Hasta La Gadget!

Man, it’s got to be tough for the proud guys and gals at Toshiba these days. First the company gets whooped in the optical media format wars, and now it’s having to ingloriously bow out of the OLED race as well. Citing a recent uptick in LCD demand alongside the impact of the recent global economic crisis, Toshiba says its mass production plans for OLED displays have now been “frozen” and will be reviewed from scratch. That sounds like a company cutting its losses to us, which should make our fellow OLED enthusiasts all sorts of unhappy. There had better be some damn fine (and thin) LCDs in Toshiba’s pipeline if it hopes to keep us sweet.

Toshiba shelves OLED production plans, focuses on LCDs and licking its wounds originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Oct 2010 17:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tucked away at the bottom of a news story about who’ll be carrying the 7-inch Galaxy Tab in Ireland this year is the promise of a 10-inch Tab (presumably for the whole world) next year. This comes straight from local General Manager Gary Twohig, who seems to have casually disclosed his company’s plans for a 10-inch Android slate in the first half of 2011. Beyond that, all we know is that it’ll include the V8 JavaScript Engine that first showed up as a touted feature in Froyo, though if we had to bet our Led Zep record collection, we’d probably say this 10-incher will be holding out for Android 3.x — either Gingerbread or Honeycomb — for an experience better optimized to run on larger screens. In fact, that may be the likeliest reason why this new tablet didn’t debut with its 7-inch sibling: waiting on a better OS.

[Thanks, Iain]

Update: The original story has undergone a bit of massaging since we first reported on it and the connection between Gary Twohig and the 10-inch Tab has now been removed. We’re still inclined to believe the content, however, as Samsung itself has not been shy about its plans to bring multiple Galaxy Tab sizes to the world.

10-inch Galaxy Tab promised for 2011 by Samsung Ireland General Manager (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you ask us, the whole Adam tablet is a concept until Notion Ink delivers something other than promises, but things are looking up for the less jaded among you. Rohan Shravan has updated the world on the Adam’s latest condition, disclosing a new replaceable battery ‘concept’ and the addition of a comic book store. We’re not sure whether that means the final retail unit will or won’t have a user-swappable cell, but at least we now know that both the Pixel Qi- and LCD-equipped variants of the Adam will share one body design. The switch that turns off the Pixel Qi backlight will do the same for the LCD model, saving battery power when you’re either downloading or listening to the Engadget podcast. We’re also told things are moving faster than originally scheduled and the FCC should get a look at this long-awaited tablet a week early. As to the rest of us? Who knows, but maybe there is a tablet god.

Notion Ink Adam a week ahead of schedule, adds comic book store and replaceable battery ‘concept’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s September so that can mean only one thing in Intel land: IDF. The second of this year’s Intel Developer Forums is this year preceded by speculation that the big blue giant’s next motherboard reference design — codenamed Cougar Point — will include USB 3.0 support. Intel’s relationship with the 3.0 interconnect standard can at best be described as strained, but motherboard and laptop makers haven’t shied from integrating it into their wares and as the number of devices supporting SuperSpeed increases, it’s becoming somewhat inevitable that Intel would have to play ball as well. At least until Light Peak shines its “instant obsolescence” ray onto USB cables next year. Then again, bear in mind China’s Commercial Times has been wrong before, so let’s not credit this as fact until someone with a blue name badge tells us so.

Intel may finally be ready to embrace USB 3.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Forget the numbers, here’s what matters: Globalfoundries’ new production capabilities will lead to “smooth production ramp-ups and faster time-to-market” for its customers. Now consider that this promise relates to scrumptious 28nm Cortex-A9 SOCs and feel free to rejoice. The chip fabricator has just declared itself ready to take orders for ARM’s systems-on-chip built using its high-k metal gate 28nm fab process. This fulfills its pledge for mass production in the latter half of 2010, but lest you think Globalfoundries is resting on any nanoscale laurels, it also has a 20nm roadmap to tell you about. It’s very simple, really: expect even smaller, even more power-efficient silicon in 2013. We don’t know if the future will be bright, but it sure looks like it’s gonna be small.

Continue reading Globalfoundries takes ARM Cortex-A9 into 28nm land, looks forward to 20nm chips in 2013

Globalfoundries takes ARM Cortex-A9 into 28nm land, looks forward to 20nm chips in 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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