Parallella 'supercomputers' headed to early backers, 16-core boards up for general pre-order

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/23/parallella-production-boards-shipping-pre-orders-open/

Following its successful Kickstarter campaign, Adapteva flashed the production versions of its Parallella "supercomputer" boards in April, penning in a loose summer delivery date. Today, the company reports that the first "beta" units have begun winding their way to backers who pledged at the DEVELOPER, 64-CORE-PLUS and ROLF levels. Other backers should receive their boards by summer's end "after some final refinements." For those who missed the crowd-funding window, you too can get a Parallella, as Adapteva has now opened up general pre-orders for the 16-core version on its website. While all Kickstarter-bought boards will bear a Zynq-7020 SoC, new pre-orders are configured with a 7010 as standard, though you can upgrade to the 7020 should you lay down more dough. However, newcomers will be treated to "Gen-1" boards, which will offer slight improvements over earlier versions, such as reduced power consumption and an added serial port three-pin header. You'll find the basic 16-core board going for $99 over at Adapteva's store, with an expected October delivery date. The company tells us the 64-core version will also be available for public consumption, with pre-orders beginning in Q4 this year.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: GitHub (Gen-1 board specs), Adapteva store

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New Exynos 5 Octa: 20 percent more CPU power, over twice the 3D graphics oomph

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/22/exynos-5-octa-5420/

Samsung couldn't help itself last week when it teased a new Exynos 5 Octa system on a chip, and now it's dishing out the full details. The fresh 5420 variant of the SoC is based on Mali-T628 MP6 silicon, packs a quartet of ARM Cortex-A15 cores running at 1.8GHz and four 1.3GHz Cortex-A7s in an ARM big.LITTLE configuration. Seoul claims that the package packs 20 percent more CPU processing punch, and has two times greater 3D graphics power than its predecessor. Dual-channel LPDDR3 at 933MHz gives the processor a screaming memory bandwidth of 14.9 GBps, which lends it full HD WiFi display support. Baked inside is an image compression solution that makes for energy efficient multimedia loading, and squeezes out more hours of use with high-res displays. There's no word on which devices might use the new SoCs, but the chips are already being sampled by Samsung's customers, and mass-production is slated for August.

Filed under: Mobile, Samsung

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Plantronics BackBeat Go 2 Bluetooth in-ears: sweat resistance, six-month sleep

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/23/plantronics-intros-backbeat-go-2-bluetooth-headphones-promises/

Plantronics was proud to present its BackBeat Go Bluetooth in-ear headphones last year, but it's also aware improvements are always welcome. To that end, the company's ready to show off its second iteration: BackBeat Go 2. P2i moisture resistance and reworked internals for improved sound back up the sporty wire-behind-the-ear design and fit stabilizers -- look out, Jaybird. Not only does the hardware remember up to eight devices, but a DeepSleep mode shuts it down if you walk out of range without turning the power off, allowing it to sleep for up to six months. The internal batteries squeeze out about 4.5 hours of playtime for music, and an optional microUSB recharging case ($20) can provide about two and a half juice refills. As you'd expect, an inline remote keeps you in control of your playlists and calls, while DSP enhances incoming and outgoing sound. Ears perked? The headphones will be available starting today at various retailers in your choice of black or white for $80.

Gallery: Plantronics BackBeat Go 2 (press images)

Filed under: Portable Audio/Video

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OpenCL 2.0 provisional spec gets outlined, OpenGL 4.4 released

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/23/opencl-2-0-opengl-4-4-specifications/

SIGGRAPH has only just begun, but the Khronos Group is already giving folks of the graphics programming persuasion some fresh APIs to talk about. Yesterday marked the release of the OpenCL 2.0 provisional specification, and it's boasting an Android installable client driver extension, along with improvements to image handling, shared virtual memory and more. It's expected that the new version of OpenCL will be finalized in six month's time, and feedback regarding the changes are being welcomed. The fresh OpenGL 4.4 spec revamps everything from shaders to asynchronous queries while keeping full backwards compatibility, and includes additional functions to make porting Direct3D apps a smoother process. If parallel programming and cross-platform graphics are your thing, hit the break for the full feature breakdown in the press release.

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Source: Khronos Group (1), (2)

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Donate your Android device's processing power to science with BOINC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/23/dnp-use-your-android-devices-processing-power-to-discover-stars/

If you've ever wanted to help out with a scientific research project but lack the PhD credentials, there's now a much simpler way: all you need is a decent Android device and a new app called BOINC. Similar to projects such as Folding@Home for laptops and desktops, the app harnesses your mobile device's extra CPU cycles to help crunch data for scientific studies. Don't worry, it'll only work if you're on Wi-Fi, so it won't eat up your data plan. You can choose which research endeavor to support from within BOINC, including Einstein@Home and FightAIDS@Home that seek to discover pulsars (stellar remnants) and AIDS treatment, respectively. The app, which you can install from Google Play, was designed to be as unobtrusive as possible and will work as long as you're running Android 2.3 or higher. Generous (and envious) iOS users, sit tight -- the developer is mulling over the possibility of creating an iOS app next.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Alt, Google

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Via: CNET

Source: BOINC, IBM

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