Technology

SAN FRANCISCO — At GDC 2017, Nvidia announced its long-expected GTX 1080 Ti. The GPU, which has been rumored since at least the Nvidia Titan X’s unveil, is a potent upgrade compared with Nvidia’s previous top-end consumer card, the GTX 1080. The gap between the GTX 1080 Ti and the 1080 …

Google is focusing on hardware more than it has in the past with the Pixel smartphones, Google Wifi, and Google Home. One product Google doesn’t plan to continue making is laptops, according to Google’s SVP of hardware Rick Osterloh. If you head to the Google Store right now, the Chromebook …

After years of waiting, AMD’s Ryzen has finally arrived. The company has spent years in the proverbial desert, struggling with Bulldozer improvements while simultaneously designing its new Zen architecture. It’s no exaggeration to say AMD’s future as a PC company literally depends on Ryzen’s success. AMD has positioned Ryzen aggressively …

There’s been good news on the VR front of late, but precious little of it is coming from Oculus. Earlier this week, Sony announced it was closing on one million VR headsets sold since the launch late last year. Sony has moved 915,000 VR units to date, even though we haven’t …

Earlier this week, Intel quietly began cutting the prices on some of its Core i5 and i7 processors. This happened in the run-up to Ryzen’s launch, and was likely a move to preempt unattractive price comparisons that would otherwise be front and center when Ryzen 7 hit shelves. Micro Center …

As if the makers of standalone cameras don’t have enough problems holding off smartphones, Sony has just announced a sensor that has the potential to be yet another game changer for what’s possible in mobile device photography. Its new design adds a layer of DRAM between the pixel layer and the …

Here at ExtremeTech, we’ve often discussed the difference between different types of NAND structures — vertical NAND versus planar, or multi-level cell (MLC) versus triple-level cells (TLC). Now, let’s talk about the more basic relevant question: How do SSDs work in the first place, and how do they compare with new technologies, …

We’ve known for weeks that Toshiba was in rough shape and seeking to raise additional revenue through a potential partial sale to Western Digital, but events on Tuesday pushed the company’s position from “really bad” to “implosion imminent.” Today, Toshiba announced that it would take a $6.2 billion write-down on …

Sony has announced a new line of SD cards that aren’t just fast — they’re capable of hitting the fundamental performance limits of the Ultra High Speed II (abbreviated UHS-II) specification. That standard offers up to 312MB/s of performance, while Sony is claiming 300MB read/write speeds for its new line …

Wireless charging was all the rage in smartphones a few years ago, but most device makers have backed off on the technology. Many phones simply charge super-fast via a cable now. The wireless charging fatigue is due in part to the range limitation of the technology. True wireless power is still …