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Compal Android tablet with next-gen Tegra demoed at CES (video)
Man, it's almost like every hour we come across another tablet-esque device here at CES 2010, and this time around it's a prototype concept device from Compal being shown off by NVIDIA. This 7-inch tablet / slate / MID / whatever was running Android 2.0 and packed Wifi -- sadly, there was no GPS or Bluetooth to be found. Up top there was a SIM card slot as well as a microSD card slot for extra storage, and an HDMI out port around the side. Unfortunately, the device is plagued from the start as its rocking a resistive touchscreen instead of a capacitive one. Despite the next-gen Tegra chip inside, our user experience was pretty abysmal, with touches barely registering and general usability pretty low. However, once we got some HD video up on the display, we got to see that Tegra doing what it was made to do... and it almost made up for that horrendous resistive display. %Gallery-82176%
Nvidia shows off Unreal Engine 3 on Tegra
NVidia chose to show off the processing power of the new version of its mobile Tegra processor the same way many companies demonstrate their big-boy processors: with Unreal Engine 3. On stage at its CES presentation, NVidia demonstrated an FPS running on the processor -- the same processor the company demonstrated in several portable tablet-type devices. Though Epic's Tim Sweeney classified it as the "same engine" that runs on PC, Engadget described it as "A lot like the iPhone demo we saw recently. Certainly impressive, but this isn't an Xbox 360 yet." And, in fact, the environment bears a resemblance to that from the iPhone demo. Nonetheless, the demonstration prove that Tegra is quite powerful for a chip designed for handheld devices -- and one that's rumored to be part of a future DS system.
Boxee Box confirmed to have Tegra 2, Boxee Beta now open to all
We had a hunch that it might be the case, and Boxee has now finally come out and confirmed that the Boxee Box is indeed powered by Tegra 2. What's more, while you can't get your hands on it just yet, everyone can now finally the Boxee Beta, which first became available to a select few exactly one month ago. Right now, that's available for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu, and Boxee is promising to make a version for Apple TV available at some point. Hit up the link below and scroll down a bit to find the download link.
Verizon and NVIDIA team up for 1080p, LTE sportin' tablet PC
Don't worry, gang, we've still got our eyes peeled for that Tegra-based smartpad Notion Ink promised us. In the meantime, did you know that Verizon, NVIDIA, and Innovative Converged Devices have put together a 1080p HD Internet tablet of their own? Well, now you do. The Tegra-powered Ultra tablet supports streaming HD media and rocks a Motorola 4G wireless modem operating over Verizon's pre-commercial LTE network. There's no word on a price or release date (we're guessing it'll coincide with the big roll out), but we do have some pretty fresh PR for you. Peep it after the break, yo.
Audi teams up with NVIDIA for next-gen MMI replete with Google Earth, Vibrante entertainment system
As if NVIDIA hasn't been busy enough this year, what with its next generation Tegra chips and all, looks like the kids have inked a deal with Audi to supply the GPU for its new in-dash navigation and entertainment system. The 3G MMI system sports something called the Vibrante engine for dual zone entertainment (allowing different media on dash and backseat monitors), as well as Google Earth, 3D topography, real-time traffic reporting and navigation, iPod, SD card, USB memory stick support, and online video via the optional EDGE modem (funny, mums the word on handwriting recognition). This bad boy starts shipping with the Audi A8 in 2011, and moves on to all of the manufacturer's cars in the model year 2012. PR after the break.
NVIDIA announces Tegra 2, tablets en route
As expected, NVIDIA just announced Tegra 2, the next generation of its ARM-based Tegra platform. The new processor is a 40nm chip that's supposedly much lower power than Atom and even Snapdragon, and can still do full HD streaming and HDMI out. Supported OS's include Windows CE, Windows Mobile and Android, with Chrome OS on the drawing board -- "hundreds" of test systems are out there, and devs can order their own test units this month. It'll take a while before we see shipping production hardware, but NVIDIA says plenty of partners will be announcing Tegra 2 tablets with five to ten-inch touchscreens at CES. Why tablets and not smartbooks? Because consumers get confused when they see a keyboard and assume they're getting a full computer. Smart thinking, if you ask us. Oh, and this is interesting: there are some big wins with embedded systems in cars, so your next ride could be Tegra-powered. As for Tegra 1, it's still around and set to be a big part of some upcoming phones; we'll wait to see what happens on that front. PR after the break.
ICD's Tegra tablet officially dubbed the Vega, headed to T-Mobile UK
It's been a long, strange trip for this particular tablet, but it looks like ICD's once mysterious Tegra tablet has now finally found a home at T-Mobile UK, where it will soon be offered as the Vega. Somewhat interestingly, T-Mobile is now positioning this one as a tablet for the whole family, and says that the device is designed primarily to sit in the kitchen to let families keep watch on the household calendar and manage their schedules -- although it's also of course still capable of things like 1080p video playback, and just about everything else you'd expect from a 15-inch Android-based tablet. Otherwise, it seems to be mostly unchanged from what we've seen in prototype form, although T-Mobile is still describing it as a concept "in the final stages of development," so some things could still get shaken up before it rolls out sometime before the end of the year.
Google's Chrome OS-based netbook specs leak out
We've already seen that early builds of Google's Chromium OS can be hacked onto existing machines, but those Chrome OS netbooks that the software giant has planned for next year have remained curiously elusive until now. According to both IBTimes and Netbook News, the company is in talks with a number of outfits in order to bring at least a few sub-$300 options to the market that are well suited to power through its first non-mobile operating system. For starters, we're told that the 10.1-inch machine will be ARM-based, while NVIDIA's Tegra platform (likely the second generation) steers the graphical ship. There's also promise of a multitouch panel (1,280 x 720 resolution), 64GB SSD, WiFi, 2GB of RAM, integrated 3G connectivity, Bluetooth, an Ethernet jack, an undisclosed amount of USB sockets, webcam, 3.5mm audio jack, a multi-card reader, a 4- or 6-cell battery and optional GPS. Wilder still, a $200 configuration could very well pop up, and it looks as if (at least initially) Google will sell the device(s) directly through its own website -- much like Fusion Garage has done with the Joojoo tablet. 'Course, it'll still take some arm twisting to get the low-end crowd to try anything not labeled "Windows," but if anyone can do it, it's the company that inexplicably kept Gmail in "beta" for over five years.
Notion Ink's Adam gets a name, June 2010 release
Well, the first bit of news here is immediately apparent -- the heretofore untitled tablet device coming out of India has now been given the name of Adam. After ruffling a few feathers a week ago with its extremely ambitious battery life projections and admittedly mouthwatering Tegra plus Pixel Qi combo, Notion Ink is back with more details on the project. We understand the company is now discussing 3G testing with Indian and US operators (its 3G bands are compatible with AT&T's networks), and there's also a planned landing date in June. Can't say we're too excited about a launch six months from now -- other Pixel Qi devices may well beat the Adam to market -- but there's also the pleasantly small matter of the price, which in this case is projected to be an aggressively low 15,000 rupees (about $321). CrunchPad part deux? Only time will tell. [Thanks, bala]
ASUS Eee Pad rumored to have multitouch, Tegra
Details on ASUS's rumored Eee Pad were fairly light when the rumors first surfaced, but it looks like things are now starting to get fleshed out a bit more as we near a possible announcement at CES next month. The latest word comes from Netbooknews' sources, who have reportedly all but confirmed that the tablet / handheld will indeed have full multitouch capabilities, and that it definitely won't be running Windows CE (still no word what it will be running). Slightly less certain but more interesting is talk that the Eee Pad will run on NVIDIA's Tegra platform -- or, possibly, Tegra 2, which just so happens to be slated to launch at CES as well.
Notion Ink smartpad comes with Tegra, aims to be first Pixel Qi device
Now here's a way to excite all the tablet naysayers. Slap that ultra-efficient Tegra chipset inside a 10.1-inch touchscreen tablet, make the display a matte (yay!) Pixel Qi slice of glory and then stand back as all of geekdom rejoices. We're still only looking at renders, but this device is all set to make waves at CES with an impressive spec sheet that also includes WiFi, Bluetooth, UMTS/HSDPA, and A-GPS on the wireless front and connectivity via USB, HDMI, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The most important thing is still that display, though, whose efficiency leads to the unnamed device boasting 48 hours of battery standby juice, also good for 8 hours of HD video playback or 16 hours of WiFi-enabled Engadget reading. Driven by a default (for now) Android UI and supposedly capable of running three simultaneous 1080p streams with little frame loss, this should be one hot piece of kit come January. For now, we have another shot after the break as well as the full data sheet.
NVIDIA promises Tegra 2 chipset and third party hardware at CES
For an upstart mobile chipset, Tegra seemed off to a decent start in 2009, but with a minimum of actual hardware actually on shelves for the holidays, we're supposed to look to 2010 now for Tegra's big break -- according to NVIDIA, anyway. NVIDIA plans to unveil its next-gen Tegra 2 chipset at CES in January, which is rumored to be around twice as powerful as the original, and we're supposed to be seeing a bunch of "interesting form factors" along side (like that Tegra tablet pictured above, for instance). We're told to expect tablet PCs, smartbooks, netbooks and MIDs running Tegra in the first half of next year, but the real traction is supposed to take place with the first smartphone entries in the second half of 2010. It sounds like a long time to wait.
Core Values: What's next for NVIDIA?
Core Values is our new monthly column from Anand Shimpi, Editor-in-chief of AnandTech. With over a decade of experience poring over the latest in chip developments, he's here to explain how things work and why our tech is the way it is. I remember the day AMD announced it was going to acquire ATI. NVIDIA told me that its only competitor just threw in the towel. What a difference a few years can make. The last time NVIDIA was this late to a major DirectX transition was seven years ago, and the company just quietly confirmed we won't see its next-generation GPU, Fermi, until Q1 2010. If AMD's manufacturing partner TSMC weren't having such a terrible time making 40nm chips I'd say that AMD would be gobbling up marketshare like a fat kid. By the time NVIDIA gets its entire stack of DX11 hardware out the gate, AMD will be a quarter away from putting out newly refreshed GPUs. Things aren't much better on the chipset side either -- for all intents and purposes, the future of NVIDIA's chipset business in the PC space is dead. Not only has NVIDIA recently announced that it won't be pursuing any chipsets for Intel's Core i3, i5. or i7 processors until its various legal disputes with Intel are resolved, It doesn't really make sense to be a third-party chipset vendor anymore. Both AMD and Intel are more than capable of doing chipsets in-house, and the only form of differentiation comes from the integrated graphics core -- so why not just sell cheap discrete GPUs for OEMs to use alongside Intel chipsets instead? Even Ion is going to be short lived. NVIDIA's planning to mold an updated graphics chip into an updated chipset for the next-gen Atom processor, but Pine Trail brings the memory controller and graphics onto the CPU and leaves NVIDIA out in the cold once again. Let's see, no competitive GPUs, no future chipset business. This isn't looking good so far -- but the one thing I've learned from writing about these companies for the past 12 years is that the future's never as it seems. Chances are, NVIDIA's going to look a lot different in the future because of two things: Tesla and Tegra.
NVIDIA Tegra tablet prototype hands-on
Hey, remember that mystery tablet NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was pimping a mere couple of weeks ago? Well, it's made its way to London, and woe betide the Engadget editor who didn't get a hands-on with such an exclusive piece of hardware. So what we're looking at here is a Windows CE-powered, resistive touchscreen display spanning somewhere around 15 to 16 inches, with the same Tegra internals as may be found in the Zune HD or one of them smartbook devices. As we reported earlier, the company behind the machine is ICD, and this particular unit was built to try and entice T-Mobile into placing a few orders. Being a prototype, the device on hand was quite literally rough around the edges, but what we saw was appetite-whetting. The overall construction is under an inch thin, 720p video playback was excellent, and there's even a terrific-looking wireless recharge station cum base accessory -- think of Palm's Touchstone, only enlarged and magnetized to the point where it can support the whole tablet in an upright position. If somebody marries all that hardware potential with the Stantum multitouch firmware and a more finger-friendly OS, this thing just might make the whole Apple tablet brouhaha utterly irrelevant. Video after the break.
Hardware battle looms for theoretical successors to Nintendo DS and Sony PSP
It's a sorry state of affairs when a media player like the Zune HD has more polygon-pushing power than the latest handheld videogame consoles on the market. If rumors are to be believed, Nintendo and Sony will set things straight with their next-generation portables -- at least for a little while. We've already heard that the successor to Nintendo's DS will have Tegra power, but the current speculation is that it'll be a Tegra 2 chip, promising twice the power of the current iteration. On the Sony side the PSP2 is apparently shaping up to use an offspring of the IMG PowerVR graphics found on the iPhone, said to be theoretically superior to what the DS2 will be able to achieve but costing more, being more difficult to develop for, and not shipping until sometime in 2011 -- potentially a year later than the DS2. In other words it's standard operating procedure if these rumors are to be believed, but even if there aren't any surprises in this showdown we'll be there in the front row with popcorn to watch the bloodshed.
Mobinnova Beam Tegra smartbook hits the FCC en route to AT&T
Looks like AT&T will be launching at least two smartbooks at CES -- the Tegra-powered Mobinnova Beam just hit the FCC database with a device ID of BEAMATT. Yeah, that's not so subtle. Sadly the listing doesn't have much else to say about the machine formerly known as élan, but we're guessing we'll find out way more about what AT&T's got planned for these not-quite-netbooks in Vegas.
ICD confirms Vega tablet, includes Android 2.0, Tegra processor, our hearts
The CrunchPad may be dead, but with devices like this on the docket forgive us if we're not shedding any tears. The mystery tablet from earlier this week is the Vega from Innovative Converged Devices, or ICD. Available in 7-, 11-, and 15-inch sizes it's a simple but beautifully svelte design, and with that Tegra processor should have plenty of muscle. The resistive nature of those screens may be a bit of a bummer for some, but naturally it'll do everything Android does -- though without a GPS sensor we're guessing Google Navigation is out. The only questions left left now are when, how much, and who will be pumping the bits to its cellular antennae? Those are answers we hope to bring you from Vegas in two months' time.
Zune HD Marketplace now loaded with free 3D games
That latest update to the Zune HD's brainstem has unlocked an extra dimension to the multifunctional device, which can now boast "3D gaming device" among its many accolades. Aside from fixing a significant issue on the music side, the firmware refresh has given the green light for the following games to enter the Marketplace: PGR: Ferrari Edition, Lucky Lane Bowling, Vans Sk8: Pool Service, Piano, Checkers, and Audiosurf: Tilt. Yep, the music-surfing game that seems almost tailor-made for accelerometer-equipped media players is ready for your ownership and enjoyment. The best part? All the titles are free. So what are you waiting for, pilgrims, get downloadin' and do come back to tell us how well that Tegra chip performs, won't you? Full PR after the break.
NVIDIA tablet mystery solved: an ODM Tegra prototype
NVIDIA just hit us with more info on that mysterious tablet Jen-Hsun Huang was pictured with yesterday, and the truth is just as we'd assumed: it's a Tegra prototype from an ODM called ICD that's being "actively" shopped to carriers around the world. Sorry, folks, no Apple involvement here -- although we're sure Jen-Hsun would enthusiastically embrace that possibility. As far as the ICD tablet goes, we're waiting for official confirmation on specs, but we got a credible tip this morning suggesting that it's currently running Windows CE with a resistive touchscreen, and that both Android and capacitive upgrades are in the cards, as well as multiple screen sizes. We're also told that the goal is a March 2010 launch and that T-Mobile might be involved, but we wouldn't take any of that to the bank until we hear for real -- stay tuned.
NVIDIA Tegra 2 to double performance, arrive in 2010?
Word on the grapevine is that NVIDIA is preparing to mount a fresh assault on the mobile front, with a successor to Tegra that moves to a dual-core ARM9 CPU and adds improved graphical performance to produce what's said to be twice the power. This sort of aggressive roadmap meshes with earlier rumors of a Tegra platform powering the next generation of Nintendo's DS, and promises an equally tantalizing upgrade to the Zune HD specs. Keep in mind that the info comes from those highly anonymous and entirely unaccountable "industry sources," but given the time that will pass between the availability of the first Tegra chipset and the suggested 2010 release of Tegra 2, it makes sense to believe that the engineers have had sufficient opportunity to optimize and energize their platform. It's not like NVIDIA has been wasting its time setting up anti-Intel websites and putting together snarky cartoons about its competition, right?
