Hasta La Gadget!

In this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, we breeze through our review of the iPad 2 (thinner, lighter, faster — you get the point) to get to a more interesting point: You don’t need to buy a 3G model thanks to widely available hot-spot capability.

In other tablet news, some chip analysts shaved away at the processor in the Samsung Galaxy Tab and found a secret message hidden inside, along with some quirky toons. Clever.

By the way — we have a winner for our Zibits giveaway: Congratulations, Wyatt Roy!

Mike Calore, Wired.com Reviews editor, joins the show to nerd out about some weapons of massive distraction: an automatic Nerf dart gun and a crazy bow-and-arrow toy — perfect for office warfare.

Calore closes the podcast with a look at the Buddha Machine, a handheld box that creates musical loops and plays them from a tiny speaker.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast on iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast No. 108

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0108.mp3

Engineers hid a microscopic warning deep within an Infineon chip. Image courtesy Chipworks

Silicon chips have billions of transistors in every square inch. But sometimes there’s enough room left over for chip engineers to insert a little joke.

While using a scanning electron microscope to examine the microcircuitry of a chip found in Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S phone, consulting company Chipworks discovered a surprise.

Underneath six layers of aluminum and silicon dioxide circuitry, almost at the level of the polysilicon wafer that underlies the entire chip, engineers concealed a tiny, tiny message.

Below the letters IFX (the stock symbol for Infineon, the company that makes the chip) is a tiny warning, made out of letters just two microns (2 µm) high:

IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU ARE MUCH TOO CLOSE

“You would never find this message unless you were seriously looking for it,” says Chipworks marketing manager Rob Williamson.

The chip, the Infineon PMB5703, provides radio-frequency transmission and reception functions relating to the devices’ baseband and 3G features.

The tiny message is hidden in the upper right corner of the Infineon chip, in the square highlighted here. (Click the image to see a large photo of the full chip.) Image courtesy Chipworks

Chipworks has put many chips under the scanning electron microscope and has discovered dozens of hidden images and messages like this one. Constructed of the same materials as the chip’s circuitry — silicon dioxide, aluminum, copper and the like — the artwork can include cartoons, icons, or merely the initials of the chips’ designers.

In many cases, this artwork is not only tiny, it’s completely invisible unless you are disassembling the chip. Before it found this message, for instance, Chipworks had to delaminate the chip, layer by layer, putting each layer under the microscope. The purpose of that project was to understand the chip’s architecture, not to find hidden messages, but sometimes these Easter eggs pop out.

The makers of the Infineon PMB5703 must have had some extra time on their hands, because Chipworks found no less than four other images on the chip, including a smiley face, a drummer, a baby duck  called Calimero and a smiling dragon named Grisu.
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“Hidden warning message found in Samsung’s Galaxy tablet“

In an unforeseen act of generosity, Verizon has decided to scrap the $35 activation fee it charges with purchases of the 3G-equipped Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Tab tablets, leaving customers’ wallets a little heavier and hearts a little lighter. This change will be effective on month-to-month contracts starting from the first of this month or later — meaning a nice little refund for anyone acquiring an Android tablet through Big Red after March 1st — however we’re also hearing it’ll be a limited time offer. The intel has been communicated via email to Mobile Burn, and Droid-Life has also obtained a document saying as much, while we’re in the process of confirming it ourselves. All the same, it looks safe to get the (modest) celebrations going.

Verizon waives Xoom and Galaxy Tab activation fees on contracts from March 1st in a limited time offer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We have no small amount of respect for Samsung for coming out and admitting that its Galaxy Tab 10.1 slate won’t necessarily be the best thing since sliced Apples, but we wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as “inadequate,” which is what company VP Lee Don-Joo recently called it. It’s a handsome, svelte and undeniably powerful device, a set of qualities that is in full show during AndroidHD‘s 11-minute long video of a day spent in the company of a Tab 10.1. Now, this isn’t a hands-on video so much as a commercial made by someone other than Samsung. You can tell Sammy didn’t author it because nobody tries to fit this Galaxy Tab inside a pocket. Jump after the break for the ocular feast.

[Thanks, Taylor]

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 showcased on video, doesn’t look all that inadequate to us

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 showcased on video, doesn’t look all that inadequate to us originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IDC has released data about tablet sales.Apple, not surprisingly, came out on top. However, the Samsung Galaxy also has a slice of the pie, as well.

In fact, the Samsung Galaxy has a 17 percent share of new tablet sales. Not stellar, but it does indicate that buyers are open to non-Apple products. With the good news about “outside” tablets could cause a larger influx of new tablet models coming out. However, with the iPad 2 coming out tomorrow, the data could change quickly.

IDC also stated that e-readers have a 48 percent market share, with so many of the e-readers doubling as tablets. Despite both Samsung, and, e-readers are doing well, the IDC believes that Apple will maintain a 70-80% market share. 

Via ZDNet