Apple’s former GPU maker Imagination agrees to £550 million sale

Posted on 23/09/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

Losing Apple as a customer can be rough for a supplier, as Imagination Technologies found out. In April, the UK chipmaker announced that the folks in Cupertino planned to develop their own mobile GPUs and would no longer rely on its PowerVR tech for...

Imagination puts itself up for sale after being dumped by Apple

Posted on 22/06/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

Once the world learned that Apple will design its own GPU for upcoming iPhones and iPads instead of using Imagination Technologies PowerVR tech, the UK company quickly lost 70 percent of its value. While it's still in "dispute" with Apple over the br...

Splitting up with Apple is a chipmaker’s nightmare

Posted on 04/05/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

Apple is such a powerful company that, for third-party suppliers, it's hard not to become reliant on the cash that it pays you. But when Apple says that it's done, choosing to move whatever technology you provide in house, the results can be really p...

Imagination Technologies Says Wearable Boom Will Vindicate Its Risky Expansion

Posted on 01/04/2014 by forbes

It’s over a year since Imagination Technologies (LON:IMG) trespassed into ARM’s territory, through the bullish $100 million acquisition of the mobile CPU designer MIPS. Back then I argued that...

WiFi-equipped Arduino Yun now available for $69 (video)

Posted on 11/09/2013 by Jon Fingas

If you were wondering what happened to the Arduino Yun after it missed its original June release target, you can relax: it's now on sale worldwide. As promised, the $69 (€52) design combines a garden variety Leonardo board with a WiFi system-on-chip running Limino, giving owners a customizable wireless access point with Ethernet, USB and a microSD slot. Tinkerers can also program the Arduino component over the air using a newly updated developer environment. Those already sold on the concept can buy an Arduino Yun at the source link, while newcomers can check out an introductory video after the break.

Filed under: Misc, Networking

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Via: Arduino Blog

Source: Arduino Store

Imagination Tech CEO: ‘The industry needs MIPS as much as MIPS needs the industry’

Posted on 08/07/2013 by Richard Lai

At an earlier press event in Shenzhen, Imagination Technologies' CEO Sir Hossein Yassaie delivered a clear message: his company's $100 million acquisition of MIPS isn't a short term strategy. Additionally, he has ambitious plans with the latter's chip architecture -- a well-known rival of ARM and Intel's x86.

In his presentation, Yassaie boasted that there are currently over 300 SoCs based on MIPS. And out of the five billion devices shipped with Imagination Tech's IP to date, three billion of them use MIPS. These include phones, tablets (especially in China), wearables, printers, networking devices, storage devices and more.

Filed under: Misc

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Imagination Tech reveals Warrior CPU core to fight (uphill) battle against ARM

Posted on 26/06/2013 by Sharif Sakr

This news isn't remotely surprising, given Imagination Tech's recent acquisition of CPU designer MIPS, but reporting it still gives us a little flutter of excitement. And for good reason: Imagination has just revealed that its first MIPS-based CPU core, which should be able to run Android, will be introduced by the end of this year, and that it'll go by the totally appropriate codename of Warrior (or, less dramatically, "MIPS Series5"). The core's first battle will be to prove that the MIPS architecture really can be a competitive alternative to ARM (which uses a similar low-power RISC architecture) and that Imagination didn't just blow $100 million on hot air. Speaking of which, the attached press release comes with plenty of bold claims, including a statement that the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Warrior will offer "best-in-class performance and efficiency," and a promise that Imagination "will change the landscape for CPU IP." We have no idea how all of this is going to play out, but we fully intend to be ringside when it does.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

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GEAK Watch packs Android, WiFi and a plethora of sensors, likely ‘world’s first true smartwatch’

Posted on 17/06/2013 by Richard Lai

Nowadays, we can't help but be skeptical of products that claim to be a smartwatch. In fact, what is a smartwatch, anyway? Perhaps GEAK, a Shanghai-based subsidiary of content giant Shanda, has a somewhat convincing answer. Simply dubbed the GEAK Watch, this wearable device packs a surprising number of components, with the most notable one being the 802.11b/g/n WiFi module. This lets the Android 4.1 system download apps directly or even receive OTA updates, but you can also create a wireless ad hoc network to do instant messaging with fellow users nearby -- the watch can apparently do voice-to-text input. There's also Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC for device pairing, along with GPS and FM radio -- yes, there's a headphone jack, too.

In terms of sensory features, the GEAK Watch offers to monitor the user's sleeping pattern, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, mood and number of steps walked. The components that take care of all these are somehow tucked into the 8mm-thick body of the watch, with the brain being the rare 1GHz Ingenic JZ4774 that's based on MIPS architecture. The chip's accompanied by 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage and a suspiciously minuscule 500mAh lithium polymer cell -- no word on the battery life just yet, though. There's a 1.55-inch, 240 x 240 multi-touch OGS display to seal the device, and overall the watch is certified for a reasonable IPX3 water resistance.

Honestly, this smartwatch sounds too good to be true, and it's only priced at just ¥1,999 or about $330. It'll be up for pre-ordering in China from July 3rd, so it shouldn't be long before we find out if the GEAK Watch is worthy of the "world's first true smartwatch" title.

Filed under: Wearables

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Via: Engadget Chinese

Source: GEAK (Chinese)

Arduino Yun weds Arduino, WiFi and linux at Maker Faire 2013

Posted on 20/05/2013 by Myriam Joire

The Arduino Robot wasn't the only interesting product the Italian company launched at Maker Faire this past weekend. Arduino Yún combines a Leonardo board (featuring Atmel's ATmega32u4) with a MIPS-based WiFi SoC (Atheros AR9331) running Limino (an OpenWRT / linux derivative). It includes everything you'd expect from a Leonardo board plus WiFi, wired Ethernet, a USB host port and a microSD card slot. The Arduino side can be programmed wirelessly and communicates with the WiFi SoC via SPI and UART interfaces using the new Bridge Library, which delegates networking to the linux side. Out of the box, the board behaves just like any standard WiFi access point with a full web interface -- it even allows SSH access. Arduino Yún is the first of a family of WiFI-enabled products and will be available late June for $69. Check out the gallery below for some closeup shots, and follow the source for more details.

Gallery: Arduino Yún at Maker Faire 2013