Hasta La Gadget!

During a sitdown with reporters yesterday, NVIDIA Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang discussed his company’s near- and long-term financial outlook, while providing some insight into the chipmaker’s quad-core future. According to Huang, NVIDIA expects to rake in between $4.7 and $5 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2013, with revenue from its mobile chip unit projected to mushroom tenfold by 2015, to a whopping $20 billion. Huang acknowledged that these predictions could be affected by external factors, including the ongoing patent wars between tablet and smartphone manufacturers, but didn’t seem too concerned about their immediate impact. “At this point, it looks like it’s much ado about nothing,” he said. In fact, Huang foresees rather robust growth in the mobile processing sector, estimating that there are about 100 million devices that will need chips this year — a figure that could soon rise to one billion, on the strength of more affordable handsets, efficient ARM processors and the rise of ultra-thin notebooks. And, despite his recent disappointment, Huang expects Android tablets to comprise a full 50 percent of the market in the near future, claiming that NVIDIA’s Tegra chips can currently be found in 70 percent of all slates running Google’s OS, and about half of all Android-based smartphones.

In the short-term, meanwhile, NVIDIA is busy developing its quad-core mobile processors — which, according to the exec, should appear in tablets during the third or fourth quarter of this year (quad-core smartphones, however, may be further down the road). Huang also sees room to develop wireless-enabled, Snapdragon-like processors, thanks to NVIDIA’s recent acquisition of Icera, but he hasn’t given up on GPUs, either, predicting that demand for graphics performance will remain stable. The loquacious CEO went on to divine that Windows 8 will support apps designed for Windows 7 (implying, perhaps, that Microsoft’s Silverlight platform will play a major role in future cloud-based developments), while contending that smaller, “clamshell devices” with keyboards will ultimately win out of over the Ultrabook strategy that Intel has been pursuing. For the moment, though, Huang seems pretty comfortable with NVIDIA’s position in the mobile processing market, citing only Qualcomm as primary competition. “We’re the only people seriously on the dance floor with Qualcomm,” he argued, adding that companies without a solid mobile strategy are “in deep turd.” You can find more of Huang’s insights at the source links below.

NVIDIA CEO sees major growth in mobile processing, quad-core tablets coming this year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 03:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most anyone who’s paid attention knows Windows 8 will feature some fancy tweaks, including a revamped Windows Explorer and new copy, move and rename functions. But now Redmond’s given us a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it preview of a new Start Menu, in a video about accessing ISO and VHD files in the new OS. We’ve included a screen capture above — hit the source link if you’d like to see the full (and admittedly quite dry) video. You’ll spot the wily Start Menu about 25 seconds in.

[Thanks, Chris]

Filed under: Software

Windows 8 Start Menu caught on camera, shows off high-contrast design originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this year, we heard a slew of whispers promising a late winter launch for Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablets — there was even mention of a tab-specific OS. While it’s become clear that Redmond intends for its new operating system to run on multiple devices, insight into its tablet plans are still somewhat shrouded in mystery. From the looks of these gesture patents, however, it’s clear MS has been eyeing a dual-screen tablet future (hello Courier). The recently published patents, not yet granted to the company, touch upon methods for off-screen input (read: bezel-based), but mainly focus on these multi-screen input options: dual tap, pinch and expand, hold and page-flip, hold and tap, and finally, bookmark hold. As you can glimpse from the image above, the patents handle simultaneous touch screen input, allowing a user the ability to swap images between screens, or even freeze a page on one side while continuing to browse on the other. By the looks of things, Sony might have some fierce competition in the multi-screen tablet market. Head to the source below to get a fuller look at these touch-based solutions.

Microsoft gesture patents reveal possible dual-screen tablet focus originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No points for calling this one, but Microsoft confirmed today that Windows 8 will indeed boast support for the USB 3.0 specification, and “robust” support at that. That includes not just the higher transfer speeds you’d expect, but the promise of better battery life thanks to the improved power management measures the specification allows. Naturally, Microsoft will also continue to support all of your less speedy USB devices, and says that it’s actually created a brand new Microsoft USB Test Tool (or MUTT) to ensure everything works without a hitch — it’s described as “1,000 devices on a USB thumb drive.” Head on past the break for a quick demo video.

Continue reading Microsoft promises ‘robust’ USB 3.0 support in Windows 8

Microsoft promises ‘robust’ USB 3.0 support in Windows 8 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows president Steven Sinofsky has confirmed that Windows 8 is getting an app store. He casually dropped the scoop whilst listing the software’s dev teams as if he was listing the week’s groceries. Such a tease, that man.

Windows 8 App Store officially announced, we’re all shocked originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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