MacRumors

The New York Times offers some additional tidbits that might come in the rumored Apple Tablet.

According to former Apple employees, Apple has been working on advanced multi-touch gesturing that was originally pioneered by FingerWorks. Apple acquired FingerWorks a number of years ago and has been leveraging their multi-touch technology in their latest products. This news shouldn't be particularly surprising for anyone who has been following Apple for the past few years.

The most interesting report from the article is that Apple is said to have "spent the past couple of years working on a multitouch version of iWork". Such a version of iWork would presumably allow the upcoming Apple tablet to be used for document creation rather than solely content consumption. It would also blur the lines between the functions of tablet and that of a more traditional laptop computer.

Apple is rumored to be introducing their tablet computer later this month.

Pixel Qi provided demonstrations of its transflective screen for the press this morning and we were able to see it in action. Pixel Qi had first announced last month that production of its screens would start soon, with shipments of the first products to include it in Q1 of this year.

With the backlight on, the screen appears to be a standard LCD screen with an anti-glare finish. With the backlight off, the Pixel Qi screen closely resembles the e-ink screen of the Amazon Kindle and other ebook readers. While the contrast between the background and text on the Pixel Qi screen with its backlight off doesn't appear to offer the same contrast as the Kindle's e-ink screen to our naked eye, it's still quite readable and should be very capable in this mode to replicate the reading experience on a Kindle or similar device. These e-ink modes are said to be much better for the viewer in terms of both eye fatigue as well as reading speed and comprehension.

Pixel Qi representatives stated that their screen is scheduled to appear in a number of devices by the middle of the year, though they could not disclose the names of these device partners. Notion Ink has been the first to announce a device - an Android-based tablet dubbed Adam - that will have a Pixel Qi screen.

The viewing angle of this first generation screen, however, wasn't great, and while it is said to be comparable to other current netbook screens, it's hard to imagine that Apple would use this in their tablet. It's still a very promising technology and we're excited to see where it will eventually lead.

Elsewhere on the show floor, NVIDIA had a handful of early-development tablet models on display with its Tegra 2 chipset, including the ICD Vega and Notion Ink's Adam. The various tablets ran the Android operating system and featured capacitive touchscreen. No pricing or official release date information is available yet for any of the devices.

Hands on time with the devices were pretty limited, and, honestly, there wasn't really that much to do. Playback of HD video was demonstrated, but it was quickly apparent the scaled up Android operating system wasn't particularly well suited for tablet use. The on-screen keyboard was too big to use thumbs for typing, and otherwise awkward to hold to try to type more properly. To be fair, these are just development prototypes so certainly don't reflect the final shipping products. But it makes it clear that Apple will have had to address text input interface issues in their expected version of the tablet.

Reuters reports on information from Apple's supply chain indicating that touchscreens for the company's long-rumored tablet device are in manufacturing and that production of the device's casing, which is reportedly aluminum, will begin next month. The beginning of mass production of components for the device suggests that it is likely to launch in the second quarter of this year.

Suppliers for Apple Inc's new tablet computer have begun shipping touchscreen panels and will start delivering aluminum casings for it next month, sources said, implying a second-quarter product launch.

AVY Precision Technology Inc, a Taiwanese manufacturer of covers for electronic products, will begin production of the cases in February, two sources familiar with the situation said on Friday.

TPK Solutions, an unlisted touch screen panel maker also based in Taiwan will also supply panels for the product, a third source said, on top of those already being manufactured by another Taiwan company, Wintek Corp.

The claims follow relatively recent reports that Apple will begin mass production of the tablet next month with availability scheduled for March or April. Another report just days ago from The Wall Street Journal pointed to a March launch for the tablet, with two different material casings reportedly under consideration. The latest report, however, suggests that Apple has settled on an aluminum case for the device.

Claims of touchscreen suppliers for the tablet have been muddled over the past few months, with early reports that Wintek had been awarded the contract called into question that Foxconn subsidiary Innolux could be tapped for the screens.

AppleInsider reports on information from a source claiming that Apple is looking to acquire significant quantities of LED camera flash components, sparking speculation that the company is planning to add flash capabilities to its camera on the iPhone, and possibly the iPod touch should it also gain a camera.

People familiar with Apple's initiative claim the electronics maker is seeking allotments of LED camera flash components in the tens of millions for delivery during the 2010 calendar year, meaning future iPhones -- and possibly the iPod touch -- are the most likely recipients of those parts, due to their sales volume. Those same people say that Philips' Lumileds Lighting sector is believed to be the front-runner for Apple's business and may have already secured the design win.

Despite the generally-decent image quality of Apple's existing 3.2-megapixel camera in the iPhone 3GS, increasing numbers of smartphones, including the Motorola Droid and Google Nexus One, have been moving to 5-megapixel camera sensors with LED flash to assist in low-light situations.

Apple has reportedly secured orders with current camera sensor supplier OmniVision Technologies for large quantities of 5-megapixel camera sensors, likely destined for the next-generation iPhone. Apple had been planning to add a camera to the iPod touch when it was revised last September, but apparently scrapped the change relatively late in the design process, possibly due to challenges presented by the device's thin profile. Many still expect Apple to add a camera to the iPod touch in the future, although it is unknown how the company will deal with the design challenges.

Imagination Technologies today announced the launch of its PowerVR SGX545 graphics IP core, a new, high-end addition to the company's SGX series already used in the iPhone 3GS and third-generation iPod touch. In comparison to the SGX535 used in Apple's current handheld devices, the new SGX545 offers a number of enhancements, including increased performance of 40 million polygons per second (up from 28 million in the SGX535).

Says Tony King-Smith, VP Marketing, Imagination: "Combining our many years of experience in the embedded, mobile and PC-based DirectX graphics worlds, POWERVR SGX 545 takes the possibilities of hand-held graphics to a new level by delivering a full DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.x feature set as well as delivering GPU powered OpenCL heterogeneous parallel processing capabilities for the mobile and embedded markets. This makes POWERVR SGX545 a compelling solution for application processor SoC designers targeting the next generation of netbook and MID mobile products demanding exceptional graphics capabilities."

Imagination Technologies notes that the design has proven in test chips and has already been "licensed by a lead partner." While the partner is unnamed, Apple was revealed as a licensee and investor in Imagination Technologies in late 2008, and raised its stake in the company a few months later, signaling a strong interest in Imagination Technologies' product pipeline.

The PowerVR SGX545 combined with the Dual Core Cortex A9 ARM processor could be an alternative Apple Tablet option to the NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform released yesterday. It's not clear how this combination would compare to the NVIDIA solution in both performance and battery life.

The Daily News of Palo Alto, California reports that Apple has filed planning documents there for a new retail store that the company is calling "a new prototype for the company." While Apple's name has not been officially associated with the project in public filings and discussion, numerous sources have indicated that the company is the tenant involved in the project.

Planning documents indicate that the new store, which will be located less than two blocks from the company's existing Palo Alto retail store, will be about 10,700 square feet, over 50% larger than the current location. The new store's facade is planned to be completely transparent at street level, with large skylights allowing trees to grow inside the store, thus minimizing the transition from outside to inside and drawing customers in.

"The proposed store is a new prototype for the applicant," the developers wrote in a memo to the city. "Fully half the function of the store serves to provide education and service to business as well as customer patrons in addition to product sales. The store is a commons for the applicant's community to gather."

The memo adds that the transparent glass front "dissolves the boundary that traditional store facades create. By not breaking the horizontal ground plane of the sidewalk with opaque wall or landscape element, for example, the street is made part of the store's interior; the pedestrian is in the store before entering it."

At the opening of its new Upper West Side store in Manhattan late last year, Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson indicated that the company was shifting its plans to include larger and more iconic stores, noting that many of their existing stores are too small to function properly with the traffic they receive.

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.