Nanotech - The Circuits Blog

Windows PCs to decline as Android, Apple devices rise

The venerable Windows-Intel PC will see a sharp decline by 2016 while devices running Android and Apple's iOS are on the rise, market researcher IDC said today.

There will be a "dramatic shift" between 2011 and 2016, with the "once-dominant" Windows-Intel (aka, x86) PCs dropping from a market-dominating 35.9 percent share in 2011 to 25.1 percent in 2016," IDC said.

Mobile devices like Android phones and tablets and Apple iPhones and iPads will step into the void and begin to dominate. Android devices (using ARM chips) will grow from 29.4 percent … Read more

Hey, what's wrong with a small iPhone?

Is a bigger iPhone a better iPhone?

The iPhone rumor du jour this week was about a big screen. In fact, "iPhone 5" rumors going way back almost invariably cite a bigger screen. Sizes run the gamut from 4-inch screens to 4.2-inch to, now, 4.6-inch.

The iPhone currently has a 3.5-inch screen.

And that's just fine with me. A smartphone should be as small as possible. Certainly not BlackBerry Curve small but not so big that it isn't compact. It's a phone, after all.

The brave new big-honking-iPhone world that Reuters claimed is coming (… Read more

Nvidia's Haas on being two places at once: Intel and ARM

Nvidia mobile chief Rene Haas laid out in an interview with CNET some of the device choices Windows 8 shoppers may face this fall. Inside some, Nvidia snuggles up next to Intel. In others, Nvidia and Intel are worlds apart.

Nvidia is in a unique position because it offers chips that land in devices in two giant markets: Windows-Intel and ARM--the latter's chip designs power virtually every smartphone and tablet on the planet.

For Windows-Intel, Nvidia's mobile focus is laptops. There, Nvidia will supply its latest power-efficient graphics processing units (GPUs), the 640M and 620M--formally announced today … Read more

Windows 8 will support Retina-class displays

If manufacturers follow suit, Windows 8 tablets and hybrids will sport displays that rival, or exceed, the Retina Display on Apple's newest iPad.

Writing in Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog, David Washington, a senior program manager at the company, directly addressed the new iPad's screen and discussed upcoming tablets with dot-per-inch (DPI) densities of at least 135. "Much higher than many of us are used to," he wrote.

Key tablet-display related points from the blog post:

135 DPI and up: Many Windows 8 tablet PCs will have pixel densities of at least 135 DPI. Washington … Read more

iPhone to get 4.6-inch Retina Display, report says

Apple is said to have yet another product in the pipeline with a Retina Display, and this time it's an iPhone with a really big screen, according to a report from Reuters.

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. … Read more

More LEDs in new iPad can mean less battery life

By doubling the number of LEDs in the new iPad, Apple cut somewhat into battery life--particularly when used at full brightness--something you won't find on Apple's tech spec page.

Though the new iPad's battery is 1.7 times larger than the iPad 2's, all of those extra LEDs still take a toll on battery life at full brightness--as Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, told CNET in a phone interview yesterday.

"The [power consumption of the] LEDs is 2.5X compared to the iPad 2, and the battery is 1.7X [larger]...so what happens … Read more

Windows 8 PC-tablet 'mesh' to go slowly, says IDC

Global PC shipments are expected to pick up in the second half of the year, but Windows 8-based ultrabooks will go through a period of trail and error, market researcher IDC said.

The launch of Windows 8 on ultrabooks should drive stronger second-half PC shipment growth after a weaker first half, IDC said today.

For the whole year, worldwide PC growth will be a modest five percent with most of the growth occurring in the latter half of the year.

"Many consumers are holding off making PC purchases at the moment because tablet devices like Apple's iPad are … Read more

LED backlight a likely culprit in iPad heat issue, says expert

Reported heat issues with new iPad are most likely due to a combination of more backlights and more power needed to drive the backlights, an expert told CNET. This follows a CNET report attributing extra heat to the new iPad's A5X chip, also.

Apple has doubled the number of LEDs in the new iPad to achieve the same brightness as the iPad 2, driving up power requirements and therefore heat, Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, said in a phone interview today.

"The LED power at maximum brightness is 2.5 times that of the iPad 2," … Read more

Does the new iPad have a heat problem?

Heat has come up as an issue with previous generations of iPads. So, that's not news. But the new iPad may have, in select cases, its own unique heat problems.

User forum postings (here and here) and a report seem to point to heat as an issue for select users.

The problem area--based on forum links above--seems to be a hot-spot in the corner of the unit.

In the worst case, the iPad shuts down and a message pops up, saying "the iPad needs to cool down," according to a Next Web report (link above).

That seems … Read more