Dec 23

Apple planning event for January, with high-res iPhone or small-sized tablet in tow? Maybe just hanging out?

Posted in: Apple, iPhone, rumor, speculation, tablet, Today's Chili

Breaking news, everybody: Apple’s working on some stuff. The rumors are flying in all directions today, starting out fairly innocently with word from the oft-innacurate DigiTimes of an iPhone-destined 5 megapixel camera sensor. Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster piled on with an investor note saying they’re giving an Apple January event a 75% chance of happening, and the tablet is squarely at 50 / 50. The most interesting word, however, comes out of the Silicon Alley Insider, who is quoting a “plugged-in source in the mobile industry” who says that Apple is working with some select app makers on prepping high-res apps to demo on a “new, larger mobile device.” The device would be shown in January but not available at that time — presumably in wait for these redesigned apps to mature (at WWDC, perhaps?). While that rumor is being piled in with the ever-present tablet hubbub, if we were to read between the lines we’d say it sounds more like a higher-resolution iPhone in the style of Google’s Nexus one or Motorola’s Droid — both of which are making the iPhone’s 320 x 480 screen look a tad archaic. Certainly more likely than Apple releasing “several tablets” to match up with all the disparate rumors we’ve seen of the 7-inch / 9-inch / 10-inch unicorn device.

Update: Just so you know, The New York Times has it on good authority that Steve Jobs is apparently “extremely happy” with the current tablet design. The assumption here — if true, of course — is that he won’t be killing this project like he did all the previous iterations.

Apple planning event for January, with high-res iPhone or small-sized tablet in tow? Maybe just hanging out? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gizmodo, Pocket-lint  |  sourceAppleInsider, Silicon Valley Insider, DigiTimes  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 23

XO-3 Concept: A Crazy-Thin Tablet OLPC for Just $75

Posted in: Notebooks, tablet, Today's Chili

olpc3

One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, or the XO, was a flop however you look at it. Instead of just making a cheap, basic machine that could tough it out in its target third-world market, Nicholas Negroponte’s supposedly $100 laptop instead chose to both patronize and confuse with an over-simplified interface. At the same time, as the price rose and dates slipped by, the Rise of the Atom put cheap netbooks within reach of anyone with a few hundred bucks.

Now, Nick’s back, with the XO-3. The new hardware (read: vaporware) will come in the familiar green and white livery, only this time it’s a tablet (surprise, right?). The XO-3 will be showing its 800Mhz, 8.5-by-11-inch face in 2010, when hopefully the technology will exist to build what is essentially a giant iPod Touch for just $75.

But making an impossibly cheap entertainment device for developing countries (for what else is a tablet but a handheld media-center? Certainly not a functional computer or Microsoft’s earlier tablet PC efforts would have been successful) is not the only mission of the OLPC group. Negroponte told Engadget that there will be an OLPC 1.5 appearing in January, a $200 update to the current hardware, and an OLPC 1.75 in 2011, which will make good on the dual-screen promise first teased in May this year.

We’d love to see all of these devices, but CG mockups and philanthropic promises aren’t the same as real, shipping hardware. Still, the picture do look good.

The $75 Future Computer [Forbes]

OLPC shows off absurdly thin XO-3 concept tablet for 2012 [Engadget]


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Dec 23

Lenovo set for January launch of Pine Trail-packing S10-3 netbook and S10-3t multitouch tablet

Posted in: intel, lenovo, multitouch, netbook, tablet, Today's Chili
Lenovo set for January launch of Pine Trail-packing S10-3 netbook and multitouch tablet version

It’s been awhile since Lenovo last updated its IdeaPad line, the S10-2 dropping over the summer, but we’re hearing that the third iteration of the platform is set to be unveiled in the very near future. The model we spied at the FCC last month is confirmed to be the S10-3, possessing Atom N450 (Pine Trail) internals, a 10.1-inch screen, WiFi, 3G, and integrated GPS. More interesting is that there is an S10-3t model coming as well, a convertible tablet version which you can see the underside of above, thanks again to the FCC. It will feature a multitouch screen to make the most of its Windows 7 install, and hopefully won’t be crippled by Starter Edition like another tablet we know.

Lenovo set for January launch of Pine Trail-packing S10-3 netbook and S10-3t multitouch tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink jkkmobile  |  sourceFCC S10-3t exhibits, Digitech  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 22

OLPC shows off absurdly thin XO-3 concept tablet for 2012 (update: XO-1.5 and XO-1.75 coming first)

Posted in: concept, tablet, Today's Chili
Still have a bit of faith left for the OLPC project? Good, you’re gonna need it: designer Yves Behar has unveiled his latest concept design for the now-aiming-for-$75 vision, and it’s all screen. Keeping with the newfound trend toward tablets, the XO-3 is an 8.5 x 11 touchscreen, coupled with a little folding ring in the corner for grip and a camera in the back. To keep things minimal the plan is to use Palm Pre-style induction charging, and less than a watt of power to keep an “8 gigaherz [sic]” (800MHz?) processor and a Pixel Qi screen powered. At half the thickness of an iPhone, this vision is obviously banking heavily on presumed technology advances by 2012 (the projected release date), but it’s not too hard to see somebody making this form factor happen by then-ish. Nick Neg isn’t all hubris, however: “Sure, if I were a commercial entity coming to you for investment, and I’d made the projections I had in the past, you wouldn’t invest again, but we’re not a commercial operation. If we only achieve half of what we’re setting out to do, it could have very big consequences.”

Update: According to our man Nicholas Negroponte, who took time out of his busy schedule to email us with the info, there are two other variations of the XO headed our way before we see the XO-3. Nick says we’ll see the XO-1.5 appear in January for around $200 — an update to the current version. As we’d heard before, the 1.5 iteration will swap a VIA CPU for the current AMD one, and will double the speed as well as quadruple both the DRAM and Flash memory of the current version. Furthermore, he says that in early 2011 the XO-1.75 (replacing that psychotically awesome 2.0 dual screen model) will make its appearance, and will sport rubber bumpers on the outer casing, an 8.9-inch touchscreen display inside, and will run atop a Marvell ARM processor which will enable two times the speed at a quarter of the power usage. That version will sell for somewhere in the $175 range. Then, no 2.0… straight on to the XO-3.0!

Gallery: OLPC XO3 Gallery

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

OLPC shows off absurdly thin XO-3 concept tablet for 2012 (update: XO-1.5 and XO-1.75 coming first) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceForbes, Press release  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 21

Camangi WebStation makes FCC test bench appearance, torn down for good measure

Posted in: Android, android tablet, AndroidTablet, tablet, teardown, Today's Chili

Might this make it by the end of the year? Camangi has been touting its “early bird” pre-orders for the WebStation Android tablet for nearly a month now, and has been indicating things would ship before the month is through. Now we have confirmation that if that date doesn’t happen you won’t be able to blame the FCC. Our favorite US independent agency (next to NASA) issued its approval of the device back on November 14, and shared some lovely disassembly pictures for good measure (after the break). This means the thing isn’t likely to kill you or to make your TV go all weird, but doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll hit your mailbox before the holidays are over. That, dear readers, is up to a higher power: Santa Claus.

Continue reading Camangi WebStation makes FCC test bench appearance, torn down for good measure

Camangi WebStation makes FCC test bench appearance, torn down for good measure originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 20

ICD Ultra Android tablet hands-on

Posted in: Android, android tablet, AndroidTablet, Features, hands-on, tablet, Today's Chili

As you may have noticed, we had a chance to get our hands on a fairly interesting little tablet made by ICD dubbed the Ultra. The 7-inch, touchscreen tablet (resistive in the version we saw, but with capacitive versions to come) sports quite an impressive set of specs, including a 1GHz Tegra T20 CPU, 512MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM, 4GB of hardwired storage, 2G / 3G radios, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, HDMI out, USB 2.0, and a microSD slot. The device also has an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, and 3.5mm headphone jack. The version we had a chance to play with — a prototype running Android 2.0 — was blazingly fast when it came to 1080p playback and web browsing (as you can see in the video), but was pretty incomplete as far as the rest of the software was concerned (though the company says they’re working on optimizing the experience all around). In terms of pricing, ICD reps didn’t have a solid number, though they said they expect the Ultra to sell for somewhere in the $249 price range, with potential for free, subsidized versions depending on what kind of deals they work out with partners. We expect to see a whole slew of devices like this at CES in just a few weeks, but this is nice a taste of things to come. Check out our exclusive hands-on pics in the gallery below!

Update: The video in question is right here!

Gallery: ICD Ultra tablet hands-on

ICD Ultra Android tablet hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 18

Chromium OS lands on the Archos 9, doesn’t do much

Posted in: chrome os, ChromeOs, Google, tablet, Today's Chili

Trying to satisfy that browser-only touchscreen tablet urge? Well, you’re sort of in luck. Those Atom-powered Archos 9 tablets are out and about, and the fine folks at UMPCPortal have slung a copy of Google’s Chromium OS onto one. Unfortunately, since there’s no touchscreen keyboard in the OS (yet), and the touchscreen input isn’t even recognized, this is more of a “proof of concept” than a killer app. Still, we like where this is headed.

Chromium OS lands on the Archos 9, doesn’t do much originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  sourceUMPCPortal flickr  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 18

Notion Launching Smartpad Android Tablet at CES

Posted in: tablet, Today's Chili

notionsmartpad.jpg

Is 2010 the year of the tablet? All sources–leaked or otherwise–seem to point to “yes.” There are plenty of rumors surfacing around such device emerging from known quantities like Apple and Microsoft, but the real news is coming from dark horse such as Fusion Garage, which has been touring around the country showing its JooJoo pad to anyone who will take notice.

The JooJoo tablet (formerly known as the CrunchPad) may have some stiff competition this coming month, however. A company called Notion Ink is reportedly launching a still-unnamed tablet “smartpad.” It’s a snazzy-looking piece of hardware running an NVidia Tegra T20 chipset. The tablet features 1080p HD video, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a Pixel Qi display.

The Notion Ink tablet will run Android and feature full gesture support. It weighs 1.7 pounds and comes with either 16GB or 32GB of storage built in, plus an SD slot, so you won’t have to rely solely on cloud-based computing, as with the JooJoo.

The device is set to debut at CES in Las Vegas next month.

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Dec 18

Conservative Concept Tablet Gets Almost Everything Right

Posted in: concept, Media Players, tablet, Today's Chili

evolve5

Coming up with a concept design is pretty easy — after all, you can say it does anything and you never have to actually fit real components into a real box and program a real machine. By this measure, Timur Pinar’s concept tablet is rather conservative and, counter-intuitively, somewhat more attractive than more outlandish designs.

The “HTC evolve” (yes, it even has an imagined manufacturer) sports an Intel Atom processor, two USB 3.0 ports, 128GB of solid-state storage, 1.5GB RAM, an HDMI port and a camera and microphone on the screen-side. And of course there is a touch screen.

As a design, it is pretty sweet (apart from a second, vestigial screen that pops out of the side, ready to be snapped off), and would run Android or Chrome or whatever would give it a one or two second boot time. The lines are clean and the purpose is clear — this is a machine for consuming media, non creating it. And that is the big difference between the upcoming wave of tablet devices and the failed tablet PCs of yesteryear: these machines do one thing, and they do it well. I’d buy this, but then I am on a mission to rid my home of any analog media whatsoever.

One more oddity: it has a stylus for input (you can still use fingers). What is this? 2005?

Sweet Dreams Are Meant To Evolve [Yanko]


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Dec 18

Archos 9 tablet and its Windows 7 Starter Edition unboxed (video)

Posted in: archos, intel atom, IntelAtom, tablet, Today's Chili, UMPC, windows 7, Windows7
Archos 9 tablet and its Windows 7 Starter Edition unboxed

It’s been a long time coming, but the Archos 9 is finally being unleashed wholesale upon the world. The 9-inch tablet has been delayed and had its price hiked, but if you haven’t leapt off the hype train yet you’ll be interested in watching the unboxing and initial impressions video after the break courtesy of UMPCPortal. The 60GB device contains a mere 1.1GHz Atom processor and has been unfortunately crippled with Windows 7 Starter Edition, lacking the cool tablet features that you might have wanted to use on a tablet device. A few times during this video the Archos is likened to the Joojoo, which will almost surely face some delays of its own before receiving a similar berth months from now. Overall it’s looking like a nice machine if you have the bank — and don’t want to do anything particularly processor intensive.

Continue reading Archos 9 tablet and its Windows 7 Starter Edition unboxed (video)

Archos 9 tablet and its Windows 7 Starter Edition unboxed (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceUMPCPortal  | Email this | Comments

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