Hasta La Gadget!

A day ago, I urged Hewlett-Packard to provide more details on their upcoming Slate tablet to the tech community, or risk being lost in the iPad hype. Unfortunately, someone apparently heard me – and leaked them to Engadget.

In any event, the document purports to be an HP in-house comparison of the Slate tablet and the Apple iPad, with certain elements identified as advantages for Hewlett-Packard, and others characterized as areas of concern. One of the latter is the price: $549-$599, well under the $829 Apple charges for the 64-Gbyte, 3G iPad. But the $549 price is also a bit higher than Apple sells its base 16-Gbyte, Wi-Fi only model for, at $499.

Basically, here’s what we know about the Slate: it uses a 1,024-by-600 capacitative touch panel, hiding an accelerometer and a light sensor. Inside is an Intel 1.6-GHz Intel “Menlow” Atom processor, with a 1 Gbyte of RAM and either 32- or 64Gbytes of flash memory to be used as memory and storage, respectively. There is a USB expansion slot, an advantage for the Slate.

Connectivity options include 802.11g, Bluetooth, a SIM card tray, and HDMI out. A pair of cameras (one VGA, the other a 3-Mpixel camera) provide the camera options the iPad lacks.

From a weight perspective, both tablets are virtually identical.

The troubling bit is the battery life: just 5 hours, according to the document, up to about 10 hours for the iPad.

Of course, there’s one other critical detail left out of the HP document: the shipping date. If HP plans to launch this tomorrow, these details become relevant. If HP delays the introduction of the Slate until a year from now, they won’t be.

Hewlett-Packard may sense that it risks being completely overwhelmed by the iPad hype. As a reminder, HP uploaded another slick video showcasing some of its Slate tablet’s features on Monday.

So far, HP has simply revealed that it is working on an tablet device, showing off the Slate’s Flash capabilities in an earlier post. While HP and Microsoft announced the Slate at CES, both companies have announced only the barest details: the Slate will run Windows 7 and ship sometime this year. But no pricing details or other specifications have been released. We haven’t even heard of a confirmation of the so-called Courier.

The video HP released Monday seems designed to highlight the Slate’s capabilities in light of the iPad’s perceived weaknesses, such as its lack of a Webcam.

Apple could sell 7.1 million iPads in 2010, according to iSuppli.

Those sales will double to 14.4 million in 2011 and triple to 20.1 million in 2012, the research firm said in data released Friday.

The tablet, which goes on sale Saturday, will draw in buyers with its various applications and multi-touch capability – features that will offset the device’s lack of Flash, iSuppli said. Most buyers, however, will be early adopters, or those attracted to the touch-based interface. Purchases in 2011 and 2012, meanwhile, will be driven by new apps, improve functionality, and lower prices.

Touch functions are a big draw, said Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research at iSuppli. “Touch is the new standard for user interfaces, providing a naturally intuitive way of operating an electronic device, whether you are two or 92,” she said.

Apple brings touch to two devices that have not gained much traction in the market – Internet appliances and tablet PCs, Alexander said. Apple has limited the iPad as a creation device, but is “compensating for this shortcoming by offering a wealth of easily consumable applications,” she said.

Those of you looking to nab an iPad might want to consider going back to school.

Starting in the fall, Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania will provide all first-year undergrad students with a 13-inch Macbook and an iPad. And after two years, the university will replace the laptop with a new one, which students can take with them after they graduate.

“With this technology at your fingertips, you can create a just-in-time learning environment, stay in touch with professors, advisors, and classmates, research any topic at any time, engage in hybrid and fully on-line courses, and access a whole host of Seton Hill technology services,” the school said on its Web site.

No word on which version of the iPad students will receive.

Seton Hill said its faculty members will also receive the same technology and training on how to use the devices. “In this way, Seton Hill is training students of all learning styles and abilities to be better researchers, better at compiling and organizing data, and better at publishing and presenting information — better, in fact, at becoming lifelong learners who can easily adapt to new situations and new technologies in their lives and careers,” the school said.

Seton Hill’s IT staff will provide Apple Care services, and students can use loaner Macbooks if theirs need to be serviced. Training sessions will also be provided.

Capitalizing on AMD’s new 8- and 12-core Opteron 6100 processors, Super Micro Computer has launched a line of optimized servers. The line includes 2U Twin2 systems with four hot-plug DP computing nodes that support up to 96 processing cores, quad-processor 1U servers that support up to 48 processing cores, and new GPU-optimized systems.

“The introduction of quad-channel DDR3 on these new 8- and 12-Core servers doubles the memory capacity and can accelerate memory performance up to 66%, especially for large data sets,” says Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro.

The system architecture and the resource-sharing designs of these systems let them deliver the highest performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar, claims Liang.

For more specs on these systems, check out Super Micro’s product page.