By Shane McGlaun - August 20, 2008
Wireless USB is one of the new technologies that has been touted for while, but has yet to show up in force in consumer devices. In theory, wireless USB is pretty slick allowing computer users to connect to peripherals like cameras and printers without having to connect a physical USB cable. Wireless USB got a shot in arm today with NEC Electronics announcing that it has expanded its wireless USB portfolio with a new host controller. The new wireless USB host controller is called the uPD720171 for PCI Express. The new host controller enables high-speed, wireless data transmission between PCs that have a minicard or Half-minicard expansion slot and peripherals like printers and digital cameras. While enabling wireless USB connectivity, the new host controller also maintains the ability to connect with wired USB devices. NEC electronics says that the new wireless USB controller is certified by the USB Implementers Forum and conforms to Wireless USB 1.0 specifications.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Chipmaker Hydra's Stunning Work May Render CrossFire, SLI Obsolete
New chips open the door to gaming rigs with a mix of ATI and NVIDIA cards
By Jason Mick - August 20, 2008
NVIDIA is busily plugging away with its 200 series and marketing various SLI solutions in the form of anything from a pair of 8000 or 9000 cards to its top end -- a pair of 280 GTXs. AMD is similarly pushing its 4850/4870 CrossFire solutions along with CrossFire for its new dual-GPU 4870 X2 cards. The key thing is AMD/ATI cards are not compatible with NVIDIA cards -- CrossFire and SLI are two different technologies. Furthermore, most motherboards either support SLI or support CrossFire -- most don't do both. Enter Lucid, also known as LucidLogix, a fabless semiconductor designer (meaning it outsources its chips to other company's fabs, such as TSMC). Lucid is far from a known name in the graphics industry, though that may soon change. With the help of Intel Capital backing and over 50 patents, it has developed a technology that seems poised to rock the graphics industry. The groundbreaking technology is titled the HYDRA Engine. The accomplishment of the engine is nothing short of unbelievable to those who follow the graphics industry. It uses hardware and software to allow virtually any AMD/ATI and NVIDIA GPU to work together and share workloads with the CPU, scaling programs almost linearly. You could probably call the HYDRA Engine CrossFire-SLI, though you might run into a spot of legal trouble in trying to do so.
Read more here -->Link
By Jason Mick - August 20, 2008
NVIDIA is busily plugging away with its 200 series and marketing various SLI solutions in the form of anything from a pair of 8000 or 9000 cards to its top end -- a pair of 280 GTXs. AMD is similarly pushing its 4850/4870 CrossFire solutions along with CrossFire for its new dual-GPU 4870 X2 cards. The key thing is AMD/ATI cards are not compatible with NVIDIA cards -- CrossFire and SLI are two different technologies. Furthermore, most motherboards either support SLI or support CrossFire -- most don't do both. Enter Lucid, also known as LucidLogix, a fabless semiconductor designer (meaning it outsources its chips to other company's fabs, such as TSMC). Lucid is far from a known name in the graphics industry, though that may soon change. With the help of Intel Capital backing and over 50 patents, it has developed a technology that seems poised to rock the graphics industry. The groundbreaking technology is titled the HYDRA Engine. The accomplishment of the engine is nothing short of unbelievable to those who follow the graphics industry. It uses hardware and software to allow virtually any AMD/ATI and NVIDIA GPU to work together and share workloads with the CPU, scaling programs almost linearly. You could probably call the HYDRA Engine CrossFire-SLI, though you might run into a spot of legal trouble in trying to do so.
Read more here -->Link
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