Hasta La Gadget!

Last week, Imagination Technologies gave us a glimpse of its next-gen PowerVR Series 6 mobile GPU and its prowess with OpenGL ES 3.0. That demo didn’t showcase Series 6’s full potential, as the company could only let us see a test chip on an FPGA board that could deliver only 1 GB/s of bandwidth — one tenth of the GPUs performance capability. Now that Imagination Technologies’ first Series 6 partner, LG, has given the go ahead, the time has come to see what Series 6 can really do on an optimized board destined for an HDTV.

In addition to the Series 6, the company also demoed an older Series 5XT GPU that’s been upgraded with some recently released API extensions. Those APIs are meant to breathe new life into Imagination Technologies’ older GPUs and give them some of the rendering features found in the Series 6. Interest piqued? You can see the GPUs do their thing in our demo video after the break.

Continue reading Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR Series 6 mobile GPU debuts at CES, we go eyes-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment

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4K TVs and streaming? The Xperia Z? The death of the PlayStation 2? Just a few topics of conversation as our own Editor-in-chief Tim Stevens sat down for a one-on-one interview with Sony CEO Kaz Hirai. We won’t waste any more of your time here — head on past the break to watch the full video!

Continue reading Sony CEO Kaz Hirai talks 4K, Xperia Z, death of the PS2 and more at CES 2013 (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Sony

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Ever wonder what’s going on behind the soulless eyes of your favorite sport franchise’s mascot? Hulu can clue you in this this summer — its new original series Behind the Mask promises to chronicle the life of basketball’s most cartoonish cheerleaders, from high school newbies to the NBA’s seasoned pros. It’s one of three original shows the streaming network is debuting this year, including The Awesomes, an animated comedy following the misadventures of a fledgling superhero team, and The Wrong Mans, a comedy that thrusts a pair of office drones into a high stakes thriller. Hulu’s wealth of exclusive content is getting some additions too, including Braquo, a crime drama set in Paris and a new animated comedy starring Eva Longoria, dubbed Mother Up! Service favorites like Prisoners of War and Pramface are seeing renewals too. Read on for a peek at Hulu’s full summer line up, or skip on over to the streaming service’s homepage to check out the previews for yourself.

Continue reading Hulu showcases three new original shows for summer, renews exclusives

Filed under: Misc, Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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There’s no point in feigning surprise. We knew this one was coming. Still, it’s hard to deny the importance surrounding the Grand S, which ZTE just made official. Just as quickly, the Chinese outfit secured its title as manufacturer of the world’s thinnest full HD smartphone — a ballsy move for a company that’s historically associated with the bargain bin, at least in the US. The Grand S now stands as ZTE’s flagship handset, and there’s little doubt that the company’s looking to stake its claim in the high end market. As you’d expect, the phone carries a spec sheet that’s designed to grab a lot of attention.

For starters, yes, we’re looking at a 5-inch HD (1,920 x 1,080) display. The Grand S is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro and will debut this quarter in China with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It’s accompanied by a 13-megapixel auto-focus camera on the rear and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. Both shooters are capable of recording video in 1080p. The Grand S boasts 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage, and despite its super thin 6.9mm enclosure, it features a microSD card slot — something the Droid DNA can’t match.

If anything, it appears that ZTE sacrificed battery capacity to meet the size constraints of the Grand S, as a somewhat meager 1,780mAh cell is sealed within the phone’s unibody enclosure. As for connectivity, ZTE has revealed that its svelte beast includes LTE, but the company has yet to disclose which bands are supported. To learn more, be sure to check our hands-on.

Continue reading ZTE Grand S unveiled: at 6.9mm, it’s the ‘world’s thinnest’ 5-inch, 1080p phone

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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One Laptop Per Child still hasn’t revealed any pricing details about that US-bound XO Tablet, but today the company’s announcing some of the retail shelves we can expect its new child-friendly device to hit. For starters, the XO Tablet will be available at ‘select’ Walmart brick-and-mortar stores and website in the US this year, however OLPC wasn’t quite clear about when exactly that’s going to be — we tried asking the company ourselves, but we were told no information could be given at the time. Furthermore, OLPC said it has struck a deal with Sakar International, which gives the latter exclusives rights “to sell the XO Tablet to leading US retailers for both in-store and online sales.” Only time will tell how many retailers will join Wally on offering the learning device, but one of the world’s largest retailers certainly isn’t a bad place to start.

Continue reading OLPC announces XO Tablet coming to select Walmart stores later in 2013

Filed under: Tablets

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Source: OLPC