It's long been something of a rumor that Nvidia would be and is developing their own x86 cpu. Rivals Intel and AMD obviously are in both GPU and CPU markets, so why wouldn't Nvidia want a slice of that tasty pie? With markets heading towards CPU+GPU on a single chip, Nvidia would otherwise be left holding an empty bag should that roadmap be obtained by its rivals. Nvidia has long had issues with Intel, regarding licensing, speculation about Larabee, and other general disagreements. With its recent relations problems with Apple as a reuslt of the mobile 8x00 series fiasco, and ATI products being moved into Apple's lineup, it would seem Nvidia has more foes than friends these days.

Charlie Demerjian, a long outspoken critic of Nvidia's practices, claims to have inside sources revealing that Nvidia is planning on achieving its x86 goal with Tegra 5, currently slated for a 2012-13 release. He goes on to report that the cpu will be based off an ARM Eagle core, a setup in similar fasion tried by Transmeta, and explains a whole host of problems Nvidia is possibly facing, ranging from x86 licensing to performance, before ultimately declaring the project just isn't feasible.

Harsh rhetoric or hard reality?

Source: SemiAcc
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It never fails that after Apple releases a new and "revolutionary" device to the market, everyone else and their mom wants to follow-up and get a piece of that success. With the impending tablet onslaught, one has to wonder exactly how big the market is for tablets. Has everyone who wants one already gotten one? Will a lack of third-party development stifle any competitors from making headway into the market? 

LG's Optimus tablet that is better than the iPad is on its way, HP's WebOS based Tablet is slated (see what I did there?) for Q1 2011, and also there's MSI's Wind tablet, Blackberry's BlackPad, Apple's rumored 7-inch iPad.. I could go on all day with many more tablets -- who's going to come away with pockets bulging full of money, and who's going to come away with a cardboard sign and a plastic cup? Will netbooks be ruled irrelevant?

If the past is any indication (Imac all-in-ones, anyone?) we can expect that devices will be released from a myraid of others, with success measured only by teaspoons.

What're you looking forward to, and why?

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Thankfully, most of us live in large cities, where fiber-optic or other landline based high-speed internet options are available. Okay, maybe I'm just one of the few that is lucky enough to have that as the scenario. The news reports on future rollouts of wide-scale blazing internet service are disheartening, to say the least, leading me to believe that such landline high-speed rollouts will be no more.

Look no further than Verizon

If you're interested in Verizon's Fios product, and who wouldn't be, because it's freaking awesome, you can probably see the writing that's on the wall.

In late Spring of this year, Verizon announced it was halting the expansion of Fios, and not rolling it out to any new cities, metro areas, or other locations. The reason why is simple dollars and sense. For each new customer hooked up to Fios, the project was estimated to cost as much as $1,350. Perhaps exaggerated, but there is no argument that a fiber rollout is quite costly.

Even more recently, in 14 (mostly midwestern) states, Verizon's land-based network services were sold off to Frontier Communications, which is still in the transitional stage of taking full control of the services. This includes Verizon's DSL, Fiber, Coax, and POTS systems. The reason is most likely a three letter acronym, which always seems to be the case in the tech industry.

LTE

With the rollout this fall of Verizon's LTE (4g) network, it is very likely that Verizon envisions offering broadband services in a wireless-only fashion. There is a notion that the 'wireless' term carries a premium price to end users. And with speeds topping out in the 40-50 mbps range, all may not be lost on the broadband speed front, either. However, once their network is saturated with users, and given what will likely be limited range of the rollout, many will miss out on the experience for quite some time.

Verizon's current internet data offering is $60/month for 5gb of data transfer on their 3g network. We can only hope LTE is much more reasonable in terms of cost and data allowance.

The LTE rollout wouldn't be able to match the potential speeds of landline fiber, but with a much lower cost, and the possibility of charging more money, as a business does it make much sense to proceed in any other fashion? Unfortunately for America, that means slower speeds, data caps, areas where service is unobtainable, and likely a higher cost going forward. Surprise, surprise, right?

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Bend it, twist it, any way you want it. Microsoft's new Arc Touch Mouse looks to be pretty cool. Initial photos only show it either in its' arc shape, as pictured above, or completely flat. Whether you can contour it to any shape in between is just speculation at this point. Could certainly be a winner in the HTPC marketplace, if nowhere else. If you're pretty fluent in ze German, feel free to hit the source link for details.

Source: WinFuture
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