Hasta La Gadget!

Another year, another chance for Nintendo to deliver what it’s alternately denied and teased since day one — a successor to the Nintendo Wii capable of displaying games in high resolution. Will Nintendo finally make it happen? Multiple totally anonymous sources say yes: they told Game Informer, IGN and Kotaku that just such a system will debut at E3 2011 in June, possibly with a teaser of some sort next month. While the ninja moles didn’t provide many hard details — mostly just the typical iffy claim that the system will wipe the floor with competitors in terms of speeds and feeds — they told IGN that it will support 1080p resolutions and be backwards-compatible with games for the Wii. Naturally, we’ll believe it when we see it… so here’s hoping we see it fairly quickly.

Wii HD rearing long-rumored head at E3 2011? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq, NeoGAF  |  Game Informer, IGN, Kotaku  | Email this | Comments

We’ve been keeping our eyes on Motorola’s plans to sink its claws into the enterprise market for at least the past couple of months, and it looks like the company is ramping up its efforts with a rugged Android tablet fit for the workplace. A presentation provided to us by a helpful tipster outlines Moto’s plans to be the “first physical embodiment defining Android for the Enterprise,” with a Gingerbread-equipped tablet entering beta testing this October. As you can see from the slide above, the slate will sport both a 1.3MP front-facing camera and an 8MP rear-facing camera “with illumination and aiming” for barcode scanning. It’s also carrying a dual-core 1GHz OMAP 4 CPU, 1GB RAM, 8GB NAND, a 7-inch LCD display, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, and USB connectivity. It should also pack enough juice to supply five and a half hours of streaming video, and should be able to withstand a four foot drop, extreme temperatures, excessive dust, and splashing water. From the look of things, this tablet’s going to be more at home in the workshop than the boardroom, but we’ll just have to wait and see what becomes of it once the thing makes it out of beta.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Motorola to begin beta testing rugged Android tablet, steps up enterprise efforts originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It hasn’t even been a week since Intel rolled out Oak Trail, and it’s already teasing us with yet another tablet-ready chip called Cloverview. What’s more, we’re also seeing unofficial details emerging for its next generation Ivy Bridge CPU. Starting from the top: PC World is reporting that Intel’s Doug Davis introduced the Atom-based Cloverview at the firm’s Developer Forum in Beijing Tuesday, touting its 32nm architecture and low power consumption. Meanwhile a set of rather convincing slides are showing off the 22nm stylings of Sandy Bridge’s successor, Ivy Bridge. From the look of things, the CPU will support DirectX 11 graphics, USB 3.0, and 1600MHz DDR3 memory — its desktop platform has been christened Maho Bay. Ivy Bridge is reportedly expected to arrive in the first half of 2012, but we’re still waiting on Cloverview’s ETA. Isn’t silicon fun?

Intel teases 32nm Cloverview tablet processor, 22nm Ivy Bridge CPU originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re going to compete in the consumer electronics business then you’d better have a solid grasp of industrial design and materials science. Otherwise, you’re just another manufacturer trying to eke profit from drab slabs of commodity plastic. With the exception of the MacBook, Apple’s entire Mac lineup is currently cut from aluminum. However, Apple’s been caught experimenting with its newly acquired Liquidmetal materials recently, even as rumors swirl around new ultra-lightweight and durable carbon fiber components and enclosures. Speculation about the latter has been fueled by an Apple patent application for a process that would use carbon fiber materials woven into the reinforced device housings of mobile telephones, laptops, desktops, and tablets. Interestingly enough, the patent app was filed by Kevin M. Kenney (developer of the first all carbon fiber bicycle frame) on behalf of Apple back in 2009, a man who changed his job title to “Senior Composites Engineer at Apple Inc.” on LinkedIn at some point after March 1st (according to Google cache). Of course, a carbon fiber laptop is far from unique — just reference the Sony G11 from 2007 or 2008’s Voodoo Envy 133 if you want to see how it’s done. But if Apple makes a wholesale shift to carbon fiber in the months ahead then you can expect the horde of me-too OEMs to follow suit a year later. See the before and after LinkedIn profiles for Kenney after the break.

Continue reading Apple hires carbon fiber expert to posit composites

Apple hires carbon fiber expert to posit composites originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MacRumors, 9to5Mac  |  Kevin Kenney (LinkedIn), Kevin Kenney (LinkedIn cache)  | Email this | Comments