has 8-channels feeding two die per package. Two channels are routed to each device, hence the use of BGA NAND vs. TSOP. SuperTalent uses 25nm IMFT NAND for the drive.  Performance as a result is quite impressive. Over USB 2.0 you're looking at a maximum of around 40MB/s, but over USB 3.0 you can hit 200MB/s with highly compressible data:

Worst case performance for incompressible sequential writes over USB 3.0 is still only 32MB/s thanks to the one-die-per-channel architecture (as well as inherent SF limitations). Read speed is still excellent however at nearly 180MB/s.

The performance characteristics make this drive less ideal for copying large compressed videos to, but great for general use. In fact, running/installing applications or even running a full OS environment from the drive is likely a pretty good experience. SuperTalent will offer the RC8 in 25GB, 50GB and 100GB capacities (with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB of NAND on board).  Expect availability starting late this month and pricing to be inline with standard SF-1222 based SSDs (~$110 for the 50GB drive). {gallery 1130}]]>

Computex 2011: SuperTalent Introduces SandForce Powered USB3 Stick

The very first enthusiast SSDs had their roots in USB drives. Memory vendors that were making USB sticks thought to put a bunch of NAND in parallel behind a rudimentary NAND to SATA controller and you had an SSD. Performance characteristics looked great on paper but of course there were teething problems.

These days the reverse has happened. High end USB sticks now look a lot like small SSDs. USB 3.0 SSDs were either too bulky to carry around or weren't that impressive from a performance standpoint, but SuperTalent just showed me one that is quite tempting. This is the SuperTalent USB 3.0 Express RC8, it's a USB stick that has a SF-1222 controller just like the previous generation of high end SSDs:

With four NAND devices on board, the RC8 actually has 8-channels feeding two die per package. Two channels are routed to each device, hence the use of BGA NAND vs. TSOP. SuperTalent uses 25nm IMFT NAND for the drive.  Performance as a result is quite impressive. Over USB 2.0 you're looking at a maximum of around 40MB/s, but over USB 3.0 you can hit 200MB/s with highly compressible data:

Worst case performance for incompressible sequential writes over USB 3.0 is still only 32MB/s thanks to the one-die-per-channel architecture (as well as inherent SF limitations). Read speed is still excellent however at nearly 180MB/s.

The performance characteristics make this drive less ideal for copying large compressed videos to, but great for general use. In fact, running/installing applications or even running a full OS environment from the drive is likely a pretty good experience. SuperTalent will offer the RC8 in 25GB, 50GB and 100GB capacities (with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB of NAND on board).  Expect availability starting late this month and pricing to be inline with standard SF-1222 based SSDs (~$110 for the 50GB drive). {gallery 1130}]]>

HP DM1-3100 A luxury netbook powered by AMD Zacate

HP will soon market its netbook DM1-3100 running on AMD Zacate which by its characteristics, could steal the title of the most powerful netbook market.




Behind its questionable design, the new HP DM1-3100cache features decidedly upscale. The new HP netbook features a Zacate E350 AMD running at 1.6 Ghz running hand in hand with a graphics chipset Radeon 6310, all supported by a RAM 3 GB DDR3. This configuration allows you to easily enjoy your office and multimedia applications. The chipset is really light show by cons to handle the latest titles at the moment.

11.6-inch screen and hard drive 500 GB

The netbook HP DM1-3100 is equipped with a 11.6-inch screen displaying an HD resolution of 1366 x 768. We appreciate the hard disk with a capacity of 500 GB latter, rotating at 7200 rev / min, ensuring the entire operation fluid and responsive, providing a faster access time to your data. The audio is far from being abandoned with two onboard stereo speakers, a microphone jack and a headphone jack where you can plug in your headphones. We will not forget to mention
the integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam and the 6-cell Lithium ion battery providing a range of comfortable 6 hours.

VGA, HDMI and USB 2.0

Made for mobility with box measuring 29 x 21.4 x 2.1 cm and weighs 1.6 kg, the netbook DM1-3100 embeds a connector composed of 3 USB 2.0 ports, a VGA port, to a card reader SDHC / MMC, without forgetting the RJ45 port and WiFi b / g / n to connect to the Internet. This machine has an HDMI port in addition to stream HD video on a HD Ready TV or an external LCD screen. To our great regret, this netbook does not incorporate a USB 3.0 or Bluetooth 3.0.

HP Announces TouchPad, Veer and Pre 3: All Powered by Qualcomm

We're here at HP's webOS 2.1 event in San Francisco. HP has announced a couple of big things today; a tablet (HP TouchPad), a (tiny) smartphone (HP Veer) and a professional phone (the Pre 3), all running the webOS 2.1 operating system.

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