Could a 64GB iPhone 3GS be on the cards?

Or even a 128GB iPod Touch?

Toshiba will start producing 3 million units each month, from January 2010, which would be more than enough for a certain new iPhone 4 that's due around June. [CrunchGear]

The precious enzyme molecules required for a single in situ click reaction in a traditional lab now can be split into hundreds of duplicates for performing hundreds of reactions in parallel, thus revolutionizing the laboratory process, reducing reagent consumption and accelerating the process for identifying potential drug candidates

The UCLA scientists think that their new invention can revolutionize chemistry laboratories, and drug development, since their chip is capable of performing more than a thousand simultaneous chemical reactions in seconds, processes that take insane amounts of time to do using traditional lab bench material.

The "integrated microfluidic device for large-scale in situ click chemistry screening" works by funneling the chemical matter through micro-channels etched in the chip. It works at the molecular level, so even while the reactions are the same that boffins get with traditional lab tools, the liquid quantities are so small that the eye can't actually see them. The results of these combinations are then analyzed manually using a mass spectrometer, a part of the process that the team expects to automate in the future.

In other words: Fasterer and fasterer research, less development time, more drugs to try. Seems like a win-win combination to me. [UCLA and Lab on a Chip journal via Medgadget]

• AMD tried to kill the megahertz myth before Intel. During the Pentium 4 days Intel kept pushing clock speeds higher and higher, before it hit a wall and abandoned the Prescott architecture. The message was clearly, "more megahertz is more better." AMD's competing Athlon XP chips, while clocked slower, often beat their Pentium 4 rivals. Ironically, AMD was the first to 1GHz, as some commenters have pointed out (don't know how I forgot that). Obviously though, AMD's performance lead didn't last forever.

• AMD beat Intel to 64-bit in mainstream computers. And we're not just talking about its Opteron and Athlon 64 processors. AMD actually designed the X86-64 specification, which Intel wound up adopting and licensing—so AMD's spec is used Intel's 64-bit processors to this day.

• AMD was first to consider energy efficiency in processor designs. Okay, this is kind of an extension of point number one, but during Intel's Pentium 4 'roid rage period AMD's processors consistently used less power than Intel's. Intel's performance per watt revelation didn't really start until the Pentium M (which was actually a throwback to the P6 architecture), which set the tone for Intel's new direction in its successor, the Core line of chips.

• AMD beat Intel to having an integrated memory controller. A tech feature AMD lorded over Intel for years: AMD's processors started integrating the memory controller with its processors years ago, reducing memory latency. Intel's first chip to use an integrated memory controller is the Core i7—before, the memory controller was separate from the processor. (Here's why Intel says they held off.)

Athlon XP and Athlon 64—those were the good old days, AMD's cutthroat competitive days. The days they were ahead of Intel. I miss them—at one point, every hand-built computer in my house ran AMD processors. I felt like a rebel—a rebel with faster, cheaper computers.

Unfortunately, I don't run AMD chips anymore. Intel came back, and came back hard. But here's hoping for another resurgence, and another 40 years, guys. Share your favorite AMD memories in the comments.

iLounge was apparently first mention the presence of a possible authentication scheme, and Boing Boing Gadgets was the first to find some kind of chip inside the headphones—whether or not it was an authentication chip was unknown.

V-Moda, one of the manufacturers who announced shuffle-compatible headphones last week, just confirmed to us that yes, an "authentication chip IS required to enable to volume control functionality with the new shuffle (as well as the latest gen of iPod and MacBooks)." The difference here is that iPods and MacBooks worked with headphones that didn't have the authentication chip. The shuffle does not. Update: This statement was retracted by V-Moda. See bottom of post for details.

V-Moda also says that they've collaborated with Apple for the past few months developing the technology. It seems safe to conclude two things. One, manufacturers who want their headphones to work with the shuffle need to work with Apple in order to get access to the tech inside the authentication chip. Two, only people who Apple "like" are going to get this tech and make compatible headphones—but it's likely that Apple likes almost anybody with the money to pay for licensing.

Whatever the consequences, it does look like Apple is going down the path of locking down headphones, hoping to crunch out another revenue stream from all the manufacturers offering ways of getting sound from your iPod to your ears, whether it be through earbuds or through car adapters.

Image courtesy Boing Boing Gadgets

Update: Another source, plus the original contact at V-Moda, are telling me something different about the chip. V-Moda is retracting their original statement and saying "it is NOT an authentication nor a DRM chip", which I am trying to get clarification on now. The other source says it's supposedly closer to a proprietary control chip that houses the new control scheme, and is an "additional component for the 'made for iPod' program". Again, the phrase "authentication chip" was their language, which they are retracting now. Further updates to come.

Update 2: Joel @ BBG says he spoke to Apple, and they denied the fact that there's any encryption or authentication in the chip. What's also interesting is that another tipster says the chip is relatively easy to clone (a fact Apple strangely corroborates), meaning the reason why the manufacturers are licensing and using Apple's version is most likely to get to market as fast as possible to beat their competitors. And, because they like the fact that they have a made for iPod certification.

Update 3: Spoke to someone else at V-Moda, and they assured me that it was not an authentication chip, but a control chip as part of the "made for iPod" program that they receive from Apple. They've also got no plans to go and duplicate the functionality without the "made for iPod" label, as is probably the case with all other major manufacturers.

A few years ago a scientist implanted such a device into the brain of a woman with a low sex drive and turned her into a very sexually active woman. She didn't like the sudden change, so the wiring in her head was removed.

That accidental discovery was the result on research of a chip—which creates small shocks deep in the brain—already being used to fight Parkinson's disease, and has prompted scientists to explore a new chip that will work in the orbitofrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that is connected to the sense of pleasure from eating and sex.

If you have read Milo Manara's Clic (NSFW, if you look it up in Google), you know how this really works. But don't expect a machine like that yet. According to the team investigating it, we are still 10 years away from actually developing one that won't require invasive brain surgery.

Meanwhile, back in America, Dr Stuart Meloy is creating his own version of the machine that concentrates on the spinal cord. He is calling it the Orgasmatron after the device from Woody Allen's Sleeper. And no, I'm not joking. [Daily Mail]

While this may be just a standard hardware switch and not a concerted effort to block piracy, some keen-eyed modders quickly noticed the change—in the latest drive revision, found in an Australian model with the serial number LAH1098xxxxx, the drive controller chip necessary for previous mods had been completely replaced by a new one.

What they have done is combine the old D1A and drive controller chip in to one which is now called the GC2-D3, as you can see from the photo there is a big blank space on the PCB where the controller chip used to be.

So far there haven't been any other reports of these Wiis showing up outside of Australia, so it may be a while before we see them widespread and by then, I'm guessing there will probably already be a workaround. Kiddies who just can't wait to open up their new Wiis and solder up a mod chip on Christmas morning, though, should probably double check which drive they have first. [mywii.com.au via GoNintendo]

This massively-parallel architecture is ideally suited to gaming systems, of course, but Intel plans on extending its usefulness into the handheld and even supercomputing domains. Larrabee's chief designer puts the new chip architecture "on the level of the 432 or the Itanium.” It'll be competing against next-gen chips from Nvidia and ATI, which will have between 256 and 800 cores, so Larrabee is relying on its "high speed ring" which interconnects cores more efficiently than current designs. Should be available in late 2009 or early 2010. Interesting stuff. [NYTimes]

Normal CMOS sensors use "front side" illumination: incoming light travels through many shallow layers of electronics before hitting the sensor pixels themselves. Backside illumination simply turns all that the other way up, so that incoming photons don't have to journey through interfering layers before they hit the pixels. That means less get lost along the way, meaning the pixels are more sensitive to light, and can be made smaller for the same responsiveness.

OmniVision is busy testing an 8-megapixel camera sensor, and is ready to start shipping sample products out before the end of June. And that should mean that at some point in the future cellphones with 8-megapixel sensors will be available. [PR Newswire]

Saving power is becoming increasingly important in server rooms now, both because of the high cost of electricity and from pressure to become greener. AMD has developed a system, called CoolCore, where individual parts of the processor are turned off when they're not needed.

There will be nine chip options, all manufactured with 65nm technology, and all with 512KB of level two cache per core and 2MB shared. The top of the range 2GHz 8350 is expected to be priced at $1,019 for quantities over 1,000, with options all the way down to $209. There are expected to be more than 50 products launched this week using the chips, from Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell. [AMD]

The bottom line: Congrats on the teraflop chip, Intel, but wake us up when this baby is for sale. The Verdict: Vaporous CPU, solid PR move by Intel.–Brian Lam

Intel's Teraflop Chips [NYTimes and Businessweek]

Texas Instruments offers new phone chip for Asia [Reuters]

Epson Chip Can Read Text [I4U]