MacRumors

Amongst the tablet hype at CES, NVIDIA made a major announcement on Thursday introducing their latest Tegra 2 mobile chipset. The Tegra 2 chipset incorporates 8 independent processors to handle web browsing, HD video encoding/decoding as well as mobile gaming. It also accomplishes all this with a very low power consumption. In part, this is accomplished by the use of the ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor. The ARM Cortex A9 is the same processor that has been rumored to be utilized in Apple's future tablet.

NVIDIA's Tegra 2 powered Tablets boasts the following features:

- Over 16 hours of HD video or 140 hours of music on a single charge
- Adobe Flash Player 10.1
- 10x faster than processors used in smartphones today
- Playback 1080p video

NVIDIA Chief Executive Jen-Hsuan Huang demoed a number of tablets at the event and declared that this year "is going to be the beginning of the tablet revolution".

Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeny also came on stage to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 running on the new Tegra 2 chipset. Sweeny states that the Tegra 2 has the same 3D power as current generation high end consoles.

Apple is widely expected to announce a tablet computer later this month. It remains conceivable that Apple could choose to adopt the NVIDIA Tegra 2 for their tablet. While Apple has been speculated to be working on their own version of the Dual-Core ARM Cortex A9 processor utilizing P.A. Semi's expertise, it seems unlikely they would be able to achieve the same 3D performance independent of NVIDIA.

CES, as a general technology event, doesn't offer a plethora of Apple-related news though plenty of Mac and iPhone/iPod-related accessories are in evidence on the show floor. While most accessories are not terribly exciting (many of the speakers, headphones, stands, cases, skins, bags, docks, etc. all start to look the same after a while), a couple of items stood out.

The first among these is an iPhone/iPod speaker dock by iLuv called the App Station. It works with the iPhone and iPod touch and requires a free app (not yet available) that turns the iPhone/iPod touch into an alarm clock in addition to displaying local weather information. The iPhone/iPod touch can also be rotated for video watching with sound output through the built-in speakers. We saw a demo of the app in action, though we were warned that the weather information feature was not working in the demo. The App Station will be available in February and will be priced at $129.

Meanwhile, Mophie debuted a new iPhone accessory that takes advantage of the dock connector and offers iPhone users a mobile payment system in the form of a magnetic strip reader at the bottom of a form-fitting hard case. The mophie marketplace requires mophie's free marketplace app (not yet available) and works with the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. It will be available next month according to a company representative and pricing has not yet been finalized.

The mophie marketplace is one of the few devices that make use of changes announced to the iPhone SDK early last year that allowed developers to create apps that can interface with the device's hardware and connected 3rd-party accessories.

Announcements are continuing in full force at CES today, with a number of Apple competitors showing off new gadgets looking to set the bar for technology in 2010.

Palm today unveiled several new products and initiatives, including the new Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, both destined for Verizon later this month. The Palm Pre Plus bumps storage to 16 GB from the 8 GB found in the original Pre and includes a Touchstone-compatible back cover to allow for wireless induction charging. The Palm Pixi Plus gains Wi-Fi capabilities, as well as multiple colors of Touchstone charging covers.

Both phones will be compatible with Palm's new mobile hotspot application, which allows users to set up mobile Wi-Fi networks using Verizon's 3G data services. Engadget and Gizmodo have both offered hands-on impressions of the new devices.

In addition to the hardware, Palm also announced the coming availability of a number of 3D games from such vendors as EA and Gameloft. Finally, Palm opened up its webOS developer program to all interested parties, and announced a $1 million "Hot Apps" prize pool for developers of the most successful applications.

Dell today also showed off its prototype 5-inch slate, an Android-based device offering a 5-megapixel camera and an apparent SIM card slot. Dell representatives have refused, however, to offer additional information on the device to this point.

With Apple's long-rumored tablet device reportedly set for an introduction later this month, much remains unknown about the operating system it will be using. Speculation has ranged from a touch-sensitive Mac OS X to a scaled-up iPhone OS to an all-new hybrid of the two, but little word has leaked from sources claiming to know details of what users can expect.

Today, Silicon Alley Insider reports that it has received a few vague comments about the tablet operating system from an "industry source" specifically claiming to have seen the OS.

- It's "pretty" -- obviously.
- "The UI has a good bit of new sexy to it."
- "It's a big iPhone, but it's not just a big iPhone."

As the report notes, the source's comments lend credence to the theory that Apple's tablet will run an operating system reasonably different from both iPhone OS and Mac OS X. A tablet OS based on iPhone OS seems to be a logical fit for the comments, offering something familiar from the iPhone OS but with a significant number of enhancements to create a new user experience more appropriate for the larger screen.

Patently Apple reports on a newly-published patent application from Apple disclosing research on touchscreen technology involving the use of pixels with dual-function capacitive elements that are capable of both displaying images and registering touch input. The invention is designed to simplify the current process of overlaying traditional image pixels with transparent touch sensing materials, thereby allowing for thinner and brighter touchscreen displays.

This relates to displays including pixels with dual-function capacitive elements. Specifically, these dual-function capacitive elements form part of the display system that generates an image on the display, and also form part of a touch sensing system that senses touch events on or near the display. The capacitive elements can be, for example, capacitors in pixels of an LCD display that are configured to operate individually, each as a pixel storage capacitor, or electrode, of a pixel in the display system, and are also configured to operate collectively as elements of the touch sensing system. In this way, for example, a display with integrated touch sensing capability may be manufactured using fewer parts and/or processing steps, and the display itself may be thinner and brighter.

The highly-technical patent application offers a number of examples of the technology, and provides three examples of devices that could benefit from the invention: an iPhone-like mobile phone, an iPod-like media player, and a personal computer. Not shown in the application but obviously a potential beneficiary of the technology would be a tablet-style device such as that rumored to be forthcoming from Apple.

The patent application, which was filed on September 29th, 2008, is credited to several Apple inventors, including prominent engineers Steve Hotelling and John Zhong.

After all the lead up, Intel finally officially announced the new Core i7, i5 and i3 chips this morning. These chips were previously known by the Arrandale and Clarksdale codenames. The new chips represents the arrival of the 32nm manufacturing process and the Intel Turbo Boost Technology. Information about the new processors have leaked out for months with benchmarks posted earlier this week.

For Apple followers, the processor of most interest is the Intel Core i5 (Arrandale) which represents the first mobile version of the Nehalem architecture that could be used in Apple's notebooks. Early benchmarks have shown performance boosts of 11-29% compared to the similarly clocked processors found in the MacBook Pro.

When asked during the Q&A portion at the end of the press conference about which new processors will appear in Apple's product lines, Sean Maloney, executive Vice President and General Manager of the Intel Architecture Group, replied, "I do not pre-announce our partners' products and I certainly don't pre-announce Apple's products."

GigaOM briefly noted late yesterday that Apple has added 30-second song samples to its browser-based iTunes Preview pages that quietly appeared several months ago. The report notes that Apple is serving the previews, which are encoded in 44.1 KHz AAC format at 300+ kbps, via QuickTime.

The addition is a likely benefit of Apple's recent acquisition of Lala Media, a popular web-based streaming media company. Prior to its acquisition by Apple, Lala had reached a deal with Google to provide song samples in Google search results.

After some technical difficulties resulted in delays kicking things off, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer this evening is currently giving the opening keynote for the CES conference in Las Vegas. After word surfaced that Ballmer would be introducing a slate-style tablet device tonight, many Apple watchers have been interested to see how Microsoft's offering might compare to Apple's tablet reportedly due for introduction later this month. Speculation had suggested that Ballmer might be introducing a tablet device from its "Courier" development program, but later reports tempered those expectations.

Just as Ballmer took the stage this evening, Microsoft prematurely posted a press release covering the highlights of Ballmer's presentation, and in highlighting the impact of Microsoft's Windows 7 release, the report notes Ballmer's demonstration of three new computer systems, including a brief mention of a slate-style PC from HP.

Current and future hardware shown on stage included:

- A new touch-enabled slate PC from HP
- The Sony VAIO L all-in-one laptop built for HD entertainment and multimedia content creation, and including a 24-inch touchscreen
- The Lenovo A300, one of the thinnest PCs yet at just 18mm, but with a 21.5-inch HD widescreen LED display

Ballmer's introduction of slate-style tablet devices briefly highlighted three examples from Pegatron, Archos, and HP. In focusing on the HP slate, Ballmer offered an example of the device running a Kindle application and noted only that the product will be coming later this year, with no pricing information given. HP has also posted a brief video teaser for the forthcoming device.

Other scheduled topics of conversation in Ballmer's address, aided by Entertainment & Devices Division President Robbie Bach, are Microsoft's Bing search engine, Xbox and Xbox LIVE, Windows-based phones, connected entertainment, Mediaroom 2.0 IPTV tools, and Xbox gaming, including the company's "Project Natal" controller-free gaming experience.

A pair of reports today from Scott Moritz of TheStreet share claims from Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar that Qualcomm has struck a deal with Apple to provide a 3G EV-DO chip for a CDMA-based iPhone scheduled for launch later this year and that Apple has also officially decided against utilizing Intel's Atom platform in its forthcoming tablet device.

In the first report, Kumar claims that Apple had been hoping to land a multi-mode chip such as that being developed by Qualcomm to enable the company to continue offering a single type of iPhone, but that Qualcomm and other vendors have been unable to produce the necessary chips to meet Apple's timeline.

Consequently, Apple has reportedly selected a traditional EV-DO chip from Qualcomm for a new iPhone capable of running on Verizon's network. According to the report, AT&T's exclusivity agreement with Apple for the iPhone in the U.S. expires in June of this year, opening the door for a Verizon iPhone.

Initially, Apple sought a chip that would allow it to sell a world phone, one that was compatible with the two leading wireless technologies -- GSM and CDMA.

But Qualcomm and others failed to deliver. Instead, Apple elected to go with Qualcomm in its Verizon iPhone, which is expected to arrive soon after AT&T's exclusive contract with Apple expires in June.

A vague comment from Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs in mid-November had indicated that the company was in discussions to bring its chips to the iPhone.

In the other report from Moritz, Kumar claims that Apple has chosen not to tap Intel for its Atom platform for use in the company's tablet device expected to be introduced later this month. According to another analyst, Apple has selected a chip from P.A. Semi, which it acquired in early 2008, to power its tablet. The decision means that Apple will spurn Intel's popular Atom platform used in the vast majority of netbooks with which the tablet may be expected to compete.

There has been speculation that Intel's new generation of Atom chips was in the running for the slot, but Apple ultimately chose a processor developed by P A Semi, a chip shop Apple acquired two years ago, according to another analyst familiar with the so-called build plan.

The news should not come as a surprise to many, as numerous reports have pointed to Apple's grooming of P.A. Semi's ARM-based processor designs for use in its tablet project, and even in the iPhone.

Moritz has had a mixed track record in the past, with his correct claim of iPhone 3G subsidies coming in contrast to an incorrect claim of an early 2008 launch of the iPhone 3G, an erroneous report of iPhone production drops, and a claim of a Verizon-subsidized tablet release by the end of 2009.

Apple has reportedly begun seeding Build 10D522 of Mac OS X 10.6.3 to a limited set of developers, marking the first official beta version of the third maintenance release for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. According to those familiar with the release, Apple has addressed approximately 225 issues in the update, which reportedly weighs in at roughly 666 MB.

Apple documents four remaining known issues in the current build, related to application updating, Displays preferences, iTunes hangs, and ColorSync Utility Filters.

Word surfaced nearly a month ago that a 10.6.3 beta release was imminent, but Apple apparently decided not to push any testing versions to developers until after the holidays. Apple's last update to Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.2, was released nearly two months ago.

CES kicks off today in Las Vegas with multiple press events and the conference's first keynote speech, given by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, who may or may not introduce a tablet device this evening.

D-Link and Boxee got off to an early start yesterday, officially announcing the Boxee Box. The new device is a stand-alone accessory that provides streamed content directly to a connected TV with no need for a computer intermediary. It will ship in the first half of 2010 and cost under $200. The Boxee Box is an alternative to using the free Boxee software that can be installed on Apple TV devices as well as computers running Macintosh, Windows, or Linux operating systems. Boxee has also made available an app to turn an iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless remote for Boxee software installed on a computer connected to a home media network.

The Boxee software install for Apple TV has been popular amongst our readers, as it brings access to a much broader variety of content than is accessible through the Apple TV's standard interface, and the launch of Boxee's own hardware box might be appealing to those who don't want to go through the trouble of the unsupported installation process.

Other announcements included Monster Cable, who announced a few new products, including iPhone-compatible headphones with additions to its Jamz in-ear headphones line. Netgear also stepped into the spotlight today, introducing new Mac-compatible broadband routers.

Former Apple Senior Marketing Manager John Martellaro today penned an interesting piece describing the company's strategy for issuing controlled leaks, pointing to Monday's Wall Street Journal article on Apple's tablet device as a likely instance of such an information release.

Martellaro notes that Apple engages in the practice of controlled leaks for a number of reasons, including motivational, market research, competitive, and hype-building concerns. Controlled leaks, which are always conducted in person or over the phone in order to leave no paper trail, also serve as a prime way for Apple to disseminate information while still appearing to maintain its veil of secrecy about unreleased products.

I know, because when I was a Senior Marketing Manager at Apple, I was instructed to do some controlled leaks.

The way it works is that a senior exec will come in and say, "We need to release this specific information. John, do you have a trusted friend at a major outlet? If so, call him/her and have a conversation. Idly mention this information and suggest that if it were published, that would be nice. No e-mails!"

Also noted is that fact that the Wall Street Journal report was credited to two authors, Yukari Kane and Geoffrey Fowler, which introduces some ambiguity into who is responsible for the report and provides a convenient means of plausible deniability. Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's highest-profile technology writer, was also not involved in the story in order to preserve his leadership status and clean image rather than subjecting his reputation to the risks of such strategies.

U.S. iPhone wireless carrier partner AT&T yesterday announced the completion of its nationwide software upgrade program designed to make all of its 3G cell sites compatible with 7.2 Mbps data speeds, double the current standard.

The deployment of High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 technology across 3G cell sites is the first of multiple initiatives in AT&T's network enhancement strategy designed to provide customers with the best possible mobile broadband experience, both today and well into the future. After full testing of HSPA 7.2 software, AT&T decided to expedite deployment of this initial upgrade, which will result in a better overall customer experience by generally improving consistency in accessing data sessions. The software upgrade also prepares the network for faster speeds and increases network efficiency.

The faster speeds, which are supported by the iPhone 3GS, will not be available to users, however, until AT&T upgrades its backhaul connections, which the carrier plans to do over the next two years. Backhaul upgrades are currently being performed in the carrier's six test markets, with the faster HSPA 7.2 speeds being activated as infrastructure work is completed. The company anticipates that the majority of its 3G traffic will be shifted to HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2010, with the remainder following in 2011.

AT&T is also continuing to look beyond HSPA 7.2 to deployment of LTE (4G) beginning in 2011, which will offer even better performance for users.

The backhaul upgrades are also a key step in the evolution toward next-generation LTE mobile broadband technology. AT&T is designing its new backhaul deployments to accommodate both faster 3G and future LTE deployments. AT&T currently plans to begin trials of LTE technology this year, and to begin LTE deployment in 2011, matching industry time lines for widespread availability of compelling devices and supporting network equipment.

The New York Times reported last night that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is set to introduce a new tablet device during his keynote address tonight at CES in Las Vegas.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, will unveil a novel take on a slate-type computer during his evening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to people familiar with Microsoft's plans. The slate will be made by Hewlett-Packard and possibly available by mid-year, these people said.

According to the report, Microsoft's tablet will be positioned as a multimedia device offering e-reader and multi-touch functionality, very similar to the rumored capabilities of Apple's tablet device. Apple's tablet is rumored to be introduced later this month, with multiple sources reporting that it will begin shipping in March.

Several months ago, Gizmodo published a series of articles highlighting Microsoft's prototype "Courier" multi-touch booklet device. It is unclear what relation, if any, today's rumored release has to the "Courier" project.

Update: BoomTown reports that while Ballmer may show off tablet-like devices as part of his keynote focusing on Windows 7 and the company's "software plus services" positioning, there will be no formal introduction of a slate-style tablet device or its "Courier" device in particular.

With their upcoming tablet, Apple may be offering the flexibility that many prospective U.S. iPhone owners have wished for: carrier independence. According to a Broadpoint AmTech analyst, Apple will be offering 3G wireless data networking on their Tablet with multiple providers with Verizon support a "certainty".

This would mean that customers will be able to choose from a number of mobile providers for their Tablet's data service when not near a Wi-Fi hotspot. This would allow Tablet users to browse the web, check their email, and more wherever there was 3G service. Such connectivity is taken for granted on mobile phones such as the iPhone, but is increasingly expected for other mobile devices.

iPhone owners in the U.S., however, are presently restricted to AT&T service only due to exclusivity agreements between Apple and AT&T which are expected to expire in mid 2010.