Hasta La Gadget!

Sharp has been in a financial rut for quite a while now, and if things don’t go its way, it could wind up filing for bankruptcy. Many companies have rallied to save Sharp’s financial back by making generous investments. Samsung invested about $111.5 million in Sharp to gain a 3% stake in the LCD panel manufacturer, and Qualcomm invested $120 million in order for Sharp to develop MEMS display technology for Qualcomm’s subsidy, Pixtronix.

Foxconn wants to be one of Sharp’s investors as well, and the two parties have been in talks for quite a while. However, Sharp had stated at a press conference held on March 14th that talks with Foxconn are falling through. Foxconn responded by saying that its trying everything it can to secure a deal with Sharp. The two have been very satisfied with their joint LCD fabrication plant located in Sakai, Japan.

Many have speculated that Sharp is hesitant in sealing any deal with Foxconn because it’s currently looking to obtain loans from banks. With Samsung’s and Qualcomm’s investments behind it, Sharp believes it has a much higher chance to convince banks that giving it a loan is a great idea. With the bank loans, Sharp doesn’t necessarily need another investor on its back telling it what to do.

Sharp’s business is very important to many manufacturers. It provides displays for a variety of technology, including laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Apple had spent $2.3 billion more on Sharp’s displays than it had expected in Q4 2012. Horace Dediu, an analyst whose primary focus is Apple and mobile phones, stated that if Sharp did file for bankruptcy, Apple’s production capacity may be jeopardized. He believes that “Apple’s late and unprecedented expenditure was to secure this asset.” Sharp’s investors have helped the company stay up-and-running, despite the huge losses it had suffered last November.

[via Tom’s Hardware]

Sharp may not need Foxconn after all is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
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With Books, Pads, Tabs, Fones and the intriguing Transformer AiO, we can only wonder what else ASUS has in the stockroom. Recently liberated from the warehouse are the VivoBook S500 and S550 — they’re the biggest of the new VivoBook range, with 15.6-inch, 1,366 x 768 displays supporting multitouch for prodding at Windows 8. The S500 comes in one configuration: 1.7GHz Core i5, 6GB RAM, Intel GMA HD GPU and a 500GB HDD with 24GB SSD for fast-booting Redmond’s latest OS. Almost identical is the S550, which has Core i3 / i5 / i7 options, as well as an optical drive for “physical media,” whatever that is. You can call an S500 your own for $699 and ASUS has kindly put a slim list of retailers stocking the notebooks on its product page, though we can only find the i5-laden S550 for circa $750. Amazon seems to have had both on sale since March 4th, but ASUS thought it’d leave it a week before issuing a minimalist PR, which you’ll find below.

Filed under: Laptops, ASUS

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Via: TechPowerUp

What do you do you when you have a single wired Internet connection but don’t have Wi-Fi and need to get online with multiple mobile devices? Turn your laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot with the Logitec “Wireless Adapter 150″!
You can use your smart phone or Wi-fi compatible game machine wirelessly via your laptop. iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android smartphone, tablet, PC, DS, DS Vita, PSP, PS3, Wii, Wii U, Wi-Fi compatible camera, etc. can access the hotspot.
Logitec is releasing …

We may not love the austere devices that are foisted upon us for our daily 9-to-5, but at least Fujitsu’s trying to make our late-night commutes a little less unpleasant. The company has outed a trio of 20mm-thick Lifebook E series laptops that hover just outside the entrance to Intel’s exclusive Ultrabook club. The first to try its luck with the guest list is the 13.3-inch E733, weighing in a 1.7kg with a screen resolution of 1,366 x 768. If that doesn’t succeed, then perhaps the 14-inch E743, with its 1.9kg body and 1,600 x 900 screen might get past. Of course, bringing up the rear is the 15.6-inch E753, which weighs 2.1kg and a choice of 1,366 x 768 or 1,920 x 1,080 displays — but since none of them meet Intel’s latest mandated requirements to bear the Ultrabook name, it’s highly unlikely they’ll be let in. Naturally, as we’re here at CeBIT, we indulged in our favorite hobby, which is smearing our paws all over this hardware to bring you our first impressions.

Filed under: Laptops

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We never used to take the speakers in phones or tablets very seriously. Frankly, we’re not sure manufacturers did either. But the old assumption that tiny = tinny is starting to seem a bit unfair. Last year, Dutch chip-maker NXP released a new type of mobile audio component — the TFA9887 — that allowed a mobile device to monitor its speaker system in real-time in order to max out volume without risking damage to the driver. Although NXP is way too modest to confirm it, we happen to know that this chip made its way into a number of HTC devices, including the new One, One X+ and 8X, where it’s been described as “feedback” speaker technology.

The extra voltage delivered to speakers by this generation of component hasn’t been especially wild — just a couple of volts above the industry norm of around 3V. But what you’re about to hear after the break is the next-gen TFA9890, which is expected to appear in devices around the middle of this year, and which racks things all the way up to 9.5V. This promises to be a much more audible leap relative to traditional no-feedback speaker systems, and you should be able to spot the difference for yourself after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile

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