Day: October 29, 2016

Why Apple and Microsoft Are Using Last Year’s Skylake Processors In Their New Computers

Apple released new MacBook Pros yesterday that feature Intel’s year-old Skylake microarchitcure, as opposed to the newer Kaby Lake architecture. Two days earlier, Microsoft did the same thing when it released the Surface Studio. Given the improvements Kaby Lake processors have over Skylake processors, one would think they would be included in the latest and greatest products from Microsoft and Apple. Gizmodo explains why that’s not the case: In the case of the new 15-inch MacBook the answer is simple. “The Kaby Lake chip doesn’t exist yet, ” an Apple rep told Gizmodo. Kaby Lake is being rolled out relatively slowly, and it’s only available in a few forms and wattages. The 15-inch MacBook Pro uses a quad-core processor that has no Kaby Lake equivalent currently. That particular laptop really does have the fastest processor available. The same goes for the Microsoft Surface Studio and updated Surface Book — both also use a quad-core Skylake processor with no Kaby Lake counterpart. But the Studio and Surface Book are also using much older video cards from the Nvidia 900 series. Nvidia has much faster and less power-hungry chips (the 1000 series) available based on the Pascal architecture. Microsoft’s reasoning for going with older video cards is nearly identical to Apple’s for going with a slower processor in its 13-inch MacBook Pro: the Nvidia 1000 series came out too late. The major intimation was that Kaby Lake and Pascal came so late in the design process that it would have delayed the final products if they’d chosen to use them. New technology, no matter how amazing an upgrade it might be, still requires considerable testing before it can be shipped to consumers. One minor bug, particularly in a system as engineered as the Surface Studio or MacBook Pro, can turn catastrophic if engineers aren’t careful. In the case of Microsoft, it’s frustrating, because that old GPU is significantly slower than the Pascal GPUs available. It’s a little less frustrating in Apple’s case, largely because of the old processor microarchitecture that Apple elected to shove into its new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Apple went with a new Skylake dual core processor that draws a lot of power — more so than any Kaby Lake processor available. It then uses all that extra power to ramp up the speeds of the processor. Which means it is capable of pulling off speeds that can actually match those of the fastest Kaby Lake processor out there. The only downside to this decision is battery life. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why Apple and Microsoft Are Using Last Year’s Skylake Processors In Their New Computers

Tesla unveils its solar roof and Powerwall 2

At Universal Studios in Los Angeles Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off the company’s solar roof-top panels and new Energy initiative. It also showed off its new $5, 500 Powerwall 2 high-capacity residential batteries and Powerpack 2 for businesses. Musk and company have been teasing the photovoltaic cell-embedded rooftop panels for a few weeks . It’s also using the announcement of the new product as an explanation for why its acquiring Solar City. Musk said that if the merger doesn’t go through, the launch of the new tiles will be difficult. During the event, Musk sort of talked about the price of the panels. He said that when a house has these the “installed cost is less than a normal roof and the cost of electricity.” But there was no concrete pricing announced. The event was held on a Hollywood backlot where Solar City and Tesla had installed non-operating solar panels onto the houses you might recognize for the TV show, Desperate Housewives . The houses didn’t attract any attention before the event because they appeared so normal. He also showed off a house with a Tuscan style glass tiles that to the naked eye, you would be hard-pressed to notice that the roof was actually sucking up the energy of the sun. “People love their homes and we want them to be better, ” Musk said. Of course the entire equation requires batteries for a home to keep it lit up when the sun goes down. Tesla says the new Powerwall 2 will power a four bedroom house with lights, refrigerator and other appliances for an entire day. Musk said that they expect to start installing the glass tiles in summer 2017 and for the roofs to last a very very long time. “We expect this to have two or three times the longevity of asphalt. It’s really never going to wear out. It’s got a quasi-infinite lifetime. It’s made of quartz, ” he said. Tesla and Solar City are working with 3M on the coating on the glass tiles. Tesla has just come off an impressive quarter where it posted a profit for the first time in two years . It also announced earlier this month that all vehicles produced going forward would have the hardware capable of full autonomous driving . Developing. Source: Tesla

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Tesla unveils its solar roof and Powerwall 2

Mozilla Announces Quantum, a New Browser Engine For Firefox

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla is currently working on a new browser engine called Quantum, which will take parts from the Servo project and create a new core for the Firefox browser. The new engine will replace the aging Gecko, Firefox’ current engine. Mozilla hopes to finish the transition to Quantum (as in Quantum Leap) by the end of 2017. The first versions of Quantum will heavily rely on components from Servo, a browser engine that Mozilla has been sponsoring for the past years, and which shipped its first alpha version this June. In the upcoming year, Mozilla will slowly merge Gecko and Servo components with each new release, slowly removing Gecko’s ancient code, and leaving Quantum’s engine in place. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mozilla Announces Quantum, a New Browser Engine For Firefox

Linux Marketshare is Above 2-Percent For Third Month in a Row

For the third month in a row the share of worldwide desktop computer users running Linux has been above two percent — up from one percent — according to data from web analytics company Net Market Share. From a OMGUbuntu report: We reported back in July that Linux marketshare had passed two percent for the first time, and that figure remains the highest they’ve ever reported for Linux, at 2.33 percent. But the share for September 2016 was almost as good at 2.23 percent. It’s the third consecutive month that Linux marketshare has been above 2 percent. Those of us who use Linux as our primary desktop computing platform can take a degree of pride in these figures. They do show a clear trend towards Linux, rather than away from it. But we should also remember that statistics, numbers and reporting methods vary between analytics companies and that all figures, however positive, remain open to interpretation and debate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux Marketshare is Above 2-Percent For Third Month in a Row

New MacBook Pros Max Out At 16GB RAM Due To Battery Life Concerns

The new MacBooks Pros have been improved in nearly every way — except when it comes to RAM capacity. With faster, more energy efficient Skylake processors, faster SSDs, and better GPUs, one would think the amount of RAM wouldn’t be capped off at 16GB. However, that is the case. The reason why the MacBook Pros continue to max out at 16GB RAM is due to battery life concerns, according to marketing chief Phil Schiller. MacRumors reader David emailed Apple to get an explanation: Question from David: “The lack of a 32GB BTO option for the new MBPs raised some eyebrows and caused some concerns (me included). Does ~3GBps bandwidth to the SSD make this a moot issue? I.e. memory paging on a 16GB system is so fast that 32GB is not a significant improvement?” Schiller’s answer: “Thank you for the email. It is a good question. To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn’t be efficient enough for a notebook. I hope you check out this new generation MacBook Pro, it really is an incredible system.” For the 2016 MacBook Pro, Apple was able to reach “all-day battery life, ” which equates to 10 hours of wireless web use or iTunes movie playback. That’s an hour improvement over the previous generation in the 15-inch machine, and a small step back in the 13-inch machine. While none of Apple’s portable machines offer more than 16GB RAM, 32GB of RAM is a high-end custom upgrade option in the 27-inch iMac. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New MacBook Pros Max Out At 16GB RAM Due To Battery Life Concerns