Nvidia today confirmed that their Icera modem chipset has earned a validation on AT&T’s LTE network. This is good news for AT&T smartphone and tablet users as there’s a high possibility as Nvidia will integrate the Icera chipset with its Tegra 3 to deliver an all-round performance.

The chipset that got certified is the Icera 410 LTE which implements 4G LTE in a software defined radio baseband processor and supports HSPA+, 3G and 2G connectivity.

Press Release

Nvidia has revealed that they’re working on a platform that will allow tablet makers to develop and sell powerful quad-core tablets at an affordable price. It’s the Nvidia Kai platform that will bring ICS-running quad-core tablets at a price tag of $199.

While it won’t exactly be Tegra 3, VP Rob Csonger says Kai uses “a lot of the secret sauce that’s inside Tegra 3 to allow you to develop a tablet at a much lower cost.” Furthermore, the cost of the components used in the tablet will also help lower the price of the final product.

There’s no ETA as to when can we expect but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the coming months.

[Via The Verge]

Nvidia has announced a new Kepler-based GPU that promises a good bang for the buck. Nvidia says the GeForce GTX 670 is “engineered from the same DNA” as Nvidia’s high-end GTX 680 but is priced at a modest $399, which compared to the competition gives a 45 percent improved graphics performance while consuming 18 percent less power.

The new GeForce GTX is now available from various card suppliers like Asus, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Zotac etc.

Press Release

Nvidia has confirmed that they’ll launch a new Tegra 3 processor later this year. While the details are scarce at the moment the chip will mostly be called as Tegra 3+ and will boast improved processing and graphics performance.

Nvidia’s roadmap also hints at two new processors on the way, codenamed Wayne and Grey. While we knew about Wayne, Grey will support LTE to cater to the LTE-enabled markets. Grey will integrate modem technologies from Icera, which they acquired last year.

Nvidia also hints at support for different operating systems, in addition to Android.

[Via Slashgear|Img]

Tegra 3 has four main cores that drive all the processing power but Nvidia recently confirmed to have added another core that allows the device to carry-out less performance intensive tasks while maintaining the device’s battery life. While it was referred to as a companion or a ninja core back then, Nvidia has decided to put a marketable name to it.

Henceforth, Tegra 3 SoCs with the fifth core will be known as 4-PLUS-1. Nvidia says this name will help manufacturers to market their products with the 4-PLUS-1 branding and also emphasize users the core’s importance.

[via Nvidia Blog]

Nvidia had promised to launch the Kal-el platform by end of this year and well, here it is, toting the official Tegra 3 moniker. Tegra 3 features a quad-core CPU and 12-core GeForce GPU that touts to bring PC-like performance in mobile devices and also improve battery life.

In perspective, Tegra 3 provides 3x the graphical performance of Tegra 2 and up to 61 percent lower power consumption. Another unique feature of Tegra 3 is the fifth companion CPU that is designed to carry out less-performance intensive tasks like playing music, reading documents etc. The fifth CPU effectively enhances the battery life further.

Additionally, Tegra 3 supports 3D via HDMI 1.4, improved HTML5 and WebGL support, optimized Javascript engine and more.

The first device to be powered by Tegra 3 will be Asus’ Transformer Prime.

Looks like Nvidia is making Tegra 3 ready for primetime. An official looking Tegra 3 promo has made it out on the web. Tegra 3 code-named Kal-El is Nvidia’s next-generation mobile SoC that boasts a powerful quad-core processor.

The video basically highlights Kal-El’s abilities like better multi-tasking, improved graphics, improved handling of Adobe Flash and full HD video playback.

[Via Ndevil]

Nvidia has announced its renowned GeForce LAN Gaming Tournament for Indian gamers. Professional and part-time gamers can enroll in the tournament for free to battle it out to be the “Ultimate Gamer.” Unlike the international GeForce LAN tournament that allows gamers to bring their own PC (BYOC), the India-specific GeForce LAN is equipped with PCs running Nvidia GeForce GTX GPUs.

GeForce LAN games include Counter Strike 1.6, Call of Duty 4, FIFA, NFS and interestingly, NFS and GTA for girls.

The tournament will be held in Mumbai with up to Rs. 10,00,000 (1 million) in prizes up for grabs.

Register Here

Nvidia has been touting Kal-el System-on-Chip to have four CPU cores however, an official whitepaper from Nvidia confirms that Kal-el has a fifth core that was not disclosed previously. The fifth core known as the Companion core works the same way as other processing cores but the only difference is that it is meant for low-processing tasks.

The Companion core will be used in instances of active standby where email, social network accounts etc. have to be synced in the background. In short, the device will use Kal-el’s powerful quad-core CPU for any resource-intensify task but will switch to the Companion core when low resource is needed due to its capped processing speed of up to 500MHz.

Nvidia says the fifth core is OS transparent, which means the operating system won’t be able to detect it but it will “automatically take advantage of it.”

You can read the official whitepaper with more information here [PDF].

[Via Nvidia Blog]

Nvidia has introduced a new tool for broadcasters and professionals to deliver better quality and improved on-air graphics with very low latency. The GPUDirect for Video announced at IBC last week takes allows industry-standard video I/O devices to communicate with the Quadro or Tesla GPUs at ultra-low latency.

The result is that the GPUDirect for Video makes the video reach to the GPU faster for processing, syncing the video I/O card with the GPU and reducing lag by up to 10 frames .

Nvidia says GPUDirect can be beneficial for those who want to import and export video as soon as possible like consumers in the broadcasting industry, medical imaging as well as defense industries.

Nvidia will make the tool available for free to I/O manufacturers, proprietary hardware providers, and video switcher manufacturers whereas Video I/O hardware devs can request the access to the SDK via an email.

Commercial solutions supporting GPUDirect for Video will be available by end of this year.