Perovskites are appealing in part because you can adjust the areas of the spectrum they absorb by changing their composition. NREL

Right now, silicon-based photovoltaics rule the production lines. That's good, in the sense that the silicon is cheap and abundant. But the form used in photovoltaic panels has to be exceptionally pure and processed heavily, which adds significantly to its cost. For that reason, research has continued into alternative materials for use in solar cells.

Based on the frequency that they appear in scientific journals, there's a class of substances that have materials scientists excited: perovskites. Originally named after a mineral, "perovskite" is now used to refer to any material that adopts the same crystalline structure as calcium titanium oxide.

Perovskites have some significant advantages, in that they can also be made from abundant and cheap elements, and many types of perovskite crystals will form spontaneously from a saturated solution. There are some downsides, however, as one of the best photovoltaic materials contains lead, which is toxic. Another problem is that one of the layers in perovskite cells tends to degrade rapidly in use. A just-published paper describes a new perovskite photovoltaic that, while still reliant on lead, gets rid of the problematic layer entirely.

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One of the major announcements at Computex this year was that of the Maximus VII Formula, ASUS’ ‘gaming-rather-than-overclocking’ focused member of the Republic of Gamers line-up. The additions for the new Formula will centre on the PCIe storage support that Z97 affords, as well as the iterative design of the ROG brand. The main elements that ASUS wants to promote with the new Formula include the power delivery hybrid cooling solution, the SupremeFX audio solution, the ROG Armor, TrueVolt 5V, GameFirst III and Extreme Engine DIGI+ III.

For those not familiar with the Formula, particularly from the last generation, the main visual feature is usually the ROG Armor. This is a fixed shroud on the front and back of the motherboard, with the aim to improve the rigidity of the product but also reduce dust build up on components or shorting due to errant screwdrivers.

The CrossChill hybrid cooling combines air cooling with a water cooling heatsink on the power delivery. The design is based in corrosion-resistant copper, and ASUS claims that temperatures in this area of the motherboard can be reduced by up to 23ºC. The thread fittings are set at G1/4-inch and require users to use their own barbs. The chokes underneath are the 60A Blackwing chokes found on the high-end Maximus VI range, and the NexFET ICs are designed for 90% efficiency. Knowing that gamers will also want to overclock, there are also 10K black metallic caps with a 20% increase in extreme temperature endurance over that standard solution.

The audio solution uses many of the same elements we have come across on an enhanced ALC1150 setup – PCB separation, EM shields, filter caps and headphone amplifiers. ASUS engineer their design to also include a Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC for the rear output and ‘Sonic SenseAmp’ technology to detect when low or high impedance headphones are used and adjust accordingly.

For storage, M.2 is supported via the mPCIe combo III card for the rear IO, supporting any type 2260 devices. This looks to be a PCIe 2.0 x2 solution. ASUS also includes two SATA Express ports, one powered by the PCH and the other via an ASMedia controller. Given that three PCIe storage options are present and each requires two PCIe lanes, I would imagine that the M.2 and SATAe from the PCH are shared via a switch and the second SATAe slot is shared with the PCIe 2.0 x4 slot on board or the extra USB 3.0 ports. Alongside the PCIe storage there is also ten SATA ports (four shared with SATAe), eight USB 3.0 ports and six USB 2.0 ports.

At the launch of Z97, ASUS released the Gene, Hero and Ranger, with the Formula, Impact and Extreme expected in due course. Computex saw the announcement of the Impact and the Formula, although I have a feeling that the team that design the Extreme might be focusing on X99 for now. 

Initially the Formula will be available as a bundle with Watch Dogs from Newegg and Tiger Direct for $369 from next week, with a standard edition available shortly after for around $319.

Gallery: ASUS ROG Maximus VII Formula Released

Sir David Attenborough has urged the public to look for butterflies as part of the Big Butterfly Count

Version:next-20140718 (linux-next) Released:2014-07-18

Matrix face and Starwatch, two early (and now unsupported) Android Wear watch faces. Dheera Venkatraman/Bonysoft

Third-party watch faces on Android Wear seem like a no-brainer—there's an app store, developers can make apps for the platform, and there is even a method for switching among the packed-in watch faces. Official documentation on how to make a custom watch face doesn't exist, though. While Google will gladly tell developers how to use every other facet of Wear, it has been strangely quiet about making a watch face. That hasn't stopped developers from figuring it out on their own, though, with the Play Store already home to several custom faces.

Today Google has finally broken its silence. As it turns out, there's more work to be done on Google's part. Wayne Piekarski, a senior developer advocate at Google, has said the company is "hard at work on a custom watch face API." While custom watch faces are currently possible, right now Piekarski admits "making a really great watch face currently takes a fair bit of tweaking." The Googler says the upcoming API includes "using a shorter peek card, moving the status indicators for battery and mute, and rendering the faces differently in ambient mode."

The bad news is the timing. Piekarski says, "Some of these changes won't be ready until we migrate Android Wear to the Android L release later this year." If the L release timing is anything like KitKat, it is still something like three months away. Piekarski also warns that current watch faces are not supported and may not work on future versions. He recommends not publishing the app to the Play Store (or only publishing using the Alpha/Beta channels) until the official API comes out.

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It seems that Google wasn't able to ship out all their updates on Wednesday in their typical bundle of application updates. Google Maps for Android has just received an update to version 8.2 and it brings along some significant changes and improvements to the app, especially for cyclists who use Google Maps to plan their routes.

As you can see above, Google now gives an estimate of the elevation along a route when looking for routes that can be done on a bicycle. The app demonstrates it like a timeline of the route you are taking, with the height of the line representing the elevation and the slope of the line representing how quickly a change in elevation occurs. For cyclists trying to find a route that avoids large amounts of uphill travel this is certainly a useful feature. Something Google may want to add in the future to route options is the ability to show and sort routes based on a preference for the route with the least uphill travel rather than for the shortest time possible.

The other major improvement comes in the form of voice controls for vehicle navigation. A microphone button in the navigation interface brings up the voice input card, and the user can say various commands to control the application without having to directly interact with their device. Based on my time with the voice control you are able to ask it to direct you to different locations, to check the traffic along your route, and to show alternate available routes. It's not yet clear what the limitations of the in-app voice controls are and Google is sure to expand the available commands and the flexibility of the user's wording of a statement with further updates.

Google Maps 8.2 for Android is rolling out to Android users now. Like most of Google's update rollouts, it may take some time before your device receives the update. At the moment there is no sign of an update to Google's iOS version of Maps but Google has recently been rolling out updates to both apps in the same timeframe so it is likely that Google Maps for iOS will receive these features in the near future.

That looks pretty fast. AT&T

Six months ago, a federal appeals court struck down net neutrality rules that prohibited Internet service providers from blocking Web content or discriminating against Web services. The court said the FCC messed up by imposing "per se common carrier obligations" onto ISPs without first reclassifying them as common carriers.

The FCC responded by coming up with a weaker set of rules that would effectively outlaw blocking by requiring a minimum level of service, while allowing ISPs to sell "fast lanes" in which Web services can pay for priority access to consumers.

The common wisdom is that the FCC can't issue stronger rules unless it re-classifies broadband as a telecommunications service, which would open ISPs up to utility-style, common carrier regulations under Title II of the Communications Act.

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AMD hosted their quarterly earnings conference call this afternoon to announce their financial results for the quarter ending June 2014. In a similar story to last quarter, AMD has inched closer to profitability yet again. Revenue for the quarter came in at $1.44 billion, an increase of 3% over Q1 2014 and up 24% year-over-year.

AMD Q2 2014 Financial Results (GAAP in USD)   Q2'2014 Q1'2014 Q2'2013 Revenue $1.44B $1.40B $1.16B Operating Income $63M $49M -$29M Net Income -$36M -$20M -$74M Earnings per Share -$0.05 -$0.03 -$0.10

Once again, gross margins were flat over the preceding quarter at 35%. Operating income for the quarter was $63 million, up from $49 million in Q1, however the GAAP results still ended up with a $36 million net loss. The Non-GAAP numbers come in higher due to the exclusion of $49 million in loss from debt redemption.

Non-GAAP operating income was $67 million, with a net income of $17 million or $0.02 per share which missed analyst’s expectations of $0.03 per share.

AMD Q2 2014 Financial Results (Non-GAAP in USD)   Q2'2014 Q1'2014 Q2'2013 Revenue $1.44B $1.40B $1.16B Operating Income $67M $66M -$20M Net Income $17M $12M -$65M Earnings per Share $0.02 $0.02 -$0.09

Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $948 million at the end of the quarter. AMD has a target for cash on hand of $600 million minimum with $1 billion as an optimum target, and is within that window. Total debt went up from $2.14 billion to $2.21 billion.

Once again, the Computing Solutions segment of AMD performed poorly, with a revenue decrease of 1% from Q1, and 20% from Q2 2013. AMD attributes this to a decrease in microprocessor unit shipments. However higher margins and an increase average selling price (ASP) meant that the increased the operating income to $9 million for the quarter, up from the $3 million loss last quarter, and also up from the $2 million in income at the same time last year.

 

AMD Q2 2014 Computing Solutions Division Financial Results   Q2'2014 Q1'2014 Q2'2013 Revenue $669M $663M $841M Operating Income $9M -$3M $2M

Graphics and Visual Solutions continued its strong performance from last quarter with an increase in revenue of 5% from last quarter, and 141% year-over-year. AMD once again attributes this gain to semi-custom SoC shipments which likely mean Game Console sales. GPU revenue was down both sequentially and year-over-year but slightly offset by an increase in professional graphics and desktop OEM GPUs. Overall operating income for the segment was $82 million, down from $91 million last quarter and up from a breakeven point in Q2 2013. GPU ASP decreased compared to both last quarter and Q2 of last year.

AMD Q2 2014 Graphics and Visual Solutions Division Financial Results   Q2'2014 Q1'2014 Q2'2013 Revenue $772M $734M $320M Operating Income $82M $91M $0M

AMD has reorganized its reporting structure for upcoming financial results. As of Q3 2014, the segments will be Computing and Graphics which include desktop and notebook processors, chipsets, and GPUs, and Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segment which will be servers, embedded systems, and game consoles.

AMD is expecting a 2% revenue increase plus or minus 3% for the 3rd quarter this year.

AMD still has some work to do in order to get to profitability, but so far 2014 has been a lot easier on them than the last couple of years.

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Recently appointed CEO Satya Nadella announced the largest layoffs in Microsoft’s 39 year history today, with a staggering 18,000 jobs on the chopping block. The goal, according to Nadella is to “simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability, become more agile and move faster” signifying Nadella's goal to bring some focus to Microsoft's portfolio of services while also seemingly looking to play down the job losses.

The last large round of layoffs at Microsoft came in 2009, after the stock market crash. That round of layoffs was the previous largest ever at 5,800 positions, and today’s announcement dwarfs that number substantially. But not all departments will share this burden evenly, with the recently acquired Nokia employees getting the brunt of the cuts. In April, Microsoft closed the acquisition of the Nokia mobile phone business, and in the process added 25,000 employees to its payroll. Nadella announced today that 50% of those employees will be let go. Some will be factory workers from some of the in-house manufacturing Nokia owned, and the remainder will be from the handset business itself.

The remaining 5,500 employees to be laid off will therefore come from within Microsoft itself, as it attempts to concentrate on some of its more successful offerings. Excluding the Nokia losses, which are often expected after a merger of this sort, the total number of Microsoft employees being affected is not significantly different than the 2009 cuts.

Former Nokia CEO, now Microsoft Executive VP of Devices and Services, Stephen Elop laid out some of the upcoming changes in his own letter to his employees. Elop promises a focus on Windows Phone, with a near term goal of driving up Windows Phone volume by focusing on the affordable smartphone segments. With that announcement comes the death of the strange Nokia X series of AOSP phones, which debuted at MWC 2014 and were updated with a new model only a couple of weeks ago. While I would make the argument that there was little need for the X series at all, it is doubly frustrating to anyone who bought into the platform to find it killed off so quickly. The X series would be easy prey for cuts like these, because it didn’t really offer anything new to Android or to Microsoft. While it promised to be low cost, retail pricing for the X line was often more than the low cost Lumia phones. The X series had no place in a Microsoft owned Nokia, and should have been killed a while ago.

Elop also announced that they would continue to work on the high end phone range as well. Historically Windows Phone has suffered selling flagship models for many reasons, but it appears that they are not ready to give up the fight in this market yet. He also specifically called out Surface, Perceptive Pixel, and Xbox as new areas of innovation, which likely means those brands are safe for the time being.

The remainder of the Nokia feature phone lines appear to be immediately canceled. This is a segment that has been rapidly shrinking in recent years, with the consumer push towards smartphones, so this is likely a good strategic move by Microsoft. The work done on Windows Phone to allow it to work well on low cost hardware is also likely another big reason for this.

Another major announcement was the closure of the Xbox Entertainment Studios which had a goal of providing original content for Xbox Live members. Several projects such as “Signal to Noise” and “Halo: Nightfall” that were mid production will be completed, but after that content is delivered the studio will be closed.

The full ramifications of these job cuts won’t be known for some time, but it seems fair to say that Nadella wants to put his own stamp on the company. Removing the Nokia X line, the Asha and S40 lines, and an entertainment studio seem like reasonable things to cut if you want to focus your company. Nadella speaks about flattening the organization out, which should help them be quicker to execute on ideas. These kinds of steps, though painful for the employees, can be better for the company in the long run. For quite some time, the perception is that Microsoft is not agile enough to respond to new markets, and it appears that Satya Nadella is trying to focus his company on its strength and that should have a net positive for the company. Microsoft’s next earnings call comes on July 22nd, at which point we may get more details about upcoming plans.

 

I've always loved PHPMyAdmin for managing MySQL databases. It's Web-based, fairly robust and as powerful as I've ever needed. Basically, it's awesome. Today, however, I discovered something better than awesome: Adminer. Although it is conceptually identical to PHPMyAdmin, it is far simpler and far more powerful. How can it be both? more>>

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