New Elements to Samsung SSDs: The MEX Controller, Turbo Write and NVMe

As part of the SSD Summit in Korea today, Samsung gave the world media a brief glimpse into some new technologies. The initial focus on most of these will be in the Samsung 840 Evo, unveiled earlier today.
The MEX Controller
First up is the upgrade to the controller. Samsung’s naming scheme from the 830 onwards has been MCX (830), MDX (840, 840 Pro) and now the MEX with the 840 Evo. This uses the same 3-core ARM Cortex R4 base, however boosted from 300 MHz in the MDX to 400 MHz in the MEX. This 33% boost in pure speed is partly responsible for the overall increase in 4K random IOPS at QD1, which rise from 7900 in the 840 to 10000 in the 840 Evo (+27%). This is in addition to firmware updates with the new controller, and that some of the functions of the system have been ported as hardware ops rather than software ops.
TurboWrite
The most thought provoking announcement was TurboWrite. This is the high performance buffer inside the 840 Evo which contributes to the high write speed compared to the 840 (140 MB/s on 120GB drive with the 840, compared to 410 MB/s on the 840 Evo 120GB). Because writing to 3-bit MLC takes longer than 2-bit MLC or SLC, Samsung are using this high performance buffer in SLC mode. Then, when the drive is idle, it will pass the data on to the main drive NAND when performance is not an issue.
The amount of ‘high-performance buffer’ with the 840 Evo will depend on the model being used. Also, while the buffer is still technically 3-bit MLC, due to its use in SLC mode the amount of storage in the buffer decreases by a factor three. So in the 1TB version of the 840 Evo, which has 36 GB of buffer, in actual fact can accommodate 12 GB of writes in SLC mode before reverting to the main NAND. In the 1TB model however, TurboWrite has a minimal effect – it is in the 120GB model where Samsung are reporting the 3x increase in write speeds.
In the 120GB and 250GB models, they will have 9 GB of 3-bit MLC buffer, which will equate to 3 GB of writes. Beyond this level of writes (despite the 10GB/day oft quoted average), one would assume that the device reverts back to the former write speed – in this case perhaps closer to the 140 MB/s number from the 840, but the addition of firmware updates will go above this. However, without a drive to test it would be pure speculation, but will surely come up in the Q&A session later today, and we will update the more we know.
Dynamic Thermal Guard
A new feature on the 840 Evo is the addition of Dynamic Thermal Guard, where operating temperatures of the SSD are outside their suggest range (70C+). Using some programming onboard, above the predefined temperature, the drive will throttle its power usage to generate less heat until such time as the operating temperature is more normal. Unfortunately no additional details on this feature were announced, but I think this might result in a redesign for certain gaming laptops that reach 80C+ under high loading.

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe)
While this is something relatively new, it is not on the 840 Evo, but as part of the summit today it is worth some discussion. The principle behind NVMe is simple – command structures like IDE and AHCI were developed with mechanical hard-disks in mind. AHCI is still compatible with SSDs, but the move to more devices based on the PCIe requires an update on the command structure in order to be used with higher efficiency and lower overhead. There are currently 11 companies in the working group developing the NVMe specifications, currently at revision 1.1, including Samsung and Intel. The benefits of NVMe include:

One big thing that almost everyone in the audience must have spotted is the maximum queue depth. In AHCI, the protocol allows for one queue with a max QD of 32. In NVMe, due to the way NAND works (as well as the increased throughput potential), we can apply 64K queues, each with a max QD of 64K. In terms of real-world usage (or even server usage), I am not sure how far the expanding QD would go, but it would certainly change a few benchmarks.
The purpose of NVMe is also to change latency. In AHCI, dealing with mechanical hard drives, if latency is 10% of access times, not much is noticed – but if you reduce access times by two orders of magnitude and the level of latency stays the same, it becomes the main component of any delay. NVMe helps to alleviate that.
Two of the questions from the crowd today were pertinent to how NVMe will be applied in the real world – how will NVMe come about, and despite the fact that current chipsets to not have PCIe-based 2.5” SSD connectors, will we get an adapter from a PCIe slot to the drive? On the first front, Samsung acknowledged that they are working with the major OS manufacturers to support NVMe in their software stack. In terms of motherboard support, in my opinion, as IDE/AHCI is a BIOS option it will require BIOS updates to work in NVMe mode, with AHCI as fallback.
On the second question about a PCIe -> SSD connector, it makes sense that one will be released in due course until chipset manufacturers implement the connectors for SSDs using the PCIe interface. It should not be much of a leap, given that SATA to USB 3.0 connectors are already shipped in some SSD packages.
More information from Korea as it develops…!

Gallery: New Elements to Samsung SSDs: The MEX Controller, Turbo Write and NVMe

Samsung launch the 840 EVO: Up to 1TB and Faster Writes for 120GB

As part of the 2013 Samsung SSD Global Summit here in Korea, Samsung announced that latest member to their SSD lineup – the Samsung SSD 840 EVO, under the banner ‘SSDs For Everyone’. This new drive will be available in 120 GB/250 GB/500 GB/750 GB/1 TB capacities, using 19nm Toggle 2.0 TLC, compared to the Samsung SSD 840 which uses 21nm Toggle 2.0 TLC and the 840 Pro which uses 21nm Toggle MLC. We also upgrade to the Samsung MEX Controller onboard, one up from the MDX.

Samsung SSD 840 EVO Specifications
Capacity	120GB	250GB	500GB 750GB	1000GB
Sequential Read	540MB/s	540MB/s	540MB/s	540MB/s
Sequential Write	410MB/s	520MB/s	520MB/s	520MB/s
4KB Random Read (QD32)	94K IOPS	97K IOPS	98K IOPS	98K IOPS
4KB Random Write (QD32)	35K IOPS	66K IOPS	90K IOPS	90K IOPS
Cache (LPDDR2)	256MB	512MB	512MB	1GB

Samsung SSD 840 EVO vs 840 Pro vs 840 vs 830
	Samsung SSD 830 (256GB)	Samsung SSD 840 (250GB)	Samsung SSD 840 Pro (256GB)	Samsung SSD 840 EVO (250 GB)
Controller	Samsung MCX	Samsung MDX	Samsung MDX	Samsung MEX
NAND	27nm Toggle-Mode 1.1 MLC	21nm Toggle-Mode 2.0 TLC	21nm Toggle-Mode MLC	19nm Toggle-Mode 2.0 TLC
Sequential Read	520MB/s	540MB/s	540MB/s	540MB/s
Sequential Write	400MB/s	250MB/s	520MB/s	520MB/s
Random Read	80K IOPS	96K IOPS	100K IOPS	97K IOPS
Random Write	36K IOPS	62K IOPS	90K IOPS	66K IOPS
Warranty	3 years	3 years	5 years	3 years

The big thing Samsung want to push with the EVO is the increased write speed for the low capacity models. Using a new feature called 'TurboWrite' (more info on this as we get it), compared to the previous 840, whereby the 120 GB model was rated at 130 MB/s and 86K/32K 4K random IOPS, the new 120 GB model is hitting a rated 410 MB/s write speeds. The peak 1 TB model is rated for 540/520 MB/s sequential read and write, with 98K/90K IOPS respectively. The 1 TB models will also feature 1 GB of LPDDR2 DRAM Cache.

Enterprise storage is also the focus of the SSD Summit, with Samsung unveiling the XS1715, an ultra-fast NVMe (Non-Volitile Memory Express) SSD with up to 1.6 TB of storage. The XS1715 is the first 2.5” SFF-8639 SSD using PCIe 3.0 to provide a maximum sequential speed of 3 GB/s, along with 740k IOPS. The XS1715 will be available in 400GB, 800GB and 1.6 TB versions, with plans to develop the line of NVMe devices.
More information from the Summit as it occurs throughout today and tomorrow!

Gallery: Samsung launch the 840 EVO: Up to 1TB and Faster Writes for 120GB

UPDATE: Pricing is as follows:

Thus for the 1TB model, $650 makes the drive $0.65/GB. At the 250GB price point, the basic Evo package is $190, compared to the current 840 standard price of $175 at Newegg.

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Aptina Announces AR1331CP 13 MP CMOS with Clarity Plus - We Take a Look

Earlier this week, Aptina invited me out to their San Jose office to take a look at their new Clarity+ CFA (Color Filter Array) technology and 13 MP AR1331CP CMOS image sensor which includes it. Clarity+ is Aptina's new 2x2 RC,CB CFA which includes two clear pixels where the traditional Bayer array places green pixels. Others have tried (and failed) with clear pixel filter arrays in the past, Aptina believes it has the clear pixels in the right place with their new filter and the right opportunity with industry state and availability of powerful ISPs. Aptina claims it can realize a 3-4 dB improvement in SNR with Clarity+ over Bayer, while keeping the same sharpness, avoiding color artifacts that plagued other clear pixel filters, and taking only a 0.2 dB hit in the 38 or so dB of dynamic range for a smartphone sensor.
If you've been reading along with our smartphone coverage for some period of time, you'll know one of the big challenges facing mobile device and image sensor makers has to do with size – pixel size to be exact. The prevailing industry trend has been a steady march towards smaller pixels for a number of related reasons – with smaller pitch you can include more pixels in the same area, or keep the same number of pixels in a smaller area, thus allowing the handset maker to reduce the z-height of their image module thanks to a smaller area it has to form an image onto. The tradeoff of course is less area over which each pixel can integrate light during an exposure, something which up until this last 1.1µm step has largely been able to be mitigated by pixel design. The step from 1.4µm to 1.1µm however does come with a tradeoff in sensitivity, and as a result you see industry moves to mitigate this with OIS, multiple exposures, or avoiding it altogether.

Gallery: Aptina Clarity+

Pixels in a digital camera only count photons, not the wavelength (color) of those incident photons. To resolve more than an image of luminance, you need a color filter array, and interpolate (demosaic) the color of each pixel based on its neighbors. The dominant color filter array for the last twenty or so years of digital imaging has been Bayer, a 2x2 pixel array consisting of RGB pixels, arranged RG,GB, with twice the number of green pixels to mimic human eye response which peaks in sensitivity in the green. This has been dominant in part thanks to how simple it is and how well it works – for most practical imaging applications, Bayer is great. Of course, adding a color filter means rejecting some light, in this case only photons inside the spectral response of the filter get passed, and in the smartphone space where pixels are getting smaller and smaller, every photon matters. For that reason, there's been much attention on using clear pixels somewhere in the array to increase sensitivity. There have been a number of different arrays tried, RG,CB, and 4x4 RG,BC arrays, all with some tradeoff.
An immediate question is how Aptina avoids losing dynamic range in a CMOS sensor with clear pixels (the claim is 0.2 dB loss from the ~38 dB of dynamic range). The answer is that the clear pixel structure has been accordingly modified so it doesn't saturate before the blue and red pixels.

Aptina's Clarity+ system is a subtractive system with clear pixels in the place of Bayer's green, blue and red in the same place, and still 2x2. The result is equivalent sharpness and lack of color artifacts, assuming good recovery of the green channel from clear without introducing more noise. Apina does this by using the luminance image from the clear pixels early on in the imaging pipeline to suppress any chroma noise, and resolves chroma from the RB and recovered G channels.

The next question is then – how does Aptina's image processing pipeline fit into a world built around Bayer? The near term solution is for handset makers to use Aptina's own ISP which includes Clarity+ onboard, something it tells us to expect the first round of devices to ship with. Another alternative is an Aptina stage in the image processing pipeline that converts the RC,CB image data into Bayer-domain RG,GB data for use in current image processing pipelines. Long term, however, Aptina has already ported various stages of its image pipeline to current SoCs with good results, and is talking with the big SoC vendors about inclusion in the next round of tapeouts. The nice thing is that RC,CB still looks a lot like Bayer after the green channel is recovered, from an image processing perspective, as opposed to some of the other alternative filters. Aptina will continue to ship its CMOS sensors in Bayer as well as Clarity+ variants, with the CP suffix obviously connoting inclusion of the new color filter array.

(left) AR1331CP with Clarity+, (right) AR1230 with Bayer

How does this all work in practice? Aptina showed us a demonstration of its new AR1331CP 13 MP 1.1µm image sensor versus its AR1230 12MP 1.1µm sensor of its image sensor. At higher lux levels, there wasn't any visible reduction in image sharpness, and at low lux (10-8) the gain in SNR with the same integration time is dramatic.
Moving beyond Bayer is something the smartphone industry has tried and failed to do before, with Clarity+ it looks like Aptina might have a much better chance at doing so without any of the loss of resolution, introduction of color artifacts, or other tradeoffs that other proposed clear pixel filters have introduced. There's still the issue of ISP and getting third party silicon vendors to adopt the platform, but handset vendors are enthusiastic enough about improving sensitivity in low light scenarios that there's sufficient pressure to do so.
Source: Aptina (whitepaper - PDF)

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The ARM Diaries, Part 2: Understanding the Cortex A12
A couple of weeks ago I began this series on ARM with a discussion of the company’s unique business model. In covering semiconductor companies we’ve come across many that are fabless, but it’s very rare that you come across a successful semiconductor company that doesn’t even sell a chip. ARM’s business entirely revolves around licensing IP for its instruction set as well as its own CPU (and now GPU and video) cores.
Today we focus on one of ARM's newly announced microprocessor cores: the Cortex A12.

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Samsung Galaxy S 4 Qi Wireless Charging Pad and Cover - Mini Review

For a while now, wireless charging has been slowly gaining momentum, and one of the phones that includes support is Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 (SGS4). For the past week, I’ve been using a review unit of Samsung’s wireless charging accessory kit for the aforementioned smartphone which includes both a Qi compatible wireless charging pad and battery back.
Using the wireless charging accessory is simple – you remove the stock battery back, snap on the new one, and plug the wireless charging pad into the Samsung charger that originally shipped with the phone. This last point is critical, as the wireless charging pad requires the 2 amp charger that Samsung supplies with the SGS4. I’ve touched on charging in the past before, but this charger includes the 1.2 V signaling across the D+ and D- pins which signals 2 amp (tablet-class) compatible charging to Samsung devices, like the charging pad. Using a normal BC 1.2 compatible charger won’t work, as that specification only stipulates up to 1.5 amp delivery on its dedicated charging port.

Of course, since the charging pad and SGS4 are Qi compliant, you can obviously use a variety of wireless charging pads that implement that standard to charge the device. I tested on my go-to Energizer dual position Qi charger, and the SGS4 with wireless charging back worked as expected.
The only downside with the wireless charging back is that it does add noticeably to the thickness of the SGS4. I broke out my calipers and measured an increase in thickness of just over 1.7 mm with the wireless charging back attached instead of the stock one.

Samsung Galaxy S 4 Charging Back Thickness (Measured)
SGS4 No Battery Cover	7.20 mm
SGS4 Stock Battery Cover	7.94 mm
SGS4 Wireless Charging Battery Cover	9.70 mm

It’s not a huge difference, but it is noticeable. I suppose one benefit to this added thickness is that the front vertex of the camera no longer is the thickest part of the SGS4, which adds a bit of protection if you’re laying it back-first, on a flat surface.

The back of the wireless charging back has two sets of two contact pads that mate up with the inside of the SGS4. I tested with my DMM and on one set you get a steady 5 volts when aligned with the charging pad, on the other nothing. I strongly suspect the wireless charging downstream controller is in this battery back, so Samsung can keep their handsets relatively standards-agnostic and just ship whatever wireless charging standard back they want. In addition this obviously would help keep the BOM cost lower on the device and avoids shipping controllers that customers might not use.

So the big last question is – how well does it work and how fast does it charge the SGS4? For a while now I’ve been measuring charge times for devices, something I believe enters just as strongly into the battery and power side of a device as its time through our battery life tests. The SGS4 is already one of the fastest charging devices out there considering its battery size thanks to the speedy (albeit proprietary) 2 amp charging signaling. Because there’s overhead involved with wireless charging, this obviously gets diminished with the wireless charger. I measured a fully drained to fully charged time of 3.922 hours with the wireless charging back attached and Samsung’s charging pad connected to the 2 amp charger.

That’s a measurable and obvious increase in time over the dedicated 2 amp charger connected over USB (2.883 hours, so about 35 percent longer charge time), but that’s the price you pay for the added convenience of not having to plug anything in. On the device side wireless charging is implemented properly, you see the wireless charging splash screen while charging you see the wireless charging logo with the device off, and wireless charging indicators in Android.
As I mentioned earlier, wireless charging is slowly gaining momentum. It isn’t everywhere, but it’s starting to become more and more of a given instead of a one-off. I’m still waiting for my Qi-compliant nightstand table from IKEA, or charging pads at my local cafe, but who knows when that’ll finally (if ever) happen. Obviously uptake for Samsung would be faster were the SGS4 compatible without the need for an accessory back and charging pad, but the tradeoff would obviously be a thicker phone. I’m pleased with the wireless charging accessory, it works like it’s supposed to, and wireless charging definitely is an added convenience after you’ve used it for a while. The wireless charging pad from Samsung runs for $49, and the wireless charging cover runs $39, both of which are a little steep but still around what I would expect for the pad. Of course the nice thing about Qi is that after you have the cover, you can always shop around for a pad that suits you.

Gallery: Galaxy S 4 Wireless Charging Kit

Source: Samsung (Wireless Charging Pad) (Wireless Charging Cover)

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ASUS PQ321Q First Look

Beyond monitor reviews for AnandTech, I do reviews of TVs and Projectors for a number of sites. Ever since Sony launched their VPL-HW1000 4K projector at CEDIA in 2011, the idea of 4K, or Ultra High Definition (UHD), in the home has been picking up speed. Unfortunately I think for the home theater world this has as much to do with 3D not making vendors much of a profit, and OLED being continually delayed, and needing to have some technology to fill in a gap that provides a source of revenue. Flat panels keep falling in price and vendors keep needing to find a way to get consumers to upgrade to something better to make money.

When it comes to computers, smartphones, and tablets, these benefits totally change. There is native high-resolution content available, and we sit much closer to our 32" desktop monitors relative to how close we are to a 50" flat screen TV. As a result we were all excited to see the ASUS PQ321Q be announced in June and have been waiting for a review sample to arrive. It did this week and while the full review will be coming as soon as possible, this is a quick look at the performance out of the box, and how it works.

Gallery: ASUS PQ321Q Exterior and OSD

Sitting next to a 30", 2560x1600 display, the ASUS (on the left) looks around the same size. It has a nice, thin design that looks good on the desk, but necessitates a large power brick to accomplish. It feels very solid, as you expect from a display that costs $3,500, and has a slight anti-glare finish applied to it. The amount seems to be quite low, as I don't see any fogginess or sparkles or other issues on the screen. I'm not sure if it is a design decision, or something that will be changed down the road, but currently the labels to control the OSD are on the back of the display and not the front. ASUS includes a sticker if you want to have them on the front (which I attached), but if you are only going to use them to initially calibrate the monitor then you'll have a nice, clean front without it on.
For my testing I also installed the preview copy of Windows 8.1 to use DPI scaling. At 100% text on the ASUS is very small and hard to read. Setting it to 150% and now on applications that support it, it looks very sharp. Images and screenshots look amazing, but typing this in Chrome right now it looks fuzzy. This is going to be an issue with Windows and HighDPI displays until every vendor manages to update their software to support resolution scaling better. Viewing webpages in Firefox they are crisp and sharp compared to Chrome, so software vendors really need to catch up.

Using an NVIDIA GTX 660 Ti card, with the most recent drivers, you can enable MST mode on the ASUS to provide a full 3840x2160 signal at 60p over a single DisplayPort cable. I know with some earlier UHD monitors I had heard this could be an issue and you would be limited to 30p, but on the ASUS it worked great as soon as I changed the menu setting.
For some initial testing, I used CalMAN 5.1.2 and the sRGB mode on the ASUS PQ321Q. All measurements were done as they are with other monitor reviews, using a profiled C6 meter and targeting 200 nits of light output and a gamma of 2.2.

Looking at these charts for the grayscale, we see that the overall error starts low but rises up to a dE2000 over 3.0 by the end. There is a lack of blue at the top end, and that leads us to a warmer that reference CCT of 6279 on average. The gamma tracks pretty well, with an overall average of 2.14, and the average grayscale dE2000 is only 1.99 in the end. The largest issue with this test was getting the brightness level correct. There are only 31 steps of brightness control, so I wound up with a white level of 204 nits instead of the target 200 nits. Very close, but that is a pretty coarse adjustment.
Testing maximum and minimum brightness levels for white level, black level, and contrast provided the following data.

	Maximum Backlight	Minimum Backlight
White Level	408 nits	57 nits
Black Level	0.5326 nits	0.0756 nits
Contrast Ratio	766:1	755:1

We have a huge range in brightness, from 57 nits up to 408 nits, and a small level of control over it. If you are trying to target a number like 200 exactly, you will be slightly off, but you can get pretty close. It's just surprising to see such small control for such a huge range.
With colors, the ASUS PQ321Q isn't quite as good as with the grayscale. The main issue looks to be a lack of red and blue saturation, which causes a lack of magenta saturation as well. Looking at the CIE chart you see those points fall short of their targets. You'll also see that green goes a bit too far, giving us some color errors that are over 3.0 except for Cyan.

On the more strenuous Gretag Macbeth testing, SpectraCal has added a 96-point test that goes above and beyond the 24-point test we have always run. The average dE2000 I found with the two version were 2.61 and 2.65, so they produce very comparable results. I will use the 96-point version going forward as it provides a larger number of data points, and if one sample is bad and 95 are good, will produce an average value that better indicates that. For smartphones and tablets we will continue to use 24-point versions, as those tests are not automated like the PC versions are.

As we saw with the standard color CIE chart, reds and oranges are the worst offenders, as they are a bit out of the gamut but lacking in saturation on the red end. Cyans, Magentas and greens are better, but the overall color reproduction isn't perfect straight out of the box.
Our final initial test is the saturation test. As you might expect with a gamut where under-saturation is an issue, the errors get larger as saturation approaches 100%.

This is a fast look at the ASUS PQ321Q. The full AnandTech review will follow shortly as I push it through its paces to see what it can do. Any additional features that people want to see tested you can let me know in the comments and I will try my best to accomplish them.

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Welcome to the Preview Release of Microsoft 2014

Today Microsoft released a couple of major announcements regarding the restructuring of their entire business. The complete One Microsoft email from Steve Ballmer along with an internal memo entitled Transforming Our Company are available online at Microsoft’s news center, but what does it all really mean? That’s actually a bit difficult to say; clearly times are changing and Microsoft needs to adapt to the new environment, and if we remove all of the buzzwords and business talk, that’s basically what the memo and email are about. Microsoft calls their new strategy the “devices and services chapter” of their business, which gives a clear indication of where they’re heading.
We’ve seen some of this already over the past year or so, in particular the Microsoft Surface and Surface Pro devices are a departure from the way Microsoft has done things in the past – though of course we had other hardware releases like the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune, etc. We’ve discussed this in some of our reviews as well, where the traditional PC markets are losing ground to smartphones, tablets, and other devices. When companies like Apple and Google are regularly updating their operating systems, in particular iOS and Android, the old model of rolling out a new Windows operating system every several years is no longer sufficient. Depending on other companies for the hardware that properly showcases your platform can also be problematic when one of the most successful companies of the last few years (Apple Computer) controls everything from the top to bottom on their devices.
There’s also the factor of cost; when companies are getting Android OS for free, minus the groundwork required to get it running on your platform, charging $50 or $100 for Windows can be a barrier to adoption. When Microsoft talks about a shift towards devices and services, they are looking for new ways to monetize their business structure. The subscription model for Office 365 is one example of this; rather than owning a copy of office that you can use on one system, you instead pay $100 for the right to use Office 365 on up to five systems for an entire year. This sort of model has worked well for the antivirus companies not to mention subscription gaming services like World of WarCraft, EverQuest, etc., so why not try it for Office? I have to wonder if household subscriptions to Windows are next on the auction block.
One of the other topics that Microsoft gets into with their memo is the need for a consistent user experience across all of the devices people use on a daily basis. Right now, it’s not uncommon for people to have a smartphone, tablet, laptop and/or desktop, a TV set-top box, and maybe even a gaming console or two – and depending on how you are set up, each of those might have a different OS and a different user interface. Some people might not mind switching between the various user interfaces, but this is definitely something that I’ve heard Apple users mention as a benefit: getting a consistent experience across your whole electronic ecosystem. Apple doesn’t get it right in every case either, but I know people that have MacBook laptops, iPads/iPods and iPhones, Apple TV, iTunes, and an AirPort Extreme router, and they are willing to pay more for what they perceive as a better and easier overall experience.
Windows 8 was a step towards that same sort of ecosystem, trying to unify the experience on desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and the Xbox One; some might call it a misstep, but regardless Microsoft is making the effort. “We will strive for a single experience for everything in a person’s life that matters. One experience, one company, one set of learnings, one set of apps, and one personal library of entertainment, photos and information everywhere. One store for everything.” It’s an ambitious goal, and that sort of approach definitely won’t appeal to everyone [thoughts of Big Brother…]; exactly how well Microsoft does in realizing this goal is going to determine how successful this initiative ends up being.
One of the other thoughts I’ve heard increasingly over the past year or two is that while competition is in theory good for the consumer, too much competition can simply result in confusion. The Android smartphone and tablet offerings are good example of this; which version of Android are you running, and which SoC powers your device? There are huge droves of people that couldn't care less about the answer to either question; they just want everything to work properly. I’ve heard some people jokingly (or perhaps not so jokingly) suggest that we would benefit if more than one of the current SoC companies simply “disappeared” – and we could say the same about some of the GPU and CPU vendors that make the cores that go into these SoCs. Again, Microsoft is in a position to help alleviate some of this confusion with their software and devices; whether they can manage to do this better than some of the others that have tried remains to be seen.
However you want to look at things, this is a pretty major attempt at changing the way Microsoft functions. Can actually pull this all off, or is it just so many words? Thankfully, most of us have the easy job of sitting on the sidelines and taking a “wait and see” approach. Steve Ballmer notes, “We have resolved many details of this org, but we still will have more work to do. Undoubtedly, as we involve more people there will be new issues and changes to our current thinking as well. Completing this process will take through the end of the calendar year as we figure things out and as we keep existing teams focused on current deliverables like Windows 8.1, Xbox One, Windows Phone, etc.”
Whatever happens to Microsoft over the coming year or two, these are exciting times for technology enthusiasts. Microsoft has been with us for 37 years now, and clearly they intend to stick around for the next 37 as well. Enjoy the ride!

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Some Thoughts About the Lumia 1020 Camera System

Today Nokia announced their new flagship smartphone, the Lumia 1020. I’ve already posted about the announcement and details, and what it really boils down to is that the Lumia 1020 is like a better PureView 808 inside a smaller Lumia 920 chassis. In fact, a quick glance at the About page on the Lumia 1020 shows exactly how much the 1020 is the 808’s spiritual successor – it’s erroneously named the Nokia 909.

Anyhow I thought it worth writing about the imaging experience on the Lumia 1020 in some detail since that’s the most important part of the device. We’re entering this interesting new era where the best parts of smartphone and camera are coming together into something. I’ve called them connected cameras in the past, but that really only goes as far as describing the ability to use WiFi or 3G, these new devices that also work as phones are something more like a smartphone with further emphasized imaging. Think Galaxy S4 Zoom, PureView 808, and now Lumia 1020. For Nokia the trend isn’t anything new, for the rest of the mobile device landscape to be following suit, is.

Once again however, Nokia has set a new bar with the Lumia 1020 – it combines the 41 MP oversampling and lossless zoom features from the PureView 808 with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and WP8 from the Lumia 920 / 925 / 928 series. And it does so without making the device needlessly bulky, it’s actually thinner and lighter than the Lumia 920. When I heard that Nokia was working on getting the 41 MP profile camera I have to admit I pictured something resembling the PureView 808 with the same relatively large bulge, but just running Windows Phone. The camera region still protrudes, sure, but the extent of the protrusion isn’t nearly as big as that of the 808.

Camera Emphasized Smartphone Comparison
	Samsung Galaxy Camera (EK-GC100)	Nokia PureView 808	Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom	Nokia Lumia 1020
CMOS Resolution	16.3 MP	41 MP	16.3 MP	41 MP
CMOS Format	1/2.3", 1.34µm pixels	1/1.2", 1.4µm pixels	1/2.3", 1.34µm pixels	1/1.5", 1.12µm pixels
Lens Details	4.1 - 86mm (22 - 447 35mm equiv) F/2.8-5.9 OIS	8.02mm (28mm 35mm equiv) F/2.4	4.3 - 43mm (24-240 mm 35mm equiv) F/3.1-F/6.3 OIS	PureView 41 MP, BSI, 6-element optical system, xenon flash, LED, OIS (F/2.2, 25-27mm 35mm eff)
Display	1280 x 720 (4.8" diagonal)	640 x 360 (4.0" diagonal)	960 x 540 (4.3-inch)	1280 x 768 (4.5-inch)
SoC	Exynos 4412 (Cortex-A9MP4 at 1.4 GHz with Mali-400 MP4)	1.3 GHz ARM11	1.5 GHz Exynos 4212	1.5 GHz Snapdragon MSM8960
Storage	8 GB + microSDXC	16 GB + microSDHC	8 GB + microSDHC	32 GB
Video Recording	1080p30, 480p120	1080p30	1080p30	1080p30
OS	Android 4.1	Symbian Belle	Android 4.2	Windows Phone 8
Connectivity	WCDMA 21.1 850/900/1900/2100, 4G, 802.11a/b/g/n with 40 MHz channels, BT 4.0, GNSS	WCDMA 14.4 850/900/1700/1900/2100, 802.11b/g/n, BT 3.0, GPS	WCDMA 21.1 850/900/1900/2100, 4G LTE SKUs, 802.11a/b/g/n with 40 MHz channels, BT 4.0, GNSS	Quad band edge, WCDMA 42 850/900/1900/2100 LTE bands 1,3,7,20,8

To get that thickness down, Nokia went to 1.12 micron square pixels, as opposed to the 1.4 micron pixels on the PureView 808. This results in a smaller overall sensor (from 1/1.2“ in the 808 to 1/1.5” in the 1020) which in turn lets the optical designers make a thinner system – it’s entirely physics constrained.

Lumia 1020 CMOS (left), Lens system (right)

To make up for the loss of sensitivity, Nokia moved to now-ubiquitous BSI (Back Side Illumination) pixels for the Lumia 1020. I didn’t realize it before, but the 808 used an FSI (Front Side Illumination) sensor. Nokia tells me that the result is the same level of sensitivity between the two at the sensor level, add in OIS and the Lumia 1020 will likely outperform the 808 in low light.

Left to right: Lumia 1020 Module, Module cut in half, lens, CMOS sensor

At an optical level the Lumia 1020 is equally class-leading. The 1020 moves to an F/2.2 system over the 808’s F/2.4, and is a 6-element system (5 plastic aspheric, 1 glass), with that front objective being entirely glass. Nokia claims to have improved MTF on this new system even more at the edges and resolves enough detail to accommodate those tiny 1.12 micron pixels. Nokia has also moved to a second generation of OIS for the Lumia 1020 – it still is a barrel shift, but instead of pushing the module around with electromagnets, the system now uses very small motors to counteract movements.
The Lumia 1020 also has two flashes - an LED for video and AF assist, and xenon for freezing motion and taking stills. Although I still hesitate to use direct flash on any camera, even if it’s xenon and not the hideously blue cast of a white LED, this will help the 1020 push considerably into completely dark territory where you just need some on-camera lighting to get a photo. A lot of the thickness constraints of the 808 I’m told were due to the capacitor for the xenon, the 1020 moves to a flat capacitor.

(Bottom to top: Lumia 1020, Lumia 920, PureView 808, N93, ?)

Nokia laid out the entire optical stack in the open in numerous demos and meetings at their event. The module in the 1020 is big compared even to Nokia’s previous modules. It looks positively gigantic compared to the standard sized commodity modules that come in other phones. The amount of volume that Nokia dedicates to imaging basically tells the story.
One of my big questions when I heard that 41 MP PureView tech was coming to Windows Phone was what the silicon implementation would look like, since essentially no smartphone SoCs out of box support a 41 MP sensor, certainly none of the ones Windows Phone 8 GDR2 currently supports. With the PureView 808, Nokia used a big dedicated ISP made by Broadcom to do processing. On the Lumia 1020, I was surprised to learn there is no similar dedicated ISP (although my understanding is that it was Nokia’s prerogative to include one), instead Nokia uses MSM8960 silicon for ISP. Obviously the MSM8960 is only specced for up to 20 MP camera support, Nokia’s secret sauce is making this silicon support 41 MP and the PureView features (oversampling, subsampling, lossless on the fly zoom) through collaboration with Qualcomm and rewriting the entire imaging stack themselves. I would not be surprised to learn that parts of this revised imaging solution run on Krait or Hexagon DSP inside 8960 to get around the limitations of its ISP. I suspect the Lumia 1020 includes 2 GB of LPDDR2 partly to accommodate processing those 41 MP images as well. Only with the next revision of Windows Phone (GDR3) will the platform get support for MSM8974 which out of box supports up to 55 MP cameras.
Of course the hardware side is a very interesting one, but the other half of Nokia’s PureView initiative is software features and implementation. With the Lumia 1020, Nokia has done an end-run around the Windows Phone platform by including their own third party camera application called Nokia Pro Cam that leveraging their own APIs built into the platform.

Default camera setting (left), Stock camera still exists (right)

The stock WP8 camera application is still present, it’s just not default (though you can change this under Settings for Photos + Camera). This way Nokia gets the chance to build its own much better camera UI atop Windows Phone.

Nokia Pro Cam looks like the most comprehensive mobile camera UI I’ve seen so far. Inside is full control over white balance, manual focus (macro to infinity), ISO (up to 4000), exposure time (up to 4 seconds), and exposure control. While there are other 3rd party camera apps on WP8 that expose some of this, none of them come close to the fluidity of Pro Cam, which adjusts in real time as you change sliders, has a clear reset to defaults gesture, and will highlight potentially hazardous to image quality settings changes with a yellow underline. Of course, you can optionally just leave all of this untouched and run the thing full auto. The best part is that the Lumia 920, 925, and 928 will get this awesome Nokia camera app with the Amber software update.

The analogy for the PureView 808 was that it was a 41 MP shooter that took great 5 MP pictures, this remains largely the case with the Lumia 1020 through the use of oversampling. The result is a higher resolution 5 MP image than you’d get out of a 5 MP CMOS with Bayer grid atop it.

By default, the 1020 stores a 5 MP oversampled copy with the full field of view alongside the full 34 (16:9) or 38 (4:3) MP image. Inside Windows Phone and Pro Cam (Nokia’s camera app) the two look like one image until one zooms in, and of course there’s the ability to of course change this to just store the 5 MP image.

Just like with the PureView 808 there’s also lossless zoom, which steps through progressively smaller subsampled crops of the image sensor until you reach a 1:1 5MP 3x center crop in stills, or 720p 6x crop in video (1080p is 4x). This works just like it did on the PureView 808 with a two finger zoom gesture.

Nokia used to earn a lot of kudos from me for bundling a tripod mount with the PureView 808, with the Lumia 1020 Nokia has gone a different direction by making an optional snap on camera grip and battery. The grip contains a 1020 mAh battery and well done two-stage camera button, and a tripod screw at the bottom. With the camera grip attached, the 1020 felt balanced and like a more stable shooting platform than without.
For a full walkthrough of the camera UI and features, I'd encourage you to take a look at the video I shot of Juha Alakarhu going through it, who presented on stage. I also took another video earlier in the day walking through some of it myself. It's really the only way to get an appreciation for how fluid the interface is and how much better it is than the stock WP8 camera app.

Although I wasn’t allowed to pull images from the Lumia 1020 for later review, what I did see on-device was impressive. I think it’s fair to say that once again Nokia has set basically set the bar for the rest of the smartphone imaging world – in terms of both hardware and software features. It's a step forwards from the PureView 808, and from the Lumia 920 / 925 / 928. Of course, the ultimate question is whether consumers are going to appreciate all of it and be willing to pay the premium for the Lumia 1020 over the Lumia 925 / 928 or another smartphone entirely. Although imaging quality is a big emphasis for smartphone shoppers, it isn’t the only one, and the Windows Phone 8 pill is still a big one for me and many others to swallow.
Source: Nokia

Gallery: Some Thoughts About the Lumia 1020 Camera System

Digital Storm Unveils VELOCE: 13.3 Inches of Gaming Goodness

It seems with the launch of Intel’s Haswell processors and platform, notebook manufacturers are starting to focus on smaller devices without sacrificing a lot in the way of performance. We recently reviewed the Razer Blade, a 14-inch ultrathin laptop that’s still able to pack a quad-core Haswell processor (37W TDP i7-4702MQ) and GTX 765M into an extremely stylish chassis. Unfortunately, the Razer Blade let us down with the inclusion of a 1600x900 lower quality LCD. In a similar vein, I’m working on a review of MSI’s GE40, another 14-inch laptop with specs similar to the Razer Blade, again let down by a 1600x900 low quality LCD. Digital Storm will hopefully break that trend with their 13.3-inch VELOCE laptop.
Like the Razer Blade (the MSI GE40 uses the slightly slower GTX 760M), the VELOCE uses NVIDIA’s GTX 765M 2GB for graphics duty. Where it differs from the Razer Blade and GE40 is that it supports full voltage Haswell processors, not to mention it has a slightly smaller display size but ups the resolution to 1920x1080 – anti-glare no less! The full specifications are pretty impressive, and while it’s not as thin as the Razer Blade or GE40, it looks like we might finally have a no-compromise 13.3-inch gaming laptop. Digital Storm offers for customization options on their laptops, but here is one set of specifications for the VELOCE:

Digital Storm VELOCE Specifications
Processor	Intel Core i7-4800MQ (Quad-core 2.7-3.7GHz, 6MB L3, 22nm, 47W)
Chipset	HM87
Memory	2x4GB DDR3-1600
Graphics	GeForce GTX 765M 2GB (768 cores, 850MHz + Boost 2.0, 4GHz GDDR5) Intel HD Graphics 4600 (20 EUs at 400-1300MHz)
Display	13.3" Anti-Glare 16:9 1080p (1920x1080)
Storage	750GB 7200RPM HDD 8GB SSD cache
Optical Drive	DVD-RW (?)
Networking	802.11n WiFi (Killer Wireless-N 1202) (Dual-band 2x2:2 300Mbps capable) Bluetooth 4.0 (Killer 1202) Gigabit Ethernet
Battery/Power	6-cell, 11.1V, 5900mAh, 65Wh 90W Max AC Adapter
Left Side	Headphone and Microphone 1 x USB 2.0 Exhaust Vent
Right Side	3 x USB 3.0 1 x Mini-HDMI 1 x VGA Gigabit Ethernet AC Power Connection Kensington Lock
Operating System	Windows 8 64-bit
Dimensions	1.26” (32mm) thick
Weight	4.6 lbs (2.09kg)
Pricing and Availability	$1535 as configured Available July 17, 2013

The press release notes that the VELOCE include support for two storage devices (mSATA and 2.5”), with optional RAID support. There’s also a spec sheet that mentions a DVD-RW drive, but the images don’t indicate where that drive would be located unless it’s an external option. We’re definitely excited to see more competition in the (reasonably) thin and light gaming laptop market, and while the VELOCE isn’t quite as thin as some of the other options, the performance and in particular the LCD may more than make up for that.
Digital Storm is currently in the process of revamping their entire notebook lineup, so the mobile section of their website consists of a countdown to July 17. We would assume there will also be additional notebooks announced at that time, or at least sometime in the near future. We have requested a review sample and we hope to be able to provide a full review in the future. The current price is about $300 more than the MSI GE40 (which includes a 128GB SSD), but VELOCE has a higher-end processor; it’s also about $300 less than the baseline Razer Blade. Hopefully the VELOCE can live up to our expectations and deliver a quality gaming experience in a reasonably portable package.

Gallery: Digital Storm Unveils VELOCE: 13.3 Inches of Gaming Goodness

Nokia Announces Lumia 1020 - 41 MP PureView and Windows Phone (Update: Hands On and Video)

Today at Nokia's Zoom Reinvented event, the handset maker announced the newest member of its Lumia family of Windows Phone devices, the Lumia 1020. The handset includes a PureView 41 MP system and 6-element optical system with optical image stabilization, making it similar to the PureView 808. The Lumia 1020 is Nokia's new flagship with the most advanced imaging that Nokia has to offer. I've put together a table with the specifications that have already posted

Camera Emphasized Smartphone Comparison
	Samsung Galaxy Camera (EK-GC100)	Nokia PureView 808	Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom	Nokia Lumia 1020
CMOS Resolution	16.3 MP	41 MP	16.3 MP	41 MP
CMOS Format	1/2.3", 1.34µm pixels	1/1.2", 1.4µm pixels	1/2.3", 1.34µm pixels	1/1.5", 1.12µm pixels
CMOS Size	6.17mm x 4.55mm	10.67mm x 8.00mm	6.17mm x 4.55mm
Lens Details	4.1 - 86mm (22 - 447 35mm equiv) F/2.8-5.9 OIS	8.02mm (28mm 35mm equiv) F/2.4	4.3 - 43mm (24-240 mm 35mm equiv) F/3.1-F/6.3 OIS	PureView 41 MP, BSI, 6-element optical system, xenon flash, LED, OIS
Display	1280 x 720 (4.8" diagonal)	640 x 360 (4.0" diagonal)	960 x 540 (4.3-inch)	1280 x 768 (4.5-inch)
SoC	Exynos 4412 (Cortex-A9MP4 at 1.4 GHz with Mali-400 MP4)	1.3 GHz ARM11	1.5 GHz Exynos 4212	1.5 GHz Snapdragon MSM8960
Storage	8 GB + microSDXC	16 GB + microSDHC	8 GB + microSDHC	32 GB
Video Recording	1080p30, 480p120	1080p30	1080p30	1080p30
OS	Android 4.1	Symbian Belle	Android 4.2	Windows Phone 8
Connectivity	WCDMA 21.1 850/900/1900/2100, 4G, 802.11a/b/g/n with 40 MHz channels, BT 4.0, GNSS	WCDMA 14.4 850/900/1700/1900/2100, 802.11b/g/n, BT 3.0, GPS	WCDMA 21.1 850/900/1900/2100, 4G LTE SKUs, 802.11a/b/g/n with 40 MHz channels, BT 4.0, GNSS	Quad band edge, WCDMA 42 850/900/1900/2100 LTE bands 1,3,7,20,8

From the outside, the Lumia 1020 looks a lot like the Lumia 920 but with a different camera module. The PureView system inside the 1020 takes either 16:9 and 4:3 pictures alongside a 5 MP oversampled version, rather than the either-or approach that the PureView 808 took. Nokia has also gone to its own camera application called Nokia Pro Camera which offers manual controls beyond the stock camera application from WP8. The Lumia 1020 also is compatible with an optional camera grip that includes a 1020 mAh battery, tripod mount, and two step camera button. There's also a wireless charging back add-on.
On the network side, the Lumia 1020 variant I've seen specs for have quad band GSM/EDGE and WCDMA, and LTE bands 1,3,7,20,8. Obviously the AT&T version coming will have LTE bands 4,17.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 will be available starting July 26th for $299.99 with a 2 year agreement, and preorders on att.com will start July 16th.
We're going to get hands on with the Lumia 1020 shortly.

Update: Just got to play with the Lumia 1020. It's thinner than expected, and doesn't have much of a camera bulge at all. Nokia's camera application is buttery smooth and has excellent manual controls. I'm impressed with how easy it is to get around and quickly dive into custom exposure time, ISO, focus, and so forth, and reset those changes to default. It's somewhat similar to the Galaxy Camera, but whereas that UI was somewhat slow occasionally, the Lumia 1020 is very smooth and fast.

Gallery: Lumia 1020 Hands On

The camera grip feels very solid, not flimsy at all. The two stage camera button is communicative and works just like the button on the device and activates the application if you hold it down just like one would expect. I can see the camera grip being a popular accessory for people who want to extract every bit of camera from the Lumia 1020. I played with the rest of the camera UI and gallery, and on the whole it's essentially what you'd expect – like a better PureView 808 but running Windows Phone. On the whole smoother and more refined, in the chassis of a 920. Shot to shot latency is a bit long, but that's expected given the gigantic image size and processing, I suspect it might get faster if you disable the full size image storage and only keep the 5 MP oversampled versions, which there is an option for.

Source: Nokia

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Nokia's Zoom Reinvented Event - Live Blog
We're here in New York City for Nokia's Zoom Reinvented event, where the handset maker will undoubtedly be announcing the next flagship Lumia with PureView imaging. We'll be covering the event live, read on for our live blog.

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Acer’s M5-583P Touchscreen: Available at Best Buy

With the summer now half over, all of the major OEMs are beginning to launch their back-to-school lineups. Acer just sent word that they have a new model available at Best Buy that includes a touchscreen and a Haswell Core i5 processor for $700. Intel hasn’t launched their standard voltage dual-core Haswell processors yet, so naturally this is a ULV part, specifically the i5-4200U beats at the heart of the new M5-583P-6428. That processor has a base clock of 1.6GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost of 2.6GHz, which should be plenty for the typical student. Where performance may fall short is in the graphics department; the HD 4400 has 20 EUs clocked at up to 1GHz, but in practice it’s no faster than the previous generation HD 4000.
Other specifications are certainly going to draw some groans from our enthusiast community. While the display is a 15.6-inch touchscreen with 10-point capacitive input, the resolution is the painfully low 1366x768 that we’ve come to know and loath over the past several years. Other details are somewhat light; we know it has a 500GB hard drive (no solid state storage), 8GB RAM, a touchscreen LCD, and 802.11n wireless networking. What we don’t know is whether it’s a dual-band networking solution or not (probably not, and probably single-stream as well), and whether the LCD is decent quality or not (probably another low contrast TN panel). Acer does mention a "premium sound system" and enhancements to improve the microphone quality, but otherwise it sounds like the typical update every time a new CPU platform is launched. If we get one in for review, we'll of course provide full details.
The saving grace with laptops like this is their pricing, and with a price at Best Buy of $700 this is probably the lowest price we’re going to see on a Haswell touchscreen notebook in the short term. However, it’s also $200 more than what you might pay for similar Ivy Bridge laptops (e.g. ASUS VivoBook), and again about $200 more than touchscreen offerings with AMD E-series APUs (e.g. Toshiba Satellite). On the other hand, it has more memory and performance should be better than those types of laptops. Haswell has also impressed us with the battery life it’s able to achieve, and the Acer M5 looks to continue that pattern with a rated 6.5 hours of battery life (it’s only a 4-cell battery, so that tempers our expectations). If you’re interested in getting one, the M5 is available as of yesterday; we expect we’ll see quite a few similar laptops in the coming weeks.

Gallery: Acer’s M5-583P Touchscreen: Available at Best Buy

MSI Haswell Motherboard Giveaway
We've got two more chances to win a Z87 Haswell motherboard, this time courtesy of MSI. Today's giveaway includes one MSI Z87 MPower Max and one Z87-GD65 Gaming.

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NVIDIA’s Summer GeForce Game Bundle Announced - Splinter Cell Blacklist

NVIDIA sends word this evening that they’re launching a new GeForce video card game bundle for the summer timeframe. This time around NVIDIA is partnering with Ubisoft to get their latest Splinter Cell game, Splinter Cell Blacklist, included with most NVIDIA cards.
Much like the previously expired Metro: Last Light bundle, the Splinter Cell Blacklist bundle is for the GTX 660 and above, including the complete GTX 700 series, but strangely not NVIDIA’s most expensive cards, GTX 690 and GTX Titan. As is usually the case, all of the typical etailers are participating, with participating etailer and retailers throwing in a voucher for the game with qualifying purchases. The specific edition being bundled is the Digital Deluxe edition, which among other things includes bonus items and a copy of the previous Splinter Cell game, Conviction.
This promo comes about a month before the game actually ships - Blacklist won’t be shipping until August 20^th – so GeForce video card buyers will have to sit tight for a bit before they can playing the game. The promo itself will run until the end of the year or until NVIDIA runs out of codes; though historically NVIDIA is likely to replace the bundle before the fall/winter game rush.
On a side note, while Blacklist isn’t being branded as a The Way It’s Meant to Be Played Game, NVIDIA’s press release did note that they’ve been providing engineering resources to Ubisoft as part of their deal. So “tessellation, NVIDIA HBAO+, TXAA antialiasing and surround technologies” appear to be NVIDIA additions to the game. Of note, this marks the first TXAA enabled game to ship in several months and the first such game released since TXAA creator Timothy Lottes left NVIDIA earlier this year for Epic Games.
Finally, for GTX 650 buyers, a quick check shows that NVIDIA’s $75 Free-To-Play bundle is still active for those cards. However that looks to be coming to an end at the end of this month.

Current NVIDIA Game Bundles
Video Card	Bundle
GeForce GTX Titan	None
GeForce GTX 690	None
GeForce GTX 760/770/780	SC Blacklist
GeForce GTX 660/660Ti/670/680	SC Blacklist
GeForce GTX 650 Series	$75 Free-To-Play
GeForce GT 640 (& Below)	None

Android 4.2.2 Update Rollout for HTC One Begins - We Take a Look

Back when I reviewed the HTC One, I also did a walkthrough of Sense 5 and how it worked with Android 4.1.2. Although Sense 5 is a big step forwards both in visuals and functionality over its predecessor, there were still some things I wanted out of Sense and a few friction points, a number of which have been addressed in this update. Since this is undoubtably the platform that the upcoming rumored smaller and larger versions of the HTC One will run, it's worth taking a look at what's coming.
First a bit of context – HTC just recently started rolling out the Android 4.2.2 update to HTC One users in a number of regions, and our international HTC One (EMEA) just got the update, which is where we're looking at what's changed. These rollouts occur in phases and not necessarily for everyone at once, and I don't have any specific information on what regions are getting the update.

First up, there are some changes to basic functions. Widget panes can now be rearranged after their creation, though the BlinkFeed homepage remains pinned to the far left. Not a huge change, but a thankful one regardless. App shortcuts can also now be freely moved between the bottom launcher bar and widget panel by long pressing and dragging, something which shockingly enough couldn't be done before from that view.

Next, the home button gets two changes. Tapping the home button now takes you through a different, more logical flow than before. Previously pressing home after launching something from the all apps launcher view would take you back to all apps, pressing home after starting from all apps now takes you to your homepage, be it BlinkFeed or a widget pane.

The second home button change is an interesting one – HTC has added back in the ability to long press on home for a menu button. Google Now then gets activated with a swipe up from home. By default the behavior is unchanged, but if you have some applications that still haven't killed the action overflow bar and said goodbye to the menu button, this second button option is you want to use. BlinkFeed also gets a change, there's now Instagram added in as an account. Only stills work at the moment, I'm pretty sure videos just show the still preview at this point if they show up at all.

Another small but very thankful addition is I've begged every OEM for – battery percentage in the notification bar. Tap to turn it on under Power in settings, and it displays to the left of the battery visualization. You can see it in the top of basically all my screenshots. The battery percentage fuel gauging algorithm is improved as well.

Obviously a big part of Android 4.2.2 is the inclusion of the quick settings shortcuts, which you can access by doing a two finger pull down or single finger and then tapping the icon. HTC has gone and added a few extra settings shortcuts here like Screenshot, Power Saver (yay, this no longer is a persistent notification), Auto Rotate, and Wi-Fi Hotspot. In Sense 5 tapping on these toggles them, and tapping on the overflow button brings you into the appropriate settings application page.

Android 4.2.2 also adds Daydreams, which is essentially a screensaver function for Android. I've never really ever used Daydream on Android 4.2.2, but it's here in the update. Also from 4.2.2 are lock screen widgets, which get included. Getting into the lock screen widgets requires going through personalize, selecting the widget lock screen style, then tapping settings to select one. You only get one widget lockscreen panel and one widget, as opposed to the 5 that stock Android gives you.

Camera gets a number of thankful additions and tweaks. I've wanted this from HTC's camera app for a long time now – AE/AF lock, and it's here. Long press anywhere in the preview, and after a few seconds AF/AE (Auto Focus and Auto Exposure) are locked until you tap to re-focus and re-expose again. One more thing I still want is the UI camera button to take the picture on tap release instead of on tap press, but maybe that'll come eventually.

Another very thankful change is the way Zoes are recorded. There's now just one JPG and one MP4 in the folder for a Zoe, instead of the 20 JPGs and one MP4 for the previous system. The full size photo of your choice can still be pulled out and saved with the same UI, they're just not all dumped into DCIM every time, just the default one, or the one of your choice. I'm not sure where the full size images are being stored, but they're still somewhere.

In the Gallery there's one less view now, tapping the gallery gets you immediately into Events view. A big one everyone wanted also was the inclusion of more highlights reel themes. There are now six new highlights reel themes, for a total of 12. There's also a new easier way to select custom content for a highlights reel.

So that wraps up the big changes in this 416.46 MB OTA update for the international variants of the HTC One. The update is again rolling out on a region by region variant, as always there's that operator overhead to think about for the USA, no word on specifics at this point.

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The Joys of 802.11ac WiFi
We’ve had quite a few major wireless networking standards over the years, and while some have certainly been better than others, I have remained a strong adherent of wired networking. I don’t expect I’ll give up the wires completely for a while yet, but Western Digital and Linksys sent me some 802.11ac routers for testing, and for the first time in a long time I’m really excited about wireless.

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The 2013 MacBook Air: Core i5-4250U vs. Core i7-4650U
Apple typically offers three different CPU upgrades in its portable Macs: the base CPU, one that comes with the upgraded SKU and a third BTO option that's even faster. In the case of the 2013 MacBook Air, Apple only offered two: a standard SKU (Core i5-4250U) and a BTO-only upgrade (Core i7-4650U). As we found in our initial review of the 2013 MacBook Air, the default Core i5 option ranged between substantially slower than last year's model to a hair quicker. The explanation was simple: with a lower base clock (1.3GHz), a lower TDP (15W vs. 17W) and more components sharing that TDP (CPU/GPU/PCH vs. just CPU/GPU), the default Core i5 CPU couldn't always keep up with last year's CPU.
The Core i7 CPU upgrade comes at a fairly reasonable cost: $150 regardless of configuration. The max clocks increase by almost 30%, as does the increase in L3 cache. The obvious questions are how all of this impacts performance, battery life and thermals. Finally equipped with a 13-inch MBA with the i7-4650U upgrade, I can now answer those questions. The two systems are configured almost identically, although the i7-4650U configuration includes 8GB of memory instead of 4GB. Thankfully none of my tests show substantial scaling with memory capacity beyond 4GB so that shouldn't be a huge deal. Both SSDs are the same Samsung PCIe based solution. Let's start with performance.

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Corsair Carbide Air 540 Case Review
Corsair's cases have been defined by excellent ease of assembly, solid watercooling support...and middling air cooling performance. The Air 540 is a completely different beast, though, and it looks like they may have sorted out that last issue.

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Trials of an Intel Quad Processor System: 4x E5-4650L from SuperMicro

Trials of an Intel Quad Processor System: 4x E5-4650L from SuperMicro
In recent months at AnandTech we have tackled a few issues of dual processor systems for regular use, and whether having a dual processor system as a theoretical scientist may help or hinder various benchmark scenarios. For the problems that I encountered as a theoretical physical chemist, using a dual processor system without any form of formal training dealing with memory allocation (NUMA) resulted in a severe performance hit for anything that required a significant level of memory accesses, especially grid solvers that required pulling information from large arrays held in memory. Part of the issue was latency access dealing with data that was in the memory of the other CPU, and thus a formal training in writing NUMA code would be applicable for multi-processor systems. Nevertheless in my AnandTech testing we did see significant speedup when dealing with various ‘pre-built’ software scenarios such as video conversion using Xilisoft Video Converter, rendering using PovRay and our 3D Particle Movement Benchmark.
To take this testing one stage further, SuperMicro kindly agreed to loan me remote desktop access to one of their internal quad processor (4P) systems. The movement from 2P to 4P is almost strictly in the realms of business investment, except for a few Folding@home enthusiasts that have seen large gains moving to a quad processor AMD system using obscure buyers for motherboards and eBay for processors. But with 4P in the business realm, the software has to match that usage scenario and scale appropriately.
Our testing scenario will cover our server motherboard CPU tests only – as I only had remote desktop access I was not fortunate enough to do any ‘gaming’ tests, although our gaming CPU article may have shown that unless you are doing a massive multi-screen multi-GPU setup then anything more than a single Sandy Bridge-E system may be overkill.
Test Setup:

Supermicro X9QR7-TF+

4x Intel Xeon E5-4650L @ 2.6 GHz (3.1 GHz Turbo), 8 cores (16 threads) each

Kingston 128GB ECC DDR3-1600 C11

Windows Server Edition 2012 Standard
Issues Encountered
As you might imagine, moving from 1P to 2P and then to 4P without much experience in the field of multi-processor calculations was initially very daunting. The main issue moving to 4P was having an operating system that actually detected all the threads possible and then communicated that to software using the Windows APIs. In both Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and 2012 Standard, the system would detect all 64 threads in task manager, but only report 32 threads to software. This raises a number of issues when dealing with software that automatically detects the number of threads on a system and only issues that number. In this scenario the user would need to manually set the number of threads, but it all depends on the way the program was written. For example, our Xilisoft and 3DPM tests do an automatic thread detection but set the threads to what is detected, whereas PovRay spawns a large number of threads despite automatic detection. Cinebench as well detected half the threads automatically, but at least has an option to spawn a custom number of threads.
Point Calculations - 3D Movement Algorithm Test
The algorithms in 3DPM employ both uniform random number generation or normal distribution random number generation, and vary in various amounts of trigonometric operations, conditional statements, generation and rejection, fused operations, etc. The benchmark runs through six algorithms for a specified number of particles and steps, and calculates the speed of each algorithm, then sums them all for a final score. This is an example of a real world situation that a computational scientist may find themselves in, rather than a pure synthetic benchmark. The benchmark is also parallel between particles simulated, and we test the single thread performance as well as the multi-threaded performance.

The 3DPM test falls under the half-thread detection issue, and as a result of the high threads but lower single core speed we only just get an improvement over a 2P Westmere-EP system. For single thread performance the single thread speed of the E5-4650L (3.1 GHz) is too low to compete with other Sandy Bridge and above processors.
Compression - WinRAR 4.2
With 64-bit WinRAR, we compress the set of files used in the USB speed tests. WinRAR x64 3.93 attempts to use multithreading when possible, and provides as a good test for when a system has variable threaded load. WinRAR 4.2 does this a lot better! If a system has multiple speeds to invoke at different loading, the switching between those speeds will determine how well the system will do.

As WinRAR is ultimately dependent on memory speed, the 1600 C11 runs into the issues that the lower memory speed situations face. Despite this, the 2P Westmere-EP system still beats the 4P but you really need a good single core system with high bandwidth memory to take advantage.
Image Manipulation - FastStone Image Viewer 4.2
FastStone Image Viewer is a free piece of software I have been using for quite a few years now. It allows quick viewing of flat images, as well as resizing, changing color depth, adding simple text or simple filters. It also has a bulk image conversion tool, which we use here. The software currently operates only in single-thread mode, which should change in later versions of the software. For this test, we convert a series of 170 files, of various resolutions, dimensions and types (of a total size of 163MB), all to the .gif format of 640x480 dimensions.

MHz and IPC wins for FastStone, which the single thread speed of the E5-4650Ls do not have.
Video Conversion - Xilisoft Video Converter 7
With XVC, users can convert any type of normal video to any compatible format for smartphones, tablets and other devices. By default, it uses all available threads on the system, and in the presence of appropriate graphics cards, can utilize CUDA for NVIDIA GPUs as well as AMD WinAPP for AMD GPUs. For this test, we use a set of 33 HD videos, each lasting 30 seconds, and convert them from 1080p to an iPod H.264 video format using just the CPU. The time taken to convert these videos gives us our result.

Due to the nature of XVC we do not see any speed up against Westmere-EP due to the 33^rd video only being assigned a single thread, essentially doubling the time of the conversion.
Rendering – PovRay 3.7
The Persistence of Vision RayTracer, or PovRay, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.

PovRay is the first benchmark that shows the full strength of 64 Intel threads, scoring almost double that of the 24 thread Westmere-EP system (which was at higher frequency).
Video Conversion - x264 HD Benchmark
The x264 HD Benchmark uses a common HD encoding tool to process an HD MPEG2 source at 1280x720 at 3963 Kbps. This test represents a standardized result which can be compared across other reviews, and is dependent on both CPU power and memory speed. The benchmark performs a 2-pass encode, and the results shown are the average of each pass performed four times.

The issue with memory management and NUMA comes into effect with x264, and the complex memory accesses required over the QPI links put a dent in performance.
Grid Solvers - Explicit Finite Difference
For any grid of regular nodes, the simplest way to calculate the next time step is to use the values of those around it. This makes for easy mathematics and parallel simulation, as each node calculated is only dependent on the previous time step, not the nodes around it on the current calculated time step. By choosing a regular grid, we reduce the levels of memory access required for irregular grids. We test both 2D and 3D explicit finite difference simulations with 2ⁿ nodes in each dimension, using OpenMP as the threading operator in single precision. The grid is isotropic and the boundary conditions are sinks. Values are floating point, with memory cache sizes and speeds playing a part in the overall score.

Explicit Finite Difference Grid Solver (2D)

Explicit Finite Difference Grid Solver (3D)

It seems odd to consider that a 4P system might be detrimental to a computationally intensive benchmark, but it all boils down to learning how to code for the system you are simulating. Porting code written for a single CPU system onto a multiprocessor workstation is not a simple matter of copy-paste-done.
Grid Solvers - Implicit Finite Difference + Alternating Direction Implicit Method
The implicit method takes a different approach to the explicit method – instead of considering one unknown in the new time step to be calculated from known elements in the previous time step, we consider that an old point can influence several new points by way of simultaneous equations. This adds to the complexity of the simulation – the grid of nodes is solved as a series of rows and columns rather than points, reducing the parallel nature of the simulation by a dimension and drastically increasing the memory requirements of each thread. The upside, as noted above, is the less stringent stability rules related to time steps and grid spacing. For this we simulate a 2D grid of 2ⁿ nodes in each dimension, using OpenMP in single precision. Again our grid is isotropic with the boundaries acting as sinks. Values are floating point, with memory cache sizes and speeds playing a part in the overall score.

Implicit Finite Difference Grid Solver (2D)

Conclusions – Learn How To Code!
For users considering multiprocessor systems, consider your usage scenario. If your simulation contains highly independent elements and lightweight threads, then the obvious suggestion is to look at GPUs for your needs. For all other purposes it is a lot easier to consider single CPU systems but scaling may occur if we look at memory management.
This makes sense when compiling your own code – the issue gets a lot tougher when dealing with third-party software. Before spending on a large multiprocessor system, get details from the company that make your software (for which you or your institution may be paying a large amount in yearly licensing fees) about whether it is suitable for multiprocessor systems, and do not be satisfied with answers such as ‘I don’t see why not’.
With Crystalwell in the picture in the consumer space, it becomes a lot more complex when dealing with a large eDRAM/L4 cache in a multiprocessor system. The system will then need to manage the snooping protocols for larger amounts of memory, making the whole procedure a nightmare for the unfortunate team that might have to deal with it. Crystalwell makes sense in the server space for single processor systems, perhaps dealing with MPI in clusters, but it might take a while to see it in the multiprocessor world at least. Fingers crossed…!

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Kinesis Advantage Review: Long-Term Evaluation
Round two of our ergonomic keyboard coverage brings us the Kinesis Advantage. Earlier this year, I reviewed the TECK—the Truly Ergonomic Computer Keyboard—one of the few keyboards on the market that combines an ergonomic layout with mechanical Cherry MX switches. As you’d expect, that review opened the door for me to do a couple more ergonomic keyboard reviews.

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Razer Blade 14-Inch Gaming Notebook Review
While their 17" gaming system has seen steady and incremental improvement, new to the Razer lineup is a notebook with all of the gaming performance in a remarkably slim 14" chassis. Could this be even better than the full size Razer Blade Pro?

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Gigabyte Haswell Motherboard Giveaway
Hot on the heels of Intel's Haswell launch, Gigabyte was kind enough to share two of its flagship 8-series motherboards to give away to some lucky AnandTech readers. Today's giveaway includes one Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 and one Z87X-OC.

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Windows 8.1 and VS2013 bring GPU computing updates to Direct3D and C++ AMP
Windows 8.1 is bringing a new incremental update to the driver model to WDDM 1.3, which will enable incremental new GPU computing functionality. One of the important pieces is the ability to "map default buffer" (which I will call as MDB), which should be particularly interesting for compute shaders running on APUs/SoCs which combine CPU and GPU on a single chip.

We can explain the feature as follows. In a typical discrete card, GPU has it's own onboard graphics memory. The application allocates memory on the GPU buffer, and the shaders read/write data from this memory. The buffers allocated in GPU memory are called "default buffers" in Direct3D parlance. Let us assume the GPU shader has written some output that you want to read on the CPU. Currently this is done in multiple stages. First, the application allocates a "staging buffer", which is allocated by the Direct3D driver in a special area of system memory such that the GPU can transfer data between the GPU default buffers and staging buffers over the PCI Express bus efficiently. GPU copies the data from GPU buffer to the staging buffer. The CPU then issues a "map" command that allows the CPU to read/write from the staging buffer. This multi-stage process is inefficient for APUs/SoCs where the GPU shares the physical memory with the CPU. In Direct3D 11.2, the staging buffer and the extra copy operation will no longer be required on supported hardware and the CPU will be able to access the GPU buffers directly. Thus, MDB will be a big win for many GPU computing scenarios due to the reduced copy overhead on APUs/SoCs.

Intel recently rolled it's own extension called InstantAccess for Haswell. My understanding is that InstantAccess is a bit more general than MDB because InstantAccess allows mapping of textures as well as buffers whereas D3D 11.2 only allows mapping of default buffers but not textures. Extensions similar to MDB are also common in OpenCL. Both Intel and AMD allow the CPU to read/write from OpenCL GPU buffers. In addition, Intel also exposes some ability for the GPU to read/write from preallocated CPU memory which afaik is not allowed in Direct3D yet. The efficiency of different solutions is still a question that we don't know much about. For example, AMD's OpenCL extension allows the CPU to access GPU memory on Llano, but the CPU reads the data from GPU memory at a very slow speed while writing the data is still pretty fast.
UPDATE: Intel confirmed support for MDB on Ivy Bridge onwards.
At this time, there is no official confirmation about which hardware will support MDB. My expectation is that MDB will likely be available on all recent single chip CPU/GPU systems such as AMD's Trinity and Kabini as well as Intel's Haswell and Ivy Bridge. AMD has already rolled out WDDM 1.3 drivers but curiosly those do not work on Llano and Zacate APUs so I am a little pessimistic about whether those APUs will support this new feature. Microsoft for its part only stated that they expect it to be "broadly available" once WDDM 1.3 drivers are rolled out. I will update the article when we get official word from the vendors about the hardware support status.
Apart from MDB, Microsoft has also added support for runtime shader linking. This will be quite useful for both compute and graphics shaders. The idea is that one can precompile functions in the shader before hand and ship the compiled code, while linking can be done at runtime. Separate compilation and linking has been available under CUDA 5 and OpenCL 1.2 as well. Runtime shader linking is a software feature and will be available on all hardware on Windows 8.1.
C++ AMP, Microsoft's C++ extension for GPU computing, has also been updated with the upcoming VS2013. I think the biggest feature update is that C++ AMP programs will also gain a shared memory feature on APUs/SoCs where the compiler and runtime will be able to eliminate extra data copies between CPU and GPU. This feature will also be available only on Windows 8.1 and it is likely built on top of the "map default buffer" as Microsoft's AMP implementation uses Direct3D under the hood. C++ AMP also brings some other nice additions including enhanced texture support and better debugging abilities.
In addition to compute, Microsoft also introduced a number of graphics updates such as tiled resources but we will likely cover those separately. More information about Direct3D changes can be found in preliminary docs for D3D 11.2 and a talk at BUILD.

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Some Quick Gaming Numbers at 4K, Max Settings
Part of my extra-curricular testing post Computex this year put me in the hands of a Sharp 4K30 monitor for three days and with a variety of AMD and NVIDIA GPUs on an overclocked Haswell system. With my test-bed SSD at hand and limited time, I was able to test my normal motherboard gaming benchmark suite at this crazy resolution (3840x2160) for several GPU combinations. Many thanks to GIGABYTE for this brief but eye-opening opportunity.

The test setup is as follows:
Intel Core i7-4770K @ 4.2 GHz, High Performance Mode

Corsair Vengeance Pro 2x8GB DDR3-2800 11-14-14

GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force (PLX 8747 enabled)

2x GIGABYTE 1200W PSU

Windows 7 64-bit SP1

Drivers: GeForce 320.18 WHQL / Catalyst 13.6 Beta

GPUs:

NVIDIA
GPU	Model	Cores / SPs	MHz	Memory Size	MHz	Memory Bus
GTX Titan	GV-NTITAN-6GD-B	2688	837	6 GB	1500	384-bit
GTX 690	GV-N690D5-4GD-B	2x1536	915	2 x 2GB	1500	2x256-bit
GTX 680	GV-N680D5-2GD-B	1536	1006	2 GB	1500	256-bit
GTX 660 Ti	GV-N66TOC-2GD	1344	1032	2 GB	1500	192-bit
AMD
GPU	Model	Cores / SPs	MHz	Memory Size	MHz	Memory Bus
HD 7990	GV-R799D5-6GD-B	2x2048	950	2 x 3GB	1500	2x384-bit
HD 7950	GV-R795WF3-3GD	1792	900	3GB	1250	384-bit
HD 7790	GV-R779OC-2GD	896	1075	2GB	1500	128-bit

For some of these GPUs we had several of the same model at hand to test. As a result, we tested from one GTX Titan to four, 1x GTX 690, 1x and 2x GTX 680, 1x 660Ti, 1x 7990, 1x and 3x 7950, and 1x 7790. There were several more groups of GPUs available, but alas we did not have time. Also for the time being we are not doing any GPU analysis on many multi-AMD setups, which we know can have issues – as I have not got to grips with FCAT personally I thought it would be more beneficial to run numbers over learning new testing procedures.
Games:
As I only had my motherboard gaming tests available and little time to download fresh ones (you would be surprised at how slow in general Taiwan internet can be, especially during working hours), we have a standard array of Metro 2033, Dirt 3 and Sleeping Dogs. Each one was run at 3840x2160 and maximum settings in our standard Gaming CPU procedures (maximum settings as the benchmark GUI allows).
Metro 2033, Max Settings, 3840x2160:

Straight off the bat is a bit of a shocker – to get 60 FPS we need FOUR Titans. Three 7950s performed at 40 FPS, though there was plenty of microstutter visible during the run. For both the low end cards, the 7790 and 660 Ti, the full quality textures did not seem to load properly.
Dirt 3, Max Settings, 3840x2160:

Dirt is a title that loves MHz and GPU power, and due to the engine is quite happy to run around 60 FPS on a single Titan. Understandably this means that for almost every other card you need at least two GPUs to hit this number, more so if you have the opportunity to run 4K in 3D.
Sleeping Dogs, Max Settings, 3840x2160:

Similarly to Metro, Sleeping Dogs (with full SSAA) can bring graphics cards down to their knees. Interestingly during the benchmark some of the scenes that ran well were counterbalanced by the indoor manor scene which could run slower than 2 FPS on the more mid-range cards. In order to feel a full 60 FPS average with max SSAA, we are looking at a quad-SLI setup with GTX Titans.
Conclusion:
First of all, the minute you experience 4K with appropriate content it is worth a long double take. With a native 4K screen and a decent frame rate, it looks stunning. Although you have to sit further back to take it all in, it is fun to get up close and see just how good the image can be. The only downside with my testing (apart from some of the low frame rates) is when the realisation that you are at 30 Hz kicks in. The visual tearing of Dirt3 during high speed parts was hard to miss.
But the newer the game, and the more elaborate you wish to be with the advanced settings, then 4K is going to require horsepower and plenty of it. Once 4K monitors hit a nice price point for 60 Hz panels (sub $1500), the gamers that like to splash out on their graphics cards will start jumping on the 4K screens. I mention 60 Hz because the 30 Hz panel we were able to test on looked fairly poor in the high FPS Dirt3 scenarios, with clear tearing on the ground as the car raced through the scene. Currently users in North America can get the Seiki 50” 4K30 monitor for around $1500, and they recently announced a 39” 4K30 monitor for around $700. ASUS are releasing their 4K60 31.5” monitor later this year for around $3800 which might bring about the start of the resolution revolution, at least for the high-end prosumer space.

All I want to predict at this point is that driving screen resolutions up will have to cause a sharp increase in graphics card performance, as well as multi-card driver compatibility. No matter the resolution, enthusiasts will want to run their games with all the eye candy, even if it takes three or four GTX Titans to get there. For the rest of us right now on our one or two mid-to-high end GPUs, we might have to wait 2-3 years for the prices of the monitors to come down and the power of mid-range GPUs to go up. These are exciting times, and we have not even touched what might happen in multiplayer. The next question is the console placement – gaming at 4K would be severely restrictive when using the equivalent of a single 7850 on a Jaguar core, even if it does have a high memory bandwidth. Roll on Playstation 5 and Xbox Two (Four?), when 4K TVs in the home might actually be a thing by 2023.

16:9 4K Comparison image from Wikipedia

Addonics Secure NAS R5 - A NAS / DAS Combo for the Security-Conscious
The number of readers requesting for encryption benchmarks after reading our NAS reviews has shown an uptick in the recent past. For consumers paranoid about security, Addonics is launching the Secure NAS storage appliance series. Unlike other established NAS vendors' offerings, the Secure NAS R5 (the first model in the series) differentiates itself in the following aspects:

The entire RAID volume (including the boot sector and the partition table) is encrypted.
Encryption is activated with a hardware cipher key (which can be replicated only by specialized means). There is no software to run or password to enter.
The unit also acts as a Direct Attached Storage (DAS), thanks to an eSATA port on the unit.

The Secure NAS R5 is a five-bay unit with very basic configuration only. All five drives are configured

in a single volume and encryption is done with a 256-bit AES crypto engine. The RAID configuration (RAID0 (Striping), RAID 5 (Parity), RAID 5+S, Large Drive or Clone Mode (N-Way Mirror)) is set via DIP switches at the rear of the unit. We have built-in SMB and FTP servers and a web server for Web GUI administration. As a NAS, the supported formatters for the internal file systems are XFS and EXT3. However, when connected as a DAS, the volume can be formatted in EXT2 / EXT4 / NTFS or FAT32. Such volumes are still available when the unit is connected as a NAS. The network link is 10/100/1000 Mbps. The unit claims speeds of up to 85 MB/s over the network.
The Secure NAS R5 has a MSRP of $499.

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Tumblr iOS App Loses User Passwords Due to Vulnerability
Patched verison of the app closes the hole

Hacker Exposes Gaping Hole in Google Glasses With Nasty QR Codes
Wearable electronics are undiscovered country in terms of security research

EU Decides Google's Settlement Proposal for Antitrust Investigation Isn't Enough
The search company could get stuck with a fine of $5 billion if it can't convince the EU to settle

Tesla Building Tech to Fully Charge EVs in Just 5 Minutes
Tesla will use solar panels and batteries at Supercharger stations to help supply this extra electricity

T-Mobile CEO Insults AT&T's New "Next" Upgrade Plan
T-Mobile's CEO ranted about the plan on Twitter

Nokia to Launch 4.7-Inch Lumia 625
It will reportedly be a low-end phone for about $325 USD

Ford Tries to Improve Disappointing Hybrid Fuel Efficiency with New Software Update
Software update won't change window stickers

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Thursday, July 18, 2013

IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 7/19/2013

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