China boasts world's fastest supercomputer

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Tianhe-1, meaning Milky Way, has a sustained computing speed of 2,507 trillion calculations per second, making it the fastest computer inChinaon a list published Thursday.

But it is also 1.4 times faster that the world's current fastest rankedsupercomputerin the US, housed at a national laboratory in Tennessee, according to the New York Times.

Tianhe-1 does its warp-speed"thinking"at the National Center for Supercomputing in the northern port city of Tianjin -- using mostly chips designed by US companies.

The Tianjin Meteorological Bureau and the National Offshore Oil Corporation data centre have both started trials using the computer.

"It can also serve the animation industry and bio-medical research,"Liu Guangming, the supercomputing centre's director, told state news agency Xinhua.

According to Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who maintains the official supercomputer rankings which are due to be released next week, the Chinese beast"blows away the existing number one machine".

"We don’t close the books until November 1, but I would say it is unlikely we will see a system that is faster,"he told the New York Times.

It is not the first time, however, that the US has had its digital crown stolen by an Asian upstart. In 2002, Japan made a machine with more power than the top 20 American computers put together.

Japan is also working on a new machine called"K Computer"in a bid to take the supercomputing crown.

Computer designer Steven J. Wallach is not overly worried by China's rise to computing superpower.

"It’s interesting, but it’s like getting to the four-minute mile,"he told the New York Times."The world didn’t stop. This is just a snapshot in time.

"They want to show they are number one in the world, no matter what it is."

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Fire hazard forces Toshiba laptop recall

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"The notebook computers can overheat at the notebook's plug-in to the AC adapter, posing a burn hazard toconsumers,"the commission said in a notice issued Thursday.

The computers involved are the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite ProT130.

The safety commission said thatToshibahas received 129 reports of the computers overheating and deforming the plastic casing area around the AC adapter plug.

It said there had been two reports of minor burn injuries and two reports of minor property damage.

Toshiba offered a software program for download at laptops.toshiba.com/about/consumer-notices.

The program detects whether the computer is overheating and disables its external power.

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Canon develops world's largest CMOS image sensor, with ultra-high sensitivity

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At 202 x 205 mm, the newly developed CMOS sensor is among the largest chips that can be produced from a 12-inch (300 mm) wafer, and is approximately 40 times the size of Canon's largest commercial CMOS sensor.

In the past, enlarging the size of the sensor resulted in an increase in the amount of time required between the receiving and transmission of data signals, which posed a challenge to achieving high-speed readout. Canon, however, solved this problem through an innovative circuit design, making possible the realization of a massive video-compatible CMOS sensor. Additionally, by ensuring the cleanest of cleanroom environments during the production process, the sensor minimizes image imperfections and dust.

Because the increased size of the new CMOS sensor allows more light to be gathered, it enables shooting in low-light environments. The sensor makes possible the image capture in one one-hundredth the amount of light required by a 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor, facilitating the shooting of 60 frame-per-second video with a mere 0.3 lux ofillumination.

Potential applications for the newhigh-sensitivityCMOS sensorinclude thevideo recordingof stars in the night sky and nocturnal animal behavior.

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Toshiba to Launch the World’s Fastest SDHC Memory Card

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Toshiba is also unveiling the world’s first 4GB, 8GB and 16GB microSDHC UHS-I cards compliant with (SD 3.0), UHS50.

Mass productionof the new SDHC UHS-I cards and sample shipments of the new microSDHC UHS-I cards will start this November.

The new SDHC UHS-I Memory Cards are the world’s first memory cards compliant with SD 3.0, UHS104. With a maximum read speed of 95MB per second, and a write speed of 80MB per second, the products introduce a new level of ultra-fast read and write speeds to NAND flash based memory cards.

Toshiba’s new microSDHC UHS-I cards are the world’s first microSDHCmemory cardscompliant with SD 3.0, UHS50. They, too, offer the world’s fastest read and write speeds in their class: a maximum read speed of 40MB per second and a write speed of 20MB per second.

The specifications of the new cards combine increased data capacity with the fast data transfer rates essential for applications such as high speed continuous shooting of high resolution digital still cameras, video, and high speed transfers of HD content.

The high performance specifications announced byToshibawill enable developers to use HD content in future generations of consumer products.

The expanded new card series will be featured at IFA 2010, in Berlin, Germany from September 3, and PHOTOKINA 2010, in Koln, Germany from September 21.

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NERSC supercomputing center breaks the petaflops barrier

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NERSC's newest supercomputer, a 153,408 processor-core Cray XE6 system, posted a performance of 1.05 petaflops (quadrillions of calculations per second) running the Linpack benchmark. In keeping with NERSC's tradition of naming computers for renowned scientists, the system is named Hopper in honor of Admiral Grace Hopper, a pioneer in software development and programming languages. The system, installed d in September 2010, is funded by DOE's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research.

Established in 1974, NERSC is located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and provides computing systems and services to more than 3,000 researchers supported by the Department of Energy (DOE). NERSC's users, located at universities, national laboratories, and other research institutions around the country, report producing more than 1,500 scientific publications each year as a result of calculations run at NERSC.

"While we are elated to have entered the petascale performance arena, we are especially excited by the computational science potential offered by Hopper,"said Kathy Yelick, Director of the NERSC Division and Associate Laboratory Director of Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab."We selected Cray as the system vendor after a competitive procurement based in large part on how proposed systems performed running our application benchmarks. Now that the system is installed and operational, we will begin our acceptance testing in which we run some of the most demanding scientific applications to ensure that Hopper will meet the day-to-day demands of our users."

NERSC serves one of the largest research communities of all supercomputing centers in the United States. The center's supercomputers are used to tackle a wide range of scientific challenges, including global climate change, combustion, clean energy, new materials, astrophysics, genomics, particle physics and chemistry. The more than 400 projects being addressed by NERSC users represent the research mission areas of DOE's Office of Science.

The increasing power of supercomputers helps scientists study problems in greater detail and with greater accuracy, such as increasing the resolution of climate models and creating models of new materials with thousands of atoms. Supercomputers are increasingly used to compliment scientific experimentation by allowing researchers to test theories using computational models and analyzed large scientific data sets. NERSC is also home to Franklin, a 38,128 core Cray XT4supercomputerwith a Linpack performance of 266 teraflops (trillions of calculations per second). Franklin is ranked number 27 on the newest TOP500 list.

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Iomega introduces portable USB 3.0 SSD-based flash drives

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The miniature 1.8-inch external USB 3.0SSDflash drive, dressed in a classy metal enclosure, has a sleek look and also delivers more protection from drops up to 10 feet. Iomega's new SSD drives boast 256-bit hardware encryption for peace of mind, anti-virus and backup software plus a three-year warranty.

The Iomega USB 3.0 External SSD Flash Drive has no moving parts. The result is a solid, durable drive with fast loading time for applications and top speeds for digital images, graphics, high definition video and music. Creative professionals may discover the Iomega USB 3.0 SSD Drive an invaluable upgrade.

Utilizing the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface with up to 10 times the speed of USB 2.0 drives, the new external SSD Drive performs twice as fast as a 7200 RPM SATA hard drives using the same USB 3.0 interface.

With no external power supply needed, the new Iomega SSD drives are personal computer compatible, as well as other devices that only have USB 2.0 ports. Iomega also provides USB 3.0 adapter cards to place into USB 2.0 laptop and desktop computers so new Iomega SSD Drive users can enjoy native USB 3.0 speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second.

With a worldwide release expected for early November, the new Iomega External SSDFlash DriveUSB 3.0 will be available in three capacities: 64GB for $229.00, 128GB for $399.00, and 256GB for $749.00.

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NICS to add more than 300 Teraflops to the NSF’s computing capacity

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Researchers will also have access to more than 200 million additional service units, or CPU hours, per year, bringing the total available from NICS to over 800 million and benefitting the organization's entire user community.

The first part of the award will increase the size of Kraken, the first academic petaflop computer and currently the world's fourth fastest machine, by 12 cabinets, adding 144teraflopsofcomputing power.

The Cray XT5 will now total 100 cabinets and provide 1.17petaflopsof computing capability and 147 terabytes of memory. While Kraken is an ideal resource for running some of the world's most computationally demanding simulations, the new cabinets will also assist the myriad of smaller jobs continually running on NICS's flagship system.

"We are extremely pleased to be able to put more continually available resources at the disposal of researchers with smaller codes, while still supporting the very largest applications,"said NICS Director Phil Andrews."The importance of a research activity cannot be defined by the size of the code involved, and we want to give all NICS users the best possible service."

Although Kraken is the only resource in the NSF's computing portfolio capable of running simulations at its full potential of 8,256 nodes, it also is a massive capacity resource.

Many of the more computationally demanding codes running on Kraken use the"sweet spot"of 8,192 nodes, the largest power of two that can be accommodated within the 8,256 node machine. While a code of this size is running, albeit for only part of each week, a maximum of 64 nodes remains for other users. The extension of Kraken to 9,408 nodes will increase this by a factor of 19, providing an additional 1,216 nodes for smaller jobs to run concurrently. This will greatly improve availability of the system for smaller,"capacity"jobs while still allowing the extremely large"capability"jobs access to the NSF's most powerful supercomputing system.

The second part of the award will fund the operation of Athena, a 166-teraflop Cray XT4 that is currently ranked as the TeraGrid's third largest computational resource. Athena features 18,048 cores and 18 terabytes of memory and is an extremely reliable system, most recently used as a dedicated platform for climate, weather and quantum chromodynamics research. Athena will be available through the TeraGrid allocations process beginning October 1, 2010 and will be allocated in conjunction with Kraken. This will allow NICS to maximize the usefulness of both of these leading resources, each of which are running at over 90% utilization, by apportioning researchers to the most appropriate machine.

"The availability of large-scale computing resources has quickly evolved our field of biomolecular simulation and computational chemistry and has enabled a move from validation and assessment of the methods into the realm of prediction and production in applications ranging from the design of new biomaterials to computer-aided drug design,"said NICS user Tom Cheatham of the University of Utah."The addition of time comes at a critical juncture as the TeraGrid and other machines available in the US for research are over-subscribed, inhibiting science across a wide range of disciplines.

Colin Morningstar of Carnegie Mellon echoed Cheatham's enthusiasm:"The additional allocation time will definitely accelerate our lattice QCD research and allow us to study quarks and gluons in much larger volumes and using lighter quark masses. We are very excited about
the new possibilities that this creates."

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Better displays ahead

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Several e-reader products on the market today use electrophoretic displays, in which each pixel consists of microscopic capsules that contain black and white particles moving in opposite directions under the influence of an electric field. A serious drawback to this technology is that the screen image is closer to black-on-gray than black-on-white. Also, the slow switching speed (~1 second) due to the limited velocity of the particles prevents integration of other highly desirable features such as touch commands, animation, and video.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati Nanoelectronics Laboratory are actively pursuing an alternative approach for low-power displays. Their assessment of the future of display technologies appears in the American Institute of Physics'Applied Physics Letters.

"Our approach is based on the concept of vertically stacking electrowetting devices,"explains professor Andrew J. Steckl, director of the NanoLab at UC's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering."The electric field controls the 'wetting' properties on a fluoropolymer surface, which results in rapid manipulation of liquid on a micrometer scale. Electrowetting displays can operate in both reflective and transmissive modes, broadening their range of display applications. And now, improvements of the hydrophobic insulator material and the working liquids enable EW operation at fairly low driving voltages (~15V)."

Steckl and Dr. Han You, a research associate in the NanoLab, have demonstrated that the vertical stack electrowetting structure can produce multi-color e-paper devices, with the potential for higher resolution than the conventional side-by-side pixel approach. Furthermore, their device has switching speeds that enable video content displays.

What does all of this mean for the consumer? Essentially, tablets and e-readers are about to become capable of even more and look even better doing it. Compared to other technologies, electrowetting reflective display screens boast many advantages. The electrowetting displays are very thin, have a switching speed capable of videodisplay, a wide viewing angle and, just as important, Steckl says, they aren't power hogs.

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Samsung now producing 20nm-class, 64-gigabit 3-bit NAND flash memory

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“Samsung has repeatedly provided the market with leading-edge NAND flash solutions, including the introduction of 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND flash last November,” said Seijin Kim, vice president, FlashMemoryPlanning/Enabling,Samsung Electronics.“By now entering into full production of 20nm-class 64Gb 3-bit devices, we expect to accelerate adoption of our high-performance NAND solutions that use Toggle DDR technology, for applications that also require high-density NAND.”

The availability of storage density as high as eight gigabyte (64Gb) in a single chip will trigger widespread acceptance of Toggle DDR-based high-performance flash in UFDs and SD cards, as well as smart phones and SSDs, while replacing previous four gigabyte (32Gb) devices in the market.

Samsung’s 20nm-class, 64Gb 3-bit NAND has a 60 percent higher productivity level than 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND. The device also offers improved performance by applying Toggle DDR (Double Data Rate) 1.0 specifications, compared to those of SDR (Single Data Rate) based 30nm-class NAND chips.

Following the production of 20nm-class 32Gb MLC NAND in April, Samsung expands its product offerings at the leading-edge 20nm-class process node with the introduction of the 20nm-class 64Gb 3-bitNAND.

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Indian school children to test new, low-cost electronic notepad

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"President Obama's visit to India this week highlights Indian economic achievements, but India's full economic potential will only be realized with sustainable, low-cost technologies that benefit all segments of the population,"said Krishna Palem, a Rice University professor who is leading an effort on three continents to create a low-cost, electronic version of the hand-held slates that millions of Indian children use in schools today.

Palem's brainchild -- a device dubbed the I-slate -- is in development at the Institute of Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID) at NTU. The first prototypes of the I-slate, which were built at NTU this summer by a team that included three Rice undergraduates, are set to undergo their second round of tests in India later this month.

Palem, who directs ISAID, said the I-slate is the first of a series of electronic notepads being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity of today'scomputer chips. Under development in partnership between ISAID and Switzerland's Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, the chips will make it possible for the I-slate to run onsolar powerfrom panels similar to those used in hand-held calculators.

The I-slate began to take shape over the summer, and early prototypes were introduced in tests at a school near Hyderabad in early August.

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This is Rice University computer scientist Krishna Palem with an I-slate prototype. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

"Children in Indian village schools are just like their peers anywhere in the world: eager to learn, tech savvy, and willing to try new pedagogical tools that engage their creative minds,"said Rajeswari Pingali, ViDAL president."The I-slate can help bring the marvels of ICT into thousands of rural schools and contribute to an improved learning experience."

A nonprofit based in Hyderabad, ViDAL is partnering with ISAID to test the first I-slates in Mohd Hussainpalli village, some 70 miles southwest of Hyderabad in a drought-prone area.

"There are many factors involved -- good nutrition, a good psychological environment, attentive teachers and appropriate learning and teaching tools. We can't control all of these, but ViDAL is active in areas where we can make a difference, like nutrition and teaching tools. We believe the I-slate has great potential once its design caters to local needs and strengths,"Pingali added.

Rice undergraduates Lauren Pemberton and Shelby Reinhardt were first introduced to the project in a spring course on sustainable engineering, spent 10 weeks this summer at NTU writing a self-directed mathematics teaching application for the first I-slateprototypes. In early August, Reinhardt and Pemberton accompanied Pingali and Vincent Mooney, ISAID's chief I-slate hardware architect, to see how a class of 10- to 13-year-olds liked the new device.

"Most of these students have never used a computer or seen a video game, so we really didn't know how they'd react to the I-slate,"said Reinhardt, a junior chemical engineering major.

"They immediately picked up on the technology,"said Pemberton, a junior cognitive sciences major."They clearly didn't like some of the things we expected to work really well, like the button placement, but they loved the scratch-pad application which was added at the last minute."

Social scientists and volunteers from ViDAL will work with Palem and Mooney's ISAID team to refine both the I-slate hardware and teaching content. The team plans to conduct a long-term test at Hussainpalli Government School to track the academic progress of students who use the I-slate.

"Developing an electronic notepad that is green, requires very little energy to operate and that could even run on solar energy in future is in line with NTU's emphasis on sustainability research,"said NTU President Su Guaning."The research will not just help in the sustainability of our planet but the development of such sustainable, low-cost technologies will also help the poorer communities in the world to close the digital divide. It will be life-changing and it will help to improve lives."

In March 2009, the I-slate was chosen by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as one of seven technologies that"will have world-changing implications on the way humans interact with machines, the world and each other."

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Marvell announces first triple-core 1.5 GHz mobile processor

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According to the press release, the Armada 628 can deliver dual stream 1080p 3D video and 3D graphics performance with quad unified shaders for 200 million triangles per second delivered on ultra-low-power, longbattery lifesmartphones and tablets.

The Armada 628 is also the first to incorporate a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design with three ARM cores and six additional processing engines, totaling nine dedicated core functions. An Armada-equippedsmartphonewould be able to play 10 hours straight of 1080p HD video or 140 hours of music on a single charge.

Some of the key features of the tri-core processor include:

• Up to 1.5 GHz for the two main cores and 624 MHz for the third low power core
• 1 MB System Level 2 Cache
• 1080p dual stream 3D video applications (30 FPS, multi-format)
• Ability to project images on multiple simultaneous displays: 2 LCD’s, 1 HDMI, 1 EPD controller
• Peripherals supports: USB 3.0 Superspeed Client, MIPI CSI, MIPI DSI, HDMI with integrated PHY, UniPro, Slimbus, SPMI

The Armada 628 is the first mobile CPU to offer USB 3.0. The CPU is compatible with RIM OS, Android, Linux, Windows Mobile, and full Adobe Flash.

According to Marvell the CPU is currently available for sampling to customers but there is no word yet on when we can expect it to be incorporated into smartphones or tablets in the U.S. market.

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Toshiba Announces Wipe Technology for Self-Encrypting Disk Drives

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The feature can also be used to securely erase user data prior to returning a leased system, system disposal or re-purposing. Wipe was created as an enhancement to Toshiba's Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) hard disk drives.

But lost or stolen notebooks are not the only security risk that IT departments must address. Today, most office copier and printing systems utilize HDD capacity and performance to deliver a highly productive document imaging environment. Many organizations are now realizing the critical importance of maintaining the security of document image data stored within copier and printer systems. Wipe is a technology that can automatically invalidate an HDD security key when its power supply is turned off, instantly making all data in the drive indecipherable. Toshiba's innovative new Wipe Technology adds advanced storage security features to enable system makers to transparently and automatically secure private data.

Copier and Printer systems vendors can now use Toshiba's Wipe Technology to securely invalidate sensitive document image data by automatically erasing the SED's internal encryption key. This feature can easily be used prior to system disposal or re-purposing to ensure that private data never leaves the control of the responsible business unit or IT department.

Toshiba's Wipe Technology may be used to set data invalidation attributes for multiple data ranges. This flexibility provides systems designers with a powerful set of data security capabilities that can be easily incorporated into existing system architecture. Attributes include:

• Data encryptionand secure invalidation on power cycle.


• Data encryption and preservation on power cycle.

In addition to sensitive data stored on client PCs and removable storage devices, many organizations realize that security of"data at rest"must also extend to document images stored on the hard disk drives within copier and printer systems. Toshiba's innovative new Wipe Technology provides advanced storage security features to enable systems makers to transparently and automatically secure private data on office copiers, printers and other types of business imaging systems.

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Samsung Announces Two-Terabyte EcoGreen Hard Drive

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The internal F4EG utilizes Samsung’s high-density design technology to provide better performance, low power and improved reliability to its 'EcoGreen' hard drives.

“Storage-hungry multimedia professionals, gamers and home PC users continue to increase the amount of video, music, photo and other personal data they store and back-up,” said I.C. Park, vice president, Storage Sales, Semiconductor Business,Samsung Electronics.“The F4EG delivers all the benefits of a low-power drive yet features top performance quality and is environmentally friendly.”

With its three disks and advanced technology, the F4EG drive is 19 percent better in standby time performance and has 23 percent lower power consumption in standby mode than the previous four-disk model, the F3EG.

Eliminating halogen compound and brominated flame retardant from the PCBA, the new model is produced with eco-friendly materials and meets all the environmental regulations including RoHS (Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment) which is applied worldwide, including the European Union.

Samsung’s new hard drive utilizes its low noise operation technology SilentSeek and NoiseGuard to achieve quiet system operation.

The F4EG incorporates a 3.0Gbps SATA interface, Native Command Queuing and a 32MBbuffer memory. The 3.5” F4EG drive is available in 1.5TB and 2TB capacities in the United States and EU markets with a suggested price of $119.99. Initial shipment is scheduled for early September.

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Intel's test: buy the PC, then pay for more speed

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Intel is including Pentium chips that are better than advertised in some low-end desktop computers. But to unlock their full power, buyers will need to a pay an extra fee.

The company says the program will enable people who have bought inexpensive PCs to upgrade them cheaply, through the Internet.

It's only a test so far, with the goal of gathering feedback.

News of the test has slipped onto technology blogs, and has rankled some hardcore techies because it asks people to pay extra for things the chips are already capable of doing.

"Intel is exploring a way to give customers the flexibility to determine the level of performance they want in their processor, without having to change hardware,"Intel said in a statement.

People upgrade lots of things on their computers, but most typically won't swap out themicroprocessor, which acts as a PC's"brain."For Intel, the business model it could provide an extra revenue stream , and it costs it very little to include a better chip.

ButIntelneeds to please not just consumers, but PC makers. They might not like the prospect of one of their most important suppliers helping PC buyers not buy a new PC.

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Canon develops world's first 120 megapixels APS-H-size CMOS image sensor

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Compared with Canon's highest-resolution commercial CMOS sensor of the same size, comprising approximately 16.1 million pixels, the newly developed sensor features a pixel count that, at approximately 120 million pixels, is nearly 7.5 times larger and offers a 2.4-fold improvement in resolution.

With CMOS sensors, while high-speed readout for high pixel counts is achieved through parallel processing, an increase in parallel-processing signal counts can result in such problems as signal delays and minor deviations in timing. By modifying the method employed to control the readout circuit timing, Canon successfully achieved the high-speed readout of sensor signals. As a result, the new CMOS sensor makes possible a maximum output speed of approximately 9.5 frames per second, supporting the continuous shooting of ultra-high-resolution images.

Canon's newly developedCMOS sensoralso incorporates a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) video output capability. The sensor can output Full HD video from any approximately one-sixtieth-sized section of its total surface area.

Images captured with Canon's newly developed approximately 120-megapixel CMOSimage sensor, even when cropped or digitally magnified, maintain higher levels of definition and clarity than ever before. Additionally, the sensor enables image confirmation across a wide image area, with Full HD video viewing of a select portion of the overall frame.

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Japan's Sharp to release triple-layer 100 GB Blu-ray disc

The world's first triple-layer disc has a capacity of 100 gigabytes, twice as much as the dual-layer discs now on the market, Sharp said.

The write-once disc will be available inJapanfrom July 30, with the price expected to be about 5,000 yen (60 dollars) each. Sharp will also sell recording machines compatible with the format.

The format allows users to record about 12 hours of terrestrial digital television broadcasts, or 8.6 hours of satellite digital broadcasts, at their originalhigh-definitionimage quality, the company said.

If the image quality is lowered, recording time can be boosted by up to 10 times to make it possible to store a library of four entire seasons of a TV drama series on a single disc.

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