Back in Backplanes: Backblaze unveils 180TB Storage Pod 4.5

Massive backup company Backblaze has published an updated spec for its Storage Pod container system, and the new 4.5 system contains multiple changes compared to the previous version. We’ve previously covered Backblaze’s hard drive reliability reports, including the company’s decision to release its entire set of data for any one to examine. But it doesn’t just give information on reliability — it provides details on how it builds massive containers for 180TB hard drive configurations.

The major change with Storage Pod 4.5 is the return to backpanes
. With Storage Pod 4.0, Backblaze had explicitly junked the backplane approach, claiming that previous designs that used high-density port multipliers to hit capacity targets had suffered from poor reliability and high prices. When a backplane would fail, it would affect every drive on the plane, not just one — and apparently the planes failed rather frequently. Storage Pod 4.0 connected 45 hard drives directly to three Highpoint Rocket 750 cards. Now, with Storage Pod 4.5, the company is moving back to backplanes, this time powered by the Marvell 9715 chipset.

Backblaze doesn’t come right out and say it, but the implication is that this direct wire method proved to be a great deal of trouble. The company refers to growing pains and says it worked for several months to get the design right, but was stuck trying to deploy SP 4.0 systems despite not having worked all the kinks out of the design. The implication is that it was less expensive to move back to the old way of doing things, rather than continue trying to solve the routing challenges of 45 SATA drives per chassis.

Moving to the new design further trims costs, down to less than 5 cents per GB.

Other updates are in the new design, like a very small CPU uptick, to a Core i3-2120 from the Core i3-2100. The Core i3-3240 has also been evaluated and found to work perfectly. Virtually any Intel Core-class processor should work for a system like this, though Backblaze notes it’s only tested these three chips.

So what’s it cost to roll your own 180TB array?

Here’s the really surprising part: Building a 180TB-capable storage array is cheap, not counting the storage.

Ok, it’s not “Pizza and beer” cheap — but Backblaze’s official retail cost for everything, soup-to-nuts, including power supplies, screws, foam tape, and a single 80GB boot drive is just $2,222.74. That doesn’t count assembly time or configuration once the system is booted, but $2,200 is a remarkably low price for an enclosure that can house this much sheer storage volume.

ET deals: Lenovo quad-core desktop PC for $700

If you’re in the market for a nice powerful desktop, check out this K450e desktop PC from Lenovo. It comes decked out with plenty of storage and RAM already, but the potential for expandability is vast. Even better, the case was designed to be accessed without any tools, so you can add a new graphics card or swap out the RAM quickly and easily.

On the inside, this machine has a lot to offer as it is. It sports a quad-core 3.6GHz fourth generation Intel Core i7-4790 CPU, integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a 2TB solid-state hybrid drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi support, and a DVD burner. It also comes with a wired keyboard, a wired mouse, four USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a seven-in-one card reader, an HDMI port, a VGA port, a DVI port, a mic input, a line-out, and a S/PDIF connection.

Normally, this configuration sells for $999, but we found a deal that can save you a lot of coin. Simply use the coupon code “USPK403226” during checkout, and your subtotal will sink to just $699.99 — a whopping 30% off. Shipping is free as well, so don’t miss this opportunity to get a top-notch PC on the cheap.

If you’re worried about the Superfish vulnerability recently associated with Lenovo products, fear not. That particular piece of software was only installed on certain laptops — not desktop PCs. Even so, Lenovo has ceased using Superfish, and now offer a removal tool on its website. Superfish was definitely a bad thing, but it’s not an issue in this instance.

Top 10 tech cars of the Geneva Auto Show

The Geneva Auto Show is important to Switzerland because the country doesn’t have much of an auto industry. So there’s no hometown favoritism the way there is in Frankfurt, Detroit, or Beijing. The 2015 Geneva show is more relevant to North America than ever before, with significant cars that will be coming to the US within the next year. A lot of them are crossovers or small SUVs. Americans with lots of gear to carry and a narrow garage, small parking space, or constrained budget that allows only for a compact car, find small SUVs have as much or more space than a midsize sedan. Not coincidentally, compact SUVs just overtook midsize sedans as the biggest market segment in the US.

Still, tradition dies hard, and Geneva is the show best known for quarter-million-dollar automotive eye candy from Ferrari and Lamborghini as well as smaller players you’ve probably never heard from. There are American supercars being shown in Europe, most of all the Ford GT supercar introduced in January at the Detroit show, as well as the more mainstream Ford Mustang. Thanks to European laws that tax cars heavily with big-displacement engines, a Mustang V8 may sell there for $100,000 or more. Here are the 10 most intriguing cars of the 85th Geneva International Motor Show.

BMW 2 Series Tourer: front-drive, three-row mini-minivan

The BMW 2 Series Active Tourer introduces the world to front-drive BMWs that aren’t called Mini. It is 171 inches long (4,340 mm), making it a sub-compact crossover 10 inches shorter than the Honda CR-V. What’s more, the entry model uses a turbocharged three-cylinder engine, though the US version instead gets the step-up 228 hp turbo four. In terms of competition, it maps closely to the Mercedes-Benz b-Class gas/diesel compact crossover that is available in the US as an electric vehicle.

Mechanically, the Active Tourer is closely related to the Mini Cooper. BMW is splitting the development cost with its Mini subsidiary, just as the pending Rolls-Royce SUV circa 2018 will be based on the BMW X7 SUV due in 2016. In terms of seating, it’s like the BMW X5 in that it has three rows of seats. Or like the 182-inch (4,630 mm) Nissan Rogue, currently the most compact three-row SUV. You could alsmost call this Bimmer the 2 Series Baby Gran Tourer. When the third row is folded, there’ll be decent Costco-shopping cargo capacity.

BMW calls this miniature van a 2 Series — “2 Series” until now being the two-door coupe version of the 1 Series, which is a downsized variant of the best selling 3 Series. So 2 Series means coupe … and now it also means crossover-SUV-SAV (BMW’s term)-tall wagon-small van. This is a problem of BMW’s own making, when every Bimmer introduced since the 1970s has a prefix between 1 and 8, with only the 9 Series available, unless BMW wants to sell a 0 Series.

Why the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer matters: Compact SUVs (CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Ford Ford Escape) and subcompact SUVs (Honda HR-V,Mazda CX-3) are hot. BMW offers a taller vehicle with higher levels of fit-and-finish, and more leather, more tech, and a premium price for downsizing baby boomers, who still want upscale vehicles, or for new families wanting something worthy of hauling baby Emma and her $900 Bugaboo stroller. It will also be as tech-heavy as any crossover this size. iDrive? Of course.

Infiniti QX30: another concept subcompact SUV

Ever since Mercedes-Benz shipped its subcompact crossover GLA last fall, others have been ramping up, including the mainstream Honda HR-V and Mazda CX-3. Now comes the Infiniti QX30, shown at Geneva as a concept vehicle, but almost certainly going into production and coming to the US. At 174 inches (4,430 mm), it straddles the realm of subcompact crossover (around 170 inches) and compact crossover (180 inches-plus). Infiniti calls it a premium compact crossover. Based on the exterior photos, Infiniti willingly trades cargo capacity for a swoopy profile view. On the concept car at least, there are no visible door handles.

As a premium vehicle, expect a wide array of driver aids (blind spot detection, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise). It should go into production this year along with the Infiniti Q30, a concept dating to the 2013 Frankfurt auto show and described as a hatchback vehicle. From photos, the two look more like fraternal twins.

The BMW 2 Series Active Tourer Gran Coupe is a taller and more practical vehicle.

Why the Infiniti QX30 matters: Compact crossovers are a small and rapidly growing market, aimed at capturing sedan buyers looking for more room. Infiniti and parent Nissan have been on a roll with their designs lately. It joins the Mercedes GLA, Lexus NX, and the pricy Porsche Macan as premium offerings, with many more mainstream compact crossovers.

Audi Q7 E-Tron Quattro: 138 mph plug-in hybrid diesel

Audi introduced its next generation Audi Q7 full-size SUV at the Detroit auto show in January, shedding 700 pounds in weight. In Geneva, it again showed the Q7 as a complex and potentially highly efficient drivetrain built around a diesel engine that is also a plug-in hybrid. A hybrid electric motor gets you a mile or two running on battery, perfect for stop and go city driving. It also serves as an additional turbocharger to accelerate the car faster. A plug-in hybrid with its bulkier battery pack returns 20-plus miles of range, good for 90-plus percent of daily driving.

A diesel is the most efficient engine for long-cruising. Even a 4,400-pound, 200-inch (5,080 mm) juggernaut such as the new Q7 might return 30-plus US mpg in highway cruising and the Q7 might run 600-800 miles on diesel. On a European driving cycle economy test, Audi says it rates a combined combustion engine / electric motor measurement of 138 mpg.

Combine those and you’ve got the ultimate vehicle for all uses. A big SUV is especially friendly to plug-in hybrid batteries because there are more places to stash them without compromising passenger or luggage space. The price may be in the range of $70,000.

Why the Audi Q7 E-Tron Quattro: A hybrid or plug-in hybrid for efficient local driving combined with a diesel for long hauls is a natural. Thank you, Audi.

Lexus LF-SA: Extending the brand around the globe

Compact or subcompact SUV/crossovers are hot, as you’ve heard a lot recently. Lexus started as a USA brand, so the new cars could be sold in separate, treat-customers-good-or-else selling environments. Now on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, Lexus wants to better establish the brand around the globe, including Europe, where streets are narrower, garages smaller, and taxes (on engine displacement) higher.

Enter the Lexus LF-SA subcompact crossover concept, concept with a capital C. There is, for instance, no indication of whether it’s powered by a combustion engine or electric motors. The driver seat is fixed, and the pedals and wheel move to meet the driver. The back seat is painfully cramped, the side glass is cut too low to meet side impact standards, and the design does not allow for much storage. (That’s why they call it a concept.) It’s easy to imagine the LF-SA’s 136 inch (3,440 mm) length growing a bit, sitting as it does now 2.5 feet longer than a Smart car and 2 feet shorter than a Honda Fit, so there are potential versions for USA urban dwellers and city people in really cramped cities. This concept shows Lexus designs will be respected once we’ve had time to digest them.

BMW and Toyota (parent to Lexus) are also collaborating on a 2018 sports car. In the gray-taupe-black colors of the Geneva show floor model, you’d be forgiven for wondering if this is also a joint venture, i.e. Lexus working with the BMW i3 design team and everybody dropped acid. The result: an urban runabout for Bruce Wayne when the Batmobile is in the shop.

Why the Lexus LF-SA matters: Lexus flexes its brand image worldwide with a small-car concept more attuned to huge European or Asian cities (New York isn’t crowded when you’ve been to Beijing). It will matter in the US if there’s a stretch version. Otherwise, it’s resigned to Smart-car sales levels.

Volkswagen Sport Coupe Concept GTE: sporty coupe, plug-in hybrid

To make for more desirable cars, Volkswagen plans to move forward in two directions: a comfortable-not-cramped sporty coupe, and a plug-in hybrid. VW did both with a single car announced in Geneva, the Volkswagen VW Sport Coupe Concept GTE. VW sees the buyer as youthful and concerned about the environment. VW made this a four-not-two-door coupe, 192 inches long, about the same as a Mercedes-Benz E-Class, or a Ford Fusion.

The cockpit is dazzling. The instrument panel is a 12-inch color LCD. The center stack is a 10-inch LCD, as big as in anything except Tesla and BMW. The car adapts itself via reading biometric data from the driver, and “the sole purpose is to experience maximum driving enjoyment.” Huh? The VW driver is wearing a smartwatch or armband biometric reader; the car grabs the information — with permission, danke — digests your condition, and “decides … whether to select a route that includes an exciting country road or a gentle route instead.” Germans have a reputation for being punctual, but “time and distance are secondary factors here. … the sole purpose is to experience maximum driving enjoyment.”

Whether you mach schnell on the Autobahn or smell the flowers meandering through Alpine passes, you’ll be getting good fuel economy. The concept car uses a 3.0-liter V6 engine with 295 hp driving the front wheels, front and rear electric motors, and lithium-ion batteries in the center tunnel. The Concept Coupe can reach 155 mph, hit 60 mph in five seconds, and in combined gas/electric drive, attain 118 mpg on the Europen Cycle economy test, and 32-plus miles in electric-only mode

Why the Volkswagen Sport Coupe Concept GTE matters: The concept represents VW’s future design language. VW is now into plug-in hybrids. And it’s exploring ways to work the driver’s mood and attentiveness into the driving equation.

Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce: a race car with license plates

We said Geneva has no home-market auto manufacturing market to speak of. But it does have a regular-visitor home team of sorts: Wealthy international buyers who spend time and money here. Some want to see high-end cars, and Geneva obliges. Here are examples:

For the affluent, $400,000 is not too dear for this 2015 Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce (above). This Lamborghini is not your usual daily driver car, and the Superveloce even less so because infotainment is banished — ditto the carpets and insulating pieces to make for a faster car. Carbon fiber is used in the monocoque (body shell), air intakes, rear wing, bucket seats, door panels, and fenders. Ask nicely and the dealer throws in a pair of earplugs so you won’t go deaf ripping off the 2.8-second 0-60 mph run.

Why the Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce matters: Some people want to go ever faster, and they’re willing to buy a car with almost no creature comforts.

Ferrari 488GTB: turbocharing returns to mid-engine Ferraris

The Ferrari 488GTB is the first mid-engine V8 Ferrari in decades with a turbocharged engine, as well as a seven-speed double-clutch gearbox, and underbody “vortex generators” to improve downforce and stability using technology tricks learned in, then banned from, Formula 1 racing. Knowing that not everyone with the money for a Ferrari is a world-class driver, electronics play a part: The second-generation Side Slip Control System oversees traction control, an electronically controlled differential, and active dampers (shocks). Price? Around a quarter-million dollars. It’s a more docile car than the Lambo. By far.

Why the Ferrari 488GTB  matters: This is the future. Ferraris from here on out will all have turbocharging — that or they’ll be hybrids.

Mercedes-Maybach Pullman: rides, reads like it’s on rails

Mercedes-Benz threw in the towel on its Maybach brand three years ago. It couldn’t compete against Rolls-Royce, selling just 3,000 cars 2002-2013. (Tip: They’re a great deal, used.) Now it’s back as a Mercedes-Maybach brand, with the Mercedes-Maybach Pullman limousine, Pullman (as in train sleeper car) being another Mercedes sub-brand from time to time. It measuring 6.5 meters, 21.3 feet, or 256 inches, or more than two Smart cars end to end. It’s based on the Mercedes-Benz s-Class, and you can see the family resemblance at the two ends. In the middle, pure hedonism. There will be an armored version, of course, for hip-hop stars, heads of state, and others who rubbed other people the wrong way. You know if you ask the price, you can’t afford it. (It’s $1 million.)

For millionaires on a budget, there’s also a Mercedes-Maybach S600 sedan that is a stretched version of the long-wheelbase version of the Mercedes S-Class. This one is closer to $200,000.

Why the Mercedes-Maybach Pullman matters: Who else but Mercedes to transport the top 1% of the upper 1%?

Audi R8 / R8 E-tron: 610 hp V10 or EV with more battery than Tesla

The Audi R8 doesn’t sceam “supercar” when you see the unassuming design, including now the skin of the next generation R8, a 2017 model. That would be a mistake, unless you’re driving something that can match and raise the R8’s 610 hp V10 normally aspirated engine (meaning: no turbocharger or supercharger), just 5.2 liters of displacement.The engine is for your inner Dodge Viper owner: big, quick, almost brutal on acceleration. Audi says the new composite body shell is 15% lighter as well as 40% stronger than that of the previous model.

As for the gentler side of you, there’s a second Audi R8, the E-tron, an electric vehicle. The new 2017 model model doubles Audi’s current EV battery range and, at 92 kWh, provides up to 285 miles of driving range. That;s  7 kWh beyond the Tesla Model S battery capacity and a bit ore range, too. For infotainment, Audi ditched the smallish (viewing area) center stack LCD, in favor of a big multifunction display in the center stack.

Why the Audi A8 matters: The combustion engine V10 gets its power the old-fashioned way: cubic inches of displacement, without involving turbochargers. The R8 e-TRON electric vehicle should go a long way resolving range anxiety.

Ford Focus RS: like a supercar, only cheaper

Here’s our ringer supercar: The Ford Focus RS, a compact supercar sedan slotted above, well above, the Ford Focus ST. Built in Europe, it will be shipped to the US, perhaps as a thank-you to Americans for keeping peace in the Middle East or for not wearing Bermuda shorts on European vacation. It has a 2.3-liter turbocharged (EcoBoost) four-cylinder engine, same as in the Mustang, developing more than 316 hp. Other Focuses are front-drive. This is all-wheel-drive, with the ability to send up to 70% of the torque (power) to the rear wheels.

Think this isn’t a supercar? Check these specs:

• Launch control for smarter-than-you-are standing starts. The traction control and ABS sensors modulate the throttle to eliminate wheelspin, and to prevent stalling out when you drop the clutch, since it allows you to floor the throttle but not overrev the engine.
• Drive modes: Normal, Sport, Track, and Drift modes. All this takes serious software and microprocessor smarts.
• Electronic torque vectoring (via braking the inside wheel) to steer you, under power, through a corner.
• Brembo brakes and dedicated cooling ducts.

Competitors based on price will likely be the VW Golf Type R and Subaru WRX STI. Since the Focus ST is based-priced at $25,000, the Focus RS should sell on the high side of $30,000. In fact, it could cost more than the Ford Mustang EcoBoost Premium with the same four-cylinder engine as the Focus RS ($30,000), maybe more than the V8 Ford Mustang GT ($ 33,000). But a) You get more luggage and back seat space with the Focus and b) there won’t be many buyers cross-shopping Focus and Mustang.

Why the Ford Focus RS matters: A dozen supercars is the norm for Geneva. This cat-quick Q-ship of a compact sedan will catch a lot of motorists by surprise when it zooms past.

ET deals: Alienware X51 six-core gaming PC with liquid cooling for $2650

Looking for the ultimate gaming experience? You’re going to want to invest in a high-end gaming PC. Sure, the PS4, Xbox One, and low-end gaming rigs can play just about everything, but the frame rate and resolution definitely suffer. If you want to see your favorite games at their best, you need to drop some serious coin. Sure, you could build a gaming PC from scratch, but Alienware has already done the work for you, and we’ve even found a coupon.
This liquid-cooled Alienware Area-51 gaming PC is serious business, and it’s ready to go without any fiddling around. Plug it in, turn it on, install Steam, and you can finally see real next-generation gaming. It’s a substantial investment, but there are no compromises here. Crank up all the settings to Ultra, and enjoy.
So, what’s under the hood of this gaming powerhouse? It features an overclocked six-core Intel Core i7-5820K CPU, a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics card (with 4GB of GDDR5), 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive, a 2TB 7200RPM hard drive, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi support, and a DVD burner. Additionally, it includes six USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, an ethernet port, two microphone jacks, an audio line-in, one TOSLINK port, one coax audio output, one headphone jack, and a card reader.

Samsung on defense against Apple with the Galaxy S6

Samsung’s Galaxy S6, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday, looks like a really nice upgrade from the disappointing Galaxy S5 — which apart from a screen and camera resolution bump and some software refinements, was basically a GS4, and missed sales projections by up to 40 percent as a result.

That said, it’s almost impossible to look at the Galaxy S6 and not think “iPhone 6.” The Galaxy S6 takes several big cues from Apple’s recent upgrade — just as the latter company aped some of Samsung’s innovations the last time around. And so the cycle continues.

This has been a tit-for-tat for years. And there’s a reason for Samsung's almost brazen copying: iOS is now on top once again inU>S> smartphone share, for the first time in three years.

The most obvious thing Apple did in response to Samsung last September is to increase the size of the iPhone, as well as offer it in two sizes instead of just one. Some pundits have said they doubt Steve Jobs would have ever done this, as he was clearly committed to the 4-inch (or 3.5-inch), one-handed design of all previous iPhones. The iPhone’s expanded notification bar and swipe-up settings also take cues from earlier Samsung phones, and iPhones now let you install third-party keyboards like Swype. (I’m mixing up hardware and software developments here, but with Apple, they’re basically one in the same, as Apple also controls iOS).

This time around, Samsung copied a number of iPhone 6 design elements, starting with the rounded, brushed metal edges. The bottom edge of the GS6 in particular is almost identical to the iPhone 6, from the speaker grille to the charger port and headphone jack. There’s no more removable battery or expandable microSD card slot, moves that are already lighting up the Internet with complaints. The GS6’s upgraded camera sticks out a bit on the back, just like with the two newest iPhones, although the back of the GS6 is made of Gorilla Glass 4 and not aluminum. And Samsung has added support for Samsung Pay, giving the company its own payment solution to compete with Apple Pay. (Neither phone has a sapphire screen.)

The Galaxy S6 Edge is more distinctive, and contains a refined, double-sided version of the previous Galaxy Note Edge. This is certainly an interesting design, and combined with the superlative resolution of the Galaxy S6 display, can result in some real software and UI innovations if Samsung keeps developing for it. I’m intensely curious to see how this variant sells.

That brings us to software. Samsung’s problem, and Android’s problem in general, is getting the app market in line. Developers continue to release for iOS first, for a variety of reasons. Android handsets have great appeal–a much wider variety of hardware configurations, and eminently configurable and hackable software. Samsung’s phones, for example, let you tune voice quality.

As for the other enhancements in the GS6, I’d argue they were mostly necessary. Google is trying to rein in the use of microSD cards; the whole app vs. media storage thing is confusing, and there’s no reason why phones can’t come with enough storage to begin with. The removable battery probably isn’t as big a deal, although Samsung has to make sure its various retail partners know how to replace the battery down the line as it loses capacity for charge.

In the end, I’d argue Samsung had to take some steps closer to the iPhone in order to remain competitive. I really like Samsung’s renewed focus on design, after years of plasticky handsets that looked and felt inferior to HTC and Apple models, even if they were superior in many cases. The move away from Qualcomm to its own Exynos proccesor is interesting, and should do a lot for Samsung’s bottom line. And it’s hard not to think that this GS6 is what the lukewarm GS5 refresh should have been.

Both the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are drool-worthy Android phones. It remains to be seen if Samsung — and Android in general — can gain back some U.S. market share from Apple as a result.

Poland’s new optical atomic clock will keep better time than all previous clocks

There is a new, super-accurate clock ticking away in National Laboratory for Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (KL FAMO) in Poland. Although, it’s not really ticking because this is an optical atomic clock, one of only a few in the world. It’s so accurate that it would take billions of years to reach an error of one second. To put it another way, if you started an optical atomic clock at the moment of the big bang, it would have lost about one-tenth of a second by now. Now that’s something you can set your watch by.

The new Polish clock is no desktop timepiece. It occupies four rooms at KL FAMO and has three main components — an atomic standard, an optical comb, and an high-precision laser. Optical atomic clocks are still very new technology, but they have the potential to be even more accurate than the traditional cesium fountain clocks used for time-based experiments all over the world. In past tests of optical atomic clocks, researchers have found they had no trouble keeping time to the standards of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Researchers chose to use strontium 88 atoms as the atomic standard in this clock. Strontium 88 is the most common isotope of the alkaline earth metal, but radioactive strontium 87 can be used in one of the two standard containment chambers for increased accuracy. Strontium 88 is stable with a half-life measured in billions of years. The atoms are suspended in a vacuum at below 10 microkelvins. To record the passage of time with these atomic standard, you simply shoot a laser at them. Okay, it’s not that simple.

The laser emits light at a frequency of 429 terahertz, illuminating the atoms. The frequency of the laser is tuned to match the oscillations of the atomic standard. That frequency is far too high to count electronically, thus you can’t use it to keep time directly. That problem is bypassed with the optical comb. The optical frequency comb (another type of pulsing laser) is used to fire extremely short bursts of light that can be synchronized with the high-frequency main laser. It basically translates the unreadable high-precision laser into radio frequencies, which can then be counted electronically.

There are a lot of components to fine tune and things to test before the KL FAMO clock will be ready for use in experiments. You can’t just flip a switch and turn this clock into one of the most accurate timepieces on the planet. The early data collected from the clock indicate that it is already the most accurate clock in Poland, which has a number of conventional atomic clocks. having a highly-accurate way of tracking the passage of time is of vital importance when testing aspects of general relativity and particle physics.

Intel finally agrees to pay $15 to Pentium 4 owners over AMD Athlon benchmarking shenanigans

Intel has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that claims the company “manipulated” benchmark scores in the early 2000s to make its new Pentium 4 chip seem faster than AMD’s Athlon. Intel will pay affected consumers $15 if they purchased a Pentium 4 system between November 20, 2000 and June 30, 2002. Affected systems include all systems with a Pentium 4 CPU purchased between November 20, 2000 and December 31, 2001 — and all systems with a first-gen Willamette P4 or all P4s clocked below 2GHz, between January and June 2002. The exception is Illinois — if you live in Illinois and bought a P4, too bad for you.

Don’t worry about digging up a receipt for the purchase — the only thing you’re required to do is list the model number of the system you bought, and you qualify for the $15 reimbursement . You are required to verify under penalty of perjury that you belong to the stated class, but that’s the extent of the problem. Intel will also make a $4 million donation to an education fund as part of its settlement.

Did benchmark manipulations impact AMD’s relative performance?

Short answer? Yes.

Longer answer: Yes, and we can prove it.

Let’s look at two cases. First, there’s Sysmark. AMD CPUs were extremely competitive in Sysmark 2000, but fell far behind the Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 in Sysmark 2001’s Internet Content Creation tests. An investigation turned up the reason why — instead of simply checking to see if a CPU supported SSE, Windows Media Encoder 7 checked for the “GenuineIntel” string. Since AMD chips didn’t have it, the program refused to use SSE for AMD’s processors.

At the time this was treated as an unusual case and once-off — not a systemic campaign to damage AMD’s performance in system benchmarks. In actual fact, this was an early example of Intel’s “Cripple AMD” compiler function in action. It didn’t matter if AMD chips actually supported SIMD instructions — programs compiled with Intel’s compiler would refuse to use those instructions on AMD processors. (Sysmark 2002 was redesigned to blatantly favor and promote the P4, but that’s another story altogether).

More troubling is the issue of POV-Ray 3.6.0, which prides itself on being open-source. While this program was released somewhat later, it dropped simultaneously with Prescott’s launch (2004). When I tested it ten years ago, I found its performance to be extremely odd — the included benchmark ran slower on both AMD and Intel Northwood hardware compared to POV-Ray 3.5, but Prescott was much quicker.

A tech journalist scorned…

I wrote about this and declared it an example of benchmark shenanigans. In response, POV-Ray declared that I was lying. In an open letter, POV-Ray wrote “Our source code is openly available. In fact if you had cared to you could have downloaded both the v3.5 and v3.6 source code from our FTP site and compared them for any such tweaks – something that you did not, it appears, do.”

The funny thing is, I did do that — but the programmer friend who helped me with Intel’s compiler could never reproduce the results in POV-Ray 3.6.0, despite compiling six different executables with different optimization levels in an attempt to do so.

Fast forward almost a decade. A few months ago, I decided to play with a Perl script that can strip the “Cripple AMD” functions out of executables compiled by Intel compilers. I tested it on the copy of POV-Ray 3.6.0 I’ve kept on hand ever since. Please note that I tested using modern hardware and under Windows 7, not a 2004-era system. Not only did it detect and strip out the “Cripple AMD” function, the impact on performance was rather dramatic. (Note: POV-Ray 3.5 was not compiled with an Intel compiler. POV-Ray 3.6.0 was.).

I want to stress that this doesn’t mean AMD’s performance was crippled by 50% in the original test — but it’s clear that contrary to what the POV-Ray team was saying then, the 3.6.0 version of the test was compiled in a manner that tilted the competitive landscape towards Intel. But surely that’s a one-time thing, right? An artifact from ten years past?

Well, no. Not exactly. I also took Sysmark 2012 out for a spin, and applied the same script to strip out the Cripple AMD function from both the benchmark and its satellite applications.

Even allowing for run variance, the gaps in some tests are far too wide. To be fair, this doesn’t necessarily point to Intel cheating, because all of these applications are the work of third parties. The Sysmark 2012.exe, still showed performance differences after I patched it (According to Bapco, the Sysmark 2012.exe is compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio, not ICC, but the same strings were still detected and adjusted). Not all the performance improvement comes from that change, however, which illustrates how complicated the performance-measuring field can be. It’s difficult to declare a benchmark “neutral” when the application it runs is compiled in a manner that benefits one vendor over another.

The principle reason no one makes a big deal about these gaps anymore is because the difference between Intel and AMD has simply grown too wide. An 8-12% systemic improvement for Intel may make AMD look worse than it otherwise would, but AMD’s performance in Sysmark 2012 can lag Intel by as much as 50% — and that’s not something that compiler patches can fix.

Not every benchmark compiled with Intel’s compiler shows evidence of this kind of shift — I tested every Cinebench test going back to 2000 on the A10-7850K, and while several executables were compiled with Intel’s compiler, none of them show any signs of performance difference when patched. But it’s interesting to see how compiler choices continue to influence the performance of supposedly neutral benchmarks.

Intel’s third-generation Xeon Phi to use 10nm technology, deploy second-generation Omni-Path fabric

Intel has announced that its third-generation Xeon Phi, codenamed Knights Hill, will deploy on 10nm technology and feature the second iteration of Intel’s Omni-Path fabric. Knights Hill is quite a ways out — Intel’s Knights Landing, which is based on 14nm technology, won’t launch until the summer of 2015, which means Knights Hill is likely a 2017 (or later) part.

Currently, Intel’s highest-end MIC (Many Integrated Core) is Knights Corner, a 22nm design with 50 or more cores and a design that derives from Intel’s classic Pentium (P54C), albeit with 512-bit AVX units and an entirely different memory architecture. Knights Landing will be built on 14nm and deploy the same Silvermont architecture that powers Intel’s Bay Trail. In a major departure, however, that future iteration of the core will support four threads per CPU — currently Silvermont doesn’t use Hyper-Threading at all.

Data on Knights Hill is currently extremely limited, but Intel is making the announcement now to reassure customers that there’s a roadmap stretching out beyond the Knights Landing product and the 14nm node. The first generation of Intel’s Omni-Path scaling architecture will debut next year. So far, Intel has focused on expanding the per-core capabilities of the Xeon Phi family rather than simply piling on more CPUs. Somewhere between 50-72 cores seems likely, though this could always creep up to 128 cores or more for the 10nm variant.

Future versions of the core will likely expand both the onboard memory pool (16GB is expected for Knights Landing; Knights Hill could pack 32GB or more), add additional bandwidth, and likely increase the interconnect performance between the CPU and the associated MIC. Intel might push its AVX standard up as high as 1024-bit registers, but this is unclear and likely depends on trends in the HPC community. Adding wider registers might seem like a simple way to boost performance, but it’s subject to the same diminishing returns as everything else. The current AVX specification allows for extensions of up to 1024 bits in length, however, so Intel has left this option open in the long term.

Knights Landing (the next card up for release) will feature on-package memory and the Silvermont core.

If Intel is introducing quad-threading into the Silvermont core for Knights Landing, it suggests that the company will keep this iteration of the CPU (and its multi-threading capabilities) for more than one generation. Whether it continues to build that capability out or whether the multi-threading is related to HT or uses a different type of resource allocation is still unknown. Companies like Sun and IBM have historically struck balances between the amount of threading in a core and its total single-thread throughput, and we expect Intel to do the same, even if Xeon Phi is explicitly designed for multi-threaded workloads.

Omni-Scale has been rebranded as Omni-Path, but the benefits are the same.

Omni-Path is Intel’s next-generation networking interconnect that offers up to 100Gbps of bandwidth and will rely on Intel’s silicon photonics technology for signaling. The new standard offers up to 48 ports per switch compared to 36 ports on other top-end standards, and is designed to lower the cost of huge build-outs by reducing the total number of switches. The longterm goal is to reduce latency and allow for more effective scaling as the industry pushes forwards towards the elusive exascale goal.

For now, however, it still seems that Nvidia has pulled ahead in the overall performance game. If K80 ships out before Knights Landing, it’ll give Nvidia a further lead. All of this is complicated by the fact that HPC users may or may not be interested in rewriting software to take advantage of new APIs — Intel and Nvidia have traded rhetorical shots on that topic before, and we don’t expect to see that change anytime soon.

Intel’s 14nm Broadwell chip reverse engineered, reveals impressive FinFETs, 13-layer design

When Intel announced the details on its 14nm process last year, it raised eyebrows in some circles by claiming some extremely aggressive scaling figures. Put simply, Intel stated that it would deliver a better 14nm process with superior characteristics, die size, and overall efficiency than any competitive product TSMC, its largest foundry competitor, would release on 20nm. This predictably kicked off a PR blizzard between the two companies.

Intel stated that it would bring 14nm in with substantial scaling in transistor fin pitch, transistor gate pitch, and interconnect pitch, with a further significant reduction in SRAM scaling. Now, independent analysis and reverse engineering from Chipworks has confirmed that Intel did indeed deliver on its technological promises. Gate pitch has been measured at ~70nm, fin pitch at ~42nm, and a more complex 13-layer metal design. Intel had previously stuck with nine-layer designs before stepping up to 11 for its Bay Trail SoC.

The FinFET transistors of a 14nm Broadwell chip, as seen from above in plan view. [Image credit: Chipworks]

Image courtesy of RealWorldTech. As chip designs shrink, metal layers have become more complicated

Metal layers inside a chip are used to connect various features and areas of the chip. As chips have gotten smaller it’s become increasingly difficult to route wires in ways that don’t obviate the increased performance of the transistors themselves. Intel’s decision to step up to a 13-layer design may be partly responsible for Broadwell’s difficulties; the more metal layers you have to connect the more difficult it is to design the chip efficiently.

The one potential slip that Chipworks notes is that while Intel claimed a 52nm interconnect pitch, they measured 54nm — but they also say that this is within the margin of measurement error, and that Intel may have simply measured from a different point of the die. They also confirm that Intel hit its SRAM cell target size of 0.058 µm².

A 14nm Broadwell chip, side-on, showing all 13 layers

Another shot of the fins of the 14nm Broadwell FinFET transistors

What does this mean for Broadwell?

So, what’s the big picture mean for Intel’s hardware? It means that I’m more inclined to think that the problems of the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro are either caused by Lenovo’s design decisions or by power management software. OS level drivers could also be an issue. Accurately hitting its process node targets doesn’t necessarily say anything about the underlying chip — Broadwell might still use more power than Intel projected, for example, or it might not reach target frequencies. It might hit all these metrics but have trouble with yields.

At the very least, this data suggests that Intel was playing it straight when it declared its 14nm technology would be a huge step forward and match historic scaling goals. Whether or not Intel can parley those advantages into improving its cost structure and wafer costs is still a very open question. With 450mm wafers on hold and EUV still uncertain, the higher cost at each additional node could still poison any semiconductor manufacturers’ attempts to push to lower process technologies — it’s just not clear when that will happen.

Here’s what I suspect it means, strictly speaking for myself: Broadwell may well push down into power envelopes that complete with "little core"products, but the user experience people get will be very dependent on what kind of design choices the OEM makes. An improperly-cooled Broadwell may indeed feel like an Atom. A well-cooled design should be quite a bit stronger. Ultimately, however, Broadwell doesn’t break the laws of physics — and the laws of physics dictate rather strongly that there’s a heat cost for every degree of computation you perform. At a certain point, Broadwell’s “big core” scale-down and Atom’s “little-core” scale up are going to meet and match each other.

Nokia N1: An iPad Mini clone that runs Android 5.0, priced at just $250

What looks like Apple’s iPad Mini, but has better specs, is considerably cheaper, and runs a stock version of Android 5.0 Lollipop? The new Nokia N1 tablet, apparently. At just $250 with 32GB of storage — as opposed to the iPad Mini 3’s base price of $400 for the 16GB model — the Nokia N1 is definitely priced to sell.

Just yesterday, Nokia — as in the networking equipment company that wasn't acquired by Microsoft — announced that it would be licensing the Nokia name to device makers. Today, it seems Chinese electronics giant Foxconn is the first company to take up that offer with the Nokia N1 Android tablet.

The Nokia N1 bears a striking resemblance to the iPad Mini. It has the same 7.9-inch 2048×1536 screen, the same bezels, the same anodized aluminium unibody chassis, and very similar camera, button, and headphone jack placement. Even the bottom of the N1 looks like an iPad Mini, with two speaker grilles flanking a small, central port. (Incidentally, that port on the bottom of the N1 is one of the first Reversible USB Type-C connectors, not Apple’s Lightning connector.)

There’s also no home button, nor any chamfered edges — but curiously, the N1 is slightly lighter (318 grams vs. 331 grams) and thinner (6.9 mm vs. 7.5 mm) than the iPad Mini 3. In terms of raw hardware specs, the Nokia N1 and Apple’s iPad Mini 3 are fairly similar. The N1 is powered by a quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 SoC (Bay trail/Moorefield) which should compare favorably with the iPad Mini’s A7 SoC, or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805. The N1 has an 8-megapixel camera on the back, vs. 5MP for the iPad Mini 3 — and its WiFi goes up to 802.11ac, rather than the Mini’s rather ghetto 802.11n. The iPad Mini 3 does have a larger battery than the N1, however. We have no idea how these spec differences will play out in practice, of course, but on paper at least the Nokia N1 is pretty hot — especially priced at $250, some $150 cheaper than the iPad Mini 3.

Other than price, the main difference is that the Nokia/Foxconn N1 runs a stock version of Android 5.0 Lollipop — stock, that is, except for the inclusion of Nokia’s newfangled Z Launcher app. Z Launcher, according to Nokia, is a very simple app launcher that “adapts to you.” It shows the apps that you’re likely to open — and for other apps, you can “scribble” the app’s first letter on the screen (“u” would bring up Uber, “i” would bring up Instagram, etc.) The launcher is available on Google Play today for Android smartphones, but for tablets it’s exclusive to the Nokia N1 (it’s meant to be a sweetener).

Read: Why Android 5.0 Lollipop is already coming to phones and tablets

The Android tablet space is an interesting one. On the one hand, the Galaxy Note line of tablets and phablets has been well received — and of course, Amazon’s cheap-and-cheerful Kindle Fire tablets appear to sell quite well. On the other hand, though, Android tablets clearly aren’t a hit in the same way as the iPad and iPad Mini. The Android tablet market has always given off a slight air of immaturity, probably because there has never been a stand-out device that has inspired users and developers to take the segment seriously. Maybe the N1, with stock Android 5.0, is that tablet?

The Nokia N1 vs. iPad Mini 3. I removed the branding, just so you can see how similar they are.

Nokia N1 tablet: Even the product photography is a homage to Apple

The Nokia N1 will go on sale in China in or around February 2015, priced at around $250 (before taxes). It will then roll out to some countries in Europe and Russia. No word on whether it’s coming to the US — but given now the Nokia brand is much more recognizable/valuable on that side of the Atlantic, I wouldn’t be surprised if the US has to wait a long time.

2015 Toyota Camry review: The best Camry ever facing the best competition ever

The 2015 refresh of the Toyota Camry adds more tech and makes America’s best-selling car one of the very best cars, too. Adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection and lane departure warning are all available. The tech doesn’t stop there: the Camry is one of the few cars offering Qi wireless charging. The base four-cylinder Camry gets 28 mpg and the hybrids hit 40 mpg.

Toyota’s challenge is that a half-dozen other midsize sedans are also very good, each with its own attributes and each with its own quirks. Against Camry’s all-round competence, Camry now provides a navigation system lacking a quick-access map button on the center stack, a USB jack that can’t charge tablets, and an excellent JBL audio upgrade that can’t be had on Camrys costing less than $30,000. In other words, the new Camry has annoyances but not necessarily deal-breakers.

New in 2012, major refresh in 2015

The 2015 Toyota Camry is a major refresh of the seventh-generation 2012 model, enhanced to maintain competitiveness the last two years of Camry’s typical five-year model run. For 2015, Toyota added a second sporty trim line, improved the interior quality and noise insulation levels, and reworked the exterior (thus the “bold new Camry” tagline). A year ago, Toyota engineers rushed in structural changes after the 2012-14 Camry fared poorly on offset-crash tests.

The 2015 Camry offers the holy trinity of driver assist technologies: adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection, and lane departure warning. In addition, there’s pre-collision warning, rear cross traffic alert, and OnStar-like onboard telematics. For that, you’ll need the higher trim lines. All Camrys get USB, Bluetooth, a rear camera, and a center stack display ranging from four to seven inches.

Easy phone charging: Just drop it on the console

With the Qu (“chee”) wireless charging system, Camry is ahead of all but a few of the 250 car models sold here. With this $75 option, a transducer is embedded in the base of the center stack. Stick your Qi-compatible phone there and it charges any device drawing up to 5 watts, meaning virtually all smartphones.

Wireless charging is a nice step forward once it reaches critical mass. As the Wireless Power Consortium boasts, “Right now there are 688 Qi-certified products.” But that does not include the Apple iPhone except by adding a charging cover that makes the phone bulky, similar to adding an extended-battery pack. If wireless charging takes off, Apple will have to join the party, fashionably late, just as it did in being among the last with screens of more than 5 inches.

You may be annoyed when you find out the Camry’s USB jack cannot charge a tablet or other device drawing more than 5 watts (photo above right). You may be even more annoyed to learn the 2015 refresh of the $15,000 Toyota Yaris does charge tablets. Go figure.

On the road: Quieter ride, better handling

Camry is among the best and best-selling midsize sedans, meaning five-passenger cars of about 190 inches (4800 mm) length. It has always been the one that provides a smooth ride for drivers who want to get from A to B without drama. You can still do that. Now all 2015 Camrys are a bit tauter in handling and ride at the same time the cabin is markedly quieter. For those who want sporty, Toyota added an upmarket XSE (sport) trim line above the continued SE sport trim line. If that interests you, make sure to drive it along with your partner or spouse to make sure the ride isn’t too firm.

Camry comes in four- and six-cylinder gasoline models with six-speed automatic transmission along with a four-cylinder Camry hybrid using a continuously variable transmission. All are front-drive. When the seventh generation Camry arrived in 2012, the fuel economy was pretty good compared to the competition. Now the 178 hp four is mid-pack at 25 mpg highway, 35 mpg highway, 28 mpg combined. It’s fine on highways, passable getting up to speed on the ramp if you’re firm pressing on the gas accelerating. The 268 hp V6 doesn’t cost you much in economy at 21/31/25.

The three hybrid trim lines are fuel economy stars at 40 mpg city, 38 mpg highway, 40 mpg combined. It’s 1-3 mpg better with the entry Hybrid LE trim line.