Sharp begins production of High Pixel Density IGZO LCD panels

In March 2012 at Kameyama Plant No. 2, Sharp began producing the world’s first high-performance LCD panels incorporating IGZO oxide semiconductors. Sharp is expanding production scale through April to meet market demand.

IGZO (InGaZnO) is an oxide comprising indium (In), gallium (Ga), and zinc (Zn). A thin-film transistor using this material has been developed by Sharp in collaboration with Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. (a company based in Kanagawa, Japan, and led by President Shunpei Yamazaki).
 
By using IGZO oxide semiconductors, Sharp will be able to produce LCD screens that require lower energy consumption through smaller, thin-film transistors and increased pixel transparency.

The technology lends itself well to mobile devices that require low-power components. With a new breed of ultrabooks promised by Intel and updates to Apple's mobile lineup, it seems highly likely that Sharp will work its way in as a primary supplier of display panels.

Sharp has converted Kameyama Plant No. 2, which had previously been used to create advanced LCD panels for televisions, to produce small to medium-size screens for smartphones and other mobile devices.

A year ago, Sharp was rumored to be converting Kameyama Plant No. 1 from TV displays to low-temperature, polysilicon LCD screens to be used on a next-generation iPhone. Peter Misek, according to 9to5Mac, claims that up to 5 million Apple television units (iTVs) are being produced by Sharp for a May or June release.

Just as the new iPad was about to be released, it was reported that Sharp was not able to meet Apple's requirements for producing its IPS displays, despite earlier rumors that Sharp's IGZO technology would replace IPS for 2012's iPad.

Now, with an official company statement that Sharp is producing IGZO displays for mobile devices, expect to see plenty of rumors resurfacing that Apple's iPhone, iPad, and perhaps even iMacs and a television set, could all be using Sharp's IGZO displays.

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Google’s Nexus Tablet Render Leaked

Render me this, render me that, is this a Nexus tablet, or are we full of crap? Honestly, we can’t answer that one, as the render above looks like any other Android tablet we’ve seen before. While we do know the tablet is very real, we still can’t say for sure that we know anything other than the fact that the device will soon be announced. For now, feel free to soak in the picture above.

Rumors have pegged the device to launch sometime between May and June, which puts it in the prime position to be announced either sometime at CTIA Wireless in early May, or at the Google I/O conference in late June. Specifications for the tablet have been switched up once or twice, as we were initially expecting the device to ship with NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor, but now it seems that the search giant has opted for a cheaper, dual-core processor to keep costs down.

What’s odd about the render above is the size. As PocketNow points out, the tablet looks like it’s of the 10.1 inch variety and not the 7 inch tablet we’ve been expecting this whole time. (However, the amount of icons on the tablet indicate that this is a 7 inch device) We’d really like to see Google announce two tablets; one 7 inch and one 10.1 inch, but we have our doubts that will happen. I for one would welcome a 7 inch device, as I prefer the smaller form factor. I have two tablets on my desk – the Asus Transformer Prime and a Toshiba Thrive 7, and I use the latter frequently. Crazy, right?

Said to be made by Asus and possibly cost under $200, the Google Nexus tablet could very well sway some potential Kindle Fire buyers, easily. If Google has actually created a 10.1 inch device with some decent specs for under $200, that would be an impressive feat. That said, the tablet could actually have a 7 inch screen — with an annoyingly large bezel.

From what we can see in the render, the tablet looks to sport the standard affair of ports. Micro USB, full-sized SD, and micro HDMI are all a go, along with stereo speakers and a port for a dock.

But we can't rule out a 10-inch version as seen in the render. Google could be attacking the tablet sector on both the low-end and high-end fronts, taking on Amazon's Kindle Fire while also addressing Apple's iPad 3 with a premium Android offering. If Asus is building the smaller device, it's not difficult to imagine Samsung producing a device similar to its Galaxy Tab. The latter is what Apple will likely fear most as it currently views the Galaxy Tab line as the iPad's true competitor.

We expect to hear more about the Nexus tablet(s) during Google's I/O conference in June.

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Apple announces earnings Q2 2012 for April 24

Apple will let us know on April 24 whether it's doing fabulously, pretty darn well, or -- the horror -- just so-so.

That's when the company will reveal its revenue and earnings for its second fiscal quarter, the one in which it released its new iPad. Consumers scooped up 3 million of those devices in the first weekend alone, in what Apple called "the strongest iPad launch yet." Not too shabby for a tablet that has come to define and dominate the marketplace and popular perception.

Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its second fiscal quarter on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. PT

As is customary with its earning calls, shareholders and press will be able to listen to the call live via the Apple website, allowing iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners to listen using their devices if they run iOS 4.2 or above, and of course via a Quicktime-enabled computer.

On January 24, Apple released its earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2012. Apple’s revenue amounted to $46.33 billion, with earnings of $13.87 per share and net profit in Q1 was $13.06 billion. The numbers destroyed industry estimates across the board in every area of hardware sales and profitability aside from iPods.

Apple sold 37.04M iPhones, up 128% year over year, and 15.43M iPads this quarter, up 111% year over year. Apple sold 5.2M Macs during the quarter, bringing sales up 26% when compared to the same quarter a year ago. iPod sales were down 21%.

Apple's shares are trading at around $630 this morning. The company's stock crossed the $400 barrier just at the end of 2011, and it hasn't looked back since.

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Windows 8 supports Retina-class displays

All the talk these days is of the new iPad and its magical screen. Apple isn’t the only one who can do that, you know. In fact, most display makers are looking forward to post-HD resolutions as one of the big selling points of the next generation of displays. Other tablets are already approaching iPad levels of pixel density and it would be foolish of the likes of Google and Microsoft not to be planning for it.

Fortunately, Microsoft is well aware of the trend and has plans in place for dealing with pixel-dense displays (or “Retina” to the vulgar).

The specifics are laid out with no quarter given to laymen in this post at Building Windows 8. The gist is that they have analyzed the expected range of display sizes and resolutions, and have identified a sort of “Goldilocks Zone” for the three general classes of resolutions: standard, HD, and quad-XGA (2560×1440). Inside this zone, text and UI elements aren’t blown up to cartoonish proportions or shrunk down to a size that’s frustrating to touch.

Microsoft have come up with the following

    * In the first case (Standard), buttons and text will be shown with no scaling.
    * In the second case (HD), they’ll be 140% normal size (i.e. elements 100 pixels wide will become 140),
    * For the third case (Quad-XGA) they’ll be blown up by 180%.

There is an alternative solution which is known as “independent continual resize” and that would render every button and character the same size regardless of the size or resolution of the display. However the way that we currently store and render text means that this advanced solution just isn’t possible at this point in time. Perhaps in the future it will be possible but for now it isn’t practical.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the different resolutions can change the way the user will view an app dramatically, which is why it’s so tricky scaling and re-sizing programs for different displays.

Because of the increasing size of resolutions, it’s starting to make traditional UI features like drop down menus cumbersome and unpractical. They end up being far too small to use accurately with touch. That’s why Microsoft have brought in an array of touch gestures with Windows 8 to try alleviate this problem.

Microsoft talk in great detail about this issue and how they’ve worked hard developing good solutions for Windows 8 over on their blog, so if you’re interested in going into more technical details feel free to check it out.

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Apple iPhone with 4.6-inch Retina Display

  What’s bigger, probably a touch heavier, even easier on the eyes and at this point a mostly unsubstantiated iPhone rumor? Word from a South Korean media source (via Reuters) that Apple’s next iPhone — call it the “iPhone 5,” or if Apple mimics its just-released iPad, simply “The new iPhone” — will sport a larger 4.6-inch display.

 Apple is purportedly already placing orders with suppliers for a 4.6-inch iPhone Retina Display, Reuters said today, citing a report in South Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper. The phone is due in the second quarter, according to the report.

If accurate, that would be Apple's third device with a Retina Display. The others include the just-released 9.7-inch iPad and the 3.5-inch iPhone 4S.

The 960x640-pixel Retina Display on the iPhone packs in 326 pixels per inch while the new iPad's 2,048x1,536-pixel screen squeezes in 264 pixels per inch.

A relatively massive--for a smartphone, that is--4.6-inch glass screen would be a big step for Apple from the 3.5-inch iPhone. A larger phone may also allow Apple to include updated chips such as the A5X. That chip's marquee feature is quad-core graphics.

There are currently three devices in the Apple product line with Retina Display: iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the new iPad.

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Tests durability of latest iPad by shooting it with rifles

A man carried out a durability test on the new iPad by shooting at it, a media report said.

The video of the Apple gadget being destroyed has become an online hit, The Sun reported.

It shows Richard Ryan using different guns, including an assault rifle, on a range to shoot at the new iPad.

The slow motion video shows the screen smashing in the spot where the bullet passes through, but it does not shatter entirely.

'It didn’t do as much as I’d hoped to it,' said Ryan after the first test, before deciding to use a higher powered M4 gun, which blasts a large hole through the centre of Apple’s latest must-have gadget.


The video is the latest in a series produced by Ryan, who has also shot an iPhone, Xbox 360, iPad 2 and other gadgets.

He also has an unusual take on another popular online series of videos, called ‘will it blend’, where the latest gadgets are placed in a blender to see if they survive.

Ryan’s take on the series involves a blender being shot using a series of rifles.

But the gun lover's latest video has divided opinion among YouTube users.

One user said: 'Why would you ruin a good ipad. I’ve wanted one for ever and couldn't afford one.'

However, others are fans, claiming the video is ‘awesome’

By: dailymail.co.uk

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Adapteva Inc Announces 700 MHz, 4096-Core Processor

Adapteva Inc claims that the chip will be achieving a performance efficiency of 70 GFlops per watt. The flagship processor would produce more than five times the floating point performance of the ASCI RED, a supercomputer that used 9,680 Pentium Pro processors back in 1997, which was good for a total performance of 1 TFlops.

Adapteva's Epiphany chip is planned to be available in versions with just one core with a die size of 0.1 mm2 (28 nm) and 0.5 mm2 (65 nm), 16 cores (2.05 mm2 and 8.96 mm2 in 65 nm and 28 nm, respectively), 64 cores (8.2 mm2 in 28 nm), 256 cores (32.7 mm2 in 28 nm), 1,024 cores (131.1 mm2 in 28 nm) and 4,096 cores (524.3 mm2 in 28 nm). However, Adapteva Inc said that it has only built up to 16-core processors in actual silicon so far.

The single-core chip is said to deliver 2 GFlops at 1 GHz, while the 16-core processors provides up to 32 GFlops at 1 GHz. The 4,096-core version (700 MHz) is estimated to deliver 5.6 TFlops of sustained floating point performance while consuming only 80 watts.

There was no information about the availability of the Epiphany processors.

By: tomshardware.com

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