Lenovo has said today it will launch its LePad Android tablet in the U.S. next year, looking to compete in the ever-growing market for fast, portable, touchscreen gadgets running mobile operating systems.
CEO Yan Yuanqing confirmed the device which was first spoken about over the summer.
The American tablet market has grown exponentially since Apple launched the iPad in April. Dell, HP, RIMM, Samsung, Toshiba and LG have all released or promised to release tablets within the next quarter.
Lenovo did not put a price on the tablet just yet but did note it will launch in China early next year, as well.
The company is also heavily investing in a “program to support developers of mobile Internet applications and services as the firm looks to expand its application download store, which will work with the LePad,” says the WSJ.
Result for: gadgets
Intel’s lack of a USB 3.0 chipset has signaled to observers that the company may be bypassing USB 3.0 in favor of optical technology. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but Intel has been promoting its Light Peak technology which promises transmission speeds of between 10Gbps and 100Gbps.
Light Peak technology was unveiled in 2009 and is expected to become available for manufacturers later in 2010. Devices containing the technology are expected to reach the market by early 2011.
Intel fellow Kevin Kahn discussed the technology at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing on Wednesday, showing off a laptop with a thin Light Peak cable. Kahn’s prototype had the cable running through a modified USB 3.0 port adapter. He said that the size of the port could be reduced significantly with Light Peak technology which is good news for mobile gadgets in particular.
Kahn said that Light Peak is not necessarily competitive with USB, but instead the two technologies could be complementary. USB protocols could run over a Light Peak cable.
Kahn told the crowd in attendance that Intel would like to build the “last cable you’ll ever need.”
Result for: gadgets
Apple has been sued again over their hugely popular iPhone, this time over the screen rendering technology used in both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
The suit, brought forward by Picsel Technologies, alleges that the rendering process is in clear violation of Piscel’s patents. Picsel added the “technology accelerates the process of updating the display on a device.”
Lawyers for the company said iPhone users “would experience long screen update delays if it weren’t for the use of the patented technology. Zooming and panning documents, Web sites, and images would not work on the iPhone as fluidly.”
Picsel adds that its technology is featured in hundreds of different gadgets and counts KDDI, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Sharp as past and current customers.
