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Nvidia cites ongoing 'failure' problem in some laptops

Nvidia said that some notebooks with its chips continue to have "failure" issues, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

In the Form 10-Q filing, Nvidia stated that though it does not continue to see "abnormal failure rates" in systems using Nvidia products," some notebooks are still affected.

Specifically, Nvidia said: "We continue to not see any abnormal failure rates in any systems using Nvidia products other than certain notebook configurations. However, we are continuing to test and otherwise investigate other products," Nvidia said, adding, "there can be … Read more

The next big thing in wind: Slow wind, huge turbines

With politicians pushing adoption of renewable energy in the United States and Europe, the last few years have seen a surge in plans for wind farms--both on land and sea. But wind power isn't viable everywhere--and prime coastal spots are often already developed.

So some wind-turbine makers are shifting their focus toward building bigger wind turbines that can harvest the lower-speed winds that are more readily available. This next generation of wind turbines is no small matter: their rotors have a diameter the size of a football field.

In general, wind turbines get more powerful and efficient with taller … Read more

GE to make heavy-duty batteries in New York

General Electric on Tuesday committed $100 million to open a factory in upstate New York to manufacture batteries for hybrid locomotives and other industries such as power grid storage.

CEO Jeffrey Immelt dedicated the facility at a press conference at GE's Niskayuna, New York research and development facility along with New York governor David Paterson and other politicians.

GE has been testing sodium-metal chloride batteries for heavy-duty industrial applications, such as hybrid locomotives and trucking equipment in mining. The technology can also be used for back-up power in data centers, plug-in electric vehicles, and to smooth electricity flow across the grid, … Read more

Companies plan for possible swine flu pandemic

Following the outbreaks of SARS and Avian Flu earlier this decade, Sprint Nextel has taken the threat of a global flu pandemic very seriously. And in 2005, the company created a special group within its Emergency Incident Management team to plan what to do in such an emergency.

Late last week, when the World Health Organization started alerting the international community to the threat of the swine influenza that originated in Mexico, Sprint's four years of planning came into action and Sprint has been working through its checklist of actions. On Friday, it started posting information and updates on … Read more

Nvidia: Chips to speed Apple Leopard, Windows 7

Updated on April 27 at 8:20 a.m. PDT with additional information about DirectX 11 and correcting for Intel comments at bottom.

Graphics chips will be tapped to accelerate more tasks in upcoming versions of Apple's and Microsoft's operating systems, according to Nvidia.

In an interview Friday with Sumit Gupta, product manager for Nvidia's Tesla products, Gupta described how new programming environments will tap into the latent compute horsepower of graphics processors to accelerate software in Apple's upcoming OS X Snow Leopard and Microsoft's Windows 7 operating systems.

Graphics chips aren't just for games anymore. The trend toward general-purpose graphics processing is defined by an acronym that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue: GPGPU. But the essence of General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units is pretty simple: use the scores--or even hundreds in higher-end chips--of processing cores inside GPUs to speed tasks that, in some cases, would be done much less efficiently by the central processing unit (CPU).

This is where OpenCL (Open Computing Language) comes in. OpenCL is a programming environment for "heterogeneous" computing. That is, computers using a mix of multicore CPUs and GPUs. Microsoft's analogous programming environment is DirectX.

Apple says this about OpenCL on its Web site. "Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL...makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit."

Today, on a PC or a Mac, the CPUs made by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are adept at handling general operating system tasks. For instance, handling the sequence of things that must happen after the user clicks on an icon to start an application on their desktop. … Read more

Miami to tap stimulus for $200 million smart grid

The City of Miami announced a proposal on Monday to install 1 million two-way "smart meters" to all Miami residents over the next two years in what would be the most comprehensive smart-grid program in the U.S.

Mayor Manny Diaz outlined the Energy Smart Miami plan, which is anticipated to cost $200 million in its first phase, at a press conference at Miami Dade College. Joining Diaz were the CEOs of the key suppliers in the project: Florida Power & Light CEO Lewis Hay, General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt, Cisco systems CEO John Chambers, and SilverSpring Networks … Read more

FuturePowerPC.com has the PNY GeForce 7900GS PCI-E x16 DDR3 256MB Video Card for $99.99, after $59.01 savings.

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Acer PC joins Nvidia's 'Ion' with Intel's Atom

Updated at 3:50 p.m. PST: correcting for Intel GN40 graphics support and adding pricing information for target market.

Acer launched a PC Tuesday that attempts to bring PC-class performance to Atom-processor-based PCs.

The Acer AspireRevo is the first Atom-based PC from a major PC supplier to use Nvidia's Ion chipset that packs GeForce 9400M graphics, the same graphics used in the Apple 13-inch MacBook and MacBook Air.

By design, Atom is a more power frugal and, concomitantly, slower processor than Intel's mainstream Core 2 chip architecture.

The AspireRevo's marquee external feature is the diminutive size: … Read more

GE invests in Southwest Windpower for small wind

Southwest Windpower, which makes residential wind turbines, said on Monday it has raised $10 million from existing investors and General Electric to expand its operations.

With the money, the Flagstaff, Ariz.-based company said it intends to grow its European operations and invest in product development.

Southwest Windpower makes the Skystream tower-mounted wind turbine, designed for individual homes or buildings. It was originally developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratories.

These relatively small turbines have a rated capacity of up to 3 kilowatts of electricity. With a good wind source, a homeowner could offset more than half of their electricity … Read more