Month: August 2017

Intel plans a test fleet of 100 self-driving cars

Intel isn’t wasting any time now that it officially owns Mobileye . The Mobileye team has unveiled plans to build a fleet of 100 or more self-driving vehicles to conduct tests in both its native Israel as well as the US and Europe. They’ll meld Mobileye’s sensor, mapping and driving technology with Intel’s computing platforms, data center tech and 5G wireless to make Level 4 autonomous cars (they can do all the driving themselves but may ask for intervention) that talk to the cloud. They won’t be tied to any one brand — sorry, BMW . As Intel explains, it’s as much about selling the concept as actual experimentation. The fleet will show would-be customers how self-driving cars behave in real-world circumstances, including mapping and safety features, and will give Intel a better way to talk to regulators . Intel wants to prove that its self-driving tech can work around the world, and that it can tweak its formula to suit what companies want It’ll take a while before you see the fruits of this effort. The first vehicles don’t deploy until later in 2017, and the magic 100 mark is coming “eventually.” And of course, any customers sold on the tech will take a while after that to make use of it. Still, it’s an important step toward a widely available platform for self-driving cars. Source: Intel

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Intel plans a test fleet of 100 self-driving cars

Intel will unveil 8th-gen Core processors on August 21st

Intel’s 7th-generation Core processors still feel relatively young, but the company is already poised to talk about their successors. The chip designer has announced that it will premiere its 8th-generation Core CPUs on August 21st, complete with a livestream on Intel’s Facebook page . The company is unsurprisingly shy on technical details, but it promises previews of PCs built on 8th-gen chips as well as a demo from a VR creator. As it stands, there’s already some idea of what to expect. On the record, Intel has already acknowledged that the 8th-gen (aka Coffee Lake) won’t be a radical redesign: it’s still built on a 14-nanometer manufacturing process and shares a lot in common with its predecessors. However, both Intel’s early benchmarking tease and various leaks suggest there may be reasons to get excited. More than anything, the focus is on cramming in more cores at similar power levels. Both the Core i5 and Core i7 would move to six cores on the desktop, while you’d see four cores in the Core i3, Pentium and some low-power laptop chips. In essence, it should be a continuation of what Intel is doing with the Core i9 and X-series Core i7: it’s adding extra cores both a foil to AMD’s Ryzen processors (where core count is an advantage) and as an acknowledgment that there are diminishing returns from tweaking familiar architectures and processes. This gives it a big boost to performance in multitasking and highly multithreaded apps without having to reinvent the wheel. The real breakthrough should come with Cannonlake, which should move to a far more efficient (and likely faster) 10nm process. Via: AnandTech Source: Intel

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Intel will unveil 8th-gen Core processors on August 21st

Fingernail-sized chip can repair damaged tissue in seconds

A new device can begin repairing damaged organs in seconds, heralding a major breakthrough for life-saving medicine. Developed at Ohio State University , the technology known as tissue nanotransfection (TNT) uses a small coin-sized silicone chip that “injects” genetic code into skin cells, converting them from one type to another. During the initial testing phase, researchers were able to reprogram skin cells into vascular cells on a mouse that had a badly injured leg with no blood flow. Within one week active blood vessels appeared around the leg and within two weeks the leg had been completely restored. A mouse that had suffered a stroke was also saved, suggesting this technology can be applied to organs and nerve cells, as well as tissue. It’s the first time cells have been reprogrammed in a live body. The technology weighs less than 100 grams and has a long shelf life. It’s completely non-invasive — the genetic code is delivered by zapping the device with a small electrical charge that’s barely felt by the patient — and the procedure can be carried out without access to a lab or hospital . This means it will have a significant impact on the lives of those involved in medical emergencies where time is a crucial factor, such as car crash victims and soldiers injured in the field. It’s still waiting for FDA approval, but researchers expect testing on humans to start within the year. Via: USA Today Source: Ohio State University

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Fingernail-sized chip can repair damaged tissue in seconds

Kickstarting a "libre" recording of all of Bach’s fugues

Robert Douglass writes, “You have graciously covered the Open Goldberg Variations and the Open Well-Tempered Clavier projects on Boing Boing in the past, and it has resulted in these works being the most discoverable and obtainable examples of Bach’s work on the internet (reading Wikipedia? You’ll find these recordings. Searching Google or YouTube because you’re curious about Bach? You’ll find these recordings. Both recordings have also received lavish critical praise from the classical music industry’s leading reviewers, eg Gramophone magazine.” (more…)

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Kickstarting a "libre" recording of all of Bach’s fugues

Tile’s new lost item trackers have double the range, better looks

 On the heels of a $25 million funding round, connected device maker Tile is today rolling out a more premium line of lost item trackers, with the launch of its Tile Pro series. The line today includes two new devices, a dark slate-and-graphite Tile Sport and a white-and-gold Tile Style. Beyond their more fashionable look, these Pro trackers include upgraded internals, allowing the devices to… Read More

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Tile’s new lost item trackers have double the range, better looks

Intel 18-core Core i9-7980XE launches September 25 for $2,000

Enlarge Intel’s monstrous 18-core, 36-thread Core i9-7980XE CPU launches September 25 for a whopping $2,000, Intel announced today. It will be joined by the $1,700 16C/32T i9-7960X and the $1,400 14C/28T i9-7940X, while the 12C/12T i9-7920X launches a month earlier on August 28 for $1,200. UK prices are TBC, but the top-end chip will likely start at around £1,900, and then work its way down from there. Alongside release dates, Intel also revealed TDPs and boost clock speeds—information that was curiously missing from the original X299 announcement back in May. The Core i9-7980XE features a 2.6GHz base clock, a Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.2GHz, and a Turbo Boost 3.0 clock (up to two cores) of 4.4GHz. That’s accompanied by 24.75MB of L3 cache, 44 PCIe lanes, and a 165W TDP (the 10-core  i9-7900K has a 140W TDP). Boost and turbo clocks for the remaining i9 chips are largely the same, with a mere 100MHz variance, although the i9-7940X sports a higher 3.1GHz base clock. PC Gamer dug up a more detailed look at stock clock speeds, which shows the variance depending on how many cores are under load. In the case of the i9-7980XE, clock speeds vary from 4.2GHz to 3.9GHz up to 12 cores, dropping to 3.4GHz when all 18 cores are active. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel 18-core Core i9-7980XE launches September 25 for $2,000

Mazda’s engine breakthrough promises big fuel efficiency gains

Mazda has made the announcement car manufacturers have been working towards for years: it’s releasing the first commercial compression-ignition gasoline engine. Dubbed SkyActiv-X, the engine will be available in 2019 and promises up to 20-30% more engine efficiency than the current SkyActiv-G, and up to 45% more than Mazda’s 2008 petrol engine. Current gasoline engines rely on a spark plug to ignite their air-fuel mix. The SkyActiv-X will ignite the air-fuel mix spark-free through compression, like a diesel engine. This, according to the Japanese manufacturer, combines the advantages of petrol and diesel engines to achieve “outstanding” environmental and power performance. The announcement comes just days after the company laid out its billion-dollar plans to build electric vehicles with Toyota . Speaking to reporters, Mazda’s head of R&D Kiyoshi Fujiwara said that while “electrification is necessary … the internal combustion engine should come first”. Electrification and emissions minimization is a major focus of Mazda’s Sustainable Zoom-Zoom 2030 plan, and technically SkyActive-X falls into this remit, given its advances in efficiency. But it’s still a technology reliant on natural resources. Mazda’s electric vehicles and its SkyActiv-X engine take sustainability in very different directions, so it will be interesting to see if, and how, these roads eventually converge. Via: Reuters

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Mazda’s engine breakthrough promises big fuel efficiency gains

The new Google Glass is on sale today (but don’t get it)

Did you regret skipping Google Glass the first time around? You now have a second chance… if you have a specific need for it, that is. Glass for Work partner Streye is now selling the follow-up Glass Enterprise Edition starting at €1, 550 (about $1, 829). This is clearly intended for business (you get access to Streye’s enterprise streaming services with your purchase), so you really, really won’t want to buy it if you’re just trying to impress your friends. However, this is still the most accessible Glass has been in years — if you do need a wearable eyepiece, it’s theoretically within easy reach. To recap, this isn’t a night-and-day rethink of the Glass concept. Rather, it’s a logical evolution intended for workers who need hands-free computing. The biggest difference is the much larger 780mAh battery, which should keep it running for more of the workday. You’re otherwise getting twice the storage (32GB), an Intel Atom processor, faster WiFi, an expanded range of sensors (mainly assisted GPS) and a louder speaker. It’s otherwise a collection of minor tweaks. In short, you’d have to be a collector to appreciate this if you don’t intend to use it for professional tasks. Via: 9to5Google Source: Streye

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The new Google Glass is on sale today (but don’t get it)

Intel unveils full specs for its 18-core i9 Extreme Edition CPU

Intel made a big splash at Computex with its new Core i9 X-series family , which is spearheaded by its first 18-core processor for desktops. But we haven’t much in the way of technical details, until now. Today, Intel revealed that the 18-core i9-7980XE will feature a base speed of 2.6GHz, with a Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.2GHz. And using Turbo Boost 3.0, which speeds up performance of its fastest two cores, it’ll reach 4.4GHz. That’s just below the 4.5GHz top speed of Intel’s Core i7-7700K, its fastest mainstream processor for desktops. Basically, that means the 18-core chip will be no slouch when it comes single-threaded performance for games. (Check out our in-depth story on the development of the 18-core processor here .) Yes, it might seem strange to see the company’s most powerful processor with a base clock speed under 3GHz. But what’s more important are the boost figures, which will kick in when you actually need more computing power. As for the other members of the X-series family, the 16-core model will feature speeds between 2.8GHz and 4.4GHz, while the 14-core version starts at 3.1GHz. As usual, Intel can reach higher speeds on chips with fewer cores, since there’s less of a heat issue to worry about. It’ll be a while until we get full benchmarks from these chips, but Intel gave us a small preview from its own testing. The 16-core i9 CPU reached a Cinebench R15 score of 3200, while running an NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti GPU. That’s below a 24-core Xeon E5 2697, according to 3D Fluff’s database . The quad-core i7-7700K, meanwhile, scored just 966 on that same benchmark. You can nab the 14-18 core i9 CPUs on September 25th, while the 12-core version is coming sooner, on August 28th. The other chips are already available on the market. Intel Source: Intel

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Intel unveils full specs for its 18-core i9 Extreme Edition CPU