Hasta La Gadget!

Been having lurid dreams of 1080p-playin’ Windows 7 tablets with a touch-delighting UI layer on top? Probably not, but if that sounds like your kind of thing, you’ll want to know that ExoPC is about to collect its first pre-orders starting on September 3. The slate’s makers are being nice to their forum members by allowing the first 1,200 on board to have first bite at this cherry, which will be shipped out to them on September 30. Ten days before that, on September 20, is when the initial 120 production units will roll off the assembly line, though they’ve already been assigned to potential distribution partners. The really interesting date here will be October 15, as that’s when the Ciara Vibe — the first rebadged partner slate — is expected to hit retail availability in Canada. Let’s just hope this schedule isn’t written with a Sharpie Liquid Pencil, eh?

ExoPC sets a shipping schedule, now let’s see if it keeps it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of these days AMD is gonna have to stop talking about its Atom-killing Bobcat and Xeon-ending Bulldozer cores and finally release them. But, until that happy moment arrives in 2011 (fingers crossed), we’ll have to content ourselves with more presentation slides. First up, the Bobcat core is AMD’s long overdue play for the netbook/ultrathin market. Pitched as having 90 percent of the performance of current-gen, K8-based mainstream chips, AMD’s new mobility core will require “less than half the area and a fraction of the power” of its predecessors. That sounds like just the recipe to make the company relevant in laptop purchasing decisions again, while a touted ability for the core to run on less than one watt of power (by lowering operating frequencies and voltages, and therefore performance) could see it appear in even smaller form factors, such as MIDs. The Bobcat’s now all set to become the centerpiece of the Ontario APU — AMD’s first Fusion chip, ahead of Llano — which will be ramping up production late this year, in time for an early 2011 arrival.

The Bulldozer also has a future in the Fusion line, but it’s earliest role will be as a standalone CPU product for servers and high-end consumer markets. The crafty thing about its architecture is that every one Bulldozer module will be counted as two cores. This is because AMD has split its internal processing pipelines into two (while sharing as many internal components as possible), resulting in a sort of multicore-within-the-core arrangement. The way the company puts it, it’s multithreading done right. Interlagos is the codename of the first Opteron chips to sport this new core, showing up at some point next year in a 16-core arrangement (that’s 8 Bulldozers, if you’re keeping score at home) and promising 50 percent better performance than the current Magny-Cours flagship. Big words, AMD. Now let’s see you stick to a schedule for once.

Continue reading AMD’s Bobcat and Bulldozer, 2011 flagship CPU cores, detailed today

AMD’s Bobcat and Bulldozer, 2011 flagship CPU cores, detailed today originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First of all, don’t worry, the spontaneously combusting Nano isn’t among the pair of newly Euro-bound EVs from Tata. Going slightly more upmarket, the Indian company will be launching the Indica Vista EV hatchback for eco-conscious Brits and Scandinavians early next year, alongside the somewhat less exciting Ace, a commercial mini-truck. The Indica Vista has clearly had a few trials and tribulations in coming to market in an all-electric form, having originally been promised to Norwegian tree huggers for 2009, so let’s just hope that this schedule is the one that sticks. It’s about time this whole EV movement got some more affordable options.

Tata bringing two all-electric cars to a Europe near you by March originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E Ink Holdings, the company behind the power-sipping screens contained within Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Readers, is keeping to its schedule for the biggest overhaul of its display technology yet. Color panels are reportedly now sampling out to device vendors and China-based Hanvon has already answered the call — it promises to deliver color E Ink readers by the end of this year. Two varieties of touchscreens are also being prepared: the first is a capacitive panel to sate the kids’ need to flick and swipe everywhere, while the second will include a pen-friendly digitizer that should make annotations a doddle (or should that be a doodle?). Better response times and reflectivity are also being touted, though the big question is obviously when this good stuff will make its way into mainstream devices like the Kindle. If you believe Jeff Bezos, that won’t be any time soon.

E Ink begins sampling color and capacitive touch displays, on track for late 2010 launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s something that seems to have slipped the net from Kevin Turner’s recent presentation on Windows Phone 7 devices. While discussing the move to Microsoft’s next great hope in the mobile space, the Redmond COO told the world that the transition is expected to happen in the October timeframe across Europe, and in the November timeframe in the US. This is the most explicit anyone from Microsoft has been about the likely launch date for Windows Phone 7, and sets up the intriguing potentiality of Europeans getting to savor the goodness of the brand new OS ahead of their US brethren. See Kevin dishing the info on video after the break.

[Thanks, Abed]

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 coming to Europe in October, US in November, according to Microsoft COO (video)

Windows Phone 7 coming to Europe in October, US in November, according to Microsoft COO (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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