A multi-touch coffee table display may be coming to an office near you

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The Touchscape Multi-Touch Table, made by Touchscape, has a 47-inchdisplaythat can show pictures at 1080p high-definition. This technology could be used for high-definition collaboration for just about every application you can think of, from serious presentations to amazing gaming.

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Inside of the fairly standard-looking high-density acrylic coffee table is some serious hardware. The display has a 3.4GHz quad-core Phenon processor, which is able to draw support from 4GB of memory dedicated to the processor alone. The system also has 180GB of general storage and can connect wirelessly using any of the following standards: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB, Ethernet or 3G.

The screen, a high viewing angle LCD display, features a vision system that includes 8-bit microprocessor-controlled Frustrated Total Internal Reflection technology to help it manage multiple simultaneous inputs. It also features an ambient light sensor that can adjust the displays brightness according to background lighting conditions as well as a self-monitoring system to keep the screen refreshing.

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Just in case someone treats this table like it is actually a coffee table, the screen has a scratch resistant, wipe clean top coating to keep spills from destroying the device.

The Touchscape Table is available in some standard configurations, but custom versions are available. If you are interested in the pricing on these devices you will have to contact the company directly.

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Sony to release a professional grade OLED screen

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The OLED is a flat-panel screen technology made up of cells that contain anorganic material. The material used omits its own light. This allows the screens to be made thinner than the more well-known LCDs flat screens. The OLED screens are also more power efficient than LCD screens. OLED's are significantly more expensive to produce than LCD screens, which has hindered their wide-scale adoption, but they handle fast-moving images better. The colors also appear richer on the OLED screens when compared to images shown on the LCDs. Sony hosted a live demonstration of the new monitors at its Tokyo headquarters and played the samevideo footageon OLED and LCD monitors side-by-side to illustrate this point.

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The new monitors will not be cheap. The 25-inch model is expected to cost $28,840. Despite how high that number seems when you compare it to the average home LCD monitor, it will only cost about 10 percent more than the LCD monitors that are currently in production for the film industry.

OLEDscreens are already common in smaller gadgets, such as cell phones and other handheld devices.

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Nvidia releases the Kal-El quad-core mobile chip

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During a live demonstration at the Mobile World Congress Nvidia showed off the speed that Kal-El can give to web browsing, with speeds that are two times faster than other dual-core processors currently on the market. Of course, you really cannot simply take the companies word for it. A lot of factors can effect the speed of browsing.

It is time for us to bring in an objective measure. When tested, Kal-El received a CoreMark score of 11,352. That score is, as promised, roughly twice the performance rating score of Nvidia's Tegra 2. The Tegra 2 received a CoreMark score of 5,840.

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Project Kal-El web-browsing benchmark

The Kal-El processor is expected to ship in as-yet-unnamed tablets by August of 2011 and be featured in smartphones by Christmas 2011. Though a few lucky customers are already getting samples of the products made with the newNvidiachip currently. The names of the devices that are sporting these enhanced chips were not released.

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Coremark performance on Kal-El

As it turns out Kal-El is only the beginning of these super hero themed chips. A whole line of heroic processors are expected to come to the market between now and 2014, with increasing speeds. Future chips will sport names such as Wayne, Logan, and Stark. Stark is expected to be the most advanced of the planned chips in this line with an improvement in performance of up to 75x, when compared to the Tegra 2.
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Qualcomm announces a new family of mobile Snapdragon Chipsets

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Speeds of up to 2.5GHz per core and delivering 150 percent higher overall performance and 65 percent lower power than currently available ARM-based CPU cores. Thechipsetfamily will incorporate 28nm technology and designed built CPU’s and GPUs for the best mobile performance at the lowest possible power consumption.

The single-core MSM8930 will have an integrated LTE modem designed that will be incorporated into smartphones. It will also include the new Adreno 305 GPU which delivers more than six times the performance of the original Adreno GPU.

Thedual-coreMSM8960 has integrated multi-mode 3G/LTE modem and has been designed for multi-tasking smartphones and tablets. It includes dual asynchronous CPU cores which can be independently controlled for maximum efficiency. The MSM8960 also supports dual-channel LP DDR memory and features the Adreno 225 GPU which delivers eight times the performance of the original Adreno GPU.

The quad-core APQ8064 has been designed for the next generation of computing and entertainment devices while minimizing power consumption and meeting the performance requirements. The APQ8064 includes four asynchronous CPU cores which can be independently controlled for maximum efficiency. The Adreno 320 quad-core GPU is being launched for the first time in the APQ8064 processor where the user can experience console-quality gaming and a richer user interface.

Qualcommhas integrated the new Adreno 320 GPU with the Snapdragon so that it can have up to four 3D cores and boosts performance 15 times over the original Adreno chip.

Samples of the Dual-core MSM8960 chips will be available in the second quarter of this year and samples of the single-core MSM8930 and quad-core APQ8063 chips becoming available early 2012.

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iNAND embedded flash drives enable continued development of powerful mobile devices

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SanDisk reduced its iNAND package sizes by using advanced 24nm generation NAND memory chips, which are more compact than previous versions, and reduced its iNAND package heights by using advanced packaging technologies. iNAND EFDs are based on SanDisk's three-bit-per-cell NANDflash technologyand iNAND Ultra EFDs are based on SanDisk's two-bit-per-cellNAND flashtechnology.

"For smartphones and tablets, every millimeter of thickness counts,"said Amir Lehr, vice president, embedded business,SanDisk."Designers are constantly looking for new ways to make mobile devices as small and thin as possible. To meet that need, SanDisk's advanced NAND process and packaging technologies allow us to pack more storage into smaller and slimmer footprints. This in turn enables OEMs to design more compact devices while freeing up precious board space for other needs, such as larger batteries."

As smartphones continue to increase incomputing powerand offer advanced features, they require greater amounts of storage; at the same time, consumer demand for smaller and slimmer devices presents a significant challenge to hardware designers. To meet this need, SanDisk reduced the package size of its iNAND and iNAND Ultra e.MMC embedded storage devices, enabling handset manufacturers to develop sleek, highly functional products.

• SanDisk iNAND and iNAND Ultra EFDs offer up to 64 gigabytes (GB) of storage in a 12mm x 16mm JEDEC standard package
• Package heights reduced to as low as 1.0mm for even slimmer handset designs. 32GB versions of both iNAND and iNAND Ultra products offered in 1.2mm package heights; for comparison, ten sheets of 20-pound office paper is approximately 1.0mm thick
• SanDisk iNAND products with capacities up to 8GB available in 11.5mm x 13mm sizes
• The new products will be available beginning in the third quarter of 2011

SanDisk also offers embedded solid state drives for use in"productivity tablets"with high performance requirements. SanDisk's integrated solid state drive is the world's smallest 64GB SSD in a BGA package and first in a new category of embedded SSDs that are smaller than a postage stamp and weigh less than a paper clip. iSSD devices are available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 64GB with a SATA interface. The iSSD device is the fastest high-capacity embedded storage solution at this physical size, and is designed for high performance and reliability for mobile computing platforms including high-end tablets. iSSD devices are based on MLC technology.

SanDisk iNAND EFDs come in a variety of storage capacities ranging from 2GB to 64GB for quick integration into handset and other designs that require an e.MMC interface. With managed physical partitions, customizable attributes and advanced power failure immunity, SanDisk iNAND EFDs feature highly reliable boot code and application storage device capabilities in addition to being a mass storage solution. iNAND drives use advanced caching technology that improves system responsiveness, and are designed based on SanDisk's usage analysis capabilities. iNAND EFDs are based on both MLC and X3 technologies.

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