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Oregon Scientific is preparing for the fall season by announcing four new products in its weather station lineup. First, the Daylight Weather Projection Clock ($129.99) features a projector that shines the current time, outdoor temp, and weather forecast on the ceiling or the wall. In order to get the weather, place the included remote wireless sensor outdoors. Weather is shown in icons for sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, rain, or snow.

With an Apple-like design, the Ultra-Thin Weather Station ($89.99) provides the indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity (with the included remote wireless sensor) and also features a calendar and alarm with snooze. Since it’s an atomic clock, you’ll never need to adjust the time for Daylight Saving Time.

The Emergency Radio Desktop Weather Station ($124.99) monitors emergency broadcasts in your area. You have the ability to select which counties you want to receive emergency alerts for, up to nine. You’ll also receive temperature, humidity, weather forecast, and barometric pressure data. Forecasts are displayed 12 to 24 hours in advance. There’s even an Ice Warning function in which an icon flashes when outdoor conditions near freezing temperatures.

Finally, the Basic Weather Station with USB Upload ($89.99) displays the Atomic time, indoor/outdoor temp and humidity, 12-hour future forecast, ice alert, weather warnings, and moon phase. What’s unique about this weather station is that you can connect it to your PC via USB and track the changes in weather with the included software.

All four products will be available soon. In the meantime, you can sign up to be notified when each product is available.

Original post by Jen the Weird Hunter

Filed under: Desktops

If it’s Thursday, then it must be time for more AMD rumors - this time a few different sources report the chipmaker’s given its channel partners the high sign indicating “Kuma” dual-core Phenom-based processors will finally see the light of day. For those too shy to indulge in triple- or even quad-core action, El Reg says Phenom X2 dual core chips will range from 2.3GHz to 1.90 Ghz, sporting 1MB L2 cache and 2MB L3 cache for. Freaky 3-core overclockers can look forward to new, better performing 2.4Ghz Black Edition Phenom 8750s, and more efficient 125-watt Phenom 9950 CPUs, if we can trust leaked German sales charts — and we always do, don’t you?

Read - The Register
Read - PC Perspective

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Original post by Richard Lawler

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

AMD wasn’t kidding around about trimming and down and driving hard after profitability. The company just struck up a deal with Broadcom to swap its TV-chip unit for $192.8 million in cash to help fight debt and seek out profitability. Broadcom is getting 530 AMD employees out of the deal and AMD’s considerable experience in the digital TV chipset game, which will become the “core” of Broadcom’s line in that market. The deal should close by the end of the year, and is unrelated to AMD’s efforts to spin off its foundry biz.

[Thanks, Keith L]

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Loyal All-in-Wonder users from years past have probably been watching the progression of AMD’s revised version of the card with extreme interest. After such an absence, however, we understand the need to be cautious before snapping this up for your upcoming HTPC. HotHardware recently received one of these units for testing, and while it was only deemed “entry level” in the gaming department, the multimedia performance was smiled upon. To quote, “the [card] did an excellent job presenting digital video content in a quality manner without creating excessive power consumption in order to do so.” As expected, the unit wasn’t recommend for everyone (read: non-TV buffs), but those who′d utilize the built-in ClearQAM support probably can’t go wrong for $199. Hit the read link for a whole gaggle of test results.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

AMD’s going through some rough times, no doubt about it, but for fanboys of the CPU maker (wait, do CPU fanboys still exist?) here’s your feel-good story of the year. The always-thorough Tom’s Hardware has pit Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor against AMD’s Athlon 64 2000+, and the results just might surprise you. The 1GHz Athlon (with a core voltage of 0.90 volts and a power draw of just 8 watts) managed to best the aforementioned Atom in both energy consumption and processing power tests. The gurus at Tom’s credited the more modern 790G platform and the highly efficient K8 architecture as big players in the Athlon’s strong showing, finally deeming said chip “more economical, faster and quieter” than the Atom. We know you′re in disbelief — good thing there are 14 pages of proof waiting in the read link.

[Thanks, Carl]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Alienware has already stuffed NVIDIA’s top-end GTX 280 graphics card into its Area-51 desktop, but if that’s not your thing, you can rest assured that company is now offering the high-end comforts of ATI’s Radeon HD 4870 X2 as well. That option, which Alienware helpfully reminds us offers 2.4 teraflops of graphics power, is available in the company’s Area-51, Area-51 ALX, and Aurora desktops, each of which also offer the even pricier option of dual HD 4870 X2 cards in a CrossFireX configuration. To go for that latter bit of excess, however, you’ll also have to bump the power supply up to a full 1,200 watts, although we’re guessing that won’t be too much of a concern for anyone considering going this route.

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Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Those AMD breakup rumors are back with a bullet this morning thanks to some chatty sources speaking to TG Daily. Though this one can hardly be called rumor since it was AMD’s own freshman CEO, Dirk Meyer (pictured), who said that AMD was “just months away” from spinning off its manufacturing and fabrication business into a separate entity. TGD’s sources claim that an announcement is indeed planned for next month in fruition of its Asset Light and Asset Smart strategies. With it, we’ll see Meyer take over the development of chip technologies while someone else (possibly Hector Ruiz, who recently shed his CEO role but stayed on as the board’s chair) taking responsibilities of manufacturing. Let’s just hope that they can get past this distraction in short order — a strong, focused AMD is good for the industry and that’s good for us consumers.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Gaming

Looks like all the Cinema 2.0 fuss that AMD has been blustering about with its new R𕋲-based GPUs is fully warranted. The benchmarks are in and AMD’s new $549 ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 — what AMD calls the “world’s fastest graphics card” — is an out and out screamer, besting the best cooked up over at NVIDIA thanks to that RV770 GPU pair nuzzled up next to 2GB of GDDR5 memory. As noted by PC Perspective, the new champ, “is able to run away from NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 280 1GB card handily. Our various game tests proved this - Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and GRID showed big gains for AMD′s new card at resolutions 2,048 x 1,536 and 2,560 x 1,600,” though performance gains are less dramatic as resolutions drop to 1,600 x 1,200. Not that any self-respecting gamer would push so few pixels. CrossFireX performance was disappointing, however, as the systems didn′t scale well when going from 2 to 4 GPUs. In fact, Crysis seemed to barely notice the additional CrossFireX horsepower, something that should be corrected with future driver releases. Make no mistake though, as power-hungry, expensive, and hot-running as the new HD 4870 Ͳ may be, it’s a big day for AMD as it retakes the graphics crown from NVIDIA, as short-lived as this victory may be.

Read — HotHardware
Read — PCPer
Read — Tweaktown
Read — CustomPC
Read — AMD press release

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Sure, times might be tough at AMD, but that’s not stopping the crew at ATI from gunning for NVIDIA’s newest gear — the company just announced the new HD Radeon 4850 X2 and 4870 X2. Aimed at the “super high-end” of the market, the $399 4850 X2 and $599 4870 X2 feature two GPU chips on a 625 or 750MHz bus, respectively, with up to 2GB of 900MHz GDDR5 RAM. ATI says that there’s a 20 percent overhead from pairing up the processors, so the X2s should offer 180 percent of the single GPU cards — certainly enough to outgun a single NVIDIA GTX 280, and reportedly enough to match a dual-280 setup depending on the game. We’ll see for sure when the inevitable flood of benchmarks hits when these bad boys arrive next month — any gamers out there going to take the plunge?

Read - ExtremeTech
Read - CNET

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

AMD’s got a new performance-per-dollar platform for running Phenom processors without breaking the bank. The 790GX is being positioned right below AMD’s top of the line 790FX, with a typical motherboard built around the technology costing around $355. Primary advantages of the chipset include Advanced Clock Calibration, which allows Phenom speeds of 3.2GHz and up, and ATI Radeon HD 3300 integrated graphics — though of course you can ramp up to discreet graphics or CrossFireX if you’re really feeling it. The folks at HotHardware already took a chipset for a spin, and while it won’t be besting the best from Intel, it seems to be showing some strong leadership in its price category compared to related Intel and NVIDIA technologies. It’s shipping now.

Read - AMD PR
Read - Hot Hardware review

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

In yet more news about the perpetually forthcoming Fusion CPU / GPU combos from AMD, new details have been leaked regarding the chips′ sizes, configurations, and other bits of insufferably tedious details that only Professor Frink could truly love. According to this latest report, the “first” Fusion processor will be called “Shrike,” sport a dual-core Phenom CPU, an ATI RV800 GPU, and a footprint of just 40nm. Another chip, codenamed “Falcon,” will debut in 2010 at a 32nm size, based around a platform known as “Bulldozer,” and will be launched to combat Intel’s 32nm offering. Of course, we’ve been hearing about these chips since 2006, so we’re not exactly on the edge of our seats hearing new details of what essentially amounts to vaporware.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

While it may not all be his doing, newly-minted AMD CEO Dirk Meyer seems to be at the center of more than a bit of confusion in his first few days on the job. First, he detailed AMD’s plans to take on Intel’s Atom processor this fall, which was apparently news to AMD’s Chief Marketing Officer, and now AMD is denying a report that AMD is set to spin off its manufacturing operations into a separate company, which arose out of an interview Meyer gave to the Austin American-Statesman. In it, Meyer reportedly said that AMD was “just months away” from spinning off its fabrication business, which would let it concentrate on designing, marketing and selling chips, and allow it to compete more effectively against its two big rivals: Intel and NVIDIA. As eWEEK reports, however, an AMD spokesperson now says that Meyer was referring simply to “how the company manufactures its wafers,” which could possibly be a reference to the company’s planned shift to a 45-nanometer manufacturing process. That’s quite a difference, and we’re guessing we’ll be hearing yet more “clarification” on the matter before all is said and done.

Read - Austin American-Statesman, “New AMD chief sees clear path to recovery”
Read - eWEEK, “AMD Denies Fab Sell-Off”

[Thanks, Chris]

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Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Laptops

Freshfaced AMD CEO Dirk Meyer hyped the firm’s upcoming Atom-challenging processor the other day, calling it “Bobcat,” and promising a November reveal. We’d think he’d be the guy to know, but now we’re hearing seemingly conflicting words from AMD’s Chief Marketing Officer, Nigel Dessau. Dessau says AMD is “watching… rather than playing” to see what becomes of the netbook segment. As Ars Technica points out, Dirk Meyer was only promising to announce a chip in November, not release one, so perhaps both of these statements are in step with each other, or maybe they’re just thinking of different processor applications altogether, but for a company that’s lacked a clear focus and a true Intel killer for the past couple of years, this sort of potential doublethink isn’t helping anything.

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Laptops

Freshfaced AMD CEO Dirk Meyer hyped the firm’s upcoming Atom-challenging processor the other day, calling it “Bobcat,” and promising a November reveal. We’d think he’d be the guy to know, but now we’re hearing seemingly conflicting words from AMD’s Chief Marketing Officer, Nigel Dessau. Dessau says AMD is “watching… rather than playing” to see what becomes of the netbook segment. As Ars Technica points out, Dirk Meyer was only promising to announce a chip in November, not release one, so perhaps both of these statements are in step with each other, or maybe they’re just thinking of different processor applications altogether, but for a company that’s lacked a clear focus and a true Intel killer for the past couple of years, this sort of potential doublethink isn′t helping anything.

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It looks like Angstrom Power is working on more than just fuel cells for MOTOSLVR L7 prototypes, with the company now also touting its G2 portable fuel cell power source that promises to keep a whole range of gadgets charged up. This one packs eight V60 Fuel Cell Modules that combine to provide a full two watts of power, which can be used to top off any device that charges via a USB connection. According to Angstrom, the G2 itself can also be replenished “in minutes,” either by using an Angstrom P2 Portable Refueling Cartridge or an R1 Refueling Station, though it can apparently withstand “several charges” before it needs to be refueled. No word on pricing or availability just yet, but it seems safe to bet that it’ll show up before those fuel cell-powered cellphones, which are apparently still on track for a release somewhere in the neighborhood of 2010.

[Via Gizmo Watch]

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Original post by Donald Melanson