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Intel Claims Haswell Architecture Offers 50% Longer Battery Life vs. Ivy Bridge

MojoKid writes “As with any major CPU microarchitecture launch, one can expect the usual 10~15% performance gains, but Intel apparently has put its efficiency focus into overdrive. Haswell should provide 2x the graphics performance, and it’s designed to be as power efficient as possible. In addition, the company has further gone on to state that Haswell should enable a 50% battery-life increase over last year’s Ivy Bridge. There are a couple of reasons why Haswell is so energy-efficient versus the previous generation, but the major reason is moving the CPU voltage regulator off of the motherboard and into the CPU package, creating a Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator, or FIVR. This is a far more efficient design and with the use of ‘enhanced’ tri-gate transistors, current leakage has been reduced by about 2x — 3x versus Ivy Bridge.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel Claims Haswell Architecture Offers 50% Longer Battery Life vs. Ivy Bridge

Gigabyte introduces BRIX, a customizable mini PC powered by Ivy Bridge CPUs

The mini PC market isn’t exactly a crowded one, but it’s never a bad thing to have options . Well, if you’re into the idea of adding an ultra-compact to your setup, Gigabyte’s just announced its highly customizable BRIX. The palm-sized PC appears to be the very same one we saw back at this year’s CES , but it’s now taken on a more polished, ready-to-hit-shelves look. Gigabyte’s providing interested parties the ability to load this itty-bitty thing with a vast selection of Ivy Bridge chips (Core i3, i5 and i7), plus their own SSD / RAM combo and operating system of choice. Ports-wise, there are two USB 3.0 sockets, HDMI and a Mini DisplayPort — Gigabyte notes it can power up to two displays simultaneously. Naturally, the cost depends on the specs you choose, and the company only goes as far as to say that the BRIX covers “a range” of price points. Gallery: Gigabyte BRIX press shots Filed under: Desktops , Misc Comments Via: Fareastgizmos Source: Gigabyte

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Gigabyte introduces BRIX, a customizable mini PC powered by Ivy Bridge CPUs

The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom’s Orbital Structure

What you’re looking at is the first direct observation of an atom’s electron orbital — an atom’s actual wave function ! To capture the image, researchers utilized a new quantum microscope — an incredible new device that literally allows scientists to gaze into the quantum realm. Read more…        

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The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom’s Orbital Structure

FiOS User Finds Limit of ‘Unlimited’ Data Plan: 77 TB/Month

An anonymous reader writes “A California user of Verizon’s FiOS fiber-optic internet service put his unlimited data plan to the test. Over the month of March, he totaled over 77 terabytes of internet traffic, which finally prompted a call from a Verizon employee to see what he was doing. The user had switched to a 300Mbps/65Mbps plan in January, and averaged 50 terabytes of traffic per month afterward. ‘An IT professional who manages a test lab for an Internet storage company, [the user] has been providing friends and family a personal VPN, video streaming, and peer-to-peer file service—running a rack of seven servers with 209TB of raw storage in his house.’ The Verizon employee who contacted him said he was violating the service agreement. “Basically he said that my bandwidth usage was excessive (like 30,000 percent higher than their average customer),” [the user] said. ‘[He] wanted to know WTF I was doing. I told him I have a full rack and run servers, and then he said, “Well, that’s against our ToS.” And he said I would need to switch to the business service or I would be disconnected in July. It wasn’t a super long call.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FiOS User Finds Limit of ‘Unlimited’ Data Plan: 77 TB/Month

Intel: Haswell will boost laptop battery life by 50 percent

When Intel launched Haswell , it promised a generational leap in battery life, and now the chip giant’s talking numbers to back that up. Architecture Group VP Rani Borkar said that laptops packing the chipset should get 50 percent more battery life than current Ivy Bridge models and go up to 20 times longer in standby or idle mode — without any cost to performance . She said that lower power requirements will be one factor in the drop in consumption, but an all-new architecture including a power management chip will also help reduce the energy draw. We’ll have to see whether that encouraging piece of news will help the moribund PC notebook market pick up lost ground to tablets, or whether companies will just keep blurring the line . Filed under: Laptops , Intel Comments Source: Computerworld

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Intel: Haswell will boost laptop battery life by 50 percent

BT Runs an 800Gbps Channel On Old Fiber

judgecorp writes “BT has demonstrated an 800Gbps ‘superchannel’ on a 410km fiber in its core network, which was not able to carry 10Gbps channels using older technology. The superchannel is an advanced dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technique, created by combining multiple coherent optical signals into one channel, which had previously been shown in laboratory tests. BT ran the test on a fiber with optical characteristics (high polarization mode dispersion) that made it unsuitable for 10GBps using current techniques. That’s a good result for BT, because it means its existing core fiber network can be upgraded to handle more data. It’s also a good customer story for Ciena, which makes the optical switches used in the test.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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BT Runs an 800Gbps Channel On Old Fiber

FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month

Yes, Virginia, there is a limit to what Verizon will let you do with FiOS’ “unlimited” data plan. And a California man discovered that limit when he got a phone call from a Verizon representative wanting to know what, exactly, he was doing to create more than 50 terabytes of traffic on average per month—hitting a peak of 77TB in March alone. “I have never heard of this happening to anyone,” the 27-year-old Californian—who uses the screen name houkouonchi and would prefer not to be identified by name—wrote in a post on DSLreports.com entitled ” LOL VZ called me about my bandwidth usage Gotta go Biz. ” “But I probably use more bandwidth than any FiOS customer in California, so I am not super surprised about this.” Curious about how one person could generate that kind of traffic, Ars reached out to houkouonchi and spoke with him via instant message. As it turns out, he’s the ultimate outlier. His problem is more that he’s violated Verizon’s terms of service than his excessive bandwidth usage. An IT professional who manages a test lab for an Internet storage company, houkouonchi has been providing friends and family a personal VPN, video streaming, and peer-to-peer file service—running a rack of seven servers with 209TB of raw storage in his house. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month

NVIDIA releases GeForce GTX 780 for $649, claims more power with less fan noise

It’s well over a year since the GTX 680 came out, but given how that card was a strong contender it may feel too early for an upgrade. NVIDIA knows the score, which is why it’s made a particular point of pitching this year’s card at owners of the GTX 580 instead. Upgraders from that GPU are pledged a 70 percent lift in performance, which is about double the gain a GTX 680 owner would see. On the other hand, something more people might notice — if NVIDIA’s slides prove to be accurate — is a 5dBA drop in noise pollution, as well a new approach to fan control that attracts less attention by varying revs less wildly in response to load. This is surprising given that most of the extra performance in this card stems from more transistors and greater power consumption, but that’s what we’re told. Feel free to hold out for our round-up of independent reviews or read past the break for further details. Gallery: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 slide deck Filed under: Desktops , Gaming , NVIDIA Comments

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NVIDIA releases GeForce GTX 780 for $649, claims more power with less fan noise