Yesterday, Intel announced its plans to run Android and Windows on the same PC in perfect harmony. Now, it seems AMD has the exact same plan.

Verge reports that AMD is teaming up with BlueStacks to develop technology which will allow Android to run within Windows, on the same piece of silicon, in a way that seems seamless to the end user. According to Verge, you’ll be able to “launch individual Android apps from the Windows 8 Start Screen just like they were native Windows programs”, as well as being able to search for new Android apps via Microsoft’s own Windows 8 search charm, as long as you link app stores into the search system.

But there’s perhaps a trick up AMD’s sleeve that’ll make Intel jealous: it’s latest chips will include an ARM chip inside. That’s the same silicon that Android apps normally use, and it could mean that Android apps are run on their native chip design, making them way more efficient. That’s a pretty big ‘could’, but it would be cool if it works out—especially when it comes to saving battery life, because virtualization of Android on another system uses a lot of juice.

Just as with Intel’s offering, it’s not clear how popular a Windows-Android hybrid device will be. But, hey, it looks like we’re getting them regardless.

Original article from Verge.

Every year, the TVs, phones and gadgets at CES seem to get bigger and bigger – but Intel’s reversing the trend with its brand new computer, the Intel Edison, which fits everything you need into a board the size and shape of an SD card. Raspberry Pi, eat your heart out.

This might look like the storage card for your compact camera, but make no mistake, this is a computer, with its own 22nm dual-core processor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities.

It can run multiple operating systems, including Linux, and will be available for manufacturers and hobbyists this summer – price is still TBC, but we’re hoping it’s as low as the £25 Raspberry Pi computer.

Intel’s making a big push with wearable technologies this year at CES in Las Vegas – the company also showed off its own smartwatch prototype yesterday, although it is not planning to release it to the public – and it’s betting big that Edison will play a part in that.
One of its demonstrations showed the little computer working in harmony with sensor’s connected on a baby’s onesie, displaying temperature and even turning on a bottle warmer when the baby started to wake.

When you consider what hackers have turned the Raspberry Pi into, a robot, a media centre, a pet feeder and much more besides, the ideas a computer this small could be put to are dazzling.

During Valve’s CES 2014 event this evening, the company released a brochure featuring images, prices, and specificiations for 13 third-party Steam Machines. Let’s take a look-see!

Aside from Alienware, the party pooper, each of the 13 machines at the very least comes with some basic specs, giving us an idea of what to expect from these Valve-approved gaming PCs. Some we’ve seen earlier today. Others we’ll be getting to know more about later this evening. According to Valve’s Gabe Newell, Maingear’s system was too late to make the brochure, but I’m sure there will be more about that down the line.

So, what do you guys think? That certainly a bunch of PC gaming machines, right?

Give that there are so many options, could it be that this will confuse consumers? After all, when you purchase a console you know that you are evenly matched with anyone else who buys it and developers know the specs everyone has under their TV.

With Steam Machine there seems to be so many options and some are so expensive that it seems it’d be more sensible to go out, buy a PC and hook that up to your TV. Can anyone actually see this venture being a success?

Check out the brochure here.

While it may not be an official standard; and is drawing ire from standards bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector – which wrote the 4G Standard – as well as many independent technology reviewers, Broadcom is insistent on establishing “5G” as the official term for the new 802.11ac WiFi standard, which uses higher frequencies for better penetration through walls.

Having been the first to release WiFi Chips capable of using the new standard, Broadcom is now making waves again by announcing the imminent release of all new chips which they hope will make connectivity more reliable than ever. The company announced today at CES 2014 two new WiFi client system-on-a-chips (SoCs), models BCM43569 and BCM43602, designed to offer Wi-Fi speed and range while reducing the Wi-Fi processing power of the host device.

In general, the typical household using WiFi is sharing it across numerous devices. Just in one room for example, you may have a WiFi-enabled Game Console connected to your TV, with Bluetooth controllers for wirelessly connecting to the console to game; and perhaps also to control the TV itself. You may even have Bluetooth speakers. The problem with this is, when multiple devices use the same wireless technology and they’re closely bunched together, they create interference, which reduces the available WiFi bandwidth and can slow down the connections as well as hurt the signal strength for devices further away. Broadcom says the new BCM43569 and BCM43602 are designed to tackle this problem.

With the BCM43569 chip, Broadcom’s solution is to allow smart TVs to receive both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (4.1) signals simultaneously, allowing the TV to change its wireless output to whatever would give it the best performance. With a USB 3.0 Interface on board – though USB 2.0 adaptors will also be supported – the company claims it’s the first chip to include a common USB port for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and integrated Power Amplifiers (iPA) across both bands. It’s designed to deliver up to three times the bandwidth of its peers, and it comes with a separate Bluetooth low-noise amplifier (LNA) as well as customized Wi-Fi and Bluetooth coexistence algorithms.

Meanwhile, the BCM43602 is designed for the PCIe interface; and is capable of receiving 802.11ac speeds up to 900Mbps. Here, the performance gains come from allowing the host device – for example, a computer – to utilise more of its CPU Power itself without wasting so much on the WiFi connection. This is because, says Broadcom, the chip has the entire WLAN software driver running on itself; so the chip does the hard work instead.

Samples of both chips have already made their way to OEMs, ready to incorporate into their own products. That means we should expect to see the final products that will be first to use Broadcom’s new and improved “5G WiFi” standard by the end of the year.

CES 2014 kicks off this week and you can expect to see a plethora of Steam Box related news.

Up until now we have received a good amount of information pertaining to Box’s specs but very little has been known as to whom would be selling the machines.

iBuyPower will be showing off their machine fitted with a multi-core AMD Cpu, 500GB hard drive (we are not sure if this is SSD), WiFi, Bluetooth, and an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card.

The size if the unit is said to be around the same size as a PS4 and a tad smaller then an Xbox One.