Hasta La Gadget!

Wind River Systems has been doing Android up right for quite some time, and evidently Intel is sick and tired of sitting on the outside looking in. Disregarding that massive EU fine for a moment, the company somehow managed to find time to pen a check in the amount of $884 million in order to fully acquire the aforesaid embedded systems company. The reason? Intel knows the CPU business is morphing into something entirely more elaborate, and it reckons a solid presence in the embedded devices segment (MIDs, UMPCs, etc.) is necessary to keep those profits up in the future. Honestly, such a pickup isn’t really a shock; Intel has shown great interest in being a serious player in the handheld computing market, and its fledgling CE 3100 media processor could also benefit from a respectable layer of software behind it. Meanwhile, something tells us those Wind River guys are gearing up for the weekend of their lives.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Intel snaps up Wind River, looks for that embedded systems edge originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Truth be told, SSD prices have been declining at a noticeable tick since way back in 2007, but the reality is that the average consumer still can’t afford one — or, at least they aren’t willing to pay the lofty premium for the decent increase in speed. If a bold claim from JMicron is to be believed, all that could change in the run-up to CES 2010. A new report has it that the aforesaid company will be demonstrating its new NAND flash controller next week at Computex, with the JMF612 aimed specifically at a “new generation of NAND flash chips built using smaller process geometries that will be entering the market soon.” If all goes well, the cheap single-chip controller could lead to SSD prices falling by around 50 percent by Christmas, but after years of waiting for these things to really get priced for Joe Sixpack and his gaggle of siblings, we’re still cautiously skeptical. Not that we wouldn’t love to be proven wrong or anything.

[Image courtesy of HotHardware]

Filed under: Storage

JMicron NAND flash controller could lead to significantly lower SSD prices originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 08:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take it from Garmin-Asus — making a smartphone ain’t exactly easy sauce. Regardless of the facts, ViewSonic has decided it prudent to jump head first into the tumultuous waters known only as “the smartphone industry,” announcing today plans to create its very own offering that’ll undoubtedly compete with the likes of HTC, Samsung, LG, Apple and the rest of the gang. The portfolio addition brings it a major step closer to realizing a “3- to 300-inch product line,” but outside of a launch pattern, no details whatsoever were dished out. We’re told that China will get the phone first, with Europe and the Americas following suit. We’ll go ahead and start the vaporware watch now, just so we aren’t caught off guard when there’s nary a mention of this at CES 2010.

Filed under: Cellphones

ViewSonic throws caution to the wind, plans own 3G smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 May 2009 21:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hmm, now isn’t this interesting? Just months after Liberty Media reached out at the eleventh hour and rescued Sirius XM from imminent bankruptcy, it’s now spinning off its entertainment division (Liberty Entertainment) and combining it with DirecTV (which Liberty already controls). We’re told that the new Liberty Entertainment will hold 54 percent of DirecTV Group shares and 65 percent interest in the Game Show Network, not to mention three regional sports networks and a few other things not worth mentioning. The move is being made as the “John Malone-controlled vehicle looks to simplify its capital structure,” and if all goes well, the paperwork should be completed by the end of the year. Oh, and so far as we can tell, DirecTV consumers won’t even notice the shuffling going on behind the scenes.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

DirecTV to merge with majority shareholder Liberty Entertainment originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 May 2009 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A few months ago, I sat in a think tank with a group of distinguished digital camera experts. We were talking about the future of cameras, what was to come.

One name came up again and again. It was the Flip Video, the little camera that changed the industry. While tech giants like Sony, Canon and Nikon were duking it out in the typical, spec-warring dSLR space, a relatively small company named Pure Digital Technologies developed a real piece of crap camcorder called the Pure Digital Point and Shoot. The video quality was absolutely atrocious for 2006. The name was obviously equally as bad.

But as technology improves, we’re reaching the era of “good enough.”

The Pure Digital Point and Shoot (later renamed the Flip Video/Mino) was pocketable, cheap ($180) and served an important function: It was the perfect YouTube camera. And that, in itself, was enough.

Because of Pure Digital’s singular vision and perfect timing, not only did the camcorder quickly steal 13% of the camcorder market causing bigger companies start duplicating the Flip (with only moderate success), but Pure Digital was itself bought out by mega corp Cisco.

However, the Flip Video is not alone in under-performing game changers. You may remember way back to 2007 when a company we all kind of knew named Asus had something planned called the Eee PC.

Its screen was but 7-inches, and its storage was dwarfed by most iPods. But once again, the Eee was small, cheap ($245-$400) and served an important function: It was the near-perfect knock around computer. And that, in itself, was enough to drive the entire computer industry mad overnight.

I’m by no way implying that the technological arms race is over, that companies no longer care about building the fastest machines with the biggest storage and most ridiculous sticker prices. But a number of technologies are finding a new equilibrium of price and performance in the industry by knowing just where consumers are willing to settle.

These are devices that fulfill a functional niche, sure, but do so with the minimum amount of effort possible—keeping a unit price and bulkiness to a minimum. The breakthrough “good enough” product features the price and specs of a third tier product, the build quality of a second tier product and the design aesthetic of a first tier product. The hardware is fully capable, but it’s just sort of…cheap…for lack of a better term.

And yes, like Wired, we have to marvel at how magnificent gadgets of yesterday—the ability to record something in HD (HD!)—became just a “good enough” gadget.

Of course, now we must wonder, what is the next Flip or Eee? What’s the next technology that can have its bar set ever so lower but actually excite the public with a new, utilitarian form factor in the process?

If you know the answer to that question, you stand to make a good deal of money.