It’s crazy to think we’ve been writing about and waiting for AMD’s Fusion platform for close to five years now. Believe it or not, it was back in 2006 that the chipmaker first started talking about its “new class of x86 processors” and the idea of an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) — a chip that would combine a CPU and a fairly powerful ATI GPU onto the same die. The company promised to have the silicon ready in two years’ time, but when 2008 rolled around , it was clear that all it was prepared to release was a series of roadmap slides . Now, don’t get us wrong, those charts and graphs made us pretty giddy about the superior graphics and improved battery life that AMD was promising to bring to affordable ultraportables, but then a year later, when AMD still had only PowerPoint slides to show for itself, we started to think “Fusion” was no more than a drunken fantasy. And it only got worse — from 2009 to mid-2010 the company continued to talk up its never-before-seen and highly-delayed chips. (Just a read through the Engadget archives from that period pretty much illustrates that we had lost hope and started to think the chips would never see the light of day.) But then in June of 2010 the unthinkable happened — AMD finally demoed its first Fusion Bobcat cores, and proved, at least from afar, that the soon-to-arrive ultrathin laptop solution would chew through Aliens vs. Predator , support DirectX 11, and use a lot less power than its previous platforms. It seemed almost too good to be true — AMD looked ready to stick to its timing and deliver the first Fusion Brazos platform by early 2011. So, what the heck does Fusion and AMD’s history of promises about the platform have to do with HP’s new Pavilion dm1z ? Almost everything. HP’s newest 11.6-inch not-quite-a-netbook (or a notbook as we like to call it) is the first Fusion system to hit the market, and with a dual-core 1.6GHz E350 Zacate processor and AMD Radeon HD 6310 GPU on the same chip it promises… well, everything AMD has promised for so long. According to HP and AMD, the system should last for over nine hours on a charge, play full 1080p content, and perhaps more importantly, not fry our laps as some previous AMD Neo-powered systems have done. For $450, it sounds like a true no-sacrifice system, but is it? Has AMD finally delivered an Intel Atom- / ULV-killer and has HP put it in a no-fuss chassis? We’ve spent the last week putting this system through the paces — hit the break to find out if it has been worth the wait! Gallery: HP Pavilion dm1z review Continue reading HP Pavilion dm1z (with AMD Fusion) review HP Pavilion dm1z (with AMD Fusion) review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Chris Matthews, WTH Is Tom Delay Doing On Your Program To Proclaim Innocence?
January 17, 2011 No CommentWhat does it take for Chris Matthews and Hardball to marginalize convicted criminal Tom Delay and not offer him time to lamely proclaim his innocence? My god, he actually served up a softball in the form of asking if Delay thought there was a conspiracy that resulted in his conviction. And showing himself to be the arrogant yet poor thinker that he is, Delay eagerly grabs the notion of his conviction being politically motivated and runs with it. The only problem, he admits that there was nothing wrong with the jury that convicted him. Then Tweety suggests that maybe Delay shouldn’t have hung out with those miscreants Michael Scanlon and Jack Abramoff, because hanging out with these convicted criminals looked bad for Tom. Um, Tweety? Any awareness at all that maybe the reason Tom Delay looks bad is because he committed crimes along with Abramoff? I’ve said for years now that Chris Matthews’ deep love of politics is not connected to any sense of moral compass. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the side of angels for Tweety, it’s all about how you play the game. As Jon Stewart aptly pointed out, that playbook has been written already , and it’s still the one that Matthews sticks to.
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Apple Inc. founder and CEO Steve Jobs sends a note to employees saying he’s taking a medical leave of absence so he can focus on his health. Jobs is a survivor of pancreatic cancer. (Jan. 17)
Continue reading …Facebook is making users’ addresses and cell phone numbers available to third-party developers, the site announced Friday on its blog . Users who accept the terms and conditions attached to a Facebook app while downloading it will be letting that app’s makers see their contact information if they’ve posted it to…
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Green was the color of the night as Angelina Jolie, Catherine Zeta Jones and Mila Kunis dazzled at the Golden Globe awards. AP’s Natalie Rotman checks out their fashion choices as well as what other stars wore on the red carpet. (Jan. 17)
Continue reading …In her rush to get to the emergency room, a pregnant woman gave her keys to a uniformed man who claimed to be a hospital valet—and he drove off with her car. When the woman, battling labor pains, entered the Massachusetts hospital at 3 am, she learned they had…
Continue reading …Wi-LAN reaches settlement with Intel over patent dispute, set to receive a ‘significant amount’
January 17, 2011 No Comment
It’s hard to know how to feel about this one, whether it’s a case of a patent troll getting a delicious kickback or the little guy slaying the evil, giant, patent-infringing corporation. Whichever interpretation you choose, know that Wi-LAN has apparently been victorious in its long-running dispute with Intel , not actually winning but, according to Chief Executive Jim Skippen, receiving a “significant” settlement due to apparent infringements of the company’s various wireless-related patents. There are apparently 16 other defenders left since Wi-LAN sued the world, but Intel throwing up its hands is not a good sign for the others. Or, maybe Intel just decided its legal fees are too high and is settling everything it can . Wi-LAN reaches settlement with Intel over patent dispute, set to receive a ‘significant amount’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday waded into terrain where past British governments have foundered, promising fundamental changes to the country’s expensive and over-stressed public health care system. Cameron said the reforms would cut red tape and improve treatment, but critics claim they will cause chaos and could lead to backdoor privatization of the much-criticized but widely popular National Health Service. The British leader, whose Conservative Party heads the country’s coalition government, said he would save money and cut red tape by giving control over management to family practitioners rather than bureaucrats, and allow private companies, charities and social…
Continue reading …Violent rhetoric and the mentally ill: The intersection of lethal irresponsibility
January 17, 2011 No CommentI’ve got a post up at The Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute’s blog, an effort to explain what it really means when a mentally ill person is inflamed by extremist right-wing rhetoric. Hint: The people who fill them with rage are not as blameless they want to claim: For some time now, it’s been something of a reflexive response by media pundits, particularly conservatives and “moderate” liberals, to point to mental illness when some violent and unstable person commits a horrifying act in the name of extremist right-wing beliefs. If they’re just mentally ill, you can’t blame the people whose ideas they happened to pick up, can you? Thus we have witnessed a steady stream of “isolated incidents” in which angry, mentally unstable men walk into churches and shoot their liberal targets in the head, or walk into public spaces and open fire, or crash their planes into government offices and gun down police officers. Yet when all these, and a long list of similar incidents, occur, they are dismissed as “isolated incidents.” Because, you see the perpetrators are just “nutcases.” Likewise, when an oddball college dropout named Jared Loughner walks up to Representative Gabrielle Giffords in a Safeway parking lot and shoots her point-blank, then empties another 30 rounds into the crowd around her, killing six and wounding 14 more — well, that can’t be laid at the feet of his incoherent (but largely right-wing) belief system, can it? After all, he’s obviously got mental problems, right? Therefore, it’s just another isolated incident. That’s a cop-out, and a dangerous one. One of its chief consequences, in fact, is that the list of “isolated incidents” — and the body count that accompanies it — will just keep mounting. At some point, people will realize that the incidents are perhaps not so isolated after all. Go read it all.
Continue reading …Winners of European Amateur Photo Competition: Praying Mantis Sunset and More (Slideshow)
January 17, 2011 No Comment
Photo: Constant Couteille Can animals enjoy the sunset? It seems so with the November winners and finalists from Wild Wonders of Europe ‘s amateur photo competition — but there’s nothing amateur about these shots. Here you’ll find stunning silhouettes of both a praying mantis and a butterfly caught against the sun, an owl reflecting on an orange horizon, a dolphin leaping in the soft light of the last minutes of day, and more.
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