Researchers overcome show-stopping problems with ferroelectric RAM

Over the past five years, NAND flash has gone from an exceedingly expensive storage solution that only a handful of customers could afford to a mainstream product used by millions of high-speed storage devices. This shift has been great for consumers and materially impacted the performance of even older systems, but NAND flash has long-term scaling and reliability issues. Researchers across the world have continued searching for alternative storage mediums that can store data for longer periods of time and use less power to perform read/write sequences.

One of these alternatives is called Ferroelectric RAM, or FeRAM for short. Like DRAM, FeRAM changes state when an electrical charge is applied. The difference between the two is that DRAM has to be continually recharged — FeRAM doesn’t. Applying an electrical field to an FeRAM cell causes a shift in the structure’s polarity that remains until another field is applied. FeRAM is faster than NAND flash and draws less power for write cycles — but up until now, there’s always been a major catch.

The only way to read FeRAM cell states is to force the cells into one position (0 or 1) and take note of how the polarity in each cell shifted. If data is stored in an array as 0,0,1,1,1, and an electrical field is applied to change all the cells to read “0,” only the last three cell values will change — but the act of reading the data destroys the stored value. There’s no such thing as a “read” cycle using conventional FeRAM, just read-write cycles. This slows system performance and impacts overall reliability.

Now, a research team from UC Berkeley has demonstrated a type of FeRAM that avoids the destructive read problem. FeRAM built from bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) exhibits an unusual property — it gives off voltage when struck by light. Critically, the voltage values released depend on the polarity of the cell. If a cell with a “0″ value releases a voltage of x and a cell with a “1″ value releases a voltage of y, it’s possible to read the stored values without needing to rewrite them afterwards.

According to the research team, it takes roughly 10 nanoseconds to perform read/write operations from this type of FeRAM at 3.3V. NAND Flash takes significantly longer (how long depends on the type of NAND) and draws 10-15V for the same operation. That’s a definite advantage for FeRAM — if certain other roadblocks can be conquered. The authors acknowledge that building FeRAM cells with non-destructive read capability requires that each cell be illuminated with its own light source. These prototype tests were conducted on cell arrays a full 10 micrometers in size — that’s the equivalent of 10,000 nanometers. Current NAND flash is being built at ~20nm.

Storage densities, in other words, remain an enormous problem. It’s not clear if that’s a problem that FeRAM can overcome; materials tend to lose ferroelectric properties at small sizes and any optical array for non-destructive reads would need to scale to equivalent nanometer size. The research team at UC Berkeley used an array of light to illuminate more than one cell at a time, which also improves power efficiency — individual light sources would inevitably add to the power cost of read/write operations.

Why it matters

NAND flash is running out of steam. Manufacturers have begun adopting “soft” product labels; denoting a product line as being built on “1X” rather than a hard process node due to scaling concerns. Sandisk recently acknowledged that its “1Y” flash, for example, is built on the same node as “1X.” As we’ve discussed before, this isn’t a problem unique to any manufacturer; it’s a fundamental problem with the laws of physics. As we approach atomic scales, the difficulty of building a CMOS transistor skyrockets and the value of new nodes plunges.

3D NAND is seen as a way to improve chip densities and drive lower prices without necessarily moving to new process nodes. GlobalFoundries and TSMC are both moving to blended process nodes that pair 20nm front-ends with lower-node backend work. But in the long run, we need different structures that can continue scaling where conventional silicon is failing. Ferroelectric RAM may or may not prove to be a successor to flash memory, but the ongoing work in these areas is what will ultimately enable post-CMOS scaling.

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A rare look inside an LTE cell site, operated by Sprint in San Francisco

There is one incredibly important field of modern technology that has always proven to be a bit of an impenetrable enigma for ExtremeTech: The hardware used by mobile carriers. We know in general terms how a cell site works, but for the most part the actual hardware and software and network topology is a proprietary black box. That’s why it’s very exciting when a mobile carrier such as Sprint invites a tech blog to take a close look at one of its new LTE cell sites in San Francisco.

In this case, Engadget visited Sprint cell site SF33XC664, located on a rooftop high above Van Ness Avenue in central San Francisco. In the photo above, the big structure at the end is the building’s elevator shaft, the tall gray boxes are Sprint’s LTE equipment, the smaller white boxes in the middle are AT&T’s equipment (it is common for cell sites to be shared), and the boxes in the foreground are Sprint’s older CDMA gear. Eventually, once Sprint’s Network Vision rollout is complete, the CDMA boxes will be be carted off and scrapped/recycled.

In the photo above, the box on the left (open door) houses Sprints’ LTE hardware, the cabinet in the middle is a battery backup system (good for 5-8 hours), and AT&T’s backhaul fiber connection is on the right. Historically most cell sites used microwave links for backhaul links to the carrier’s core network, but with the increased bandwidth requirements of 3G and 4G networks fiber links are now mostly used (especially in urban environments).

Inside the open cabinet is a ton of rack mounted network gear: Most notably, a Cisco switch at the bottom (connected to the AT&T fiber backhaul link), and three Samsung Smart Multi-modal Base Stations (SMM-2LD000). The top box deals with LTE data, while the bottom two boxes are CDMA data and voice. Because these Samsung base stations are multi-mode, Sprint can decommission its dedicated CDMA hardware and run a much simpler, cheaper, easier-to-manage setup.

These Samsung multi-modal base stations are the brains of the operation where all the magic occurs — and yet if you type the model number into Google, you get zero results (except for this story). This is generally because every base station has been tailor-made by the equipment maker (Samsung, Siemens, Ericsson) for the mobile carrier. In this case, Sprint started with a Samsung Smart MBS and probably had some custom firmware installed for its specific network topology. There is a Smart MBS website, but it’s almost completely devoid of useful information.

What we do know is that Samsung’s Smart MBS contains a software-defined radio (SDR), which basically means that Sprint’s network administrators can alter the technologies (LTE, CDMA, GSM) and frequencies (900MHz, 1900MHz, 2500MHz, etc.) used by the device through a simple software-based control panel, rather than actually installing new hardware. The SDR is the sole reason that Sprint is able to consolidate and simplify its network setup. In short, it is the MBS that manages the connections to every smartphone within its catchment area. It is essentially a huge wireless router.

The base station hardware would be nothing without amplifiers and antennae, however, which is what you see in the photo above. There are three directional antennae attached to the building, each covering a 120-degree arc. The two boxes next to the antennae are RF amplifiers, which amplify the signal from the base station before transmission. In the close-up photo below, you can see that the amplifiers are encased by a big heatsink — because amplifying signals all day generates a lot of heat. The output power of every cell site is different, depending on the local safety regulations for broadcast RF, but they generally max out at around 100 watts.

Ironically enough, Engadget actually gets surprisingly slow upload and download speeds when it’s up on the roof, next to the antenna. This is probably because the wavelength (i.e. the distance between the peaks) of cellular signals is between 15 and 50cm — and so if you’re too close to an antenna, before the wave can really stretch its legs, it causes all sorts of grief.

So, there you have it: When you make a call or access the internet, you now know exactly what the hardware that handles your data looks like. Your phone broadcasts its data, which is picked up by a cell site’s antenna, and then your signal is processed by a base station (such as the Samsung Smart MBS). The base station, which is just like a large wireless router, then forwards your data to the person you’re calling or the website you’re accessing, via the mobile carrier’s backhaul network.  Then, assuming you haven’t moved to another cell, data is transmitted back over the backhaul network to the same base station and broadcast by the antenna. If you have changed location, your phone will tell the new base station that you’ve moved — and data will be sent there instead.

Finally, your phone, which is constantly listening on a certain frequency for packets of data that are tagged with your unique ID, picks up these packets and decrypts them. Voila: A cellular network.

[Image source: Engadget]

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Xbox One: The wobbly third leg of Microsoft’s non-desktop trifecta

With the complete hardware, services, and pricing unveiled for theXbox One at E3, we now have the totality of Microsoft’s “next-generation” consumer-oriented lineup: Windows 8 on the desktop, laptop, and tablet, Windows Phone 8 on the smartphone, and Xbox One in the living room. On paper, this trifecta, seamlessly connected via Microsoft Account, SkyDrive, and Xbox Live, is almost perfect. In reality, though, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Where did it all go wrong for Microsoft?

From an objective standpoint, all of Microsoft’s new-for-2013 offerings — Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and the Xbox One — are perfect. Windows 8 capitalizes on the slow death of the desktop and the rush towards mobile; Xbox One is a powerful and feature-rich games console that could dominate the living room; and Windows Phone 8 is a sharp and savvy smartphone OS that ties everything together, while on the move or as a second screen. As a tech writer and a self-confessed life-long Microsoft fan, I have never been more excited about Microsoft’s future than over the last two years of covering Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and the “Xbox 720“.

From a subjective standpoint, though, each of Microsoft’s new offerings is intrinsically flawed and bogged down by crippling policy decisions no doubt handed down from Microsoft’s besuited higher echelons. Windows 8 and 8.1, despite “responding to customer feedback,” still forces users to use the Metro interface, even when a touchscreen isn’t present. Windows Phone 8 is one of Microsoft’s most polished products, but a smartphone OS is only as strong as its app ecosystem, and due to its minuscule market share WP8 still lacks the ecosystem to pull consumers away from iOS and Android — an unfortunate Catch-22 if I ever saw one. The Xbox One, depending on your point of view, is either an awesome all-in-one living room box that plays games, or an awful DRM-restricted games machine that acts as an HDMI passthrough for your cable box — the very same thing that the tried-and-failed Google TV attempted to do.

How did Microsoft manage to take three exciting, technologically advanced products and turn them into mediocre, humdrum devices that have had all of the fun and adventure sucked out of them?

Windows 3.0

A history lesson

For the past 20 years, Microsoft hasn’t done much more than double, triple, and quadruple down on the desktop ecosystem. Since the launch and success of Windows 3, almost all of Microsoft’s decisions have revolved around the maximizing of Windows-derived profits. The success of Office, one of Microsoft’s most profitable divisions, is entirely underpinned by Windows’ 95%+ desktop penetration — ditto the Server division. It’s even possible to draw a link from Windows’s dominance in the desktop market, to DirectX and PC gaming, to the Xbox.

To be honest, at the time, this all made perfect sense. Windows, Office, and Server were, and are, monumentally large profit drivers. But if technology has taught us anything it’s that nothing lasts forever — especially business models predicated on a large, bulky form factor that is virtually guaranteed to go the way of the dodo as technology advances. If anything, Microsoft has done incredibly well to maintain the desktop-dominated status quo for as long as it has.

Now, though, with tablets and smartphones exploding much faster than anyone could’ve anticipated, Microsoft is forced to adapt. Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are so different from their predecessors. The Xbox One isn’t that different, but it’s about as far from the Xbox 360 as Microsoft could get without completely redefining the games console paradigm. On paper, these massive changes all make sense, and if they were executed properly they really could give Microsoft the beachhead in the mobile market that it so desperately needs.

Gutless equivocation

Unfortunately, such changes simply can’t be easily made by a large multinational bureaucracy that generally works with three-year product cycles, rather than 12 months. From a strictly fiscal and pleasing-the-stock-holders point of view, too, Microsoft can’t just kill off the desktop. As it stands, Microsoft is massively profitable and will be for years to come. But at the same time, Microsoft knows that it must change now or face being squeezed out of the market by iOS, Android, and other upstarts. Faced with such a dilemma, Microsoft hedged its bets and created Windows 8, a Frankensteinian operating system that is the jack of all trades but the master of none.

Where does Microsoft go from here? It’s not too late for Windows 8, especially with Windows 8.1 coming up. If Windows 8 is a success, then there might be a knock-on effect that finally gets Windows Phone 8 off the ground. Finally, if the Xbox One works, it could be the perfect centerpiece of a new, non-desktop-oriented Windows ecosystem. That’s a lot of ifs, though, and given how wobbly the Xbox One looks in comparison to the PS4, and WP8′s consistently ailing market share, I think Microsoft has a rough few years ahead.

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RoboRoach Kickstarter project will bring cyborg insects to the masses

The guys at BackyardBrains certainly have a sense of humor. They know that their work, which focuses on reading and manipulating the brain waves of insects, can be seen as anything from cruel to frivolous. Their new Kickstarter project addresses this right out of the gate: are they putting men on Mars, or curing cancer? No, they’re just letting kids and adults drive real, live cockroaches around like remote control cars. Some people say it’s unethical to do use a living creature this way. Their response?Nah.

RoboRoach is a new Kickstarter project that aims to take the now months-old idea of a remote controlled cockroach (ancient, by today’s standards) and put it in the hands of the public. All you’ll need, they say, is their small kit, a live cockroach, and some time. The smallest investment to actually get you a kit is $100, though the actual retail version could vary from this somewhat. I can’t envision a future in which this does not pass its rather paltry $10,000 funding goal, so if you think you’ll buy one of these you probably want to jump on board now, if only for the swag that comes with it.

The system will work thanks to a set of small electrodes placed inside the insect’s antennae. This is the only vague part of the project, since BackyardBrains states that inserting the electrodes will require a short surgery under anesthesia — yet they don’t seem to offer this service themselves. Such delicate work would seem to require more than just an electrode plus “time,” but the team is clearly very dedicated to bringing accessible experiments to a general audience. The procedure is presumably easy enough for anyone to perform.

The electrode device has a small, attached port that sits on the roach’s back; when you wish to drive it around, you simply attach the other major component of the RoboRoach kit: a backpack unit that does all the actual sending, receiving, and interpreting of signals. Grab your roach, plug it in, and away you go.

The cockroach is controlled with an app, available for iOS and Android, which sends the backpack your simple input commands. The technology takes advantage of the fact that cockroaches use their antennae for direct physical sensing of their environment. When the backpack sends the proper signal to the antennae, the roach gets the feeling that it has just bumped into wall on the appropriate side — and so, it turns.

This is a fairly crude form of control, but it does work. The technique, called microstimulation, apparently causes no pain, and the roach can even learn to ignore it, given enough time. BackyardBrains claims that cockroaches have a known fear response which they do not display when receiving the backpack commands. No word on whether they display it during or after their surgery, however.

View the official Kickstarter video.

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Apple’s iOS 7 makes a bold move for the car dash, seeks to replace in-car infotainment

Apple’s new iOS 7 and the revamped Siri voice assistant announced Monday are poised to make big inroads into car dashboards. Your iPhone could be the navigation system for a low-cost car and bypass the pricey in-car navigation and infotainment systems of costlier vehicles. A dozen automakers say they plan to support the new features of iOS 7, particularly Siri Eyes Free. You use the press-to-talk button on the steering wheel and integrated microphone to communicate with your iPhone. Your iPhone screen is blanked and a replica is displayed on the car’s center stack LCD display. More automakers are building in LCD displays even when the cars don’t come with on-board navigation.

Maps and navigation would be the first apps to be ported to the car. For the best user experience, the in-car display might be slightly different than just an iPhone display rendered larger. Other apps might include texts and emails that could be be read aloud or shown on-screen. But if they’re displayed on-screen, then Apple and phone makers get caught up in the question of what should be on the center stack LCD and what’s too distracting. As if Apple hasn’t had enough run-ins with federal regulators already.

For car buyers,  it’s a mostly-win situation… near-term. For automakers, they’ll need to install LCD displays (at a manufacturing cost of about $100), but many do already. High-end cars may still have integrated navigation and infotainment, but on lower-end cars control may be ceded to Apple and other smartphone-makers. It’s unlikely automakers would sign exclusionary deals that would, say, include Apple and cut out Android. The iPhone is the single best-selling phone, but Android phones as a group outsell Apple and in some ways lead Apple in in-car functionality.

Car owners would get more up-to-date applications and phone-based navigation wouldn’t be so expensive. You might pay $10 a year for navigation; if you buy an update disc or SD card for your in-car system, that could be $200. Today, what’s installed in your car at the factory is pretty much what you have to live with for the life of the car. The updates are just that: map updates and software enhancements, not completely new versions of the navigation system. With the life of the average car now at a dozen years, you could be staring at the same clunky built-in nav system in 2025, or you could be running iOS 17.

The automakers on-board with iOS 7

Many automakers have signed on but not all. Several revealed themselves Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The most significant non-signers include Ford/Lincoln, whose Sync system ironically was the first to make heavy use of connected smartphones, Toyota/Lexus, and Chrysler. Those pledged to Siri Eyes Free are:

• Acura
• BMW
• Chevrolet
• Ferrari
• Honda
• Hyundai
• Infiniti
• Jaguar
• Kia
• Opel (Europe)
• Mercedes-Benz
• Nissan
• Volvo

Each automaker has to work out how one press-to-talk button on the steering wheel can be used by both the car’s voice recognition system and Siri. Most commonly, a short press sends the voice command to the car, a long press sends the command to Siri and Eyes Free.

What Apple doesn’t display on the center stack could be off-limits

No good deed goes unpunished, right? If you drink the Eyes Free Kool-Aid, know this: As Eyes Free works currently, some of your apps are shown on-screen, not all. But if the phone app is not Eyes Free approved, it’s also Hands Off. The controls and display on the iPhone are disabled so you can’t muck around with other apps. You shouldn’t be running a video on the center stack display, obviously. But say you wanted to check weather at your destination or the departure gate for your flight, and it’s not an app that works through Eyes Free. Then you’re out of luck, unless you disconnect Eyes Free and your connected smartphone is just a smartphone sitting on the center console. The biggest issue will be whether texts and the first lines of e-mails can be displayed.

Another issue for users is to see how Apple treats apps in a category. Right now, if you want to run an iPhone navigation app, it’s easier to access and issue commands to Apple Maps than to Google Maps, MotionX, Telenav, or AT&T/Verizon Navigator.

Have automakers run up the white flag?

Longer term, iOS 7 and a reinvigorated Siri could be a bad sign for automakers. It could mean the automakers are admitting they just can’t keep up with mobile infotainment technology and they’ll return to the nuts and bolts of car-building: safety, efficiency, comfort.

There still is good reason for automakers to stay involved: When an automaker builds in a data cellphone for telematics and automated crash notification, it uses an antenna that works farther in the boondocks that the best smartphone. When a high-end car incorporates a $2,000 navigation system, there’s incentive to make the center stack display 10 inches diagonal, not just 6 or 7 inches. Audi with its photorealistic maps shows what’s possible when spending extra money for good navigation on a good car.

If Eyes Free gets more iPhones connected to cars, iPhone entertainment apps such as iTunes streaming, Pandora, MOG, Spotify, iHeartRadio and others will gain more traction. SiriusXM satellite radio gets squeezed further.

Chevrolet BringGo: glimpse of the future

General Motors’ Chevrolet division already does some of what Apple announced this week. Using the Chevrolet MyLink infotainment interface, you can use an iPhone and BringGo software (formerly GoGo Link) from Engis Technologies ($50) to run navigation on the car phone, display the moving map on the car display, and issue commands through the touchscreen and center stack buttons. It’s on the Chevrolet Spark subcompact and Chevrolet Sonic compact cars. It’s a great idea that shows signs of incomplete execution: While BringGo gets you where you’re going, the software is not leading-edge, the displayed maps are sometimes hard to read, and one of the initial platform cars, the Spark, is underwhelming.

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Google Glass teardown: Futuristic on the outside, thoroughly underwhelming on the inside

In something of a political statement towards Google Glass’s potential privacy pitfalls, two engineers have violated the privacy of Google’s augmented reality specs and completed the first ever teardown. Despite Glass’s futuristic appearance, its internals surprisingly rather contemporary: There’s a standard TI OMAP4430 SoC, 16GB of flash, some DRAM, and a rather poky 570 mAh lithium-polymer battery. The display, which is just a few millimeters across but packs in a resolution of 640×360, is perhaps the most exciting piece of hardware revealed by the teardown. For more details, read on.

The teardown, performed by Scott Torborg and Star Simpson, was surprisingly easy. Unlike some modern products, which are held together with glue (such as the MacBook Pro with Retina display), Google Glass only really required a Torx screwdriver and some delicate spudger work. Torborg and Simpson were able to reassemble their Glass afterward, though considerable cosmetic damage remained. This might sound positive from a user-serviceability standpoint, but sadly the piece that’s most likely to require replacement — the battery — is impossible to remove without causing permanent cosmetic damage.

Google Glass is essentially separated into three distinct regions: The behind-the-ear battery, the main computer in the middle, and the display assembly at the front. A single Torx screw releases the main computer and display assembly from the Glass chassis/frame. Inside the main pod is a Synaptics touchpad, and under that is the main logic board, featuring an OMAP4430 SoC, 16GB of Sandisk NAND flash, and what appears to be a 1GB Elpida DRAM chip. The OMAP4430 is a fairly standard, circa-2011 dual-Cortex-A9 SoC based on the 45nm process. Its performance won’t blow you away, but it’s more than enough to drive Google Glass. A flexible PCB/ribbon connects the main computer to the behind-the-ear battery and the display assembly.

The display assembly is a single PCB with a tiny 640×360 LCD screen mounted directly on it; for scale, the coin in the above picture is a US dime, which is 18mm in diameter. The actual output from the display, though, is a lot larger than a few millimeters and appears to hover a few feet away from your face. To do this, the output from the screen — which actually faces forwards — is bent through a few angles using optical waveguides, similar to the method employed by projection TVs and old arcade games.

To access the battery, Torborg and Simpson again had to use destructive force to peel back the plastic. Google Glass is powered by a single-cell lithium-polymer battery rated at 2.1 watt-hours (570 mAh). The Galaxy S4, by comparison, has a 2,600 mAh battery, which explains why Google Glass’s battery life is so short.

Finally, rounding out Glass’s hardware, there’s a nine-axis InvenSense MPU-9150 inertial sensor, a controller for the Synaptics touchpad, a fairly mundane 5-megapixel camera, and between the main computer and battery pod there’s a bone conduction speaker (pictured above).

All in all, Google has done a fine job of integrating all of these components into an attractive chassis, but it’s clear from the short battery life that the underlying tech just isn’t good enough. The good news is that it shouldn’t be too hard to upgrade the internals, and moving to a newer 28nm or 22nm SoC could result in significant battery life gains. Really, though, what Google and the rest of the wearable computer industry really needs is a breakthrough in battery technology — and, as we know from experience, revolutionary battery technologies are few and far between.

Now read: Google Glass: Why are we so excited about a glorified camcorder?

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iOS 7 interface and new features detailed: The biggest update since the first iPhone

Yesterday’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote from Apple was jam-packed with information. New Macs, iTunes Radio, and OS X Mavericks were announced, but the biggest news was undoubtedly the unveiling of iOS 7. Helmed by Jony Ive, this new mobile operating system has a brand new look, and countless new features.

New look

Leading up to the announcement, the rumor mill was obsessed with the idea that iOS 7would feature a flat, tile-based look aping directly from Microsoft’s UI paradigm formerly known as Metro. Turns out, that couldn’t be less accurate. Instead, iOS 7 is leaning heavily on the illusion of depth and use of animation. The classic home screen still sports a grid of rounded icons, but a simple tilt of the device shows off the brand new parallax effect that makes the icons appear as if they’re floating on a plane in 3D space.

Okay, Apple isn’t directly mimicking Microsoft’s style, but there is a little bit ofWebOS in iOS 7. Double-tapping the home button will display previews of each application, and a quick swipe up will quit any application. Frankly, this is damn-near identical to Palm’s card UI. Being that WebOS is nowrelegated to smart TVs , it’s nice to see that Palm’s innovations aren’t going to waste.

When SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi showed off the newly redesigned apps, he made a point to highlight how much animation there is in iOS 7. Swiping through the new weather app shows dynamic depictions of the current climate in your selected location. Scrolling through the Reading List in Safari lets you seamlessly switch between articles without navigating the menu. This all sounds wonderful, but there will be an overhead. The big worry is that slower A4 and A5 devices like the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2, iPad (third-gen), and iPad Mini just won’t be able to keep up. It wouldn’t be the first time Apple pushed an update that made older devices run significantly worse.

New features

By and far the most important new feature is the added protection for lost devices in iOS 7. Previously, the Find My iPhone service allowed you to remotely lock and wipe your lost device. That was useful, but ne’er-do-wells could simply wipe the device, throw in a new SIM card, and do as they pleased. With iOS 7′s activation lock feature, your iCloud username and password will be required to activate the device even after it’s been wiped. This is a huge step forward in deterring theft, and it’s an unqualified win for legitimate users.

We all expected AirDrop to make its way to iOS, and Apple didn’t disappoint. This new system-wide feature is available for all developers to add to their application’s share sheet. Photos, videos, and contacts are easily shared from anywhere. Sadly, this feature requires a recent WiFi chipset to work properly. Only the iPhone 5, fifth-gen iPod Touch, fourth-gen iPad, and iPad Mini will get access to this feature.

Safari, Apple’s incredibly popular mobile web browser, has been given a brand new coat of paint in iOS 7. In the new version, it’ll feature a unified omnibox, the tab interface has been given a complete facelift, and the arbitrary limit on the number of tabs has been tossed out. Finally, Apple is taking a cue directly from its competitors and implementing gesture-based navigation. After years of stagnation, it seems like Safari is actually starting to get interesting again.

Android devotees have ragged on iOS for years because of its lack of proper multitasking, but Apple hasn’t given up. Slowly but surely, Cupertino has offered more options for multitasking while retaining its firm stance against battery hogging always-on apps. In iOS 7, any task will have the ability to pull down updates in the background. iOS will monitor app activity, and automatically keep your most-used apps updated at key points throughout the day. Even better, push notifications now have the ability to trigger behind-the-scenes updates. When you receive a Facebook notification, iOS 7 automatically updates the Facebook app with the relevant data. More importantly, the App Store is getting similar capabilities with the long awaited auto-update feature. John McCain must be thrilled.

Timeframe

Paid members of Apple’s iOS developer program can download the iPhone beta of iOS 7 now. Later this year, the iPad beta will make its way to developers as well. Sadly, the general public won’t get their hands on the shiny new operating system until this autumn — probably after the next-generation iPhone and iPad are released. Apple also showed off iOS integration in certain cars, but we won’t see any of that until 2014.

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Xbox One vs. PS4: How Microsoft could push the Xbox back into the lead

Having revealed the consoles a few months ago, Sony and Microsoft officially threw down yesterday during their respective E3 press conferences by showing the world what each console is all about. Sony’s conference was more or less a resounding success, whereas Microsoft’s fell somewhere short of that. Right now, the feel of the gaming world is that Sony has already won the next generation before it has even started, so what can Microsoft do to combat that?

Yesterday, Sony seemed to have it all: a slew of exciting big budget games for this gen and next, a bunch of indie games that show an in-depth knowledge of the scene, an acceptably low price point, a video appearance by LeBron James who is currently the most famous athlete on the planet, and absolutely no used games or online check-in authentication. Meanwhile, Microsoft showed off short clips, had no indie cred, didn’t focus much on the remainder of this generation, and announced that a console which doesn’t want you to play used games and requires you to check in online every 24 hours would be $500. There are definitely legitimate reasons as to why the gaming public is all aboard the PS4 so soon. However, it wouldn’t take very much for Microsoft to get back into the game, but it would take something of a policy restructuring.

The games

Though Sony seemed to have an avalanche of exciting new franchises, respected indie studios, and new franchise installments, Microsoft wasn’t exactly a slouch in the games department, but it did fall short. Microsoft didn’t show nearly as many games as Sony, nor did it have as much in-game footage. If Microsoft wants to catch up to Sony in the games department — as it should, considering the Xbox One is primarily a games console — the most obvious step the company can take is to show off more playable demos of its new games as soon as it can. We got a brief, pre-rendered glimpse of a new Halo, but all we saw was Master Chief wearing a cloth cloak over space armor. Secondly, the reason why Microsoft doesn’t have the indie cred is because indie developers can’t self-publish on the Xbox One. In the grand scheme of things, this could lead to a very simple choice for Microsoft: Have no popular indie games at all (aside from Minecraft), or allow indie devs to self-publish. Whatever reason Microsoft has for not allowing them to self-publish certainly couldn’t be worth more than not having any indie devs at all.

Though Microsoft knows its audience — which is why we saw a slew of heavily armored males shooting guns at the conference — the company could also spread its wings a little and show us a larger variety of genres. Microsoft may know its audience, but if the audience is jumping ship due to Sony’s E3 dominance or Microsoft’s oft-discussed DRM, the company can pull gamers back in by offering them an experience they can’t get anywhere else. Project Spark looked unique, but the Xbox is not traditionally the platform for unique experiences, so it may fall on def ears. If Microsoft continued pursuing those types of experiences, it could turn the Xbox into the creative gamer’s home.

The Services

The world is comfortable with having to pay for Xbox Live Gold in order to play video games online. Now that the PS4 moved into that territory as well — requiring gamers to pay for a PS Plus membership in order to game online — Microsoft isn’t even behind in that category. However, as far as the world knows, every other online service is still behind the Gold paywall. If you subscribe to Netflix, you can’t watch it on your Xbox unless you also subscribe to Gold. Meanwhile, if you don’t subscribe to PS Plus, you can still watch Netflix on your PlayStation. If Microsoft removed the Gold paywall, then people won’t have much to complain about.

On the surface, it doesn’t look like Microsoft’s run at TV will matter very much since the Xbox One doesn’t actually act as a cable box. Instead, it acts as a device you plug your cable box into so you don’t have to turn on two separate things. However, the actual gem of the feature is that developers can place an overlay on live TV thanks to the Xbox passthrough. The example shown so far is that if you’re watching a basketball game, you can invoke an overlay that shows how your Fantasy team is performing. This specific implementation, though useful, won’t blow the gaming population away. However, if developers can figure out creative, interesting ways to use this overlay feature, it could literally change the way we watch television. We have no idea what to do with the overlay, but hopefully someone over at Microsoft does.

The Policies

It doesn’t seem like anyone knows exactly why Microsoft went ahead with the used games and online check-in DRM. Don’t forget about the mandatory sort of always-on Kinect, either. During the Sony conference, when Jack Tretton announced that the PS4 wouldn’t require an online check-in, the crowd went ballistic. When he announced that you could play, trade, and sell back used games the way we’ve always been able too, the crowd went ballistic again. Jack Tretton actually tried to move on to a new topic, but the crowd was still busy hooting and hollering, like in a live sketch show when the audience is still laughing from a joke so the actors have to wait to say the next bit of dialog. Yes, the E3 audience is mainly filled with in-the-know journalists, and the general consumer public isn’t as in-the-know. However, the general consumer public gets its information from those journalists, so if the journalists are unhappy, the consumers will know to be unhappy as well. If Microsoft revoked the online check-in, mandatory Kinect, and used games DRM, then the company could begin moving back into the good graces of gamers.

The E3 audience also lost its collective mind when Sony announced that the PS4 wouldundercut the Xbox One by $100. It’s not too late for Microsoft to drop the price of the console to be more competitive. The company might take a huge hit on hardware costs, but a huge hit on hardware costs and eventually making it back up in the long-run is probably better than the gaming audience not buying the console in the first place.

A tough road ahead for Microsoft

None of these changes will be easy or straightforward to enact. It is clear, from its games, services, and policies, that the Xbox One was conceived as a media center for the US mass market, rather than a dedicated gaming machine that would appeal to gamers all over the world.

Will Microsoft make any of these changes? I doubt it. To compete with the PS4 in terms of gaming, the Xbox One would have to give up almost everything that makes it the Xbox One, and at this late stage I doubt the bureaucratic oil tanker that is Microsoft could make such a dramatic U-turn. At this point, Microsoft’s best bet is to capitalize on its non-gaming advantages over Sony’s PS4, and pray that there are enough people in the US that actually want the live TV experience provided by the Xbox One. Outside the US, where the Xbox is historically weaker than the PlayStation and where Microsoft doesn’t have the same licensing deals in place, the Xbox One probably doesn’t stand much of a chance against the PS4.

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Apple’s iOS 7 activation lock could make iPhones worthless to thieves

Apple always touts the security inherent in the iOS platform, and uses that as a bludgeon against the more open Android platform. While iOS does have a very well-managed and safe software ecosystem, the one place Apple has fallen short is in the real world — Apple devices are common targets for muggers and thieves because of the high resale value. The anemic feature set in Find My iPhone has never really prevented the theft of iDevices before, but that might change with iOS 7. It seems Find My iPhone finally has some teeth.

Starting in iOS 7, an iPhone is no longer an easy day’s work for a phone thief. The new activation lock feature of Find My iPhone can render a lost iPhone or iPad unusable if it looks like it isn’t coming home. So now, in addition to merely tracking the location of a lost phone, users have the option to nuke it from orbit permanently.

Remote wipe is nothing new — BlackBerry has been doing the same thing for nigh on a decade now. What makes Apple’s activation lock unique is that it ties in with the owner’s iCloud account. The original iCloud password will be required to make a wiped device functional again. Even if a thief manages to disable Find My iPhone or wipe the device on his or her own, activation lock renders it little more than a lovely paperweight.

To take things a step farther, a locked iPhone will still be able to display messages should it come into the possession of a more reputable party. You can hope against all odds that the device is returned, but at the same time know that your data is not compromised. Well, there’s also the satisfaction of knowing the thief isn’t seeing any benefit from inconveniencing you.

This feature isn’t just about protecting individual users and their data — it’s about setting a precedent. The epidemic of iPhone thefts has been on Apple’s radar for a long time, and this is its effort to put a stop to it. If stealing an iPhone almost always results in a locked and useless handset, thieves will eventually start looking for easier targets. Some of those Android phones are getting pretty nice, too.

Even the authorities have been keeping an eye on the rates of iDevice theft. The NYPD launched a special task force to recover lost iPhones and iPads a few months ago. This is part of an initiative to track down caches of stolen property, which almost always include piles of Apple devices. Several attorneys general, including New York’s Eric T. Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, sounded notes of optimism when the activation lock feature was announced yesterday.

Apple takes device security seriously to the point of hindering its own users. The long-term battle among Jailbreakers to defeat Apple’s draconian restrictions are legend on the internet. But with activation lock we’re starting to see where Apple’s cautious approach is paying off. A jailbroken device may offer industrious thieves a way to bypass security measures like activation lock. This might be a solid argument against jailbreaking.

The improved security in iOS 7 isn’t just good for people that take their phones out on the subway. It will act as a theft deterrent for all iDevice users.

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AMD unveils world’s first 5GHz CPU

In a desperate ploy to stay relevant, AMD has announced the first commercially available CPU to hit 5GHz: the FX-9590. Like its flagship predecessor, the FX-8350, the new chip features four Piledriver modules, which roughly equates to eight cores. For those of you who can’t afford the FX-9590, AMD is also releasing the FX-9370, which is identical except for a slightly lower clock of 4.7GHz. Both chips are unlocked for further overclocking.

Before you get too excited, though, we should warn you that AMD — as usual, when it comes to performance — isn’t being entirely honest about the FX-9590′s 5GHz claim to fame. 5GHz is the chip’s Turbo Core speed, not the base clock. AMD hasn’t even announced the base clock speed, leaving us to guess (it’s probably around 4.3GHz). In reality, 5GHz will probably only be obtainable when there’s plenty of thermal overhead, and not for extended periods of time; if you were hoping to build a render farm out of eight-core monsters that are stuck at 5GHz, you will be disappointed.

AMD, which announced the FX-9590 and 9370 at E3, is framing these two chips as the ultimate gaming companion. “At E3 this week, AMD demonstrated why it is at the core of gaming,” says AMD vice president Bernd Lienhard. “The new FX 5 GHz processor is an emphatic performance statement to the most demanding gamers seeking ultra-high resolution experiences.” In reality, of course, the single-threaded (and multi-threaded) performance of Ivy Bridge and Haswell make Intel a better choice for gaming. (See our Haswell review.) The one exception, as always, is if you’re trying to build a rig on a budget — we don’t have a price yet, but it’ll probably be around $300, or a little less than the top-of-the-range Core i7-4770K.

The bigger story here is that AMD has released the first commercial CPU to hit 5GHz, with a standard heatsink and fan (fun fact: AMD also produced the first 1GHz chip, way back in 2000). Piledriver was always built with high clock speeds in mind (See: AMD’s FX-8350 analyzed: Does Piledriver deliver where Bulldozer fell short?), but 5GHz is still rather impressive. AMD may have made some tweaks to the architecture reach 5GHz, but in all likelihood this is probably just the result of improved yields from GlobalFoundries’ 32nm SoI process, which is finally reaching maturity. This correlates nicely with AMD’s recently released Richland APUs, which feature Piledriver-based CPUs capable of 5GHz overclocks.

The FX-9590 and FX-9370, both of which are Socket AM3+ Vishera CPUs, will be released “this summer.” No word on pricing yet, but they will probably be priced just below Intel’s chips. It’s also worth noting that process maturity doesn’t override physics: At 5GHz, the FX-9590 will have an utterly monstrous TDP, probably in the 200W region.

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