11/06, 3:35pm
Consolidation should influence future phone, tablet designs
Imagination Technologies is planning to buy MIPS Technologies in a deal costing $60 million in cash, says Anandtech. MIPS produces one of the few standard CPU architectures outside of Intel and ARM; in buying the company, Imagination will get 82 related patents. Another 580 patents and patent applications have been sold for $350 million to Bridge Crossing, a CPU patent holding group with partners like Intel, ARM, HP, and IBM.
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04/27, 5:40pm
Govt could limit acceptable architectures
Chinese government officials are in the process of attempting to define a national processor architecture standard. If successful, the standard, which EE Times contends might emerge in the next few months, could dramatically alter computing in the world's largest country, and the ripple effects could change the way international companies do business in China.
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04/19, 12:25pm
7-inch tablet to run Android 4.0 on MIPS chip
Dutch electronics manufacturer Philips will be entering the tablet market in the near future, according to Bright Side of News. The manufacturer is looking to debut a seven-inch, MIPS-based tablet to launch initially in China.
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12/25, 4:20am
MIPS-based Ainol Novo7 up for pre-order for $120
A couple of online resellers have placed the Ainol Novo7 Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) tablet [video embedded below] up for pre-order at $120. Both PandaWill and Merimobiles have listed the super-cheap 7-inch capacitive touchscreen tablet on their respective webstores. The Novo7 is the product of a partnership between US-based MIPS Technologies, using its low-cost MIPS-based mobile chip design, and China’s Ingenic Semiconductor.
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12/05, 4:10pm
Android 4 7-inch tablet in China trades for $100
California-based MIPS Technologies and China's Ingenic Semiconductor have teamed up to create what they say is the first Android 4.0 tablet. It will cost less than $100 uses a 1GHz XBurst CPU. The OEM tablet is now shipping in China under the Ainol Electronics brand and will arrive in the US and other countries over the next few months under other brands.
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04/25, 2:45pm
WebM Community Cross-License guards video patents
The WebM Project took a defensive measure on Monday with the creation of the WebM Community Cross-License. The approach will see 17 companies and groups give licenses to any WebM-related patents they have to other CCL members. Google, Matroska, and Xiph.org form the core but are joined by AMD, Cisco, Huawei, LG, Logitech, MIPS, Mozilla, Opera, Pantech, Quanta, Samsung, STMicro, TI, and Verisilicon.
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10/29, 10:20am
PSP2 leak hints Xbox 360 level power
Sony's often-rumored PSP2 may count on Xbox 360-level performance to give the company back the gaming crown it lost to Apple, a rumor mentioned today. The choice of processor wasn't mentioned, but the design is expected to have 1GB of RAM, or twice as much as Microsoft's TV console. Kotaku didn't have insight but was persuaded it was "much more powerful" than the current PSP.
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04/26, 10:40pm
Imagination and MIPS team to fight ARM
Imagination Technologies and MIPS today agreed to an alliance that would see the two promote each other's chips. While the two won't explicitly cooperate on projects, they will encourage partners that decide to use both Imagination's PowerVR graphics and a MIPS processor in the same device. The ability to run Android, Flash and other relatively demanding tasks requires it, MIPS' marketing VP Art Swift said.
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