texas

SAN FRANCISCO--Like a lot of people who live in or near the city by the bay right now, I'm trying to figure out the answer to a really tough question: how in the heck can I get a World Series ticket?

The answer, of course, is not pretty: you must have money, and lots of it. And since I don't really have any, and wouldn't really be willing to fork over hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a single ducat anyway, I'm having to face facts: I likely won't be getting to see the World … Read more

At one time in the not-too-distant past, cell phone chips were an unknown quantity or, at best, given short shrift by cell phone providers and manufacturers. Not anymore.

The Apple iPhone and HTC Evo 4G from Sprint are two of the hottest phones on the market. And both companies advertise the processor prominently. Is this a coincidence? Intel, the largest chipmaker in the world, doesn't think so.

"As late as a year ago, consumers didn't care about the processing power in their smartphones. Today almost every store is advertising the CPU speed that's inside the smartphone,&… Read more

Every time a student gets hold of guns and begins to shoot them all over campus, wise people theorize.

What was it that brought him (seems always to be a "him") to such extreme action? What personality factors should have made his state of mind obvious? What behavior should have been spotted so that he could have been offered care and guidance?

Such a discussion has again emerged after Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old math student, allegedly availed himself of an AK-47 and randomly shot it around before shooting himself on the University of Texas campus.

The AP reports … Read more

So, who makes the processor humming under the new BlackBerry PlayBook's hood? That important question was not answered yesterday when RIM announced the 7-inch tablet.

Yesterday, when Research In Motion co-CEO Michael Lazaridis unveiled the BlackBerry PlayBook during the opening keynote event at the DevCon developer conference, the dual-core processor was touted by Lazaridis as a marquee feature. But little else was revealed about what is probably the single most important piece of internal hardware.

Here's what we know about the tablet, due early next year in the U.S.: The PlayBook uses "1 gigahertz dual-core processors that take advantage of built-in symmetric multiprocessing," according to Lazaridis during the keynote speech. In symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), the operating system handles all allocation of threads, or tasks, to the processors. Most current high-level operating systems have built-in support for this mode of operation, according to a description of SMP on ARM's Web site.

That open-ended statement by Lazaridis presents a few possibilities that could fit the bill. Nvidia is shipping a dual-core Tegra processor and Texas Instruments has a dual-core OMAP processor due soon. Both chips--technically referred to as application processors--are based on the ARM Cortex A9 design and support symmetric multiprocessing. And Qualcomm will offer a chipset with a dual-core processor running at up to 1.5GHz next year.

Linely Gwennap, principal analyst, the Linley Group, said the only dual-core 1GHz ARM processor that is in production today is Nvidia's Tegra 2. He also cited TI's OMAP 4, which is due to enter production in Q4 this year as a candidate.

But RIM is a longtime user of application processors from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Marvell Semiconductor.… Read more

Updated 1:55 p.m. PDT with additional information and background material.

Google will face an antitrust investigation in Texas over charges that it manipulated search results, in what appears to a similar case to one pending in Europe.

Google confirmed an earlier report by Search Engine Land Friday after the close of the stock market that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has contacted it in connection with an "antitrust review" of Google's business practices. Earlier this year, European regulators opened an investigation regarding claims by a Microsoft-friendly price-comparison site called Foundem that Google was downranking Foundem … Read more

Intel said Monday it agreed to acquire Texas Instruments' cable modem unit as it tries to expand markets for its Atom processor line.

The acquisition is a good fit with Intel's CE line of system-on-a-chip (SOC) Atom processors, the company said. "The purchase enhances Intel's focus on the cable industry...where the company's expertise in building advanced system-on-chip products, based on Intel Atom processors, will be applied," Intel said in a statement.

Intel plans to combine TI's Puma product lines with Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS)-based technology (for defining compatibility between … Read more

Silicon start-up Smooth-Stone has received $48 million from a syndicate of investors including ARM, Texas Instruments, and Highland Capital Ventures.

Smooth-Stone's goal is to bring the virtues of low-power cell phone technology to servers and, as a result, bring down the staggering power consumption at large data centers. Mega data centers can house tens of thousands of servers and the largest can use between 5 and 20 megawatts of power. One megawatt, equal to 1 million watts, can power about 1,000 homes.

Smooth-Stone joins other start-ups such as U.S. Department of Energy-backed SeaMicro, which is using Intel'… Read more

Toyota could be on the way to bouncing back from a year of recalls and civil litigation.

The Japanese automaker today announced a $100 million investment in Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas, boosting its total investment in the 7-year-old plant to $1.4 billion.

Toyota began production of the Tacoma pickup truck began last month at the San Antonio, Texas, location, but the event was marked today with a ceremony attended by Texas Governor Rick Perry, San Antonio community leaders, and Toyota officials including Toyota Motor Corporation Executive Vice President Atsushi Niimi.

Almost a year ago, Toyota recalled the Tacoma because … Read more

Motorola's Droid X Wi-Fi hot spot feature is a remarkable new level of integration in a smartphone. But packing more and more high-function stuff into a small device has its trade-offs.

The Droid X appears to be a hit, with reports that it was sold out at many Verizon stores (indeed, my local Verizon store in suburban Los Angeles was sold out on the first day of sales). To recap quickly, Motorola's new high-end smartphone allows a user to create a hot spot, similar to the access point that patrons connect to when in a Starbucks. Except, of … Read more