!!!....Electronics world....!!!

Intel CEO Paul Otellini hinted that Windows 8 tablet  production may not be that far off, while asserting that  Android  tablets won't be able to compete against the  iPad  until Ice Cream Sandwich becomes more widespread. In an earnings conference call  after the chip giant posted better than expected earnings today , Otellini said Android-based tablets don't have what it takes to compete against the iPad--yet. "Tablets are a little bit about hardware and an awful lot about software," he said. "Until you get to Ice Cream Sandwich, the offering isn't as powerful as with what's out there with Apple. As Ice Cream Sandwich tablets start shipping, you'll begin to see a little bit better receptivity...everything got a little bit better with ICS," he said, referring to Android 4.0. Then he made an interesting comment about Windows 8 tablets and production schedules. "The other part of that test [of competing with iPad] of course is t...

AS VEGAS--Texas Instruments is offering one of the most revealing demos of Windows 8 on  ARM  yet at CES .                           That's not saying a lot, though, as demos of Microsoft's next operating system on ARM processors have been extremely restrictive, if nonexistent to date in public (Nvidia's untouchable, relatively static CES demo is behind closed glass). But TI pushed the boundaries a bit in a demo for CNET at CES. The demo  tapped TI's freshly minted OMAP4470 ARM processor , according to Bill Crean, an OMAP product marketing manager. Needless to say, I was not permitted to take video. But TI's Crean demonstrated live scrolling with Windows 8 Explorer on the CNN news site. Scrolling was fluid and I didn't see the jerkiness that I do get, by the way, with my Verizon-Motorola XyBoard  tablet  on  Android  3.2. Again, that's not revealing a lot, but Windows 8 on ARM is a...

Row upon row of tablets at CES 2012. In spite of manufacturers' best efforts, the  tablet  hits of the past year could have been counted on the hand of a careless woodshop teacher. Among those hits are a  $199 tablet  designed as a loss leader, and an orphaned  HP tablet  that was abandoned in the liquidation bin. Needless to say, if there had been a thin selection of tablets at this year's  CES , I would have understood. But that wasn't the case. The show floor of CES 2012 was littered with tablets--perhaps even more than the previous year. Granted, the majority of these tablets were off-brands and OEMs that will never find their way into U.S. hands, but there were big-name announcements as well. Asus's Memo 370T tablet is one of the first tablets to pack Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor. As I see it, the tablets announced at CES came in three flavors: budget; premium; and mutant (not as bad as it sounds). Furthermore, I suspect that these themes wi...