Persian Penguin Network

Yep, the rumors are true.  AMD does indeed intend to do away with the ATI name, eliminating the “ATI Radeon” co-branding the company has steadfastly maintained since its acquisition of ATI.  The firm briefed us on its plans late last week and explained several factors influencing its decision.

As one might expect, a major motivator is the fact AMD plans to introduce a range of new products incorporating both AMD microprocessor technology and a Radeon graphics tech on the same chip.  The first fruits of the CPU-GPU “Fusion” initiative are slated to arrive soon.  “Ontario,” which will combine two copies of the low-power “Bobcat” CPU core with Radeon graphics, is slated to ship before the end of the year. The more powerful “Llano” APU, which mates quad Phenom II-class CPU cores with presumably a more capable GPU, is scheduled for the first half of 2011.  Obviously, the combination of the firm’s CPU and GPU technologies into single-chip products could create some consumer confusion, if folks were to continue to think of AMD and ATI as separate entities—especially if the ensuing marketing messages emphasize the benefits of CPU-GPU integration.

Furthermore, AMD tells us it feels confident in making this change right now because its graphics business is “on a roll,” having surpassed rival Nvidia in discrete graphics shipments last quarter, according to analyst estimates, and having secured high-profile design wins with the likes of Apple.  Also, the chastening of Intel via its settlement with the FTC gave AMD some extra assurance that the expansion of its brand into graphics wouldn’t hurt its relationships with major PC makers.

Of course, such decisions aren’t made without market research, and AMD shared a snippet of its internal research on this topic with us.  We think it’s worth relaying verbatim, in the form of a handsome corporate PowerPoint slide:

The long and short of it is that, according to AMD’s own survey results, consumers savvy enough to know something about discrete graphics cards tend to know the Radeon name, they tend to like AMD, and they don’t mind seeing the AMD name on graphics cards once they realize AMD merged with ATI.  The folks at AMD read those results as “permission” to jettison the ATI brand name.

The plan, then, is to replace “ATI Radeon” and “ATI FirePro” with “Radeon” and “FirePro”, along with a sprinkling of AMD corporate identity.  The badges you see above will be used for systems with discrete Radeon and FirePro graphics cards.  The lower row omits the AMD logo, so PC makers shipping Intel-based systems will be able to avoid the oil-and-water combo of Intel and AMD branding, if they wish.

If you just bought an “ATI Radeon” and are proud of that fact, fear not.  Existing products, including the Radeon HD 5000 series, will not be renamed.  Instead, AMD says the first products to carry the “AMD Radeon” label will be introduced later this year.

The first “Fusion” APUs will participate in the radically simplified “Vision” branding that AMD introduced last fall.  That program, when introduced, consolidated a ridiculous constellation of separate badges and stickers for pre-built PCs and laptops into a much smaller number.  AMD apparently intends to further consolidate under the Vision banner going forward, although those badges seem to multiply like guppies, so we wouldn’t place any large bets on things getting straightforwardly simpler.  For one example, look no further than the “ATI Eyefinity” technology; that will be re-branded as “AMD Eyefinity” and otherwise kept intact.

Interestingly enough, the corporate “Fusion” branding program will be coming to an end, as well.  The Fusion name apparently won’t carry over into APUs, believe it or not.

By Tech Report

Now that LED backlighting has trickled down to nearly every HDTV lineup, it appears the big manufacturers will have to find new ways to differentiate their products, like LG’s upcoming LEX8 television. Set to debut at IFA in Berlin before going on sale in Germany and Korea next month (no word on the US), LG claims that thanks to a ‘thin film of miniscule dots positioned in front of a full array of LEDs’ its Nano Lighting technology — perhaps of the Nanosys variety it licensed earlier this year — makes for a clearer, smoother picture, with the slimmest and narrowest outline of any LED TV, ever, at just .88cm thick with a 1.25cm bezel. Of course LG’s NetCast widgets and Magic Motion remote are along for the ride as well, while we’ll have to wait until the show opens later this week to get our eyes on this beauty, check after the break for a few more pictures.

By Wall Street Journal

Chinese PC maker Lenovo has announced plans to develop its own video game console for the Chinese market. The new platform’s name, EBox, not only invokes images of Microsoft’s own Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, it will also come with a proprietary Kinect-like control scheme that will recognize shapes and movement without the need for a controller.A 40-strong team of engineers was spun off Lenovo earlier this month to create Eedoo Technology, the firm tasked with development of the Ebox. The console is expected to make its debut this November and hit the market by the first quarter of 2011. A price point has yet to be nailed down a bit lower but Lenovo estimates it to be a bit lower than the US$ 300 Xbox 360.Eedoo Technology boss Jack Luo believes they will be “the world’s second company to produce a controller-free game console, behind only Microsoft.” The EBox won’t aspire to HD-level graphics and hardcore gameplay, however, with Eedoo following Nintendo’s more casual-centric gameplan for the Wii.”Our product is designed for family entertainment. EBox may not have exquisite game graphics, or extensive violence, but it can inspire family members to get off the couch and get some exercise,” Luo said. He believes they will be able to sell more than 1 million EBoxes annually after the first two to three years.The EBox will come bundled with around 30 games. Sixteen “global video game developers” have reportedly already signed on to develop games for it.

By QJ

You had to know that Nintendo’s 3DS wouldn’t be the only glasses-free 3D handheld for long. Our Chinese compatriots caught sight of a prototype device from Rockchip called the Supernova x1, performing some similar lenticular trickery to make images appear 3D. Exactly what display tech it uses remains a mystery, but we’re told the Disney footage being displayed had to be “processed” in some way to make it appear 3D. Like the 3DS, the 3D effect here can be adjusted or disabled entirely, but that’s really all that is known at this point about this mystery tablet/PMP. Sit tight, though: everything should be revealed at IFA in a week’s time.

By Engadget China

The Bluetooth SIG has a long history of promoting its members’ “special interests” by leaking valuable tidbits about their handsets before they’re announced. The recently unearthed LG C900 is the latest of these, being pegged for a launch date “around” September 28th by the SIG’s detail page on the phone. The QWERTY slider, which is referred to in C900N, C900k, and C900B versions, will be available in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. Phone Arena conjectures that the launch date lines up with AT&T’s marketing materials timing and the slated Q4 launch of Windows Phone 7, so the C900 probably has a decent chance of being the first Windows Phone 7 phones to market if LG’s own GW910 or some more secretive set doesn’t beat it to the punch, but September still seems a bit earlier than any of the launch windows Microsoft has managed to let slip.

By Engadget

One of these days AMD is gonna have to stop talking about its Atom-killing Bobcat and Xeon-ending Bulldozer cores and finally release them. But, until that happy moment arrives in 2011 (fingers crossed), we’ll have to content ourselves with more presentation slides. First up, the Bobcat core is AMD’s long overdue play for the netbook/ultrathin market. Pitched as having 90 percent of the performance of current-gen, K8-based mainstream chips, AMD’s new mobility core will require “less than half the area and a fraction of the power” of its predecessors. That sounds like just the recipe to make the company relevant in laptop purchasing decisions again, while a touted ability for the core to run on less than one watt of power (by lowering operating frequencies and voltages, and therefore performance) could see it appear in even smaller form factors, such as MIDs. The Bobcat’s now all set to become the centerpiece of the Ontario APU — AMD’s first Fusion chip, ahead of Llano — which will be ramping up production late this year, in time for an early 2011 arrival.

The Bulldozer also has a future in the Fusion line, but it’s earliest role will be as a standalone CPU product for servers and high-end consumer markets. The crafty thing about its architecture is that every one Bulldozer module will be counted as two cores. This is because AMD has split its internal processing pipelines into two (while sharing as many internal components as possible), resulting in a sort of multicore-within-the-core arrangement. The way the company puts it, it’s multithreading done right. Interlagos is the codename of the first Opteron chips to sport this new core, showing up at some point next year in a 16-core arrangement (that’s 8 Bulldozers, if you’re keeping score at home) and promising 50 percent better performance than the current Magny-Cours flagship. Big words, AMD. Now let’s see you stick to a schedule for once.

By Engadget

Just about every mobile operating system manufacturer can remotely delete apps from the smartphones they help provide, but if a recent patent application is any indication, Apple’s looking to lock down the whole enchilada on future devices. The basic concept is as simple as the diagram above — certain activities trigger the phone to think it’s in the wrong hands — but the particular activities and particular remedies Apple suggests extend to audiovisual spying (to detect if a user has a different face or voice than the owner), and complete remote shutdown. While the patent mostly sounds targeted at opt-in security software and would simply send you an alert or perform a remote wipe if your phone were stolen or hacked, jailbreaking and unlocking are also explicitly mentioned as the marks of an unauthorized user, and one line mentions that cellular carriers could shut down or cripple a device when such a user is detected. Sounds great for securing phones at retail, sure, but personally we’d rather devices don’t determine our authority by monitoring our heartbeat (seriously, that’s an option) and we’re plenty happy with the existing Find My iPhone app.

By Engadget

Who needs George Hotz anyway? A USB modchip for the PS3 has emerged from the mists this morning, purporting to allow the dumping of games onto nearby storage — the console’s internal HDD and external drives are both a-ok — as well as the subsequent playing of said games without the need for the original disc. Could it be the backup/piracy nirvana Sony loyalists have been awaiting for so long? Well, there’s a video showing the little USB device apparently working, and the PSX-Scene team say they have personally verified that it does what it claims to do, but skepticism remains advisable here. The PS3 has been a fortress of hacker unfriendliness, so we’d rather kick back, relax, and wait for some braver souls than us to do the testing.

By Engadget

Qualcomm plans to ship its next generation Snapdragon smartphone processors during the fourth quarter of this year, according to IDG News Service. Qualcomm’s new dual core chips, dubbed the QSD8672, sport a 1.5GHz clockspeed. That’s 500GHz faster than the popular Snapdragon processor in some of today’s hottest smartphones, including the Nexus One and HTC EVO 4G. Qualcomm’s vice president of product management, Mark Frankel, thinks some manufacturers could even have smartphones running the new chip on store shelves by Christmas.

By Mobile Burn