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We saw AMD at CES, and they showed off some hardware; but, it seems they forgot to mention something. Anand managed to get a sneak peek at a certain Thunderbolt competitor that AMD is calling "Lightning Bolt." At first sight resembling a cable with mini-Display Port connectors, the AMD research is able pass Display Port video, power, and USB 3.0 over a single cable.

The company is currently working to integrate the Lightning Bolt innovation into laptops and ultrathins as a cheap, single cable dock connection. The current implementation involves using a muxer to combine the USB, Display Port output, and power from the PSU electrical signals and pass it over a single miniDP cable. This miniDP cable will resemble current cables nevertheless will be electrically different by having two pins on the connectors altered. The dock that the Lightning Bolt cable connects to at once splits out or demuxes the signals into a MiniDP connection and a USB 3.0 port(s). AMD is planning for the Lightning Bolt docks to cost about as much as current USB 3.0 hubs, which run about $40 USD at that time of writing. Unfortunately, there are some caveats to the research including limited power delivery and limits on the USB 3.0 connection. The company stated that Lightning Bolt transfers between the computer and USB 3.0 devices would be faster than USB 2.0 speeds, the connection would not support the full 5 Gbits maximum speed.

More information can be found here. Personally, I'm happy that AMD is stepping in in spite of the tacky name. At the very least, I can see Lightning Bolt connectors being features on AMD notebooks and providing useful competition to bring down the cost of Intel's Thunderbolt cables and hardware. It may as well cause Intel to reduce any licensing fees that may be involved with OEMs building Thunderbolt into computers. Though the AMD innovation is all electrical, and in this way inherently slower than Intel's theoretical maximum speeds, the cheaper hardware means OEMs will be more likely to integrate it into computers and consumers will be more likely to buy into it. Assuming, clearly, that they can pull it off, "Lightning Bolt" sounds like a connection technology in other words "fast enough" at a price I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for in a laptop.

Arctic is a company which currently offers five different Atom powered HTPCs, one of which Overclockers Online got their hands on. The MC001-BD has a 1.6Ghz Atom D525, an HD5430 GPU, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD and a 4x Blu-Ray drive; what it does not have is a TV Tuner which will cost you an extra $30 to include. It is as well not running Windows MCE, instead you get a full installation of Windows 7 Home Premium. Even though this machine will suffer if you attempt to run general productivity software it is powerful enough for perfect HD media playback and the strictly passive cooling will allow you to unobtrusively place this machine with the rest of your A/V equipment.

Where was the most interesting research at CES? Intel’s booth? Nope. Nvidia’s booth? Guess again. Maybe you could find it at Qualcomm’s stand? Guess again.

If you ask me, the most interesting research was tucked away in the back of the lower level of the South Hall, which is where you’ll find smaller companies and organizations that have decided to forgo a normal booth and instead just rent out space for a meeting room. That’s where you’ll find The Wireless Power Consortium and its Qi wireless power standard.

What it sounds like

Wireless power is specifically what it sounds like. You may have already heard of the charging mats made available by companies like Energizer. These allow users to charge a smartphone simply by placing them in the right location, forgetting about cords in every respect.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? However there’s been a problem with them – until recently, they’ve all been proprietary. You had to use a special charging case to get the mats to work with your phone and that case wouldn’t work with competing products. You as well were limited to charging in your home which kind of defeats the point.

To fix this, there must be a standard, and that’s what The Wireless Power Consortium has created. It’s called Qi, and it’s a coil-based charging solution that can be implemented in all sorts of mobile devices. Currently the standard can handle up to 5 watts and can work within 5mm, nevertheless both of these figures are to be expanded. New research that can handle 10 watts is being tested, and the hope is for 120 watts to be achievable in the nearly future. That would allow for wireless charging of PCs and appliances.

Many current smartphones have mini-USB ports for one reason only – charging. Everything else, from syncing music to downloading files, can be achieved through a wireless connection. If that port could be removed in every way, it would allow for more design flexibility. Take the current Droid Razr, for instance. It is in the extreme thin except for a bulge that houses the camera and the ports. If you could charge your phone wirelessly, designers would have one less port to design around.

Battery life is another part of this equation. As research in our mobile devices continues to improve at an amazing rate, battery innovation doesn’t seem able to keep up. I know – I own a HTC Thunderbolt. My phone has notoriously bad battery life with 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology) enabled.

One solution is to make batteries bigger, nevertheless that increases weight, size and cost. Wireless power offers an alternative – make charging easier and more frequent. If you had wireless power in your car, at work and at home, your phone could easily maintain a high level of charge. And since it’s wireless, you don’t have to do anything except place your phone in the right place.

At Corsair's table is a case that looks to steal into NZXT's market with the $90 Carbide Series 300R which offers some nice features for a lower cost case, Corsair is as well beefing up their line up with the more expensive Obsidian Series 550D with many noise dampening features. Taking everything into account they headed to ASUS and were given a peek at the newest audio innovation that will replace the current Xonar models.

VIA Labs have teamed up with Fiber Optic Communications Inc., PCL Technologies Inc., OpTarget Solutions Co., Ltd. and Universal Microelectronics Co,. Ltd. to create a transceiver for use with USB 3.0 Active Optical Cables. This USB 3.0 AOC seems to be what LightPeak, aka Thunderbolt was originally supposed to be. Thunderbolt did arrive, it showed up quite a bit at CES 2012, nevertheless as a copper interconnect as opposed to the multiple wavelength fibre optics we were originally promised. If the 5 gigabit portion of the name is in fact indicative of transfer speeds at the time this type of USB connection will run about 7 times faster than the Thunderbolt devices that were shown at CES. As then, the cables can be run for over 100 metres, so you might just be able to wire your house for USB all things considered.

Taipei, Taiwan, January 13, 2012 - VIA Labs, Inc., a leading supplier of USB 3.0 integrated chip controllers, today announced the VIA Labs VO510 5-Gigabit Optical Transceiver which is being showcased at CES 2012. The VIA Labs V0510 Optical Transceiver is used in USB 3.0 Active Optical Cables which enables rapid data transfers and high-definition multimedia across distances of over 100 meters. Developed in collaboration with FOCI, PCL, OpTarget and UMEC, USB 3.0 AOC solutions offer exciting new possibilities in the use of USB 3.0 innovation.

Android is known for many things: relatively free and open, flexible, creepy little green dudes, and patent warfare. Consistent design is not one of those points. This year, towards the end of CES, Google announced and released the Android application design guide for developers interested in creating for Ice Cream Sandwich. As a result of the announcement, Joshua Topolsky sat down with Matias Duarte, the Google director of Android user experience, for a video interview. Listen in for all of the tough questions and see Google sweat.

The big names in the boutique custom PC business

Origin is one of the big names in the boutique custom PC business, and this CES the company is once again striving to prove why it deserves such credentials. I stopped by the company’s suite and saw something cool, something practical, and something jaw-dropping.

It is no secret that Microsoft is not attending the then CES and they stated openly that there will be minimal announcements relative to what we typically expect. During that is all true, Microsoft all in all has some news at the show to be indulged upon. Tim has already covered the upcoming release of Kinect to Windows for roughly the price of an entry-level 2GB RAM dual-core laptop; Microsoft had a piece of NVIDIA’s keynote to discuss Windows on ARM; and Microsoft showed a newer build of Windows 8. The Verge spent some time with a Microsoft representative and took video to show for it. Find out the future for the mice that are not just going to stick with Windows 7.

Personally, I am not the biggest mobile user in the world: the majority of what I use my laptop for is to install a new version of Ubuntu, and even at the time I often skip versions. My cellphone usage is pay-as-you-go with $100 dollars on my account per year and somewhere around $90 of that expires or rolls over to the at once year. I am not against mobile computing; I am just never in a situation where I need to use it. Keep those points in mind during I discuss Windows 8.

I am going to ignore the ability to re-skin the start screen in spite of it being a much desired feature. The more important development from an examination standpoint is how Microsoft expects the mouse and keyboard will fill in with Windows 8. You are able to navigate through the Metro interface left and right using your scroll wheel or alternatively hold ctrl to zoom in and out with the scroll wheel. As well on display is the top-to-bottom swipe gesture to kill an application for touchscreen users. Check them out in action for yourself at The Verge.

The window display can show more than just blinds

The window display can show more than just blinds, nevertheless. It is capable of acting as a fully functional LCD display; playing movies, browsing the Internet, and displaying widgets and backgrounds are all possible. At CES, many sites noted the Twitter application and weather widgets for seeing just how much better the weather is elsewhere in the world. As things now stand just a concept, there were no specific specifications or hardware sets given. Pricing and availability are such as much up in the air. It is not likely that we will see this exact product come to market. In return, the innovation behind the concept device is what is important, and we will likely see it rolled into other future products. One such likely application of this research would be to when all is said and done bring the HUD, or heads up display, to car windshields including image/light enhancement, back-up cameras, car information, et al.

The Internet search market is a competitive space, as the more control over search a company has, the more money they can make from ad networks, analytic and tracking data, and having an influence over the development of the Internet. Google nevertheless remains handily in first place with a majority share of the search market. That's not anything surprising. Where competition heats up; but, is beneath Google where companies fight over the remaining 30% or so of the search market. Microsoft's Bing search engine is the latest major entrant to the market, and for the first time since it's launch it has surpassed Yahoo for the number 2 spot over the search market.

Further, the article suggests that Microsoft and Yahoo will now continue to draft and pass each other for the straightway few years. More information can be found at the article linked above. Have you used Bing, and will it ever have the oomph to take on Google? I personally use Google for the majority of the time nevertheless Bing is an okay backup. The image searching is fairly good. I predict that a Bing powered Windows search box would be interesting and help Microsoft to maintain a search market presence, yet don't let the EU find out. What are your thoughts on Microsoft taking second place? Will they be able to maintain their position?

The Consumer Electronics Show that on February 1st

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced at the Consumer Electronics Show that on February 1st, the new Kinect sensor for Windows would become available for purchase. To boot to the new Kinect for Windows sensor hardware, Microsoft is releasing an official SDk or Software Development Kit. Having the SDK installed on a Windows operating system will be required in order to use Kinect software applications. Currently, there are no consumer applications using Kinect; but, official hardware and an official SDK will surely spur software development.

Microsoft is confident that the launch of the SDK and specially tuned hardware will spur development of software. According to MSNBC, the company is working with over 200 companies to develop software applications for Windows using Kinect. Microsoft's partners include Toyota, Mattel, American Express, and United Health Group. These corporate partners seem to indicate that initial Kinect applications will be designed for consumers to use in a business setting, say on a sales floor of car dealerships, at hospitals, or point of sale devices (like as not American Express is planning a "card swipe" application where holding the card up to the Kinect can be used to purchase items. Software for consumers to use at home is as well likely in the pipeline and users will see them henceforth.

Due to the Microsoft Kinect for Windows sensor not being subsidized by Xbox 360 games and accessories, the PC version is $100 more than the Xbox 360 version, and will retail for $250 USD. Amazon currently has the device here for a whole penny less at $249.99.

The UK based charity behind the Raspberry Pi Linux computer, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, announced in a blog post that the two ARM 11 powered Linux computers have entered the manufacturing stage and are that much closer to going on sale. The two models, Raspberry Pi A and B, will be $35 and $25 respectively. The difference between the tow models is that the cheaper model A board has half the RAM at 128 MB and lacks an Ethernet port. Both models have an HDMI and analog RCA video output along with a USB port to attach a mouse and keyboard.

At CES 2012 this week, popular motherboard manufacturer Asus showed off quite a few products. Among the new products, the company is releasing a wireless gigabit router, wireless repeater and Ethernet bridge, a new motherboard, and the Republic of Gamers Xonar Phoebus audio sound card set.

The two new wireless products are the Asus RT-N66U

The two new wireless products are the Asus RT-N66U, which is a dual band Wireless N Gigabit router, and the Asus EA-N66 Wi-Fi Ethernet bridge. The RT-N66U is a dual band Wireless N router that promises up to 900 Mbps over Wi-Fi thanks to two simultaneous Wireless N streams of 450 Mbps maximum each. One stream is done at 2.4 GHz and on the other stream data is broadcast and received on the 5 GHz spectrum. Asus has bundled the router with 26 dbm Wi-Fi amplifiers to extend the network's range. Other hardware includes three Wi-Fi antennas on the rear of the device, a four port Gigabit Ethernet switch, WAN port, two USB ports, power button, power input, and reset button. The front and top of the router shows off a stylish black pattern, blue status LEDs, and the Asus RT-N66U "Dark Night" name/logo during the back/bottom of the router contain plenty of ventilation ports and a stand to hold the router vertical. On the software side of things, the router features QoS, or Quality of Service, traffic management that the company claims can address up to 300,000 data sessions, eight SSIDs, and the company's ASUSWRT firmware. Downloading files without needing a PC and remote management of USB devices are as well features.

The EA-N66 is a wireless Ethernet bridge and Wi-Fi access point. In accordance with the hood of the to put it more exactly stylized design, it is capable of using either the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz wireless spectrum in 450 Mbps bands. Asus claims that when the repeater is paired with their new router, "the EA-N66 gives gamers incredible network speeds and coverage for multi-player gaming sessions."

The Rampage IV motherboard as well comes with a bundled headphone amplifier dubbed the ThunderFX. It provides up to 120 dB of amplification and can support up to 600 Ohm high end headphones. The amplifier is EMI shielded and with ENC support, the ThunderFX has dedicated channels for headphone audio and in-game voice chat. Furthermore, the box is compatible with both PCs and game consoles, and enables regular PC gaming headsets to be used with the consoles. Last up, it has three audio presets for FPS, RTS, and Racing games.

The Xonar Phoebus sound card

Asus is as well showing off the Xonar Phoebus sound card and breakout box for gaming in accordance with the company's Republic of Gamers brand. The set includes a PCI-E sound card capable of driving 600 Ohm headphones and a SNR of 118 dB. The card itself is shielding using, according to Asus, "carefully selected materials and perfectly shielded" to block EMI and and isolate itself from other issues caused by the other elements in the case. The other piece of hardware is the Xonar Phoebus control box that integrates array microphones to reduce environmental noise when using voice chat and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls by "up to 50 percent." It furthermore allows volume control and has Dolby Home Theater V4 surround sound and the GX3.0 gaming engine to enhance headphone audio when gaming.

Just seven months afterwards taking their firm stance against supporting back versions Mozilla is considering following a model similar to Ubuntu: every few major versions, flag one as being supported much longer than the rest and support it during innovating on your main versions. I after all believe that supporting many enterprise clients is wasteful for a company like Mozila, however now that they have substantially more revenue as of their recent deal with Google I suppose it could help advertise Firefox outside of work as so then.