Hasta La Gadget!

The mobile gaming device known as Project SHIELD is nearly ready to be launched to the public in its final form, NVIDIA making it clear today that they’re far beyond the point of no return. The company that brings the mobile world its Tegra processors for Android devices and high-powered desktop computers their GeForce GTX processors for superior gaming have shared a miniature behind-the-scenes look at the device that will tie the two worlds together, showing how close this device is to the real world here in the spring of 2013.

We’re just days away from Google I/O 2013, this heralding the introduction of new services from the source of Android, if not new products as well. As such, it’s no surprise that companies like NVIDIA are preparing for the storm of excitement with announcements of their own, starting right here with a peek at the production of the device they introduced to the world earlier this year.

What you’re seeing above is a mold used to create the final casing for Project SHIELD as it exists today. As this mold is being presented by NVIDIA as a finished part of this puzzle, we can only assume that the final product is well on its way.

According to NVIDIA, the casing for Project SHIELD is made starting with an injection of polycarbonate material into the the RHCM (Rapid Heat Cycle Molding) tool you see above. This is done at a terrifying 10,800 PSI and 300 degrees Celsius, says NVIDIA, while the mixture is made up of 90% Sabic 500ECR-739 PC and 10% glass. That’s a mixture that’s rough and tough yet lightweight for easy carrying.

This device retains much if not the entirety of the look it did when we first saw it back at CES 2013. There it also had a set of specifications that have stuck – a 5-inch 720p HD touchscreen display, NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor inside, and connectivity with the user’s GeForce GTX-toting gaming PC at home over their wireless network for full-sized PC gaming in a hand-held package.

The NVIDIA Project SHIELD device is the first all-NVIDIA-made mobile device the company has ever made. It’ll be sold by NVIDIA straight to consumers and will be found in retailers across the United States by the end of the year – and likely much sooner than that. Have a peek at SlashGear’s Project SHIELD tag portal for more demonstrations with this device and stick around for more action in the near future as well!

NVIDIA Project SHIELD behind-the-scenes suggests release is near is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In February, NVIDIA posted the financial data for both its fiscal 2013 Q4 and its year-end 2012 data, showing record profits and stating an anticipated $940 million for its fiscal 2014 first quarter. Now the numbers are officially in, and it turns out the company beat expectations, with revenue coming in at $954.7 million. While nearly all of its numbers are down over the previous quarter, year-on-year numbers are up across the board.

Crunching the numbers, we see GAAP revenue for the previous quarter was $1,106.9, putting Q1 down 13.7-percent quarter-on-quarter. Year-on-year earnings, however, are up 3.2-percent, with the first quarter of fiscal 2013 having tallied in at $924.9. The same trend is held for the rest of the data, with gross margin and net income up year-on-year 4.2 p.p and 28-percent, respectively. Earnings per share increased from $0.13 over the previous year’s $0.10, but is down from last quarter’s $0.28, a 53.6-percent drop. Net income was the only other area to see the same drastic decrease, going from last quarter’s $174 million down to $77.9 million.

Operating expenses, meanwhile, was the only category to increase over both the previous quarter and year-on-year, with Q1 coming in at $435.8 million. This is an 8.4-percent increase over fiscal 2013′s fourth-quarter $402 million and an 11.6-percent increase over fiscal 2013′s first-quarter $390.5 million.

NVIDIA’s President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said: “The success of Kepler-based GPUs within and beyond the PC helped drive another quarter of record margins. Kepler is capturing share among gamers, strengthening our workstation and supercomputing segments, and will fuel new growth opportunities for our GRID server graphics solutions. With Tegra 4 devices and Tegra 4i certification on the way, we’re gearing up to return to growth in the second half.”

This fiscal year, NVIDIA plans to return over $1 billion to its shareholders, something partially accomplished during the first-quarter via a $100 million share repurchase and shelling out of $46.3 million of dividends, which works out to $0.075 per share, a figure the company plans to hold steady throughout its quarterly dividend program. The next dividend payment is scheduled for June 14.

Looking forward, NVIDIA says it expects to bring in $975 million (+/- 2-percent) in the second fiscal quarter, with GAAP gross margin coming in at 54.3-percent and non-GAAP coming in at 54.6-percent. Operational expenses are expected to continue their upwards trend for both GAAP and non-GAAP, with the former expected to come in at $448 million and the latter at $408 million. Barring so-called discrete tax events, the second quarter and entire fiscal year’s tax rate expectation it pegged at 16-percent, give or take a couple percent. Capital expenditures are anticipated to fall between $65 million and $75 million, while amortization and depreciation expectations for Q2 sit between $61 million to $63 million.

During this past quarter, NVIDIA unveiled the GRID VCA (visual computing appliance), an industry first, as well as GRID-based servers and software available from big name companies, Dell and Microsoft among them. The first quarter also saw the introduction of the NVIDIA Tegra 4i and the GeForce GTX TITAN.

[via NVIDIA]

NVIDIA Q1 earnings show year-on-year numbers up across the board is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The OUYA game console is shifting its launch from June 4th to June 25th, the company revealed in a press release this morning. Speaking with our friends at Joystiq, CEO Julie Uhrman explained the decision to push the console’s retail launch back as a measure of keeping up with retail demand. “We’ve had incredibly positive reactions from our retail partners,” Uhrman said. The date shift, “will allow us to create more units and, basically, have more units on store shelves.”

The company also revealed that it’s altering the existing controller’s button holes to ensure that retail buyers don’t run into the same sticking issue that Kickstarter backers have been dealing with. And despite those two pieces of news sounding an awful lot like they’re connected (the delay and the controller alteration), Uhrman claims they’re not. “We made that change very early so all the units are being produced with those larger button holes,” she said. At this point, it’s not clear if OUYA will hook up early backers with a new controller upon request (or perhaps just new faceplates), but we’ve asked for more information.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

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The folks at graphics company NVIDIA have been seen piloting a mobile-friendly quadcopter device this week with their own upcoming Project SHIELD Android handset. Project SHIELD is NVIDIA’s first in-house all-NVIDIA piece of hardware made for the consumer market and will be pushed to the public later this year, while the device it was spotted controlling has been out for some time: the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0. This Parrot device is one notoriously mobile device-friendly and was originally built to be controlled by the Apple iPad.

This update to the Parrot AR.Drone user experience will bring on hardware controls to Android, this being what we can expect as the cross-over to similar Bluetooth-friendly controls in the near future as well. With Project SHIELD, users will end up being able to work with a bit more of a unique experience with the unobstructed display not offered on any other platform. If you work with the Parrot AR.Drone on your smartphone, your controls are on-screen.

With Project SHIELD, you’re able to utilize this quadcopters on-board camera with Project SHIELD’s 5-inch display, allowing you to feel much more like you’re onboard the flying machine with physical controls outside your camera view. This demonstration by NVIDIA points toward a unqiue app update for Project SHIELD by Parrot in the near future.

Have a peek at the timeline below to see more information on NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD and make sure you’re tuned to SlashGear’s Tegra Hub for an expanded view of what the processor inside this device is capable of. We’ll have more information on Project SHIELD in regards to release time and price in the near future – stay tuned!

NVIDIA Project SHIELD pilots a Parrot AR.Drone quadcopter is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The NVIDIA team worked long and hard to ensure that the NVIDIA Tegra 4i would be ready to show off by the time Mobile World Congress came around. The team worked non-stop from February 3rd (the day of Super Bowl) to February 25th, the first day of MWC. The entire 22-day process was exhausting, but the NVIDIA team pulled through and was able to bring their next-gen mobile processor into the world.

The NVIDIA Tegra 4i is NVIDIA’s first mobile processor with an integrated modem. The modem would allow NVIDIA to bring next-gen wireless networking into the smartphone market. Over 200 engineers got straight to work once their package of new silicon chips arrived at SFO from Taiwan. These engineers sacrificed their social lives and sleep in order to develop their next-gen product.

The engineers came from all parts of the world. They worked diligently on testing out new features, stressing each component, working on the upfront designs of each part, and transforming this all into a working product. NVIDIA dubbed this process, “bringup”. They spent nearly 24 hours a day working on the chip, and saw all their hard work come to life when the chip booted into Android and successfully sent a message to NVIDIA’s CEO.

After successfully testing out the chip, NVIDIA’s system engineering team worked on developing several Phoenix model phones to show off the chip’s capabilities. By the time MWC rolled around, NVIDIA was able to show off the Phoenix model phone that was more than just a phone showing off a display loop. It was instead a full-featured phone that could be used and tested by the public. Be sure to check out our detailed review of the NVIDIA Tegra 4i to see what the NVIDIA team was able to develop. Also be sure to check out our Tegra Hub for the latest information in Tegra news.

[via NVIDIA]

NVIDIA details 22-day process of developing the Tegra 4i is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.