AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint announced a bevy of Android smartphones — and a few tablets — on the first day of this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Highlights include the Sony Xperia Ion phone at AT&T, the Motorola Droid 4 and Razr Maxx on Verizon, and Sprint's first LTE phones: the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper.

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Toshiba announced “the world's thinnest 10-inch tablet,” measuring 0.3 inches (7.7mm) thick and weighing 1.18 pounds (535 grams). Heading for a 1Q U.S. release, the Excite X10 runs the “latest” Android build on a 1.2GHz TI OMAP4430 processor, has 1GB RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of storage, offers a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS display, and includes five- and two-megapixel cameras.

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Lenovo announced two new devices that run Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) on a dual-core, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 processor. One is a 10.1-inch tablet with a detachable keyboard dock and up to 20 hours' battery life (the IdeaTab S2), while the other is a television with an in-plane switching (IPS) display and voice-activated remote control (the K91 Smart TV), according to the company.

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Always Innovating announced a tiny open source, IP set-top box (STB) that runs Android 4.0 on a Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor clocked as high as 1.8GHz. The HDMI Dongle plugs directly into a TV's HDMI port, and provides up to 1GB of RAM, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a remote control that offers NFC, accelerometers, and voice control.

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One Laptop per Child (OLPC) demonstrated a “fully functional” version of its long-delayed XO 3.0 tablet, equipped with a 1GHz Marvell Armada PXA618 processor running Sugar Linux or Android 3.x. Like OLPC's XO 2 laptop, the eight-inch tablet is aimed at educational systems in developing nations, and it will feature an optional sunlight-readable Pixel Qi touchscreen plus the ability to draw power from an optional solar panel or crank charger.

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Freescale Semiconductor announced versions of its ARM Cortex-A9-based i.MX 6 chips that are equipped with E Ink EPD controllers, making the processors suitable for driving e-readers and low-cost tablets. The single-core, 1GHz i.MX 6SoloLite exclusively targets e-readers, while the dual-core, 1GHz i.MX 6DualLite is designed for a broader array of devices, including “media tablets.”

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Smartphone manufacturers are increasingly focusing their efforts on emerging markets, says ABI Research, which forecasts the mobile handset market in general growing 8 percent in 2012, representing 1.67 million shipments. Meanwhile, IDC projects that by 2015, the world's mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2 percent of the total workforce, with the greatest growth expected in emerging markets.

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Advantech announced two rugged industrial box PCs based on Intel's new dual-core “Cedar Trail” Atom processors. The ARK-2120L and similar ARK-2120F support both the 1.6GHz Atom N2600 or 2.13GHz D2700 processors, as well as up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, and provide CompactFlash, SATA, VGA, HDMI, and gigabit Ethernet connections, as well as varying amounts of USB 2.0 and serial ports.

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Wind River announced three modular versions of its Android development platform. Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android are available in User Experience, Connectivity and Medical modules, offering features such as multi-windowing support, DLNA media sharing, multimedia and sync interfaces, firmware management, IEEE 11073-compliant medical data exchange, and 30 percent faster boot-times, claims the company.

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Lenovo has announced a 13.3-inch notebook computer that has both Intel and ARM processors. The ThinkPad X1 Hybrid combines an Core i3, i5, or i7 CPU with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon, allowing users to toggle between Windows 7 and a Linux-based “Instant Media Mode” operating system whenever they want.

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Broadcom announced four “5G WiFi” chips, which implement the 802.11ac draft specification to provide wireless networking at speeds up to 1.3Gbps. The BCM4360, BCM4352, BCM43526, and BCM43516 operate at 5GHz, employ 80MHz channel bandwidth, and use a “beamforming” feature to increase signal strength, the company says.

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WonderMedia Technologies announced a Cortex-A9 processor with support for Android 4.0 and Windows Embedded Compact 7. The Prizm WM8950 is limited to a single, 800MHz ARM core, but the system-on-chip also offers an ARM Mali-400 3D graphics processing unit, 1080p video decoders, a security engine, and support for peripherals including HDMI, LVDS, and DVI video outputs.

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[Updated: Jan. 9] — Linus Torvalds announced the release of the Linux 3.2 kernel, featuring file-system enhancements such as support for larger block sizes in Ext4, and faster scrubbing with Btrfs. Other Linux 3.2 highlights are said to include process scheduler improvements, better thin provisioning support in the Device Mapper, improved desktop responsiveness for heavy write-backs, and new Wi-Fi and graphics drivers.

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Google is switching its Google TV platform from the Intel Atom to a new dual-core ARMv7 processor from Marvell. The dual-core, 1.2GHz Armada 1500 HD Media system on chip (SoC) — featuring a Qdeo video subsystem capable of processing 3D HD video streams — will be built into Marvell's Foresight Platform reference design for Google TV, according to the chipmaker.

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Via Technologies added to its range of Mini-ITX boards with a device “designed specifically for POS and kiosk applications.” The VB7009 supports up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, provides eight USB 2.0 ports and up to six powered serial ports, has two gigabit Ethernet ports, and offers a PCI expansion slot, according to the company.

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