Ivy Bridge fails to kick VIA Labs out of USB 3.0 market

Intel's Ivy Bridge chip was released in April 2012 and was set to spell certain doom for third party USB 3.0 chips like those offered by VIA Labs.

VIA Labs and other Taiwanese design houses are, however, continuing to receive orders for their USB 3.0 chips for peripheral cards and products, a demand which sources say will continue until the second half of 2013. [Source]

The classy case-modder does it again

Jeffrey Stephenson, who has been designing and constructing beautiful wooden cases for VIA's embedded boards for close to ten years was, not surprisingly, provided with a pre-production sample of the $49 VIA APC. There is absolutely no doubting who designed this. Jeffrey has a recognisable classic '20s inspired sort of look and the other distinct visual is quality and luxury. Now this is a classy lounge room PC ...

Source

VIA Telecom gets assigned a patent

Patent 8,213,933 developed by a guy in San Diego concerns the communication of messages between a base station and a mobile device. I wonder what VIA Telecom are up to with this patent?

VIA's Mini-ITX power 3D printing machine

I have read a bit about 3D printing. It's fascinating tech and what's even more fascinating is how it could revolutionise the way we procure goods. Imagine being able to design objects by manipulating templates and then watching while it prints. I'm sure the watching part would get old pretty quick, but choosing and ordering items could well be revolutionised.

The idea that 3D printers could end up in every home is something that many bloggers have predicted. Small and quiet PCs are required to run the software for the printers. No doubt one day they'll all be combined into one device. VIA's embedded systems have features which make them very suitable to this sort of application.

TweakTown were given the chance to visit VIA's Taipei office and have their TT logo printed in 3D on a system with aVE-900 Mini-ITX powered MakerBot 3D printer. Here are the results.