Are powered speakers taking over the market for whole home audio and home theater too? Marshall and Gene discuss the best powered speakers seen at CES 2018 and ponder what implications these products will have on conventional home theater systems in the near future.

On-device artificial intelligence (AI) handles this audio processing directly on the local device, and opportunities for this are growing. Just about every one of these new voice-enabled applications will require specialized silicon, as it’s rare to dedicate a separate chip to voice because today’s voice-processing DSPs have such small footprints. Voice can easily be integrated on the same chip with the main host controller or other functions. And voice is often used in sophisticated audio applications, like televisions and even smartphones, where multiple audio DSPs are often used—one optimized for the lowest power for always-on listening, another optimized for more high-end audio theater-quality processing.

What are the things you should consider when considering voice/audio DSPs into your next chip design? First and foremost, you need to make sure the software programs for the particular applications are already ported to the DSPs you are considering. The last thing you want to do is port it yourself—you will never meet your product delivery schedule.

From Indiegogo entrepreneur demos to the Arduino giveaway, check out some of Arrow and Indiegogo’s biggest highlights!

The race to develop driverless cars is reshaping that relationship. As cars learn to drive themselves, they require components from new sorts of companies, many of them startups. “The entire value chain is now screwed up, we’re seeing something different happening here,” says Dennis Nobelius. He’s the CEO of Zenuity, a joint venture focused on self-driving software, formed between safety equipment supplier Autoliv and Volvo, and which also has partnerships with Nvidia, TomTom, and Ericsson.

This setup—which sounds like the business equivalent of an interpersonal arrangement made at Burning Man—is typical of the new ecosystems being created. They are replacing the traditional hierarchy of car builder and tier one, two, and three component makers that a supply chain.

“With all the new technologies merging, you have to have partners, because you can’t be expert in everything,”

HyperX announced it has designed IR communication channels into each of their new HyperX Predator DDR4 RGB modules which will allow multiple modules to sync in LED lighting. In other words, each DRAM module has an IR sensor on it in order to detect the stick next to it (during startup, the module furthest away from the CPU is determined to be the ‘master’). If the sensor is blocked, the RGB will be static.

The reason for this method of sync, HyperX says, is because different motherboard vendors have different ways of implementing memory traces, which can affect RGB LED timing. Motherboard vendors typically use either a daisy chain or a T-Topology design rule, which both have pros and cons when it comes to timing – with this IR method, HyperX says they can ensure that no matter what layout, the modules will stay in perfect sync.

The sticks are powered by the DRAM slots itself so there isn’t a need for extra cables to light them u

The HyperX Predator DDR4 RGB modules are designed to work with MSI’s Mystic Light, ASUS’ Aura Sync, and Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion for system RGB integration and support multiple lighting profiles.

New AMD tech at CES 2018 first look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7_zunLzrk8

On Monday, January 8, 2018, Intel launched 250 Shooting Star drones over the Bellagio and synced up a dazzling display in the sky with the ever popular Fountains of Bellagio show.