devices

ARM looks to refrigerators, medical devices with new chip

With the smartphone and tablet markets firmly in its grasps, ARM Holdings is looking elsewhere to capitalize on its growth.

The chip designer yesterday announced its new ARM Cortex-M0+ processor. The chip is designed for intelligent sensors and smart control systems in a host of markets, including home appliances, medical monitoring, and motor-control devices.

The secret to the Cortex-M0+'s market appeal is its energy-efficiency, ARM says. The company is calling the chip "the world's most energy-efficient microprocessor," consuming just one-third of the energy of any 8- or 16-bit processor. However, ARM claims the processor can deliver … Read more

Sprint wants all your wireless connections, from phones to dog collars

Sprint Nextel wants to be the king of the hill when it comes to providing a cellular connection to any device, whether it is a heart monitor or a dog collar.

Sprint plans to do this not just by offering a wireless connection, but also through a broad offering of advice, maintenance, and other services--supplied by both Sprint and a wide array of partners. It's a proposition the company believes AT&T and Verizon Wireless can't match.

Those are bold words for a company that isn't exactly viewed as a leader in the emerging devices business. … Read more

Device & Conquer: Distracted Driving

Distracted Driving: Is it the scourge of public safety, or the new normal? What we know is that it's here and its going to grow. Fast.

In this episode of Device & Conquer, Brian Cooley gives us a quick look at the history of understanding distracted driving, what you can do to take control of reducing it in your life, and how the U.S. government may step in to handle that for you. It's the story of driving today. … Read more

Google saves searches across devices with 'recent' icon

Google announced today that people's searches can be saved via Google.com across several devices using a new "recent" icon. This new software aims to help people who search for a restaurant, shop, or other information on their computer to see that same search on their smartphone or any other Web-ready device.

"We provide this new convenience feature for users who have Web History enabled and are logged into Google when doing their search," Google software engineer Junichi Uekawa wrote in a blog post today. "Next time you are heading to a place you … Read more

AMD to acquire microserver vendor SeaMicro--a user of Intel chips

Advanced Micro Devices will acquire server vendor SeaMicro in an attempt to make a run at Intel in the microserver market.

AMD said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SeaMicro, a company that supplies energy-efficient microservers, for approximately $334 million.

To date, SeaMicro servers have been using Intel's Atom and Xeon processors. Future plans call for SeaMicro to build servers with AMD's Opteron chips.

"AMD plans to offer the first AMD Opteron processor-based solutions that combine AMD and SeaMicro technology in the second half of 2012. The company remains firmly committed to its traditional server … Read more

Lab on a chip puts the pressure on a parasite

Researchers in Canada say they've built a device that will help them study changes in red blood cells caused by the most common species of malaria parasites, plasmodium falciparum, which causes the most lethal form of a disease that claims almost a million lives every year.

The microfluidic device, which is just 1 x 2 inches, is not a diagnostic tool but rather a way to test potential treatments--a crucial step in the fight against malaria, which is constantly evolving to develop resistance to drugs.

Typically, human red blood cells squeeze through capillaries that are narrower than the cells … Read more

Find device drivers with Unknown Device Identifier

When you install or reinstall hardware, peripherals, and even software, Windows sometimes doesn't recognize the changes. Huntersoft's Unknown Device Identifier is a free tool that scans your PC to identify any devices that Windows doesn't recognize. It can also find and install drivers for devices.

As luck would have it, one of our test PCs had some recent upgrades that left it unable to recognize a digital camera's driver--just the sort of job for Unknown Device Driver. The program started scanning our system as soon as we opened it, displaying the results in a list view. … Read more

Best Buy and eBay CEOs tell mobile operators they need to change

BARCELONA, Spain--Wireless operators need to stop locking devices and offering overly complicated data plans. That's the message from Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn and eBay CEO John Donahoe here at Mobile World Congress.

Dunn and Donahoe took the stage today as part of a panel discussion about mobile payments. While the CEOs talked a lot about how shopping and payments are changing thanks to mobile devices, they also took a few jabs at wireless operators, challenging them to become more open to help spur greater adoption of their services across a broad range of devices.

While the mobile phone … Read more

Implantable device propels itself through bloodstream

As implantable medical devices become smaller and less power hungry, they are taking on a variety of new roles. What began as largely stationary objects, such as pacemakers and cochlear implants, are becoming small enough to actually pass through our bodies (i.e. in the form of pills) to deliver drugs and perform diagnostics.

Now, a new class of medical devices is emerging that adds a twist to the traditional implant: the devices are so small that they can travel through our bloodstream, not to mention are powered wirelessly via electromagnetic radio waves, according to Stanford electrical engineer Ada Poon.

By moving through the bloodstream, these tiny implants will be able to perform minor surgeries such as removing blood clots, Poon told an audience at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco this week.… Read more