Today, Intel introduced Loihi 2, its second-generation neuromorphic research chip, and Lava, an open-source software framework for developing neuro-inspired applications. Their introduction signals Intel's ongoing progress in advancing neuromorphic technology. Neuromorphic computing, which draws insights from neuroscience to create chips that function more like the biological brain, aspires to deliver orders of magnitude improvements in energy efficiency, speed of computation and efficiency of learning across a range of edge applications: from vision, voice and gesture recognition to search retrieval, robotics, and constrained optimization problems.

"Loihi 2 and Lava harvest insights from several years of collaborative research using Loihi. Our second-generation chip greatly improves the speed, programmability, and capacity of neuromorphic processing, broadening its usages in power and latency constrained intelligent computing applications. We are open sourcing Lava to address the need for software convergence, benchmarking, and cross-platform collaboration in the field, and to accelerate our progress toward commercial viability." -- Mike Davies, director of Intel's

Cables, why is it that some people are so fixated about them? We've seen companies like Monster Cable base their entire business around them, yet most people don't even seem to know why they're buying expensive cables. Asus has now joined the club of expensive cable sellers with its new ROG CAT7 Cable, which has started to appear in various markets around the world.

In all fairness, Asus isn't asking for thousands, or even hundreds of dollars for their ROG branded cables, but a 1.5 metre cable will set you back in the region of $22, whereas a longer 3 metre cable comes in at around $37. An ROG branded velcro tie is included in the box as the only accessory. We're not sure that nylon braiding is going to be useful on an Ethernet cable, but Asus is at least using shielded FTP wires (although Asus say STP on their site), which suggests it should be a decent quality cable at the very least. It's worth keeping in mind that CAT 7 isn't recognised by the TIA/EIA as part of the Ethernet standard and offers no real world benefits over CAT 6A on a 10 Gbps or slower network.

In view of the ongoing production capacity shortage in the semiconductor industry and the resultant price hike of chips, revenue of the top 10 IC design companies for 2Q21 reached US$29.8 billion, a 60.8% YoY increase, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. In particular, Taiwanese companies put up remarkable performances during this period, with both MediaTek and Novatek posting YoY growths of more than 95%. AMD, on the other hand, experienced a nearly 100% YoY revenue growth, the highest among the top 10.

TrendForce indicates that the ranking of the top five companies for 2Q21 remained unchanged from the previous quarter, although there were major changes in the 6th to 10th spots. More specifically, after finalizing its acquisition of Inphi, Marvell experienced a major revenue growth and leapfrogged Xilinx and Realtek in the rankings from 9th place in 1Q21 to 7th place in 2Q21.

Today, Intel announced the Intel NUC 11 Extreme Kit (code-named "Beast Canyon"), a highly modular desktop PC engineered to provide a phenomenal experience for gaming, streaming and recording. With the latest 11th Gen Intel Core processors, support for full-size discrete graphics cards and a full range of I/O ports, the Intel NUC 11 Extreme Kit delivers high performance gameplay and smooth, immersive visuals.

Compact Intel NUC 11 Extreme Kits are designed to provide powerful, immersive gaming experiences. For performance, connectivity, and modularity, the Intel NUC 11 Extreme kit delivers massive performance with a small footprint.

The highest-performing Intel NUC yet delivers a premium and size-optimized PC package for creating innovative desktops suited to gamers' unique performance needs. Packing the latest hardware components into a tiny 8-liter case, the Intel NUC 11 Extreme Kit is loaded with features typically found in much larger gaming rigs and offers customizable design options.

AAEON, a leader in AI edge solutions, announces the release of the BOXER-8230AI AI Edge box PC powered by the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX System on Module (SOM). The BOXER-8230AI delivers powerful computing performance without breaking budgets, along with rugged design and diverse I/O layout including five Gigabit Ethernet ports. The BOXER-8230AI offers a solution that's perfect for intelligent applications including surveillance, smart factory, and smart retail.
The BOXER-8230AI platform brings flexibility to meet the needs of customers, with industrial design and storage capacity. With two available configurations, the BOXER-8230AI-A3 and BOXER-8230AI-A4 systems offer flexible I/O loadout with five Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports to connect with IP cameras and other devices, as well as four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and two COM ports. Storage flexibility is provided with 16 GB onboard eMMC storage, microSD slot and a 2.5" SATA III bay (A4 model).

The BOXER-8230AI platform is powered by the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX SOM, delivering powerful AI edge computing without compromising costs. The Jetson TX2 NX delivers more than twice the performance of the NVIDIA Jetson Nano thanks to its six-core ARM processor and NVIDIA Pascal GPU with 256 CUDA cores. This allows the Jetson TX2 NX to achieve speeds up to 1.33 TFLOPS, and enables the system to power a wide range of AI Edge applications.

Axiomtek - a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted in the research, development and manufacture of series of innovative and reliable industrial computer products of high efficiency - is proud to announce the MANO540, a Mini-ITX motherboard powered by the FCLGA1200 10th Gen Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3 processor (codename: Comet Lake) with the Intel H410 chipset. It also supports two 260-pin DDR4-2933/2666/2400 SO-DIMM sockets for up to 64 GB of memory. With a small form factor of 17 x 17 cm, this industrial motherboard is an excellent choice for space-constrained environments. The advanced MANO540 is specifically designed for performance-demanding applications with its excellent reliability as well as communication and edge computing capabilities.

"Axiomtek's MANO540 supports ubiquitous high-speed data transfer interfaces, including PCIe 3.0, USB 3.2 Gen1 and SATA-600. It also features one M.2 Key B slot for USB 3.2 interface 5G module. The expansion is provided by one PCIe x16, one M.2 Key E slot and one full-size PCI Express Mini Card slot for wireless devices such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth," said Kenny Lin, the product manager of the Product Planning Division at Axiomtek. "This industrial motherboard is integrated with Intel integrated Gfx graphics engine with UHD 4K resolution and provides rapid video acceleration and dual-view capability through the DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0 and VGA. Axiomtek also offers the ECM500, an industrial chassis designed for the MANO540 to help shorten the time to market."

At the 2021 International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) Intel is showcasing how the company is extending its lead in high performance computing (HPC) with a range of technology disclosures, partnerships and customer adoptions. Intel processors are the most widely deployed compute architecture in the world's supercomputers, enabling global medical discoveries and scientific breakthroughs. Intel is announcing advances in its Xeon processor for HPC and AI as well as innovations in memory, software, exascale-class storage, and networking technologies for a range of HPC use cases.

"To maximize HPC performance we must leverage all the computer resources and technology advancements available to us," said Trish Damkroger, vice president and general manager of High Performance Computing at Intel. "Intel is the driving force behind the industry's move toward exascale computing, and the advancements we're delivering with our CPUs, XPUs, oneAPI Toolkits, exascale-class DAOS storage, and high-speed networking are pushing us closer toward that realization."

The all-new AS-T10G2 is here, bringing increased efficiency and speeds to the much beloved AS-T10G. The AS-T10G2 uses the AQC-107 controller, which offers increased performance, and lower power requirements. Using the Lockerstor 16R Pro, transfer rates were found to be up to 1127 MB/s when reading and 1124 MB/s when writing. The AS-T10G2 also supports IP, TCP, UDP checksum offload to reduce CPU usage for a more efficient experience.

The AS-T10G2 is equipped with a 10 Gbps 8p8c RJ-45 Ethernet port. The AS-T10G2 supports automatic switching between all major Ethernet speeds and is compatible with four lanes of PCI Express 3.0. Pop it into an ASUSTOR NAS running ADM 4.0 or a PC to upgrade network speeds to 10-Gigabit Ethernet. The AS-T10G2 is compatible with both full-height and half-height computers, making it compatible with almost any device featuring a PCI Express slot, ensuring affordable, yet high speed networking for both homes and businesses.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, launched its first dual-port 100 GbE network expansion card - the QXG-100G2SF-E810. Featuring an Intel Ethernet Controller E810 and PCIe 4.0, the QXG-100G2SF-E810 provides up to 100 Gbps bandwidth for QNAP NAS or Windows /Linux devices to attain optimal performance in a wide range of applications and services. It is a perfect match for unleashing the full potential of QNAP's TS-h2490FU NVMe all-flash storage that can be paired with high-speed switches for high-performance, low-latency data centers.

"The QXG-100G2SF-E810 redefines ultra-high-speed networking with 100 Gbps connectivity," said Stanley Huang, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "Users can also configure network redundancy to achieve network failover via the switch for continuous service and high availability." The QXG-100G2SF-E810 is ideal for I/O-intensive and latency-sensitive virtualization and data centers, and boosts network efficiency with the support of iWARP/RDMA and SR-IOV (coming soon). When used in a server or workstation, it supports Windows Server (2016 or 2019) and Linux platforms (Drivers required).

QNAP Systems, Inc., today launched the new QXG-10G2T-X710 10 GbE network expansion card. Featuring an Intel Ethernet Controller X710, the QXG-10G2T-X710 is a PCIe Gen 3 card (compatible with PCIe Gen 2) that can be installed in a QNAP NAS or a Windows /Linux PC to add two 10 GbE ports. The QXG-10G2T-X710 supports is compatible with five speeds (10G / 5G / 2.5G / 1G / 100M) and can achieve up to 20 Gbps transfer speeds by using both ports with Port Trunking. Network efficiency is boosted with SR-IOV and iSCSI support, and I/O-intensive and latency-sensitive virtualization applications and data centers will greatly benefit. The QXG-10G2T-X710 is also a perfect match for QNAP's 10 GbE switches to build a budget-friendly high-speed network environment.

When installed in a Windows or Linux PC, users must install the QXG-10G2T-X710 driver. No driver is required when installing in a QNAP NAS, but QTS 4.5.2/ QuTS hero h4.5.1 (or later) is required. The QNAP QXG-10G2T-X710 10 GbE network expansion card is now available for 387 USD.

NVIDIA today announced the NVIDIA BlueField -3 DPU, its next-generation data processing unit, to deliver the most powerful software-defined networking, storage and cybersecurity acceleration capabilities available for data centers.

The first DPU built for AI and accelerated computing, BlueField-3 lets every enterprise deliver applications at any scale with industry-leading performance and data center security. It is optimized for multi-tenant, cloud-native environments, offering software-defined, hardware-accelerated networking, storage, security and management services at data-center scale.

AAEON, an industry leader in Edge Computing solutions, announces the SRG-3352C Compact Edge IoT Gateway System. The SRG-3352C brings reliable, cost effective gateway operations with expandability and wireless communication support designed to quickly deploy edge networks in a variety of environments.
The SRG-3352C builds upon the features, durability and reliability of the SRG-3352 Edge IoT Gateway System with expanded support for more connections and wireless communications. All of this is packed into a compact form factor that makes deploying the SRG-3352C even easier, powering more flexible edge network deployments.

The SRG-3352C is powered by the Arm Cortex-A8 800 MHz RISC processor. This innovative processor reduces the energy requirements of the system, allowing for a more efficient system to help save electricity costs. While powerful enough to connect edge networks together, the low energy usage can help cities with achieving green energy goals, and even allow the system to operate on solar power or batteries. It also eliminates the need for dedicated heatsinks, allowing the system to operate in wider temperatures, from 0°C up to 60°C without loss in performance.

ASUS USB-C2500 lets you add 2.5 Gbps wired Ethernet to your PC or NAS without the fuss of opening it up for a PCIe adapter. The dongle features a USB 3.0 type-A (5 Gbps) connector on one end, and an easy-to-setup 2.5 GbE port on the other. The main body of this network dongle is made of an aluminium alloy, while a Nylon-sleeved 5 cm cable ties it to the USB 3.0 type-A connector. A type-A to type-C adapter, or native type-C interface aren't included, unlike with the ASUSTOR AS-U2-5G2. The company didn't mention the controller underneath, but it's very likely to be the Realtek RTL8156B, possibly the only USB3-based 2.5 GbE single-chip solution at large. The company didn't announce pricing.

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products including network-attached storage (NAS) devices, expands its 10GbE Series with the F5-422 5-bay quad-core NAS. The TerraMaster F5-422 is equipped with a powerful Intel Celeron quad-core processor and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port along with two 1000 MB/s Ethernet ports to support network aggregation. Via the high-speed 10 GbE, the F5-422 can deliver read and write speeds of up to 670 MB/s using 6 TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives in RAID 5.

The TerraMaster F5-422 5-bay NAS is ideal for growing businesses with demanding professionals like video editors, 3D animators, photographers, and other content creators that deal with large volumes of data. The F5-422 offers larger-capacity storage for demanding professionals. It comes with advanced security features to protect your sensitive business data.

D-Link Corporation today announced their new DUB-E250 USB-C to 2.5G Ethernet Adapter and DMS-106XT Multi Gigabit Unmanaged Switch at the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show. The emergence of Wi-Fi 6 and increase of network traffic has driven wired networks to require higher bandwidth. Single Gigabit Ethernet is no longer sufficient. 2.5G Ethernet is one of the latest technology trends driving innovation in networking and changing the consumer experience. D-Link's new 2.5G Ethernet solutions upgrade networks by providing a more reliable, stable, seamless network and easily multiplying the network speed by 2.5 times.

D-Link's DUB-E250 is the smallest USB-C 2.5G Ethernet Adapter on the market that breaks network bottlenecks by enabling 2.5 times the bandwidth of a Gigabit ethernet connection and makes feasible many more high-performance online activities. Fully backward compatible with existing network equipment, the DUB-E250 allows for affordable, fast, worry-free transition to high-performance experiences. The DUB-E250 has also been recognized as this year's CES Innovation Award Honoree.

NETGEAR, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR), the worldwide leading provider of award-winning advanced networking products for home and office has today announced, during the historic virtually-hosted CES 2021, the introduction of the world's first all-purpose WiFi 6E router, the Nighthawk RAXE500 Tri-band WiFi router. Promised to elevate the WiFi experience by providing speeds up to 10.8Gbps, this latest addition to the Nighthawk line of performance routers ushers in a new era of fast connectivity on the new 6Ghz band, free of interference and congestion.

Working, learning, and video streaming from home has placed greater demands on home WiFi networks. Devices in these ultra-connected households have been in a constant contest for bandwidth on crowded WiFi networks. WiFi 6E resolves these congestion issues by adding previously unavailable 6GHz WiFi spectrum that can be used to broadcast WiFi signals and connect to more devices with faster speeds and reliability. Up until the introduction of WiFi 6E, WiFi routers have been limited to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. The new third 6GHz band will dramatically increase the capacity of networks to support more devices.

NETGEAR, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTGR), the leading provider of networking products that power businesses of all sizes, today announced the availability of the WAX214 and WAX218 wall/ceiling mount WiFi 6 Access Points, expanding the Business Essentials line of powerful, easy-to-deploy, and affordable business networking products. With a combination of high performance and expanded coverage at the right price points for small businesses, these new wireless
access points are NETGEAR's best value WiFi for today and tomorrow.

As newest members of the new Business Essentials product family, the WAX214 and WAX218 provide today's home office workers, microbusinesses and small retail owners with a cost-effective solution to typical wireless networking challenges. Problems such as spotty connectivity, congestion due to limited bandwidth, dropped connections, low speed, complex installation, and lack of security are all solved thanks to the advanced technology built into the WAX214 and WAX218. These WiFi Access Points deliver what small business owners and working professionals need most to improve the performance and reliability of their work-from-home network.

NETGEAR, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR), the worldwide leading provider of advanced networking products for home and office, has announced two new mobile products: the Industry's first WiFi 6 mobile wireless router - the Nighthawk 4G LTE WiFi 6 Router (LAX20) - and the NETGEAR 4G LTE Modem (LM1200). With a continued mission to provide connectivity for households and businesses regardless of where they may be located, these two mobile wireless products provide the capability of connecting home or office networks in the absence of traditional cable, DSL or fiber broadband options.

The Nighthawk LAX20 router supports advanced WiFi 6 networking technology delivering 1.8Gbps of high-performance WiFi and improved network capacity to handle a greater number of connected devices on the home network. Combined with a 4G LTE modem for instances where traditional wired internet options are not available or reliable, the Nighthawk LAX20 router provides an alternate mobile internet connectivity option. The new router also serves as an ideal solution for those who need internet access for limited time frames for instances such as a vacation home or short-term rentals.

ASRock announced a new partnership with Razer to develop the ASRock Taichi Razer Edition line of motherboards, the world's first motherboard that is natively integrated with Razer Chroma RGB lighting. Razer Chroma RGB is the world's largest lighting ecosystem for gaming devices which supports over 500 devices, 150 natively integrated games and over 15 million users worldwide. The integration with ASRock enables universal compatibility with thousands of addressable RGB (ARGB) components directly into the ecosystem.

"We've been so excited to make the ASRock Taichi Razer Edition debut. The sense of Razer sublimates it into a part of gamers' religion," said Chris Lee, general manager of ASRock motherboard business unit. "Razer knows well about elements gamers looking for and makes everything fall into place!"

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the global leading motherboard, Mini-PC, Notebooks, mobile device and smart city solutions provider, is pleased to announce the elegant yet powerful All-in-One PC—E22-MH410/E24-MH410. It features up to Intel 10th Generation Core i processor and DDR4-2666 MHz memory for uncompromising performance. The space-saving and streamlined design fits perfectly for any business application such as government and public institutions, healthcare, bank and hotel counter that require computers remain in the office all the times and also ideal for home entertainment.

E22-MH410/E24-MH410 AiO PC showcases the remarkable Nano-edge screen by 21.5-inch and 23.8-inch accordingly. The 21.5-inch screen is suitable for limited area such as hotel or bank counter and office and 23.8-inch screen is ideal for home entertainment. Both of them support Full HD resolution that delivers stunning visuals with outstanding color. With 178˚ wide-viewing technology, you can enjoy lifelike visuals from almost every direction. And the great ergonomic stand offers tilt adjustment for users to relax and stretch body but not missing any important information while working.

The 56th edition of the TOP500 saw the Japanese Fugaku supercomputer solidify its number one status in a list that reflects a flattening performance growth curve. Although two new systems managed to make it into the top 10, the full list recorded the smallest number of new entries since the project began in 1993.

The entry level to the list moved up to 1.32 petaflops on the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, a small increase from 1.23 petaflops recorded in the June 2020 rankings. In a similar vein, the aggregate performance of all 500 systems grew from 2.22 exaflops in June to just 2.43 exaflops on the latest list. Likewise, average concurrency per system barely increased at all, growing from 145,363 cores six months ago to 145,465 cores in the current list.

For AMD Ryzen 5000 Series desktop processor, ASRock, a leading global motherboard manufacturer, has launched the X570 PG Velocita. It is a new crew of Phantom Gaming series designed to meet the needs of high-end gamers and the best choice for high price-performance build. "We've heard the voice of online gamers! The Killer networking on the X570 PG Velocita offers the uninterrupted online experiences and makes gamers beat all competitors in an instant!" said Chris Lee, general manager of ASRock motherboard business unit.

Users may well spot on the phantom gaming logo's difference! The blazing fire in the core symbols the higher transmit rate. Users can enjoy the PCI express 4.0 with double bandwidth from previous generation. At the same time, the whole new Killer Ethernet & Wifi offer a faster and more reliable networking for gamers towards perfect gaming experiences. The cool color around contrasts quite markedly with the flame inside, making the design code of phantom gaming full of mystery. The frame-break shield integrates all elements above, showing temperament of domineer and unbeatable strength of new Phantom Gaming.

RISC-V architecture is a relatively new Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) developed at the University of California Berkeley. Starting as a "short, three-month project" the RISC-V ISA is a fifth generation of the Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) ideology. A company working on this technology and helping to grow the ecosystem is SiFive. Today, they announced a big step forward for the ecosystem that will enable developers to make and optimize even more software for this architecture and platform. Called the HiFive Unmatched, the development board represents the first entry of RISC-V ISA to the world of personal computing, with its Mini-ITX form factor and PC-like connectors of power supply and I/O.

The board is home to SiFive's FU740 SoC, a five-core heterogeneous, coherent processor with four SiFive U74 cores, and one SiFive S7 core. This SoC is capable of smooth Linux OS operation, giving the developers a good platform to do their optimizations for. There is 8 GB of onboard DDR4 RAM (unknown frequencies and timing), a MicroSD card slot, and one PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot for system storage. To connect the board to the outside world, you get one Gigabit Ethernet port. For user I/O there are four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports (1 Charging port) and one MicroUSB Console port. To power the board, you need a proper power supply with a 24-pin power connector. If you plan to build a PC based on the Unmatched board, you would need a standard ITX case, as it comes in the standard Mini-ITX (170x170 mm) form factor. For more information, please check out SiFive's website.

For years, MacBooks have been the de facto standard for digital DJ setups. Apple's recent product iterations, however, have left much to be desired in terms of professional connectivity - using industry standard DJ equipment with a MacBook requires the purchase of expensive and impractical adapters or hubs. XMG responds to the DJ community's growing demand for a functional, reliable alternative by releasing the DJ 15 - the first ever laptop designed, optimised and tested specifically to meet the needs of professional DJs. Weighing in at a mere 1.6 kg, this machine features a 15" non-glare Full HD IPS display and a wide array of standard ports. An entirely bloatware-free Windows 10 Pro installation, perfectly tuned to the DJ 15's hardware components, ensures ultra-low, stable DPC latency out of the box, even running off battery with WiFi and Bluetooth activated. On top of that, XMG offers unique and highly specialised support - by DJs, for DJs.

Intel Corp. and Lightbits Labs today announced an agreement to propel development of disaggregated storage solutions to solve the challenges of today's data center operators who are craving improved total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) due to stranded disk capacity and performance. This strategic partnership includes technical co-engineering, go-to-market collaboration and an Intel Capital investment in Lightbits Labs. Lightbits' LightOS product delivers high-performance shared storage across servers while providing high availability and read-and-write management designed to maximize the value of flash-based storage. LightOS, while being fully optimized for Intel hardware, provides customers with vastly improved storage efficiency and reduces underutilization while maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructure without compromising performance and simplicity.

Lightbits Labs will enhance its composable disaggregated software-defined storage solution, LightOS, for Intel technologies, creating an optimized software and hardware solution. The system will utilize Intel Optane persistent memory and Intel 3D NAND SSDs based on Intel QLC Technology, Intel Xeon Scalable processors with unique built-in artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration capabilities and Intel Ethernet 800 Series Network Adapters with Application Device Queues (ADQ) technology. Intel's leadership FPGAs for next-generation performance, flexibility and programmability will complement the solution.