Hasta La Gadget!

Acer’s David Lee just hijacked Intel’s netbooks and tablets Computex keynote to unveil a brand new 10-inch tablet: the Iconia M500. It’s the first in the company’s new M Series and runs MeeGo atop an Atom (Moorestown) processor. Its appearance and dimensions are strikingly similar to the company’s Android tablet, the A500, and that similarity extends to the resolution of the screen as well: 1280 x 800. The MeeGo interface is a custom Acer skin offering what was described as a “snackable UI.” The point seems to be to offer instant access to the things you care about, and the brief demo we saw featured a set of live widgets organized around an “Acer circle.” Mr. Lee, an Assistant Vice President with the company, tells us Acer’s new 10-incher will be on sale at (not by, sadly) the end of this year.

Update: We’ve just added a gallery of hands-on shots below and you’ll find video of the M500 after the break.

Continue reading Acer Iconia M500 runs MeeGo on an Atom CPU, coming at the end of this year (hands-on video!)

Acer Iconia M500 runs MeeGo on an Atom CPU, coming at the end of this year (hands-on video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Asus' UX21 will be one of many Intel-powered Ultrabooks to debut towards the end of 2011.  Photo courtesy Asus

Intel announced plans Monday for a new series of slim laptops powered by the company’s next-generation processors, set to debut at the end of 2011.

Dubbed the “Ultrabook,” the skinny devices measure in at less than an inch thick, cost less than $1,000, and will initially run on Intel’s second-generation core chips.

In the first half of 2012, Ultrabooks will run on Intel’s “Ivy Bridge” chipset, the world’s first mass-produced 3-D–transistor–based chipset using Intel’s 22-nanometer etching process.

“Our customers are demanding an uncompromised computing experience in a lightweight, highly portable design that responds to their needs quickly,” said Asus executive chairman Jonney Shih, whose company is producing one of the first Ultrabooks, the UX21.

Intel VP Sean Maloney said Ultrabooks will make up more than 40 percent of the market by the end of 2012, as they contain many “tablet-like features” coupled with “thin, elegant form factors” and “best-in-class performance.”

When Intel announced its “Ivy Bridge” chipset, analysts speculated it was only a matter of time before the low-power, high-performance processors would trickle into the laptop market.

“Moore’s Law is alive and well, at least for the next several generations of processors down to 14 [nanometers] and below,” Forrester analyst Rich Fichera wrote in a blog post. Named after Intel founder Gordon Moore, Moore’s Law essentially states the number of transistors that can be placed on a chip will double every two years, and will get cheaper as time passes. “Intel has no intention of yielding primacy as the world’s leader in semiconductor process,” Fichera wrote.

Apple’s MacBook Air models encompass a number of the features that Intel’s Ultrabooks tout — including a thickness of less than an inch, and a design similar to Asus’ slick metal finish — but they’re powered by Intel’s Core 2 Duo chips, which look outdated compared to Intel’s second generation “Sandy Bridge” chips.

Similarly, Google’s recently announced netbook killer, the Chromebook, boasts a sub-$1,000 price tag and an Intel Atom dual-core processor.

All three device lines — the Ultrabook, the MacBook Air and Google’s forthcoming Chromebooks — are relatively streamlined compared to past netbook and notebook models, cutting down on external ports and internal drives to minimize thickness and weight.

“It’s time we got rid of a lot of the legacy ports on these devices,” Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney told Wired.com. “As we move to more modern connections like high-speed USB 3.0 or cloud-based computing, we’re ready for a jump like this.”

However, these devices may come with shorter shelf lives, Dulaney added.

“All these products will probably come with nonremovable batteries,” Dulaney said, “which means they’ll be cheaper, but you’ll probably have to replace them every two years. That’s disappointing, but its the way the industry is shifting.”

Intel also revealed its tablet plans for 2011 on Monday. As it was previously speculated, the company debuted its Z670 “Oak Trail” line of processors on 10 different tablets at the Computex technology trade show in Taipei.

Intel’s chips haven’t thus far made a forceful entry into the mobile space, a market now dominated by chips based on rival ARM architecture designs. Graphics-processing-unit and chipset-design company Nvidia currently holds the largest stake in the tablet space, as its Tegra 2 processor powers tablets made by Samsung, Motorola and Acer, among other major manufacturers.

The company also discussed plans for another chipset designed specifically for smartphones and tablets, codenamed “Medfield.” Maloney said Medfield chips will be optimized for both low power and high performance, and he highlighted this by showing off a Medfield design powering Android version 3.0 (Honeycomb).

Intel expects production on Medfield-designed chips later this year, with Medfield-powered tablets to hit shelves in the first half of 2012. Along with Android, Medfield tablets will run on other operating systems, including Nokia’s MeeGo.

At a time when ARM and Android are dominating the mobile computing world, Intel’s only just starting to catch up with some green robot-friendly prototypes, like these Oak Trail-based 10-inch tablets at Computex 2011. Starting from the left we have the Intel Green Ridge, Foxconn F150, Quanta QXZI, an unnamed Compal device, Intel Marco Polo 2, and Intel Carrot. Sadly, Intel wouldn’t give the names of the ODMs behind its own reference tablets, so your guess is just as good as ours.

With the exception of the Gingerbread-powered Foxconn slate, these were all running on Honeycomb 3.0.1 OS — well, we say running, but just barely. As you’ll see in our hands-on video after the break, most of the devices were struggling to keep up with the launcher animation, and needless to say, Intel wasn’t keen on letting us test video playback on them. We also noticed that Android Market was missing on the prototypes, but Intel assured us that it’ll be available on the final products, and that current Android apps are already supported by Oak Trail. In terms of build quality it left much to be desired, though this is forgivable at a trade show; it’s the software that we’re concerned with. From what we’ve seen here at Computex, Android on Oak Trail is far from ready, so it’ll be interesting to see if Acer can actually pull off a July launch for its rumored Oak Trail Honeycomb tablet.

Update: OK, our in-depth hands-on video is finally working. Check it out after the break.

Continue reading Intel shows off Oak Trail-based Android Honeycomb tablets, confirms Android Market support

Intel shows off Oak Trail-based Android Honeycomb tablets, confirms Android Market support originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Intel’s convertible Keeley Lake concept laptop shows off Cedar Trail, we go hands-on (update: video)

Intel’s convertible Keeley Lake concept laptop shows off Cedar Trail, we go hands-on (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 00:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been nearly twenty years since Linus Torvalds let loose Linux on an unsuspecting world, and yesterday he finally updated the open source OS kernel to version 3.0. This third iteration, currently named 3.0.0-rc1, comes 15 years after 2.0 first hit the web and brings driver support for Microsoft Kinect — a move that should have visions of sugar plum fairies (or maybe just Android avatars) dancing in hackers’ heads. Also included is code optimized for AMD’s Fusion and Intel’s Ivy and Sandy Bridge silicon, and some updated graphics drivers, too. Despite these tasty new treats, Torvalds is quick to point out that this new release is an evolutionary change and unleashing the big three-oh was all about moving into a third decade of distribution, not about overhauling the OS. There’s still work to be done, as it is a release candidate in need of refinement, but curious coders can grab the latest Linux at the Kernel.org source link below.

Linus Torvalds releases Linux kernel version 3 to celebrate 20 years of penguin-powered computing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 May 2011 19:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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