hardware acceleration

When the relatively open Android platform is compared to a tightly controlled system like iOS, one of the first differences people note is the superior smoothness of apps on iOS.

This is something Android has struggled with since its inception, but many of the assumptions made about Android’s graphical system, and how that relates to interface smoothness are wrong.

When Macromedia released its first version of Flash in 1996 there were unequivocal yelps of joy from the web design community.

It’s hard to imagine today, with Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft extolling the virtues of the Open Web, but once upon a time Flash was new and incredibly exciting.

Flash arrived at a time when Internet Explorer and Netscape could render static text and images, but not much more.

Flash brought roll-over buttons and whooshy navigation bars and splash screens and games.

Google Chrome might be built upon the open source Chromium browser project, but like Android the “open” label can be a bit misleading at times.

Today we’ve got a perfect example from the folks in Mountain View: a brand new HTML5 musical collaboration with geek rockers OK Go.

At long last, some 18 months after its last Nano chip, VIA has released a follow-up — and a rather sexy accompanying motherboard.

The chip itself is the first in the X2 E-Series of Nano chips, which straps together two of last-last year’s 3000-series Isaiah cores.

It’s still a low-power component with a TDP around 5 watts, and it’s still targeted at embedded applications and home theater equipment.

The latest Microsoft browser is state of the art--at least for now—-with its support of GPU hardware acceleration, HTML5 compliant video, audio and graphics features and a new JavaScript engine.

The first Firefox 4 beta since September marks the wider debut of the JagerMonkey JavaScript engine, as well as improved font handling and further implementation of hardware acceleration.

Believe it or not, there are servers specifically designed to run MySQL -- not to mention other hardware that help to accelerate your databases. Here's a look at what's out there.