Fitch Downgrades AMD Debt From "Meh" to "Almost Hopeless"

Fitch Downgrades AMD Debt From "Meh" to "Almost Hopeless"

Times have been tough at chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, but they just got a little bit tougher.

Fitch, the debt ratings agency, just sent word that it has downgraded AMD’s long-term debt to CCC from a B. For context, a B rating indicates debt that is considered two notches below investment grade, while CCC is three notches below. A company rated CCC, according to Fitch’s terminology, is considered “currently vulnerable and dependent on favorable economic conditions to meet its commitments.”

Specifically, Fitch says it expects AMD’s free cash flow to turn negative and reach a level below AMD’s targets, and it might even go so low as to “potentially approach the company’s minimum operating level.”

On top of that, Fitch expects sales growth to run in the mid-to-high teens as consumer spending on PCs continues to sputter and tablets like the iPad continue to eat into the notebook PC business.

As of the end of last year, Fitch said, AMD had enough cash, at $ 1.18 billion, on hand to keep things going, but as cash flow turns negative and big payments to its manufacturing partner, Globalfoundries â€" $ 215 million in 2013 and $ 200 million in 2014 â€" come due, the pressure will mount as the year goes on. “Fitch expects negative FCF of $ 250 million to $ 450 million for the current year, pressuring liquidity by the end 2013. The company has a stated target cash level of $ 1.1 billion and minimum operating cash level of $ 700 million,” the agency said. AMD’s total debt as of the end of 2012 was $ 2.1 billion.

AMD’s not sitting still. Restructuring measures under way are supposed to save $ 450 million in operating costs by September, and it has cut a sale-leaseback deal on its 58-acre campus in Austin that is expected to save between $ 150 million and $ 200 million. Cash consumption has, of course, been an ongoing concern for some time.

That may help buy a little time, but Fitch isn’t convinced: “Given AMD’s traditional PC markets represent the vast majority of sales, achieving the company’s target of 40-50 percent of sales from higher-growth markets will require a number of years.”

AMD reported a fourth quarter loss that widened on weak PC sales, and is expected to announce another round of job cuts soon. In October it cut about 15 percent of its workforce.

Samsung Laptops Bricked by Booting Linux Using UEFI

Samsung Laptops Bricked by Booting Linux Using UEFI

Ryan passed this along early this morning (really early for Ryan, seeing that we’re not even in the double digits of the morning hours!), and while this issue is only likely to affect a very small subset of users, anything that can completely brick a laptop in a matter of seconds is worrisome enough that we wanted to pass it along. File this one under the "things that should never happen" category.

You can read more of what is known at H-Online, but the short summary is this: Samsung’s UEFI implementation appears to be faulty. It was most likely tested with Windows only and found to work, but thorough testing with other operating systems doesn’t appear to have been a priorityâ€"or perhaps a consideration at all. At present, the bug appears to affect Samsung 530U3C, 300E5C, NP700Z5C, NP700Z7C, and NP900X4C series laptops; if you have one of those laptops, we recommend you exercise extreme caution if you have a need to boot into a Linux environment.

The bigger picture here is that this is what happens in a race to the bottom: corners get cut, which means less testing and validation, which can in turn lead to some catastrophic failures in specific circumstances.  What's really scary is that these Samsung laptops aren't even budget offerings, so the budget race ended up impacting higher priced offerings! Granted, in the increasingly complex world of computer hardware it can be difficult to test all of the likely scenarios. UEFI represents a fundamental change in how many low-level aspects of the computer function, however, so it needs to be thoroughly tested; not properly testing any OS besides Windows would be a gross oversight.

Long-term, we expect Samsung to release BIOS and firmware updates for the affected laptops, though how long that might take is unknown. Short-term, the workaround is for Linux to boot these Samsung models using the Compatibility Support Module (CSM), which basically bypasses the UEFI, but dual-booting via CSM appears to be a bit complex. Ubuntu’s development team has worked with Samsung and identified the kernel’s Samsung-laptop driver as the prime suspect, and there are other workarounds proposed already to address the issue. However, these fixes have not yet been merged into the main Linux development tree, so again we recommend Samsung laptop owners who use Linux exercise caution.

Source: H-Online

Samsung Under Fire for Slow Report of Deadly Gas Leak

Samsung Under Fire for Slow Report of Deadly Gas Leak

Samsung is once again being dogged by accusations of poor worker-safety protections at its chip plants, following a poisonous hydrofluoric acid gas leak that killed one employee and injured four others last weekend.

The leak occurred Sunday at a Samsung plant outside of Seoul, and while the company and its subcontractor â€" STI Service â€" were quick to repair it, neither reported the incident to the police until an employee exposed to the gas died. That belated response has landed Samsung in hot water with local authorities, who say the company’s failure to promptly report the incident is a violation of South Korea’s Toxic Chemicals Control Act. They’re threatening to fine the company up to one million won for the misstep.

Now, one million won is a pittance â€" about $ 923 U.S. Clearly, it won’t cause Samsung any pain at all. But the scrutiny the incident has drawn to the company might. Yonhap reports that government officials are investigating the leak and the manner in which it was handled for evidence of a cover-up. Their probe will determine whether or not the leak originated from a pipe that was in need of repair, and if plant workers had been provided with proper safety equipment.

“We will thoroughly investigate to clarify who is responsible for the incident as someone died due to poor administration,” an official told Yonhap. “We are investigating in four different ways to determine the exact amount of leaked gas, the secondary damage, how the incident was handled by the firms afterward, and the relevant law.”

Bad news for Samsung, which has been drawing fire for its labor practices for awhile now. Last November, the company was slapped with a slew of labor abuse accusations in China. Now this. News of the leak and Samsung’s handling of it come as other tech industry heavyweights like Apple are taking very clear â€" and very public â€" steps to ensure fair labor practices and safe working conditions at their manufacturing partners.

Reached for comment, a Samsung spokesperson provided the following statement: “A small amount of diluted hydrofluoric acid leaked during maintenance at one of the chemical supply systems at the Hwaseong site. Five contract workers at the scene were sent to hospital for treatment. Four of them have been discharged, while one worker died due to complications. Samsung would like to offer its deepest condolences to the deceased contractor and his family. The situation has been contained and Samsung will be investigating the circumstances of this unfortunate incident.”

Amid Activist Outcry, U.S. Attorney Defends Prosecution of Aaron Swartz

Amid Activist Outcry, U.S. Attorney Defends Prosecution of Aaron Swartz

Photo: U.S. Attorney's office, Massachusetts

Nearly five days since news first broke of a well-known Web activist’s death, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Massachusetts issued a public statement on Wednesday evening, defending the office’s actions in pursuing charges of computer and wire fraud against Aaron Swartz.

“I know that there is little I can say to abate the anger felt by those who believe that this office’s prosecution of Mr. Swartz was unwarranted and somehow led to the tragic result of him taking his own life,” the statement, written by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, read.

“I must, however, make clear that this office’s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case. The career prosecutors handling this matter took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably,” Ortiz wrote.

The statement comes after days of widespread Internet outcry over the 26-year-old activist’s death, ruled a suicide last Saturday. At the time of his death, Swartz was being prosecuted by the Department of Justice for allegedly downloading nearly 5 million academic journal articles from the Web site JSTOR in 2010, using a laptop hooked in to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus network. If convicted, Swartz faced upwards of 35 years in Federal prison and fines of $ 1 million.

After Swartz handed over a number of hard drives, JSTOR decided not to pursue charges. But many have placed the blame on Attorney Ortiz and assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann, both of whom continued to prosecute Swartz for his alleged crimes.

MIT has also come under fire, taking flak for continuing to cooperate with Attorneys Ortiz and Heymann. The school released a statement on Sunday, expressing sympathy to Swartz’ friends and family and announcing its intent to conduct an internal investigation as to the school’s part in the ordeal.

“It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif wrote.

But activists, academics such as Lawrence Lessig and Swartz’ family aren’t letting MIT and the U.S. Attorney’s office off the hook so easily. Swartz’ family released a statement on Saturday, placing much of the blame squarely on both MIT and Attorneys Ortiz and Heymann.

“Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach,” the statement read. “Decisions made by officials in the U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death.”

Swartz’ attorney, Elliott Peters, has accused Heymann in particular of overzealous pursuit of Swartz, in a recent interview with The Huffington Post.

Assistant Attorney Heymann was looking for “some juicy looking computer crime cases and Aaron’s case, sadly for Aaron, fit the bill,” Peters told HuffPo. Peters said that Heymann believed Swartz’ prosecution “was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper.”

To some degree, Ortiz’ statement disputes the extent to which Heymann went after Swartz. “At no time did this office ever seek â€" or ever tell Mr. Swartz’s attorneys that it intended to seek â€" maximum penalties under the law,” Ortiz’ statement read. “Ultimately, any sentence imposed would have been up to the judge.”

In the wake of many cries for computer crime reform in the days that followed, some U.S. lawmakers have spoken out in favor of amending existing legislation. On Tuesday evening, Representative Zoe Lofgren posted a draft of a bill she planned to propose to congress on the Web site Reddit, where supporters of computer crime reform could give Lofgren feedback before she presented the bill to congress.

Apps Aim to Detect Skin Cancer

Apps Aim to Detect Skin Cancer

Smartphone apps are inching onto the turf of doctors and medical-device makers, promising to measure heart rates, display X-ray images and detect skin cancer â€" and prompting concerns about how well they work and whether consumers may rely on their smartphones and skip seeing a doctor.

The accuracy of such apps can vary significantly, according to a new study published Wednesday. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center evaluated four smartphone apps meant to determine whether moles have morphed into cancerous melanomas. The best-performing app accurately identified cancerous moles 98.1 percent of the time, while the worst picked them up only 6.8 percent of the time, according to the study.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

ASRock Z77 OC Formula Review: Living In The Fast Lane

ASRock Z77 OC Formula Review: Living In The Fast Lane

Enthusiasts and speed freaks are always looking for an edge â€" a little something that will help push their gear that little bit faster.  There is already a market for pre-overclocked GPUs and now SSDs are coming with internal RAID to push the boat over the SATA connections.  These require little-to-no knowledge of overclocking and are essentially plug and play.  When it comes to pushing GPUs higher, and motherboards, we get a dichotomous nature of ‘easy to OC’ against ‘advanced options to push the limits’.  In order to meet these two markets, the top four motherboard manufacturers have all come out with their respective weapons for Z77 and Ivy Bridge, aiming for either ~$ 220 or ~$ 380, and all of them have broken overclocking records at one stage or another since their release.  First up on our battle bridge is the ASRock Z77 OC Formula, designed by ASRock’s in-house overclocker Nick Shih, and commands a paltry $ 240 for all the goodies.

Overclocking Motherboards From All Sides

As mentioned, the top four motherboard manufacturers all have weapons when it comes to hitting the enthusiast or power user with an overclocking platform.  These weapons are (with prices correct as of 1/13):

$ 400 â€" Gigabyte Z77X-UP7
$ 370 â€" ASUS Maximus V Extreme
$ 290 â€" ASUS Maximus V Formula
$ 240 â€" ASRock Z77 OC Formula
$ 200 â€" MSI Z77 MPower
$ 200 â€" ASUS Maximus V Gene

There are two main differentiators between the low and the high end.  The first is usually the choice to include a PLX PEX 8747 chip to allow 3-way or 4-way GPU setups.  We covered how the PLX chip works in our 4-board review here, but to summarize, this functionality can add $ 50-$ 80 onto the board depending on the bulk purchase order of the manufacturer and the profit margins wanted.  The second is usually attributed to the functionality and power delivery â€" the 32x IR3550s used on the Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 costs them a pretty penny, and the extensive feature list of the ASUS ROG boards usually filters through.

In the past there have been attempts at pure overclocking boards, such as the Gigabyte X58A-OC, which was entirely stripped of all but the necessary components for pushing overclocks under sub-zero conditions for competitions.  The board itself was cheaper due to the functionality not present, but it did not provide a rock solid home system for many users.  The ASUS ROG range, as we reviewed in 2012, has been releasing motherboards for both gaming and overclocking for several years, trying (and succeeding) with the mATX Gene, ATX Formula and Extreme.  All three of these boards continuously push both the gaming and OC frontiers, with a slight gaming focus on the Formula and an OC focus on the Extreme, but all boards cross over into each other’s territory very easily.

A motherboard in this area cannot focus solely on the overclocking component â€" there has to be additional focus for power users and gamers in order to shift units, as competitive overclocking is a small blip on the radar.  I hope all the players realize this!

ASRock Z77 OC Formula Overview

When the Z77 OC Formula was first shown to the public at Computex 2012 (we covered it here), there was a small outcry on the basis of its name more than anything else.  We already had the Gigabyte X58A-OC and ASUS Formula boards, so there was a large inkling that ASRock wanted a piece of this pie in their ‘OC Formula’ naming.  When quizzed on this, ASRock pulled out the obvious analogy I was expecting:

“The name is derived from Formula 1 racing â€" the series will focus on overclocking which is like driving the race car.”

This mentality is clearly shown on the motherboard box, which features a Lamborghini Murciélago (I want to say an LP640, but the front intake seems a little off) mash-up with technology and going full bore on the yellow and black coloring scheme.

Naming aside, this is a board I really like to use.  On the board itself we get integrated water cooling on the large VRM heatsink (like the ASUS Maximus V Formula), a liberal abuse of eight fan headers, 10 SATA ports (six SATA 6 Gbps), 8 USB 3.0 ports with 10 USB 2.0 ports for good measure, an ideal layout for dual-GPU setups, all the debug tools needed should anything go wrong, 13 (thirteen) onboard temperature sensors and even voltage read points for overclockers.  Features not readily apparent include a multiple filter cap system to reduce electrical noise, and switches to enable/disable PCIe slots (reduce instability when not in use).

In my frequent BIOS rants, I often complain about interactivity, simplicity and experience, given that no motherboard manufacturer can offer me all three.  ASRock’s BIOS continues to grow on me, and the Z77 OC Formula BIOS is almost great.  Visually everything is easy to read, at a nice resolution, and every option gets a description of what it is and how to use it.  The important options for overclocking are well laid out, and ASRock provide 12 automatic OC options for users to try.  ASRock also likes to include their ever growing BIOS features like Internet Flash, OMG and Dehumidifier.

ASRock’s software package also gets a small overhaul â€" AXTU becomes ‘Formula Drive’, and operates in much the same way except for an upgraded fan tuning utility (compared to ASRock’s previous version, this one is awesome) and other menus relating to new functionality.  We also get a memory timing configuration utility, and software to use the RapidOC buttons onboard. This is all on top of the XFast LAN, XFast USB and XFast RAM utilities. In the box are a set of plastic standoffs for the motherboard, making extreme overclocking without a test bench very easy, and we also get a front USB 3.0 panel among SATA cables.

Benchmark performance of the Z77 OC Formula is aided by the decision by ASRock to enable a form of what they call Multicore Acceleration, which enables the top turbo mode for the processor under any load by default (read our debate about it here).  Stock settings aside, the Z77 OC Formula pushed our retail i7-3770K CPU sample to 4.9 GHz, limited only by the cooling at load, and to 5.2 GHz unloaded.  We also pushed a set of 2x4 GB 2666 C11 memory to 2800 C12 with a simple bump on the memory strap after XMP, peaked at an unloaded 2920 C12 and reached a peak BCLK of 110.3 overall.

A couple of niggles are worth mentioning.  By default, all the fans are select to be ‘Full On’, which helps ASRock in any overclocking and temperature results, but can cause issues related to noise.  The fan tools in the OS can auto apply a user profile on OS boot though.  The 4-pin molex on board for additional PCIe power is not really needed unless you are pushing for competitive overclocks, but I still had to use it to get dual 580s running with a stock system.  The Rapid OC buttons only work when the Rapid OC software is up and running, giving more sources of instability when pushing overclocks.  One might also argue that the lack of mSATA/WiFi/better-than-Realtek audio may detract from the gaming crowd a touch, or that the small fan on the VRM is cause for concern.

Overall though, at $ 240 this board feels like a solid bit of kit.  The main comparison should be to the $ 180 Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H which we gave a Bronze Award back in July.  Overall the ASRock looks nicer, has more features, better OC and fan controls, as well as software and in-the box contents.  However is it worth $ 60 more?

Visual Inspection

A rundown of motherboard colors gives us red for ASUS’ ROG, camo for ASUS’ Sabertooth, green for Gigabyte’s G1, orange for Gigabyte’s UP7, red for ASRock’s Fatal1ty, gold for ECS’ Golden Series, black for MSI’s MPower, and blue for MSI’s Big Bang. While I am still waiting on pink, white and purple, ASRock jumps in with a rather nice looking yellow palette. 

Aside from the color scheme, the VRM heatsink is a large part of the visual on this board.  It hides a 12+4 phase setup, but also includes a water cooling pipe through the middle of the heatsink to be attached by 3/8” tubing.  Like similar motherboards, the dual VRM cooling design allows the VRMs to be cooled by air or water or both, and the addition of a small VRM fan is designed to aid both setups with active cooling.  This small fan spins at around 4400 RPM, but can be disabled by taking the connector beneath the fan out of the fan header â€" with respect to noise, I could not hear it above a GPU fan on an open test bench.

The overall VRM heatsink is quite shallow (~3.5cm), allowing large air coolers to be used on the CPU â€" I was able to fit a Thermalright TRUE Copper and fans without issues.  The socket area has access to five open fan headers for CPU fans, with a sixth being used for the VRM fan.  We get two CPU fan headers above the socket, two chassis fan headers between the 24-pin power connector and the SATA ports, and the fifth fan header below the VRM heatsink.  The final two headers on board are found at the bottom.

The Z77 OC Formula uses both an 8-pin and a 4-pin CPU power connector, although the 4-pin needs only be used when pushing extreme overclocks on sub-zero.  All the testing done in this review used only the 8-pin connector.  To the right of the socket are our color coded memory slots, with the yellow ones used preferentially when dealing with one or two memory modules.  It is a small shame that ASRock did not use the single sided latch memory connectors coming into circulation on other motherboards.

The motherboard itself is actually E-ATX (305mm x 267mm compared to 305mm x 244mm for ATX), meaning the extra width on the board is ripe for additional controls.  In that regard we get our two-digit debug at the top left, a set of PCIe switches to disable unused PCIe slots, and a pair of Rapid OC (+/-) buttons.  Beneath these are a set of 14 voltage read points for extreme overclockers to monitor voltages to the CPU, memory, VTT and others, a chipset-based USB 3.0 header, and two of the aforementioned chassis fan headers.

The Z77 OC Formula gives us a total of 10 SATA ports to play with â€" four SATA 3 Gbps from the chipset, two SATA 6 Gbps also from the chipset, and four more SATA 6 Gbps from a pair of Marvell SE9172 controllers.  All the ports support RAID 0 and RAID 1, but only the chipset ports support RAID 5 and 10.  Intel RST and SRT are also chipset only.

The chipset heatsink is very solid with a few grooves for airflow, suggesting that ASRock are going for bulk rather than surface area to aid chipset cooling.  The bottom of the board is full of connectors, and going left to right we have our front panel audio, a COM port, a 4-pin molex power collector, an IR header, a 4-pin chassis fan header, a USB 2.0 header, a 3-pin chassis fan header, another USB 2.0 header, a pair of soldered on BIOS chips with a BIOS select header, power and reset buttons, and finally a front panel header. 

The PCIe layout is relatively sparse in comparison to the normal Z77 range, but aimed squarely at double width GPU users.  In order, we get a PCIe x1, x16 (x8 in dual mode), a gap, x1, x8, gap, x4 (from chipset).  The layout caters for users with two double-slot or triple-slot GPUs as well as those needing an x1 slot for a sound card.

The rear IO takes advantage of the GPU-focused nature of the board by removing all but one of the video outputs and placing a large swathe of USB ports in their stead.  From left to right we get a combination PS/2 port, six USB 3.0 ports, a clear CMOS button, a HDMI port, a Broadcom BCM57781 network port, four USB 2.0 ports, an optical SPDIF output and standard audio jacks.  Compared to other motherboards in this price range, aside from the few video outputs, ASRock also reduce the NICs to one.

Board Features

ASRock Z77 OC Formula
Price	Link
Size	ATX
CPU Interface	LGA-1155
Chipset	Intel Z77
Memory Slots	Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel, 1066-3000 MHz
Video Outputs	HDMI
Onboard LAN	Broadcom BCM57781
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC898
Expansion Slots	2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16/- or x8/x8) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4) 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
Onboard SATA/RAID	2 x SATA 6.0 Gbps (Chipset), RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 4 x SATA 6.0 Gbps (Marvelll SE9172), RAID 0, 1 4 x SATA 3.0 Gbps (Chipset), RAID 0, 1, 5, 10
USB	4 x USB 3.0 (Chipset) [2 rear panel, 2 onboard] 4 x USB 3.0 (Etron EJ188H) [4 rear panel] 10 x USB 2.0 (Chipset) [4 rear panel, 6 onboard]
Onboard	6 x SATA 6 Gbps 4 x SATA 3 Gbps 1 x USB 3.0 Header 3 x USB 2.0 Header 8 x Fan Headers 1 x COM Port Header Voltage Measurement Points Two-Digit Debug LED Power/Reset Switches Rapid OC Buttons PCIe On/Off Switches
Power Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX Power Connector 1 x 8-pin CPU Power Connector 1 x 4-pin CPU Power Connector 1 x 4-pin Molex PCIe Power Connector
Fan Headers	2 x CPU (4-pin, 3-pin) 4 x CHA (4-pin, 3x3pin) 1 x POW (3-pin) 1 x MOS (3-pin)
IO Panel	1 x PS/2 Combination Port 2 x USB 3.0 (Chipset) 4 x USB 3.0 (Etron EJ188H) 1 x Clear_CMOS Button 1 x HDMI Port 1 x Broadcom BCM57781 Ethernet 4 x USB 2.0 Audio Jacks
Warranty Period	3 Years
Product Page	Link

The ASRock Z77 OC Formula gets 10 SATA ports, six of them SATA 6 Gbps, eight total USB 3.0 ports and eight fan headers.  Each of these numbers is in the upper echelons of anything available on a motherboard today.  I am also pleased with the debugging tools on board, as they are helpful for overclockers as well.  Only two of the fan headers are four pin which could be frustrating, and other non-OC/non-gaming oriented motherboards in this price range often have dual network ports / WiFi included.

Apple Stock Slide Could Cost It the Market Cap Lead

Apple Stock Slide Could Cost It the Market Cap Lead

Tuesday is proving to be another brutal day for Apple on Wall Street. The company’s shares, which briefly slipped below $ 500 on Monday, continued their downward slide Tuesday, drifting below that mark once again. They touched $ 483.80 in early morning trading, their lowest point in about nine months.

That’s a long way from the all-time high of $ 702.10 they hit last September. If Apple’s stock continues along this downward trajectory, the company may soon cede its title of world’s largest company by market cap to Exxon Mobil, which it surpassed about a year ago. Apple’s current market capitalization is about $ 456 billion. Exxon’s is near $ 407 billion, and its shares have lately been on the rise. Obviously, there’s still quite a gap between the two, but if reports of weaker-than-expected sales of the iPhone 5 continue to dog Apple, or they prove true when the company next reports earnings, who knows?

For what it’s worth, there continues to be disagreement over just what is happening around iPhone 5 component orders. While some research houses, like Nonomura, have cut their Apple estimates to reflect the allegedly weaker-than-expected sales of the iPhone 5 reported by the Nikkei and The Wall Street Journal, others have taken issue with those reports, arguing that the reduction in component orders has nothing to do with weak demand. Said Wedge analyst Brian Blair, “… To suggest that iPhone demand has been halved sequentially from December is simply erroneous.”

That may well be the case â€" keep in mind earlier this month both Verizon and AT&T reported strong iPhone sales. And we’ll find out one way or the other when Apple reports earnings. But it’s worth noting that there are other explanations for a cut in iPhone 5 component orders. For one thing, estimates of 65 million iPhone units for the quarter were fantastically high to begin with, and suggestions that they’ve been suddenly halved seem dubious. That said, that theory makes a bit more sense if Apple ordered 65 million iPhone displays at a time when manufacturing yields were low, and then reduced the order when yields improved.

Another possible explanation: The reduction in orders is the result of a coming switch in display technology. Sources close to Apple tell AllThingsD that the company has been evaluating IGZO displays for use in its iOS devices, though they declined to say what the results of that evaluation have been. Finally, Apple could simply be ramping down component orders in preparation for production of the next iPhone.

All reasonable explanations, I think. We’ll find out which, if any, is the most accurate, on Jan. 23.

Lynda.com Raises a Whopping $103M in First Outside Funding for Video Lessons

Lynda.com Raises a Whopping $103M in First Outside Funding for Video Lessons

Lynda.com, the 18-year-old provider of online training videos, has been profitable for almost all of that time and had more than $ 100 million in revenue last year.

Now it has another $ 103 million in the bank, courtesy of Accel Partners, Spectrum Equity and Meritech Capital Partners.

Why now? “We’re finally at the place where we can leverage outside funding,” said Lynda.com CEO Eric Robison.

Investors had been wanting a stake in the company for quite some time, Robison said; in fact, for the past four years Lynda.com had been sending its private financial results with the investors it ultimately chose.

Lynda, which offers software, creative and business courses, is currently all about video â€" 83,000 of them in 1,500 courses â€" with little focus on organized classes and community. That’s in contrast to some of its newly famous online learning brethren, like MOOC providers Udacity and Coursera.

Instead, a big benefit of Lynda for its $ 25-per-month subscribers is the fact that they can search for chunks of lessons that correspond specifically to something they need to get done in that moment. “We have members who use us exclusively as a reference,” Robison said.

Besides personal customers, Lynda also sells to companies, schools and the U.S. government, which it says includes “all branches of the U.S. military and all cabinet-level departments of the U.S. federal government.”

The company employs 400 people and runs its own studio in Carpinteria, Calif. Robison said he expects to apply some of the new funding to localizing videos so it can expand internationally. He’s also interested in different business models, like a freemium offering.

What he doesn’t see on the horizon â€" despite the new outside funding â€" is an IPO. “These investors are long-term focused,” Robison said.

Venture capitalists like online learning companies these days. Lynda competitor Pluralsight also just raised a large round of funding, which was also its first-ever outside investment.

GoBank: It's a Real Bank, and It's Made by Real Internet People

GoBank: It's a Real Bank, and It's Made by Real Internet People

Green Dot today launches the smartphone-based GoBank, which will have no overdraft or penalty fees, no minimum balance and a “pay what you feel is right” monthly membership fee.

Let’s take a step back to set this up. Lots of startup types go about their lives in search of something they can fix. “Banking!” they think. “Banking sucks! I hate all the fees and unfriendliness.”

But then they realize that banking is really hard. To do it right, you have to actually officially be a bank, which takes years, even if you can find an existing bank to buy. So startups like WePay and BankSimple (now Simple, if that tells you anything) have historically partnered with banks and offered user interfaces layered on top.

GoBank promises that it can fully bridge the two worlds. That’s because prepaid card provider Green Dot actually bought an FDIC-insured bank in Utah back in 2011, after two years of regulatory hurdles.

Then, in March, Green Dot bought Loopt, an early mobile location app maker that never had a ton of usage. But Loopt had a team of mobile developers and a strong leader in Sam Altman, one of the earliest participants in Y Combinator and a significant influence on the famous startup program as a part-time partner.

Altman said in an interview yesterday that he’s seen many a startup apply to YC over the years, trying to be a bank. But none of them were equipped to do it. “This is a product I’ve always wanted to build,” he said, “and it was just starting up when we were talking to Green Dot.”

Altman said it should take approximately four minutes to set up a GoBank account, and it can be done from a mobile phone. Starting today, GoBank plans to let 10,000 U.S. users in for a beta test, and expand from there.

GoBank charges for just four things: Putting a personal photo on your debit card ($ 9), going to an out-of-network ATM ($ 2.50), spending money in another country (3 percent), and paying your membership fee (whatever you want, a la Radiohead or Humble Bundle).

But it promises that it has a huge network of fee-free ATMs â€" 40,000, more than twice as many as Chase and Bank of America.

The iPhone and Android apps also include budget tools (including a silly “fortune teller” feature that makes judgment calls on new purchases), an option to see your balance without logging in, bill payments and ways to send money to people outside the network through PayPal. Savings accounts and mobile alerts are also included.

The idea of allowing people to pay whatever they want for banking is an odd one. It might make sense in the context of thinking about the human appreciation you have for an artist like Radiohead, but this is a bank we’re talking about. Users can pay anywhere from $ 0 to $ 9 per month.

Altman said he likes the challenge. “We’re accountable to deliver a service that users think is worth something.”

Vizio's AMD Z60 Hondo-based Windows 8 Tablet PC at CES 2013

Vizio's AMD Z60 Hondo-based Windows 8 Tablet PC at CES 2013

Even with the comprehensive overhaul of their notebook lineup, the big news out of Vizio’s CES booth was definitely their new Windows 8 tablet. The Vizio Tablet PC is the first system we’ve come across with AMD’s Z60 APU inside. It’s a 1GHz dual-core part, with a pair of Bobcat cores and an HD 6250 GPU onboard. The low clock speed allows it to hit a TDP of roughly 4.5W, easily the lowest of AMD’s APUs, but likely means that compute performance will likely be similar to or slightly worse than Clover Trail. This isn’t unexpected, since we saw the same situation play out with Ontario last year - basically a faster microarchitecture clocked significantly lower such that it performed roughly on par with Atom, except with significantly better GPU performance.

In addition to the AMD Z60, the Vizio Tablet PC comes with an 11.6” 1080p display, 2GB of memory, a 64GB SSD, stereo speakers, and Vizio’s now customary industrial design and attention to detail. The chassis is pretty thin at 0.4”, and at 1.66lbs isn’t too heavy for a system of this form factor. It’s a nice design, very flat and clean, and feels good in hand. The frame is aluminum, with a soft-touch back and glass front. I'll explore the hardware fully in the review, but for now, just know that it's a good looking, well executed design.

My main comparison point was the Samsung ATIV Smart PC 500T, a Clover Trail-based 11.6” (1366x768) tablet which weighs a very similar 1.64lbs. The ATIV isn’t a particularly well designed system, which I’ll get into in my review, so the Vizio is unsurprisingly a much nicer piece of hardware design, but what really got me was the performance of Z60. Even at 1080p, the Vizio feels smoother throughout the Windows 8 UI than Clover Trail at WXGA. The extra GPU horsepower of the APU certainly makes itself felt when compared to the PowerVR SGX545 in Atom Z2760. This is a good sign, and all of the hardware acceleration capabilities that opens up should make Z60 a much more livable computing situation than Atom. Obviously, it won’t come anywhere near 7W IVB, which I’d say is the current preferred Windows 8 tablet platform (and should be until Haswell comes) but it should be a good deal cheaper. 

The display is supposedly not IPS but is definitely some wide-angle panel type, so perhaps it’s a Samsung-sourced PLS panel or something similar. Pretty crisp, 1080p on an 11.6” panel is fantastic from a pixel density standpoint. We have no indications on price or release date, but Vizio says that it will be priced “competitively”. Competitive to what still remains a question, since the Z60-based Vizio kind of bridges the gap between Clover Trail and Ivy Bridge tablets, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see it drop at around $ 800. That puts it on par with the ASUS VivoTab 810C (the Atom one, not the one we reviewed) and just above the ATIV Smart PC ($ 749) but well below the 1080p Ivy Bridge tablets ($ 899 for Surface Pro, $ 949 for Acer’s W700). 

I’m excited, it looks like a pretty decent offering and I’m glad to see AMD get such a solid design win. Intel has long owned the mobile and ultramobile PC space, so it’s nice to see AMD finally put out a viable chip that will hopefully shake things up going forward. 

Disney Takes on Games, Again, With "Infinity"

Disney Takes on Games, Again, With "Infinity"

Disney owns the kids entertainment market â€" except when it comes to video games, where the Mouse has had a rough go of it.

Here’s its latest attempt to break through: “Disney Infinity”, a series of games aimed at the console game players.

That is: People who play games on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PS3 and the Nintendo Wii.

Short version: Infinity is a series of games linked together via a virtual “toy box”, so players can swap and modify characters from one game, and bring them into another. Which means Sully from Monsters University can jump into a Pirates of the Caribbean game, etc.

The games also incorporate real world collectible toys, which players use to unlock characters, games, etc. And you can also buy “power up” packs and other modules to boost/alter your games.

Or, for those of you who know kids of a certain age: This is a lot like Skylanders, except with Disney/Pixar characters that you can mash up. For the rest of you: Skylanders is a super-successful franchise from Activision that has generated $ 500 million in retail sales in a couple years.

That last sentence helps clarify what Disney is trying to do here. But if you’re wondering why Disney is focused on big, expensive (a “starter pack” for Infinity, which includes 3 games, will go for $ 75) console games, when the big trend in gaming is toward cheap/free casual/mobile games like “Angry Birds”, then Disney gaming chief John Pleasants wants to reassure you: They’re not.

“We’ve been fairly clear in our communications with folks that we have made a fairly big shift into online, mobile and social,” he says. And Infinity won’t change that.

But since people are still spending an awful lot of time on console games â€" and Sony et al are prepping the next generation of those machines â€" there’s no reason to abandon the market.

iPhone's Lost Week (Comic)

iPhone's Lost Week (Comic)

Along with original content and posts from across the Dow Jones network, this section of AllThingsD includes Must-Reads From Other Web Sites â€" pieces we’ve read, discussions we’ve followed, stuff we like. Six posts from external sites are included here each weekday, but we only run the headlines. We link to the original sites for the rest. These posts are explicitly labeled, so it’s clear that the content comes from other Web sites, and for clarity’s sake, all outside posts run against a pink background.

We also solicit original full-length posts and accept some unsolicited submissions.

Voices is edited by Beth Callaghan.

Gigabyte GA-7PESH1 Review: A Dual Processor Motherboard through a Scientist’s Eyes

Gigabyte GA-7PESH1 Review: A Dual Processor Motherboard through a Scientist’s Eyes

Browsing through a manufacturer’s website can offer a startling view of the product line up.  Such was the case when I sprawled through Gigabyte’s range, only to find that they offer server line products, including dual processor motherboards.  These are typically sold in a B2B environment (to system builders and integrators) rather than to the public, but after a couple of emails they were happy to send over their GA-7PESH1 model and a couple of Xeon CPUs for testing.  Coming from a background where we used dual processor systems for some serious CPU Workstation throughput, it was interesting to see how the Sandy Bridge-E Xeons compared to consumer grade hardware for getting the job done. 

In my recent academic career as a computational chemist, we developed our own code to solve issues of diffusion and migration.  This started with implicit grid solvers â€" everyone in the research group (coming from chemistry backgrounds rather than computer science backgrounds), as part of their training, wrote their own grid and solver classes in C++ which would be the backbone of the results obtained in their doctorate degree.  Due to the idiosyncratic nature of coders and learning how to code, some of the students naturally wrote classes were easily multi-threaded at a high level, whereas some used a large amount of localized cache which made multithreading impractical.  Nevertheless, single threaded performance was a major part in being able to obtain the results of the simulations which could last from seconds to weeks.  As part of my role in the group, I introduced the chemists to OpenMP which sped up some of their simulations, but as a result caused the shift in writing this code towards the multithreaded.  I orchestrated the purchasing of dual processor (DP) Nehalem workstations from Dell (the preferred source of IT equipment for the academic institution (despite my openness to build in-house custom hardware) in order to speed up the newly multithreaded code (with ECC memory for safety), and then embarked on my own research which looked at off-the-shelf FEM solvers then explicit calculations to parallelize the code at a low level, which took me to GPUs, which resulted in nine first author research papers overall in those three years. 

In a lot of the simulations written during that period by the multiple researchers, one element was consistent â€" trying to use as much processor power as possible.  When one of us needed more horsepower for a larger number of simulations, we used each other’s machines to get the job done quicker.  Thus when it came to purchasing those DP machines, I explored the SR-2 route and the possibility of self-building the machines, but this was quickly shot down by the IT department who preferred pre-built machines with a warranty.  In the end we purchased three dual E5520 systems, to give each machine 8 cores / 16 threads of processing power, as well as some ECC memory (thankfully the nature of the simulations required no more than a few megabytes each), to fit into the budget.  When I left that position, these machines were still going strong, with one colleague using all three to correlate the theoretical predictions with experimental results.

Since leaving that position and working for AnandTech, I still partake in exploring other avenues where my research could go into, albeit in my spare time without funding.  Thankfully moving to a single OCed Sandy Bridge-E processor let me keep the high level CPU code comparable to during the research group, even if I don’t have the ECC memory.  The GPU code is also faster, moving from a GTX480 during research to 580/680s now.  One of the benchmarks in my motherboard reviews is derived from one of my research papers â€" regular readers of our motherboard reviews will recognize the 3DPM benchmark from those reviews and in the review today, just to see how far computation has gone.  Being a chemist rather than a computer scientist, the code for this benchmark could be comparable to similar non-CompSci trained individuals â€" from a complexity point of view it is very basic, slightly optimized to perform faster calculations (FMA) but not the best it could be in terms of f ull blown SSE/SSE2/AVX extensions et al.

With the vast number of possible uses for high performance systems, it would be impossible for me to cover them all.  Johan de Gelas, our server reviewer, lives and breathes this type of technology, and hence his benchmark suite deals more with virtualization, VMs and database accessing.  As my perspective is usually from performance and utility, the review of this motherboard will be based around my history and perspective.  As I mentioned previously, this product is primarily B2B (business to business) rather than B2C (business to consumer), however from a home build standpoint, it offers an alternative to the two main Sandy Bridge-E based Xeon home-build workstation products in the market â€" the ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS and the EVGA SR-X.  Hopefully we will get these other products in as comparison points for you.

Health-and-Fitness Tech Grows at CES, but Challenges Lie Ahead

Health-and-Fitness Tech Grows at CES, but Challenges Lie Ahead

I’ve been looking at a lot of people’s wrists lately. Not because I have some weird fetish or anything. I’m curious about whether wearable devices like the Nike+ FuelBand and Jawbone Up are really taking off.

While that remains to be seen (I’ve only spotted about a dozen in the wild), it hasn’t stopped device manufactures and app developers from getting into the fitness-tech game.

Case in point: More than 220 companies will showcase their health-and-fitness products at International CES next week â€" a 30 percent increase over last year’s show, according to Consumer Electronic Association CEO Gary Shapiro.

Companies include Fitbit, Polar, and BodyMedia, which plans to introduce a waterproof patch. An Ohio startup called HealthSpot will be at CES showing off its Care4 Station kiosks. Described as an “ATM for healthcare,” users will be able to walk into one of theses kiosks at a pharmacy or grocery store, input their symptoms and chat with a board-certified doctor via video conferencing for further advice.

“It’s definitely an active category at CES,” said Shapiro in a phone interview. “Health is everything, and technology can play a major role in making people more responsible and bringing healthcare costs down.”

Consumers have already seen tech as a more affordable solution and motivator for sticking to an exercise regimen and meeting their goals. A recent study by the CEA showed that more than half of online consumers used some kind of fitness tech in the past year, and analysts at Forrester Research expect usage to increase from the low single-digit millions to 10 million by the end of 2013.

“In order to be well, you need information and feedback, and that’s always been crucial, even before the digital era,” said James McQuivey, analyst at Forrester Research. “Now there is tech that can collect that data reliably and at a low cost.”

This tech includes more traditional devices like heart-rate monitors and pedometers, and newer tech, such as fitness video games, smartphone apps, and connected scales.

Brands like Nike and Jawbone have also brought attention to wearable devices, which use sensors to measure your activity, calories burned, how well you sleep and more. The collected information is then transfered to an app or Web dashboard where you can view your progress, set goals and share results with a larger social network.

Nike says it’s this social interaction that’s attracting users to devices like the FuelBand. “People have always wanted motivation to be active, and now that same feeling of being on a team or training for your first 10K can happen daily through socially enabled, connected experiences like Nike+,” said Ricky Engelberg, experience director of digital sport at Nike.

Even so, I have my doubts about whether wearable devices will catch on. I had the original Fitbit , and while achieving my goals and earning new badges kept me motivated for a few weeks, I soon grew tired of having to take it on and off.

McQuivey agrees, and says wearable tech won’t be a trend, even if “a particular device from a particular vendor” might prove to be popular. But he does believe that fitness tech will continue to grow, and that the bigger challenge won’t be design but what to do with the data.

“The health implications of the data we’re collecting are tremendous,” said McQuivey. “We could meaningfully improve our understanding of many major diseases just by amassing this data in a central place where researchers and companies can have access to it. … But, so far, no one company has that database or even the beginnings of it.”

Shapiro had similar thoughts. “We’re shifting toward smaller, cheaper devices in a matter of months, and they’re getting better all the time,” he said. “But once they’ve gathered information, what do you with it? That’s where we still need progress. There are holes in the system.”

Perhaps one of those 220 companies at CES will have the answer. But I suspect that coming up with a solution that’s universal and doesn’t invade a person’s privacy will be debated for years to come.

International CES officially kicks off on Jan. 8 and runs through Jan. 11. AllThingsD will be in attendance starting on Sunday, so check back then for all the latest news and analysis.

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