instruments

Beyond quad-core: What's next for mobile processing power

Remember when a quad-core processor was the ultimate indicator of a super-smartphone? Well its 15 minutes are almost up.

Just as the current run of super-smartphones are destined for the bargain bin in a few months, so too will the novelty and obsession with the number of cores powering a phone begin to fade. Sure, smartphones with the latest quad-core chips still rule now, but companies are already preparing to change the conversation.

In its place, expect chip companies, handset manufacturers, and wireless carriers to shift their marketing away from an emphasis cores and more toward tangible benefits such as … Read more

Apple nabs former TI engineers for chip push, report says

Reports suggest that Apple is in the hunt for former Texas Instruments engineers in Israel, in a bid to expand its operations in the country.

According to sources speaking to The Next Web, Apple has been hiring "dozens" of engineers after the chipmaker cut 250 jobs from one of its Israeli operations center.

Apple is ramping up its efforts to build research and development centers in Herzliya and Haifa, the report said.

TI this month announced a round of redundancies, in the region of 1,700 employees worldwide, as it aims to pull out of the consumer market … Read more

Texas Instruments exits consumer phones, lays off 1,700

Texas Instruments is officially getting out of the consumer smartphone business, as major phone suppliers like Apple turn to internal chip designs.

"TI...will reduce costs and focus investments in its wireless business on embedded markets with greater potential for sustainable growth. Cost reductions include the elimination of about 1,700 jobs worldwide," TI said in a statement today.

While TI didn't mention any names, one of the most telling statements alluded to companies that are now designing their own chips. That would include Apple, which designs processors for its iPhone.

"Large customers are increasingly developing … Read more

Nvidia still has a lot to prove in the mobile market

Nvidia may be flying high on its tablet wins, but it still has a long way to go before it can call itself a real mobile player.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company, traditionally known for making graphics processing units found in computers and game consoles, has been counting on its Tegra mobile chip to help offset weakness in its core PC market. So far, it hasn't been enough. Nvidia is showing up in many tablets, but its presence in smartphones is minimal. In addition, the bulk of Tegra sales are for a couple of tablets, the Google Nexus 7 … Read more

Hey, Obama, Romney, there's a lot of U.S. stuff in the iPhone 5

Apple's iPhone and iPad have emerged as poster children for the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs.

Can't Apple make the MacBook, iPad, and iPhone in the U.S.? -- was the plea posed as a question by the CNN moderator Tuesday night -- with both Obama and Romney providing answers relatively lacking in nuance.

So, I decided to ask a different question to IHS iSuppli: How of much the stuff inside the iPhone 5 is provided by U.S. companies -- regardless of where it's made. That's a fair question since focusing on where something's … Read more

Amazon looks to acquire TI mobile chip business, report says

Amazon could be planning to acquire a mobile processor business, a new report claims.

Texas Instruments and Amazon are currently engaged in "advanced talks" over the possibility of the Kindle maker acquiring Texas Instruments' mobile chip business, Israel-based news outlet Calcalist is reporting today (translate), citing sources. The news outlet didn't say how much Amazon hopes to pay in the sale.

If Amazon buys out Texas Instruments' mobile chip business, it would mark a dramatic shift for the e-retail giant. Amazon uses Texas Instruments' processors in its mobile devices, including the latest Kindle Fire HD. Barnes & … Read more

Musical instruments from odds, ends, anything

Got a battered old suitcase sitting around the house? Jeff Conley might be able to make music with it. The Boston indie-folk musician crafts working guitars and drums from vintage luggage. They're not something you'd find at the local Guitar Center, to be sure. But neither are the other offbeat entries to the Made of Imagination contest.

That project, co-sponsored by art site Booooooom, MTV, and Sony Xperia, tasks participants with creating their own instruments -- "beautiful, hopefully ingenious, and probably ridiculous" ones, that is. If they actually play music (or at least make noise of some kind), so much the better. … Read more

T-RON Cybertech guitar is your sci-fi axe of choice

I have a feeling "Eye of the Tiger" would sound very good on this. But anything from 1982 would too.

That's the year "Tron" came out (as well as sci-fi classics "Blade Runner" and "Star Trek II"), and the T-RON Cybertech from Hutchinson Guitars is a fitting homage axe to the Disney fantasy.

Based on Hutchinson's Cybertech, aka Stormtrooper, guitar, the T-RON has a "retro-futuristic 'living circuit' theme" that screams early '80s. … Read more

Microsoft to take on Apple with own Windows 8 tablet?

Microsoft will announce its own tablet next week at an event in Los Angeles, according to reports, taking a page from Apple's playbook.

If true, this is not the typical Microsoft business model; usually it leaves device announcements to device makers. The PC industry is the classic example of this.

And, so far, that has been the case for Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets. Companies like Acer and Asus demonstrated Windows 8 tablets and hybrids at Computex last week, for instance.

But a report at The Wrap and another at AllThingsD say Microsoft has other plans.

Microsoft reportedly … Read more