It’s been a long, hard road for Intel in the mobile space, but it looks like things are about to get brighter: speaking at the Barclay’s Capital Global Technology Conference today, CEO Paul Otellini said that some 35 Moorestown tablets running a mix of Windows, Android, and MeeGo would arrive in 2011. (No wonder the company just formed a tablet and netbook division.) What’s more, he provided a handy chart showing the OS breakdown by vendor: Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu are going Windows-only, while Asus and Lenovo are building both Windows and Android products, and Acer’s going straight MeeGo. (Remember, Acer’s using AMD in its Windows tablet.) That’s pretty much right on schedule, and we’d expect to see several of these at CES, but not all the news is so rosy: Otellini also said that Medfield-based smartphones won’t arrive until “mid-2011,” which is a bit of a delay from the “first half of 2011″ we’d been told in June. Sure, it doesn’t sound like the end of the world, but ARM-based competitors like Qualcomm, TI, and NVIDIA continue to push ever farther ahead with multicore designs, and Intel can’t very well catch up with delayed parts. Then again, if Intel can really deliver the performance and efficiency it’s been promising it might not matter — we’ll see what CES has in store.

Intel’s Otellini says 35 Atom-based tablets coming in 2011, but smartphones get pushed back (again) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First the 2018 World Cup and now this. An Intel press event in Moscow was reportedly the site of some new MeeGo device reveals. Mail.ru’s Anton Spiridonov was on hand and managed to spot Intel Atom-based phone the Hi/Lo Vibrant (we haven’t heard of the company, either) and a tablet of some sort, both equipped with the Linux-based OS. Not much else is known save for what appears to be a 5 megapixel camera labeled as such on the back. More pics below.

[Thanks, Chris]

MeeGo-based Intel Atom phone and tablet spotted from Russia with love originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re guessing that this newfangled SmartPOP feature works a lot like Lenovo’s Constant Connect (or perhaps LG’s own Air Sync?), but either way, the feature set is still fairly innovative. On the surface, LG is today introducing its X170 netbook — a 10.1-incher with an Atom N455 (or N550), 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphics. But it’s the accompanying SmartPOP feature that’s really worth a second glance; purportedly, the system utilizes Bluetooth 3.0 in order to connect to your LG phone (supported models haven’t been made public thus far) and do all sorts of things. Syncing your files and email is just the beginning — once you’re in, you can send an SMS, view contacts / files and dial a phone number from the comfort of your PC. We’re guessing that future uses will be somewhat more impressive than existing ones, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? Word on the street has this one going for just under $700 in South Korea, and we’re definitely hoping that mobile there is included for that price.

LG X170 netbook controls your phone, adds SmartPOP to the lexicon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 22:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Nokia remains mum about the status of its first MeeGo handset, Doug Fisher, Vice President of Intel’s Software and Solutions Group and General Manager of Systems Software Division, is being decidedly more talkative. According to an interview published by Forbes, MeeGo phones and tablets are in the works but we’ll have to wait until 2011 to handle them. Specifically, Fisher says that MeeGo based cellphones won’t debut until the first half of next year, possibly at a large industry trade show. Hmm, could that be Mobile World Congress by any chance, scheduled for February 2011? It’s also worth noting that Fisher’s timeline coincides with plans for a MeeGo 1.2 release tentatively scheduled for sometime around the end of April.

This is of course disappointing — especially after seeing Nokia’s amazing looking MeeGo-based N9 (pictured) in that supposed leak. Though it’s hardly unexpected given all the executive level changes at Nokia. Remember, back in December Nokia had promised to “deliver” a Maemo 6 powered mobile computer in the second half of 2010. That promise was then seemingly reiterated when the joint MeeGo initiative was announced in February (MeeGo being the union Maemo and Intel’s Moblin). It was during that announcement that Intel and Nokia promised to “launch” MeeGo devices from Nokia and other manufactures in 2010. We took that to mean retail delivery, not just a product annoucement. In fact, we’ve already seen the first MeeGo tablet — the WeTab — ship in Germany. And Fisher says that other MeeGo devices like netbooks and Internet Connected TVs are still on track to ship this year.

Regardless of the semantics, we just want to see Nokia get this right, especially as MeeGo looks to be Nokia’s big play to win back the US market. If they don’t get this right, well, Nokia might not get a second chance — not with Android rapidly maturing, Windows Phone 7 set to launch, and HP getting ready to put its muscle behind webOS. Let’s give Skillman some time to perfect the user experience, shall we?

Intel says no MeeGo phones until first half of 2011, Nokia just shrugs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 08:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Study: select Android apps sharing data without user notification originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel CTO Justin Rattner just described a future where your devices know more about you — not just “where you are,” but “where you’re going,” to use his words. Intel’s working on a context-aware API that uses not only physical smartphone and tablet sensors (like accelerometers and GPS) but also “soft sensors” including social networks and personal preferences to infer what you’re doing and what you like, and deliver these inferences to a “context engine” that can cater to your tastes. It’s presently being tested in an app by travel guide company Fodors on a Compal MID that dynamically delivers restaurant and tourism suggestions based on these factors, and also in a social cloud service (demoed on a prototype tablet) that can show you what your friends are up to (using game-like avatars!) on the go. Rattner told us that the API itself is not quite like the typical experiments out of Intel Labs — while there aren’t presently plans to make the API publicly available, he said the context engine was made to commercial software standards specifically so it could become a real product should the technology pan out. In other words, Intel just might be agreeing to do all the heavy lifting for a new generation of apps. How sweet.

Intel testing context-aware API for smartphones, tablets, and TVs, teams with Fodor on dynamic travel app originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Infineon, the company behind the baseband chips inside your super-duper new phone, is about to cash out from the wireless industry courtesy of Intel’s insatiable appetite. The Wireless Solutions Business (WLS), which accounted for nearly a third of Infineon’s €3 billion ($3.83b) revenue last year, is being sold to the American chipmaker for a cool $1.4 billion. For its part, Intel is quick to reassure the world (and its antitrust authorities) that WLS will continue to operate as a standalone business and continue to support ARM-based devices. Chipzilla’s perfectly innocent ploy is to harness Infineon’s knowhow in future smartphone, tablet and laptop products, providing both the processing and wireless capabilities. Specifically mentioned in the news release is Intel’s ambition to “accelerate 4G LTE” through this deal, while also not neglecting its ongoing efforts with WiMAX, with the overarching strategy being described as “a combined path.” We should know more about where this path will take us when the acquisition is completed in the first quarter of next year.

Continue reading Intel gobbles up Infineon’s mobile unit in $1.4 billion deal, looks to ‘accelerate 4G LTE’

Intel gobbles up Infineon’s mobile unit in $1.4 billion deal, looks to ‘accelerate 4G LTE’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already gotten a glimpse at MeeGo’s prerelease stock UI for handsets, but just like Symbian, there’s no guarantee that the experience is going to be consistent across manufacturers — and a new video apparently captured from an online survey makes it seem like Nokia might be looking to go in a slightly different direction. The one minute, twenty-nine seconds of footage walks us through five parts — starting up, the “powerful multitasking UI,” getting connected, the Ovi Store experience, and the music player — and as you might imagine, it’s the Ovi Store portion that has us feeling like this is a thoroughly Nokia-customized experience (not to mention the copyright in the lower left). It generally looks richer and more functional than what we’ve seen before, and parts — like the webOS-esque multitasking — remind us of Maemo 5′s thumbnails, which makes perfect sense considering MeeGo’s roots. Follow the break for the full video.

[Thanks, MTA]

Continue reading Nokia’s treatment of MeeGo smartphone UI revealed?

Nokia’s treatment of MeeGo smartphone UI revealed? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seriously, what the hell did HP acquire when it bought Palm? A bunch of pretty patents and a rapidly dwindling talent pool, it would seem. Mike Bell, a celebrated capture for Palm back in 2007 after 16 years at Apple, was most recently occupying the role of Senior VP for Product Development on Jon Rubinstein’s team, but he has now switched allegiances to the blue team. Interestingly, though his address might change, his job spec will not — Mike will act as Director of Smartphone Product Development in Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group, where he’ll “help build and lead a team to build breakthrough smartphone reference designs to accelerate Intel Architecture into the market.” It’s hard to imagine how Intel could signal its intent to be a big player in the smartphone realm any more forcefully. Click past the break for the full text of the internal email announcing Mike’s arrival.

Continue reading Intel snaps up former Palm and Apple VP Mike Bell for its smartphone push

Intel snaps up former Palm and Apple VP Mike Bell for its smartphone push originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meego handset UI guidelines offer details aplenty, suggestion of WebOS, Android influences originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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