Nintendo's upcoming Wii U will reportedly be powered by a quad-core processor based on Power architecture. Although the gaming company has yet to fully detail its next console, unnamed developers who are claimed to have early access to the device have told Tom's Guide the U's 45nm 3GHz processor is "very similar" to the 3.2GHz PowerPC chip used in the Xbox 360.
Microsoft showed the first signs of getting ready for the Xbox 360's eventual replacement with a new set of jobs all posted on Friday and discovered late Monday. Listings for VLSI graphics and performance architects would have new recruits work on "next generation console architectures" and targeting for a particular level of performance. Other listings include an AV hardware architect, also working on new hardware, and a design verification engineer that would greenlight a new console at individual stages.
More discoveries in Mac OS X Lion have shown Apple is cutting out two of its older implementations. The developer preview no longer has Front Row, Apple's early answer to Windows Media Center. It had originally launched in sync with the last Power PC iMac, the iSight-equipped G5 model, and was a staple feature of early Intel-based Macs.
Mozilla will probably cut off Firefox's PowerPC support past v3.6, according to the company's director for the browser, Mike Beltzner. "I am gathering data on the number of PPC users we have, but the likely outcome is that we will not be supporting PPC [PowerPC] for Firefox 4," he writes in a mailing list post. The root of the problem is said to be two new features in Firefox 4, beginning with out-of-process plugins, which can prevent the program as a whole from crashing when something like Flash becomes unstable. Also mentioned is a just-in-time JavaScript compiler, borrowing technology used in Chrome and Safari.
At the Hot Chips 2010 conference on Tuesday, IBM talked about its z196 CPU for Z-series mainframe computers. Claimed as the fastest processor in the world, has a clock speed of 5.2GHz and will ship in September, though its price is expected to be anywhere in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars to over a million. The chip is one of the only CISC chips left in the category, supporting large programs that need more memory than RISC chips such as PowerPC and ARM embedded processors.
Adobe on Wednesday announced that future versions of Creative Suite will only run on Intel-based Macs, and not on the older PowerPC systems. The company explains that it is merely following the same path as Apple, after its upcoming Snow Leopard operating system was also revealed to be limited to Intel systems.
Apple has posted a job listing that hints at the company's future hardware direction for the iPhone, iPod touch and possible other devices. The position for a High Perform/Low Level Programmer asks for someone familiar not only for programming assembly-level code for ARM processors, which Apple already uses in its handhelds, but for the NEON vector math units used in the newer Cortex architecture for the mobile chips. Apple is especially concerned about experience with vector math and particularly values anyone with additional knowledge of vector units through general CPUs, such as Intel's SSE or the AltiVec units found on PowerPC G4 and G5 cores.
Mark's Papermaster's new role at Apple in no way represents a threat to IBM, according to new filings. Papermaster is to replace Tony Fadell at the head of Apple's iPod group, but has been accused of violating a non-compete agreement signed when he was employed by IBM, where he helped oversee chip design. In his formal response to IBM, Papermaster claims that Apple and IBM do not compete with each other, and that his hiring was not primarily based on his work with the latter company.
Apple is currently telling at least some retailers not to expect further Mac mini shipments, according to reports sent to Gizmodo. At least two "major" European outlets say they have been told by Apple not to anticipate more units of the small desktop and get the impression from their Apple sources that the system has been discontinued outright and isn't just encountering a temporary interruption in supply.
Apple's rumored non-Intel mainboard platform may primarily involve a change of suppliers to NVIDIA rather than any kind of custom development, PCPer suggests. The enthusiast site notes that Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA has been developing its first nForce mainboard chipset for Intel-based notebooks, currently codenamed MCP79, with the aim of improving several weaknesses that have affected Intel's own designs and thus Apple as well. The architecture would support all the necessary components for Intel's just-announced Core 2 processors, including a 1,066MHz system bus and the option of DDR3 memory.
Apple will reportedly offer legacy support for PA Semi's line of PowerPC-based processors following pressure from the government and clearing up rumors that surfaced after the chipmaker's acquisition by Apple last month. In effort to continue to push the chip power efficiency envelope, the Cupertino-based company purchased the microprocessor design company for nearly $300 million, but reports following the announcement said that the US Defense Department may have objected if Apple discontinued support for its current chips that are used in a wide variety of military devices, but are not used in Apple's current generation products (PowerPC chips were used by Apple before its transition to the Intel architecture almost three years ago). The Register says that the government may have pressured Apple into supporting the current PowerPC-chip design and PA Semi's customers.
