Hasta La Gadget!

We were expecting Toshiba to launch its Windows 7 tablet during the second half of this year, but rumor has it that the company may be abandoning the slate altogether. DigiTimes is reporting that both the 11.6-inch slab and a forthcoming Chromebook have disappeared from Toshiba’s product launchpad, according to sources within the industry. The Chromebook will reportedly be slashed due to disappointing netbook sales in 2010, whereas the reasons behind the tablet’s cancellation remain less clear. DigiTimes suggests that Toshiba may be throwing all of its weight behind its new Honeycomb-powered Thrive slate, meaning that its Windows 7 counterpart could either be delayed even further, or simply relinquished. There’s obviously plenty of speculation swirling around, but we’ll let you know as soon as we receive more concrete reports.

Toshiba abandoning plans for Windows 7 tablet, Chromebook? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An explosion occurred at Foxconn’s Chengdu plant earlier today, with reports claiming several workers have been injured. The Taiwanese company has yet to release a statement regarding figures and the cause of this tragedy, but according to 21st Century Business Herald, witnesses saw lightning hit the A05 building before the explosion took place — it is believed that this is a case of dust explosion, and security guards were allegedly warning evacuees that the smoke was toxic. At the time, hundreds of workers were present in the affected workshop which houses an iPad 2 assembly line. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.

Update: Sina Tech is reporting two deaths and sixteen injured people, with three in critical condition. We’ve also added a video from the scene after the break, courtesy of Sohu.

Update 2: Apple has provided a statement to All Things D, saying:

We are deeply saddened by the tragedy at Foxconn’s plant in Chengdu, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families… We are working closely with Foxconn to understand what caused this terrible event.

Continue reading Explosion at Foxconn’s Chengdu plant kills two

Explosion at Foxconn’s Chengdu plant kills two originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 May 2011 11:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that Clearwire definitely isn’t producing its own smartphone, the company has apparently decided to focus its efforts on maintaining its WiMAX network — with the help of Ericsson. Yesterday, the 4G operator announced that it had struck a seven-year deal with the Swedish telecom firm, just a few months after fighting a brief trademark lawsuit filed by Sony Ericsson. Under the arrangement, Ericsson will assume all network engineering, operations, and maintenance responsibilities, allowing Clearwire to concentrate on cutting costs and increasing efficiency. Clearwire will retain ownership over its technology and will still handle all customer relations, but about 700 of its employees will be transferred to Ericsson. The Kirkland-based company says its decision was at least partially influenced by new best friend Sprint, which forged a similar partnership with Ericsson back in 2009. Financial details on the new deal remain fuzzy, though Clearwire says it expects to see a major reduction in operating costs — which sounds like the right prescription. Full presser after the break.

Continue reading Ericsson to manage Clearwire’s 4G network as part of cost-cutting deal

Ericsson to manage Clearwire’s 4G network as part of cost-cutting deal originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 09:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It looks like rare earth elements are getting slightly less rare. According to a research note released by Goldman Sachs today, the world’s rare earth supply deficit will probably reach its apex this year, before converting into a surplus by 2013. Goldman’s analysts constructed their projections based on evidence that many Western companies have begun building their own mines, in response to China’s overwhelming market dominance. Today, the People’s Republic produces about 90-percent of the world’s rare earth minerals — a group of 17 elements that are used to manufacture many of the flat screen TVs, hybrids and cellphones we’ve come to know and love. Over the course of the past few years, China has only consolidated its hold on the industry, thanks to economic policies aimed at nationalizing private mines and implementing restrictive export quotas. As a result, global rare earth prices have skyrocketed, forcing mining companies in the US and elsewhere to look inward and harvest their own deposits. The only downside, however, is that even if global supply spills into a surplus within the next two years, prices probably won’t cool down until 2015. But at least the horizon looks brighter than it has in recent months.

Global rare earth supply deficit should turn into a surplus by 2013, Goldman Sachs says originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 15:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T has many strategies for trying to convince the US government to let it buy T-Mobile, but the one it emphasized was this — it would attempt to make remaining carriers Verizon, Sprint and even a handful of rural entities look like “intense competition.” Well, it seems that tack hasn’t quite had the impact that the board of directors was hoping for, because it just delivered a gigantic new document to the FCC, which portrays itself as the victim of its own success. AT&T says it had to deliver 8,000 times percent more mobile data in 2010 than it did three years prior — over 10 petabytes per month these days — and foresees that it will deliver that same amount of data “in just the first five to seven weeks of 2015.”

Meanwhile, T-Mobile is the knight in shining magenta armor to save AT&T from those “severe capacity constraints,” but since AT&T can’t let regulators think that T-Mobile’s departure from the arena will result in less competition, Ma Bell simultaneously bashes its prospective conquest for having a “diminished market role” in the telecom industry and “no clear path to deploy LTE” — even as it says that acquiring T-Mobile would result in the means to spread speedy Long Term Evolution across 97.3 percent of the general population. In case you’re keeping track, that’s up from the 95 percent the company last prognosticated. The seeming contradictions here are certainly amusing, but we have to admit the promised giant LTE network tempts us quite a bit. But is it worth building a GSM monopoly to do it? Envision the repercussions for yourself — both good and ill — by studying the following links.

Update: Fixed a few math errors — AT&T processed over 10 petabytes per month (not year) in 2010, and that was 8,000 percent (not times) the amount of mobile data it carried in 2007. For comparison’s sake, the entirety of YouTube was said to have streamed 31 petabytes per month in 2008, and Hulu did 17 petabytes per month over the same time period, according to a Cisco study.

Continue reading AT&T tells FCC just how important T-Mobile is, in 381-page redacted document

AT&T tells FCC just how important T-Mobile is, in 381-page redacted document originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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