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Sprint will ship the 4.3-inch HTC Evo 3D 4G smartphone and seven-inch HTC Evo View 4G tablet on June 24 for $200 and $400, respectively. Both devices run Android 2.3, and offer the latest Sense UI layer — which is now supported with a new HTCdev developer site and an OpenSense SDK to tap the Evo 3D 4G's 3D capabilities and the Evo View 4G's Scribe pen technology.
A newly unveiled startup says it has devised a CMOS platform that can cut the active power consumption of “a wide range of integrated circuit products” by half, and leakage power consumption by up to five times. SuVolta says its “PowerShrink” platform has already been licensed by Fujitsu, which will offer it in 65nm products in 2012.
X2 announced two ruggedized, anti-bacterial Intel Atom Z530-powered tablets aimed at the healthcare market. The 10.4-inch X2312MD and 8.9-inch X2390MD tablets offer up to 2GB RAM, flash storage options ranging up to 128GB, Wi-Fi, USB and audio ports, and a wide range of I/O options ranging from 3G to RFID to smart card readers, says the company.
Zotac announced a mini-PC featuring Via's recently announced, dual-core Nano X2 processor. The latest in the company's “Zbox” line, it features four USB ports, an Ethernet port, both HDMI and DVI/DisplayPort video outputs, and an eSATA port, according to the company.
Ubuntu sponsor Canonical says that Ubuntu 10.10 is now available pre-loaded on three Asus Eee PC netbooks: the 1001PXD, 1011PX, and 1015PX. Meanwhile, System76 announced a dual-core Intel Atom N570 version of its Ubuntu 11.04-powered Starling netbook, as well as a new 15.6-inch “Pandolin” laptop that runs Ubuntu on an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor.
Google has apparently taken great pains to secure its Google Wallet mobile payment service for Android, employing a secure near field communication (NFC) chip to store credit card information. Yet security experts suggest that the service is open to a variety of attack strategies from malicious apps.
Aaeon announced an 18.5-inch panel PC that looks and works like an overgrown tablet. The ACP-5812 has a capacitive touchscreen with two-point multitouch, a dual-core Intel Atom D510 processor, CompactFlash and hard disk storage, and two Mini PCI expansion slots, according to the company.
Axiomtek announced a 3.5-inch single board computer equipped with a 1.65GHz, dual-core AMD G-Series T56N processor and up to 4GB DDR3 RAM. The Capa110 supports HD video and dual-display capability via DisplayPort and VGA connectors, provides real-world dual gigabit Ethernet and dual USB 2.0 ports, and has onboard interfaces including serial, LVDS, SATA, and four more USB ports.
IDC has downgraded its forecast for growth in PC shipments to just 4.2 percent in 2012. However, sales will rebound in 2012 to a less-anemic 10 or 11 percent, the research firm adds.
ViewSonic announced a new ViewBook tablet line, starting with a Android 2.2-powered, seven-inch ViewBook 730 with a 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, all for $250. At Computex last week, the company also tipped a more powerful Nvidia Tegra 2-based seven-inch tablet called the ViewPad 7x, running Android 3.x.
Toshiba has announced that its 10.1-inch, Tegra 2-based Thrive tablet will ship with Android 3.1 on July 10, starting at $429. Meanwhile, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 will ship on Verizon and T-Mobile with Android 3.1 on June 8, according to reports — although another rumor claims the Samsung launch will be delayed due to bugs.
HP is actively considering licensing its WebOS operating system to other manufacturers, according to industry reports. “It's not correct to believe that [WebOS] should only be on HP devices,” HP CEO Leo Apotheker was said to have told an audience at AllThingsD's D9 conference.
In a surprising move, Oracle handed over the source code for OpenOffice.org to its erstwhile adversary, Apache. In the process, the open source office productivity suite is also switching from GPL to Apache licensing, reducing the chances of any reconciliation with forked rival LibreOffice, which has been supplanting OpenOffice on Linux desktop distros.
After relatively slow early sales, Asus, Motorola, and Samsung have reduced their Android tablet manufacturing plans by about 10 percent, according to a JP Morgan analyst. Meanwhile, the rumored Amazon.com Android tablet could sell 2.4 million units in 2012 without significantly cannibalizing the company's Kindle e-reader sales, according to a Piper Jaffray analyst.
Texas Instruments (TI) has goosed the clock speed and graphics of its ARM Cortex-A9 SoCs (systems on chip), offering dual CPU cores running at up to 1.8GHz. The OMAP4470 DirectX 9-capable Powervr SGX544 graphics, can run three displays at up to 2048 x 1546 pixel resolution, and supports Android, Linux, and the newly announced Windows 8, the company says.