From X-bit Labs: Advanced Micro Devices has disclosed details about its Bobcat micro-architecture that will power the company's next-generation central processing units (CPUs) for netbooks and other innovative form-factors that require very low power chips. The Bobcat seems to be by far more progressive than Intel Atom, but it will consume more power and will still lack some modern features.

When AMD started to design Bobcat back in 2005 - 2006, it already knew that its K7/K8/K9 chips were too power hungry for mobile computers, whereas the preceding generations were too inefficient in modern workloads. As a result, the company decided to design the chip from scratch rather than to "borrow" designs from previous-generation products. However, AMD decided not to sacrifice performance in order to absolutely minimize power consumption. As a result, Bobcat seems to be almost completely contemporary chips with numerous design trade-offs to reduce power consumption. According to AMD, the micro-architecture minimizes data movement and unnecessary reads from cache or memory.

The Bobcat core sports out-of-order execution, advanced branch predictor, dual x86 instruction decoder, 64-bit integer unit with two ALUs, floating point unit with two 64-bit pipes, 32KB instruction cache, 32KB data cache, 512KB L2 cache (working at half speed to trim power consumption) and so on. Bobcat fully supports modern SIMD extensions like SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, but no 3DNow, AVX and so on. AMD Bobcat features an extensive set of means to reduce power consumption, including such capabilities as fine grain clock gating, integrated core power gating and so on.

The design of Bobcat has nothing to do with the design of Bulldozer, hence, it is not as modular as the desktop/server micro-architecture, at least, based on what AMD showcased. Since Bobcat is by design a single-core chip, its dual-core and multi-core implementations will come with functionality that will be doubled without complete necessity.

The Bobcat is an AMD approach to the low-power computing, hence, the direct competitor for Intel Atom. While Bobcat in general will be more power hungry than Intel Atom, its performance is likely to be considerably better.

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From X-bit Labs: Back in the days the manufacturers of premium memory modules said that the best way to make a PC run faster is to add more memory. Nowadays the situation is changing and many companies claim that the easiest way to speed-up a PC is to install a solid-state drive (SSD).

OCZ Technology Group, of the leading suppliers of premium memory modules, said Wednesday that it would drop its memory business partly so that to concentrate on SSD products that now target various market segments, including high-margin enterprise-oriented solutions. The company, however, will continue to sell advanced memory modules for enthusiasts.

"The Value DRAM segments basically were not providing any profit to the company. Given our SSD growth trajectory - SSDs are more than 50% of our business on a go forward basis - and that fact that we dominate all segments of the SSD market in terms of performance, it just did not make sense to keep selling Value memory at 3% margins," said Ryan Petersen, chief executive officer of OCZ Technology.

OCZ has four major dynamic random access memory (DRAM) product lines: Enthusiasts, Gamers, Special Edition and Value. The latter product line accounted for over two thirds of OCZ's sales in 2009. As a result, with 50% of revenue already commanded by SSDs, it makes more sense for the manufacturer to assign more resources onto further development of solid-state drives as well as advanced memory modules.

"We have not specified exactly which exact lines are going away, but the emphasis will be on not just maintaining, but growing the high-end memory offering. This is the area we are traditionally strong in and customers can expect to see new premium memory products launching as we scale back our lower end lines. The distinct lines of what will be cut is an ongoing process as we optimize the product offering moving forward," said Alex Mei, chief marketing officer of OCZ.

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From CNET News.com: Garmin on Wednesday issued a worldwide recall of 1.25 million Nuvi GPS units, saying the batteries can overheat and pose a fire hazard.

Roughly 1.25 million units are affected, with 796,000 of those in the U.S. Garmin said there have been 10 cases of the batteries overheating, but no injuries or significant property damage.

Models affected by the recall include the 200W, 250W, and 260W, and 7xx and 7xxT units (where xx is a two-digit number). The third-party supplier of the battery, which Garmin didn't name, will split the cost of replacing the battery packs, the PND maker said. Consumers with a Garmin Nuvi GPS can enter its serial number on a special site Garmin has set up to see if they're impacted.

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From CNET News.com: Adobe Systems pushed out updates Wednesday to both its Photoshop Express online photo tool and photo-editing app for Android devices that bring some noteworthy improvements.

The biggest change, besides an increase in overall speed on the Web version of Photoshop Express, is that the site no longer requires users to register in order to use it. Unregistered users can now upload their photo, make edits, then download it without any administrative barriers. Adobe has also separated each tool into its own unit, similar to what it does with the library and develop modules of its Photoshop Lightroom software.

As part of the re-organization, Adobe has given its slideshow tool a dramatic facelift, with the inclusion of customizable themes. By default, users get only one, called "midnight," which is a simple one-color background for your photos to sit atop. There are 40 other themes available for subscriber's of Adobe's Plus subscription plans. Besides these, Plus subscribers get a few other extras like dedicated storage space and extra photo editing effects.

Other tweaks to the site include a more thorough look at a photo's EXIF metadata, a way to post your photos to Facebook and Twitter, the inclusion of user ratings and comments that users can see within the photo organizer, and a simpler way to find the company's tutorials.

On the mobile side, Adobe has updated the Android version of its Photo Express application to include support for user videos. If a user has uploaded videos to their Photoshop Express library--either from their phone, or back on their computer--they can now be played and shared from within the app. Adobe also says it has tweaked how efficient the app is at uploading photos to Facebook.

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From InfoWorld: Mozilla on Tuesday launched the fourth beta of Firefox 4, adding bookmark and password synchronization, and revamping how people wrestle tabs.

The latest build also sported the first attempt at accelerating Firefox 4's page rendering by tapping the graphics processor. The hardware acceleration, available only in Windows Vista and Windows 7, is disabled by default.

Firefox 4 Beta 4's most visible addition is "Panorama," a new name for what Mozilla had been calling "Tab Candy." Largely driven by the work of Aza Raskin, creative lead of Firefox, Panorama lets users collect tabs into sets, graphically displays those sets, and when users open a tab, shows only those tabs within the group.

Mozilla, which calls Panorama a tab manager, has argued that it's the next step in the evolution of tabs.

Firefox's rivals have nothing like Panorama. Apple, for example, introduced "Top Sites" to Safari last year, while Google's Chrome has had a similar "Most Visited" feature since it launched in 2008. But both simply graphically represent frequently visited sites using thumbnails.

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From PC World: At a September 7 press event Apple will introduce a 99-cent TV show rental offering, a new version of the iPod Touch with a higher-resolution screen, and a $99 version of the Apple TV set-top box, according to Bloomberg news.

Bloomberg reports the Apple announcment's big news will be the introduction of 99-cent television show rentals that will feature the content partners News Corp. along with CBS, NBC Universal, and Walt Disney. Bloomberg says these partners are in "advanced talks" to introduce a rental service over iTunes. According to the report, TV shows will be available to iTunes users for 99-cents for 48 hours.

The episodes will reportedly be available within 24 hours of the time they are aired, and will be commercial-free.

The more important news here is, of course, that Bloomberg's unnamed sources say that Apple plans to hold a San Francisco event on September 7, just a couple of weeks before the fall TV season gets underway.

At this event Apple will introduce not only the 99-cent TV rentals, but also a new iPod Touch (with a retina display and perhaps a camera or two), as well as updated Apple TV hardware.

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From CNET News.com: It's not just the TV makers that have a vested interest in pushing video's transformation to 3D TV and beyond. Companies that supply and enable the technology are just as eager to see the next generation of video take hold as the TV makers looking to sell you another big screen.

"Video is today's voice-on-an-IP network," said John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, the largest supplier in the world of IP networking equipment.

I spoke to Chambers this week as he visited the Meadowlands sports stadium outside of New York City, which is the latest sports arena to use Cisco's cutting edge Internet Protocol, or IP technology, to bring more video and interactivity to fans in the stadium.

Chambers elaborated on his comment to explain that just as voice technology migrated from a standalone service to one that has become just another application filling an all IP-network, video is moving in the same direction. Video is quickly becoming the killer app of all IP networks, including the Internet itself, Chambers said. With each new evolution of TV, the applications consume more network resources. And this feeds Cisco's business, as well as other businesses. Communications infrastructure provider Verizon Communications, is also dependent on its customers' constant need to increase bandwidth.

In a technology industry addicted to perpetual upgrade cycles, as the PC market has been for two decades, infrastructure and equipment companies are looking to video as the next big killer app to drive demand for faster networks and services.

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From CNET News.com: The Logitech Speaker System Z623 revealed today is a three-piece speaker set that delivers 200 watts of sound and ample thumpage thanks to the accompanying 7-inch subwoofer.

Multiple inputs on the back of the two satellite drivers let you connect the system to a wide range of devices including portable gaming systems, TVs, DVDs players, and anything else with a 3.5mm or RCA audio-out jack.

Finally, integrated controls on the speaker let you control the volume or dial down the subwoofer if your neighbors have sensitive ears. The Logitech Speaker System Z623 will ship in September for $149.99, and look for a full review on CNET coming soon.

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