Despite being late to the market, Nvidia is showing it can keep up with the latest technological advances in LTE technology. But like it’s exaggeration-prone competitors, Nvidia is falsely labeling its chip “LTE-Advanced.” Read more »
Quantenna has developed a 802.11ac chipset that uses multiple antennas and multiple frequencies to deliver up to 2 Gbps of bandwidth. The partnership with STMicro will expand Quantenna’s scope beyond home networking to other industries. Read more »
It may be the most amazing substance known to humanity – potentially – but pioneers in the graphene scene are still scratching their heads as to the material’s killer app. Read more »
We upgrade our smartphones every one to two years. Why not our smart cars? Nvidia has developed a chip architecture that could let us boost the brainpower of our connected cars after they roll off the lot. Read more »
Qualcomm’s new RF360 radio chip cold be the answer to the problem of 4G fragmentation. It won’t produce a universal LTE phone just yet, but with 40 bands supported, it will get the industry close. Read more »
Altair Semiconductor may be the latest vendor to malign the term LTE-Advanced, but it does have an impressive new 4G chip. It’s new device silicon is the first we’ve seen that uses envelope tracking battery-sparing technology. Read more »
The new radio silicon uses the new Weightless specification to tap into the unused airwaves in between TV broadcasts. Such technology could be used to create a cheap data network for the M2M communications. Read more »
As we become more and more reliant on silicon and bandwidth, the need for fundamental technology breakthroughs has never been more acute. Scientists are working on those solutions and the marriage of optical and silicon is an area of immense focus. Here are three notable breakthroughs. Read more »
Qualcomm may be late to the market with quad-core smartphone superchip, but now that it’s made its way into its the LG Optimus G, Qualcomm can probably make up for lost ground quickly. Qualcomm has technical and logistical advantages its competitors will have trouble matching. Read more »
The vast majority of solar cells today generate electricity by facing the sun, but what if you could engineer their backside to make use of reflected light as well? That’s the idea underlying the technology of bSolar, an Israeli startup who recently launched the so-called bifacial solar cells. Read more »
There is still not a solar panel capable of displacing electricity from fossil fuels. Disruption calls for smart innovation; several companies are ready for the challenge. The clear winner will be the solar-energy player that breaks new records in solar efficiency without the breaking the bank. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Materials giant 3M has a new battery innovation that could deliver gadgets that could run for 40 percent longer without being charged, or could be significantly smaller with standard battery life. Read more »
The industry has moved beyond starry-eyed soothsaying about a world of 50 billion connected devices to start talking about how these mammoth networks of objects and appliances would actually work and how they would be managed. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The solar industry has begun 2012 with some trepidation, with many on the warpath to cut costs and reduce output. These moves give the market a chance to reduce inventories and get production more in sync with demand. But recovery will likely come slowly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
At just 2.5 years old, Andreessen Horowitz, the VC firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has become a tech industry institution with holdings in Facebook, Twitter, and more. GigaOM talked with Andreessen to get his thoughts on Silicon Valley and the larger tech landscape. Read more »
Both mobile and high performance computing are placing huge power efficiency and performance demands on chips, but the real $64,000 question is how long until such extreme computing use cases hit the server mainstream. Asked another way, how long till Amazon adopts ARM-based servers? Read more »
Thermoelectric materials hold the promise of turning waste heat into electricity, but they haven’t been widely used because of high costs. Startup Alphabet Energy says it’s solving those problems by using common silicon and has lined up $12 million to finalize its first product. Read more »
Solar silicon maker Calisolar is laying off about 80 employees in its Silicon Valley factory as part of its shift in business focus, the company said on Wednesday. The layoff represents about 23 percent of the company’s labor force globally. Read more »
Solar technology startup Solyndra, which has raised more than $1.5 billion in private and government funds, has suspended manufacturing and laid off 1,100 full-time and temporary employees. We conducted a survey and asked GigaOM readers for their views on the fallout of Solyndra’s decision to file for bankruptcy and what the future holds for the company. This research examines the survey’s results. It also includes an analysis of Solyndra’s struggles over the past two years to move into mass production, and to do it amidst difficult and volatile economic conditions. Companies mentioned in this report include Evergreen Solar, First Solar and SpectraWatt. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In late 2007, Evergreen Solar hit an all-time high with a $9.8 billion market cap. Less than four years later, it has filed for bankruptcy, with its secured debtors trying to recoup $165 million in notes from an asset fire sale. Its unsecured debtors, meanwhile, pray ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
SeaMicro, a low-power server maker, has managed to increase the amount of computing power under its hood by 50 percent while decreasing the power consumption of its machines by a quarter. But perhaps most interesting, it has managed three new products in the last year. Read more »
In Silicon Valley, history often repeats itself. Most often it’s the tale of a startup that captures the attention of millions and topples its bigger, incumbent competitors. Then it becomes hated monopoly, despised for the control it wields. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, this ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s taken a full year and upward of $700 million in acquisitions, but CA Technologies (yes, it’s a new moniker) finally delivered on its cloud-computing strategy with several major product announcements. The Cloud-Connected Management Suite — the centerpiece of CA’s announcements — leverages pieces of technology ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
“Inventing disruptive manufacturing innovations is every bit as hard as inventing new materials,” says Frank van Mierlo, President and co-founder of 1366 Technologies. Solar power, if it’s going to compete on cost with coal and other fossil fuels, needs both. It’s on that premise that 1366, […] Read more »
You know the solar industry is hurting when a startup with a promising cell manufacturing technology turns to systems integration to stay afloat. That’s the recent story of Blue Square Energy, which was launched to develop and manufacture low-cost solar cells using upgraded metallurgical-grade (UMG) silicon […] Read more »
