IBM ditches copper wires for chips that communicate with pulses of light [Processors]

There's some weird science going down at IBM: namely, ditching the copper that facilities electrical signals for information exchange on circuitry and replacing it instead with chips that can communicate using pulses of light. The whole shebang is called a nanophotonic avalanche photodetector, and IBM claims to have the fastest one in town.

Wait, avalanche? That's right — the term comes from the way the exchange of information builds as the silicon circuits do their thing, according to IBM:

The IBM device explores the avalanche effect in Germanium, a material currently used in production of microprocessor chips. Analogous to a snow avalanche on a steep mountain slope, an incoming light pulse initially frees just a few charge carriers which in turn free others until the original signal is amplified many times. Conventional avalanche photodetectors are not able to detect fast optical signals because the avalanche builds slowly.

The technology's main draw is the fact that it uses substantially less power than a setup that relies on copper and electrical signals, using a whopping 20 times. The example given by IBM is that if a traditional system uses 20-30 volts, the new system would get by with a AA battery, which is rated at around 1.6 volts. Check out a video explanation of the technology below.


[DVICE via PC World]

LG’s LU2300 Superphone Due Next Quarter [Android 2.1]

Looks like LG is ready to start rolling out their Android-based superphones. Next up for the handset maker is their touch-only LU2300. Featuring a Snapdragon processor, 5 megapixel camera, Tv-Tuner, WVGA AMOLED screen and Android 2.1, it sounds almost exactly like a Nexus One. LG is also taking steps to preload a few applications on the handset for customers whereas in the past they left it up to the user.

The LU2300 is due sometime in the second quarter. Other specs, including the memory, are unknown but we're sure to see them trickle out before long.

[AndroidGuys via MobileTechWorld via ubergizmo]

The Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 Is Faster Than Every Other Graphics Card [Graphics]

The new Sapphire Radeon HD 5970—based upon the acclaimed ATI HD 5970 chipset—is the new world's fastest graphics card. Its 3DMark Vantage score is an insane 22,000.
The overclocked ATI GPU runs at 850MHz, which is supported by 4GB of DDR3 RAM (itself, clocked at 1,200MHz). And all this hardware necessitates three fans an a massive heatsink, making it thicker than your average video card. Outputs include two dual-link DVIs and one mini DisplayPort. Weird that there's no HDMI on here, like the 5870 has.

AMD expects that we'll see the HD 5970 from a variety of different manufactures, which is good because while we have no idea what the thing costs, it won't be cheap.
[Gizmodo via Fudzilla via SlashGear]

Innocomm Reveals Ambitious Android Plans [Android]

Smartphone developer Innocomm Technology might be small when compared to players like HTC and Motorola, but their plans for Android are just as big. Around the middle of the year, the handset maker plans to drop their first of many Android-based handsets. Called the Shark, Innocomm's smartphone will be a high-end device with a considerably lower cost.

Innocomm's hopes are that wireless providers might be able to offer their handsets free with contacts. Our hopes are that this happens!

Innocomm Skate

Shark's tentative specs include a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 8-megapixel camera with flash, GPS, 3G, HSPA, Wifi, and Bluetooth. The Shark will be also have a 3.5mm headset jack, a microSD card slot, and mini-USB connection. Also getting squeezed in will be an analog TV tuner with future versions expected to offer a digital tuner.

Other handsets in the Inncomm pipeline are the Shadow, which features a 4.3-inch screen, the Gemini, and Scorpion. Previously, the company showed their Skate handset off at 2009's MWC which sports 'the World's smallest 2.8' smartphone based on the Android OS.' As of right now, the Skate has been pushed back due to changing the chipset inside.

Innocomm has no plans to work with any other mobile platforms, even the recently unveiled Windows Phone 7. 'Windows is nice, but it can't beat the price on Android. It's free and the Google brand is already well known. Android is the only OS we're working on.'

[AndroidGuys via PC World]

Days Get Shorter Because of Chilean Earthquake [Science]

Apart from a colossal tsunami, here's another effect of the 66.6 exajoules liberated by this weekend's earthquake in Chile: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that days will now be shorter because the quake shifted Earth's axis by three inches.

The change—which can only be measured thanks to computer models—will result in days that are 1.26 microseconds shorter than before. That's 0.00000126 seconds shorter. There may have been more visible changes, like islands changing its position. One of them, Santa María, may have raised two meters after the shattering land move.

This is not the first time this has happened, as every single earthquake has an effect on the planet's axis.
[Gizmodo via Business Week]

Freescale's i.MX508 Chip Will Make E-Ink Readers Way Cheaper and Turn Pages 4X Faster [Guts]

The silicon inside 90 percent of ereaders out there is made by Freescale, and their new chip, the i.MX508—based on a ARM Cortex A8 (sorta like the iPad!)—will make them cheaper, and page turns 4x faster.

The chip's a custom SoC that integrates the functions from multiple chips into one—specifically, the E-Ink hardware display controller—along with that Cortex A8, which gives the readers enough juice to turn pages in half a second, versus the two seconds that's typical now. As the first chip expressly designed for ereaders, it also strips out unnecessary features, so the net result for the ereader is that it's $30 cheaper a unit. Freescale wagers that with the cost savings, it could drive ereaders to under $150 by the end of the year. (Though that in part depends on how much the E-Ink displays themselves are going to continue to cost.)

An E-Ink reader that costs $150 would definitely look more attractive as a dedicated long-reading device against an iPad that does lots of things on top of reading—and has those fancy digital magazines—than the ones that more like $260 today. Then again, Amazon's working on a full-color multitouch Kindle with Wi-Fi, if that tells you anything about the future of E-Ink readers. In the meantime, I'm all for cheaper.
[Gizmodo via Freescale via Bloomberg via Digital Daily]

The Apogee Astro Drive Series A101 from Chaintech is apparently the world’s smallest USB 3.0 drive [USB 3.0]

USB 3.0 is finally getting some traction in the market place as more products are announced from more manufacturers. Chaintech just intro’d its first USB 3.0 drive and slapped the notorious “world’s smallest” label on it, which is probably true although a bit disingenuous as there’s only about three USB 3.0 flash drives available right now.

Still, the Astro DRive Series A101 isn’t a slouch. The drive can see read/write speeds of 186MB/s and 130MB/s, respectively. That’s quite a bit faster than the average 30/20 that USB 2.0 generally sees and slightly higher than the speeds I’ve seen on USB 3.0 hard drives.

The series will initially be available in three storage sizes: 32GB, 64GB, and 125GB. No word on when they will be available or how much they’ll sell for, though. Hopefully for the sake of the marketers, the drives will be released soon than later as the World’s Smallest title will likely be stripped away before too long.
[CrunchGear]