Trends & Market Research

Facebook brands Oculus Reality Lab: it’s now FRL

According to a Facebook posting by Oculus chief scientist Michael Abrash, Oculus Research will be known as Facebook Reality Labs (FRL). “While our name is new,” said Abrash, “our focus on the future hasn't changed.” Facebook is slowly, deliberately, and we think carefully subsuming Oculus, as it should. Facebook changed the Oculus leadership in late 2016 and Oculus founder and … Read more

A rose by any other name — Futuremark is now all UL

The power of brand vs pizzazz  Futuremark was founded in 1997 by members of the former demoscene group Future Crew, a well-known game and music development community in Helsinki known for extraordinary content, GPU designs, and all-night parties. The company leveraged all those assets and talents and developed the first truly independent benchmark that was designed by game and hardware … Read more

Intel Q1 2018 results

First-quarter revenue was $16.1 billion, up 8.8% year-over-year, data-centric* businesses accounted for 49%  Intel reported its calendar Q1 2018, revenues were up.  The profits were up 655% after a loss last quarter due to a huge tax expense. All of its business centers except McAfee were up.  “Coming off a record 2017, 2018 is off to a strong start. Our … Read more

AMD Q1 2018 results

$1.65 billion in sales, $121 million GAAP profit for the quarter, sales and profit up from last quarter. AMD reported its calendar Q1 2018, and got a round of applause from investors, in the form of a bump in their stock price. Revenues and operating income were up as well as its graphics and compute groups revenue and profits. The first quarter … Read more

Intel exits wearables

Another adventure ended In 2013, with great fanfare, the new devices group (NDG) was started under the direction of Mike Bell, a former Apple and Palm executive. Then Intel acquired fitness watch maker Basis in 2014 for around $100 million, and in 2015 acquired sports glasses maker Recon for around $175 million. Shortly thereafter, Intel folded the New Devices Group … Read more

Arm and Nvidia spot a squirrel

Breathless reporting makes news of Nvidia's and Arm's collaboration on Xavier sound like earth shattering news.  Nvidia and Arm recently announced that they would be working together to make Nvidia’s Deep learning Accelerator (NVDLA) accessible to programmers using Arm’s Trillium platform. Project Trillium was announced by Arm in February this year as a way for developers to get direct access from … Read more

New boss at Imagination Technologies

Sends a strong message about the company’s future. Imagination Technologies announced this week that Dr. Leo Li will be the company’s Chief Executive Officer. That is very good news for Imagination, its suppliers, shareholders, employees, and friends. Dr. Li is Chairman of the Global Semiconductor Alliance and a well-known and respected figure in the semiconductor industry. He has over 30 … Read more

GTC: Nvidia’s evolution takes it into new territory with new customers and competitors

It’s ten years since Nvidia launched the GPU Technology Conference (albeit under a different name) to promote the use of their technology. This year, they are claiming an attendance of more than 8000 delegates along with one of the largest press and analyst delegations you will see outside of behemoths like CES and MWC.  What started as a bold statement … Read more

Nvidia GTC: Gaming Perspective

Gaming is still the major cash cow for the company and they haven’t forgotten that By design, the Nvidia GTC had very little gaming content but they did display a few products and technologies worthy of mention. BFGD Just when we thought we had everything properly segmented; Nvidia goes off the reservation and breaks all the rules with the “TV … Read more