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Google is helping HTC attack Apple in court, by furnishing mobile technology patents that take aim at iPhone functionality. Meanwhile, Microsoft nabbed two more major patent agreements with Acer and ViewSonic, related to tablets and mobile phones running Android and (in the case of ViewSonic) Chrome OS.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced that mobile devices powered by his company's quad-core Tegra 3 processors will start hitting the market before the holiday season. Huang said the quad-core market will be dominated by Nvidia and Qualcomm, which is prepping its own “Krait” quad-core processors for release in 2012.
Wind River announced a new version of its Linux-ready Wind River Hypervisor virtualization software, ready for both ARM Cortex-A9 architectures and Windows 7. Wind River Hypervisor 1.3 also adds an internal Ethernet switch, SR-IOV-based PCI Express device isolation on Intel platforms, plus the ability to migrate virtual machines between CPU cores to save power, says the company.
IBM and 3M announced they'll work together to develop adhesives that will help package semiconductors into dense towers of silicon. By including up to 100 layers, the resulting chips could be up to 1,000 faster than today's speediest microprocessors, the companies claim.
Verizon Wireless will start selling Motorola Mobility's Droid Bionic for its 4G LTE network on Sept. 8, featuring heavyweight features and a matching $300 price. The Droid Bionic offers a dual-core 1GHz processor running Android 2.3.4, 16GB each of internal and microSD storage, a 4.3-inch, 960 x 540 pixel display, eight-megapixel and VGA cameras, and accessories including a Lapdock and an HD Station.
AMD says it has begun shipping a “Interlagos” Opteron 6200 server chip, offering up to sixteen cores. This 32nm-fabbed processor is the first to be based on the chipmaker's long-promised “Bulldozer” architecture, expected to trickle down to desktops and other devices in the future.
Following a Digitimes report that Intel is planning to temporarily halt the MeeGo project, Netbooknews.de confirmed the news and claims Samsung is interested in acquiring the open source project. Meanwhile, Samsung's CEO stated that with his company's Bada operating system on the move, it would “never” buy WebOS — another mobile Linux platform in limbo.
Over the U.S. holiday weekend, Intel quietly released 16 new “Sandy Bridge” processors — 11 desktop and five mobile models. The CPUs range from a 1.6GHz, single-core Celeron G440 ($37) for low-cost desktops to the 2.7GHz, quad-core Core i7-2960XM ($1,096) for high-end portables.
Zotac announced its smallest ZBox mini-PC yet, featuring a 1.6GHz AMD “Brazos” E-350 processor and integrated home theater PC (HTPC) functionality, including dual IR receivers. The 5.0 x 5.0 x 1.7-inch Zbox Nano AD10 offers a gigabit Ethernet port and four USB ports including two 3.0 ports, and a “Plus” version comes with 2GB of DDR3 memory and 320GB of storage.
Habey announced a mini PC that runs fanlessly and is aimed at digital signage applications. The BIS-6564 has a 1.8GHz, dual-core Atom D525 processor and a Nvidia Ion 2 GPU (graphics processor unit), plus room for two 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drives, two Mini PCI Express slots, and up to 4GB of RAM, according to the company.
Acer subsidiary Gateway has begun shipping a rebranded “A60” version of Acer's 10.1-inch Iconia Tab A500 Honeycomb tablet. Meanwhile Vodafone announced Smart Tab 7 and Smart Tab 10 Android 3.2 tablets, and Medion unveiled both a Lifetab P9514 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet and an unnamed 4.3-inch Android smartphone.
Amazon's Android tablet is a seven-inch, Kindle-branded device that will feature a customized operating system and sell for $250, according to a TechCrunch reporter who claims to have spent an hour with the device. In other Android tablet news, Samsung pulled its freshly announced Galaxy Tab 7.7 from the IFA show in Berlin after Apple won a preliminary injunction against the tablet from a German court.
Win Enterprises announced a fanless, embedded box computer designed to use Via Technologies' Nano or Eden processors, ranging up to a 1.3GHz Nano. The PL-80320 is equipped with 512MB RAM, CompactFlash and SATA storage, PCI Express expansion, dual gigabit Ethernet ports, eight COM ports, and four USB 2.0 ports.
Trimble's ThingMagic division has integrated Linux-based Mercury5e (M5e) embedded UHF RFID (radio frequency identification) reader modules into long-range RFID readers from TagMaster. Aimed primarily at the railway industry, TagMaster's XT-2 is already shipping, and the XT-3 and XT-3HD Readers are on the way and available with an open source Linux SDK.
The Canonical-backed Ubuntu project released the first beta of Ubuntu 11.10 (“Oneiric Ocelot”), featuring both an improved Dash interface for the Unity desktop and a makeover for the Ubuntu Software Center that resembles the Mac App Store. Ubuntu 11.10 moves up to Linux 3.0.3, the Firefox 7.0 browser, and a Thunderbird 7.0 beta email client, among other changes.