Andy Reitz (blog)

 

 

Links for Sunday September 16th, 2012

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  • Movie Streaming Subscriptions: Netflix, Amazon Prime & Hulu Plus Compared: I've been idly toying with dropping Netflix in favor of Amazon Prime streaming, so I appreciate this analysis. It seems like Netflix still has a much wider selection, for now.

  • Intel researchers put WiFi inside—the processor, that is: This is huge. If it's possible to merge wireless radios into the same package as the CPU, then thinner, power-efficient, and cheaper phones become possible.

  • iPhone 5 Benchmarks Appear in Geekbench Showing a Dual Core, 1GHz A6 CPU: If these numbers prove to be accurate, the A6 is looking pretty good.

  • Google and Alibaba Continue Warring Over Acer Phone: This is whole dust-up between Google and Alibaba has been fairly confusing. As far as I can tell, Acer is a member of the "Open Handset Alliance" (OHA). And apparently, Google has the ability to kill products that OHA members intend to release.

  • iPhone 5 Panel at TechCrunch Disrupt: Normally I find panel discussions to be boring, but I thought this panel had some good questions, answered by smart, thoughtful people.

  • The iPhone 5's A6 SoC: Not A15 or A9, a Custom Apple Core Instead: AnandTech is the first with some details of Apple's new A6 chip:

    "The A6 is the first Apple SoC to use its own ARMv7 based processor design. The CPU core(s) aren't based on a vanilla A9 or A15 design from ARM IP, but instead are something of Apple's own creation."
    And more, from the conclusion:
    "This is a huge deal for Apple. It puts the company in another league when it comes to vertical integration. The risks are higher (ARM's own designs are tested and proven across tons of different devices/platforms) but the payoff is potentially much greater. As Qualcomm discovered, it's far easier to differentiate (and dominate?) if you're shipping IP that's truly unique from what everyone else has."
    This is a crazy amount of vertical integration. It will be really amazing of Apple is able to continue to pull off this kind of custom work (i.e. keeping their CPUs competitive with the rest of the industry).