Toshiba

Toshiba has created a portable OLED lamp for use in areas hit by the earthquake and tsunamis March 11 in northeastern Japan.

It has donated 50 OLED lamps to an evacuation shelter in the city of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, which was hit hard by tsunami waves.

With a maximum light of 53 lumens, the lamp can be dimmed with two settings. The lowest setting is about as bright as a mobile phone display, according to Toshiba.

The device can run on four AAA batteries or a solar-powered battery that connects via a USB port. Depending on the battery and the brightness setting, it can operate for more than 20 hours per charge.

Toshiba only plans to make 100 units of the lamp, using its own OLED panels and parts from other companies. It doesn't plan to market the lamp for the time being.

(Via Nikkei) … Read more

If you're coming out with an Android tablet this summer, it's going to be challenging to stand out from the sea of 9- and 10-inch Honeycomb 3.1 slates. But Toshiba's going to give it a shot.

The Japanese company known mostly for its laptops is hoping to make inroads into the Android tablet market with its first attempt, called the Thrive. The Thrive is mostly what you'd expect: a 10.1-inch screen, the latest version of the Android operating system, Honeycomb 3.1, front-facing 2.1-megapixel camera and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera for photos and video … Read more

Facing unrelenting competition from Apple's iPad, many rival tablet makers will build fewer tablets than originally planned, according to a J.P. Morgan analyst.

In a research note released yesterday, analyst Mark Moskowitz said that non-Apple tablet makers have gotten an early "dose of reality" by failing to produce a high-volume tablet that comes close to matching the demand for the iPad.

As a result of the "weak showing" of products such as Motorola's Xoom, Research In Motion's PlayBook, and Samsung's Galaxy Tab, many tablet makers have cut back on their plans … Read more

Demand for the iPad and other tablets has taken a certain toll on PC sales, thought it's mostly the lower-end Netbook market that has suffered, according to data released yesterday by IHS iSuppli.

Worldwide, PC shipments slipped to 81.3 million during the first quarter, a drop of only 0.3 percent from the 81.6 million shipped in the year-ago quarter. Looking at the top five global PC vendors, HP, Dell, and Acer all saw a decline in shipments from a year ago, while Lenovo and Toshiba watched their shipments rise.

Among the five, Acer took the biggest hit, with its shipments dropping by more than 20 percent from 2010's first quarter. IHS iSuppli attributed Acer's decline to its heavy focus on selling Netbook-style PCs, which it sees as the segment most directly affected by the demand for the iPad and other tablets.

"The increasing momentum of the media tablet market, led by the iPad, is creating a difficult environment for the PC industry," IHS analyst Matthew Wilkins said in a statement. "All the attention surrounding tablets contributed to weak consumer demand for PCs in the first quarter."

However, the analyst admits there's still uncertainty over exactly how much of an impact tablets are having on the PC market.… Read more

Best Buy is getting ready to bulk up its tablet offerings with new products from Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard, echoing a trend seen a few years back with Netbooks.

Toshiba's Thrive tablet is the latest tablet listed as "coming soon" on Best Buy's site and appears next to HP's TouchPad (see graphic below), which is also due soon.

Though Best Buy has yet to list prices, the TouchPad has reportedly been listed at other retailers for $599 for a 32GB Wi-Fi version, while Toshiba's Wi-Fi tablet has been listed for $449, according to a report … Read more

Toshiba announced a deal today to acquire smart-meter company Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion in a move to fill out its power business.

Landis+Gyr, founded in 1896 and based in Zug, Switzerland, is one of the largest makers of two-way smart meters. It has about 5,000 employees. Landis+Gyr will remain a unit within Toshiba and retain its brand.

Toshiba, which is known for its consumer electronics but is actually a massive conglomerate, said it bought Landis+Gyr to broaden the power-grid equipment that it sells to utilities.

"Our intent is to become a global leader … Read more

Earlier this week I broke down some of the elements it takes to create an outstanding cell phone screen. Coincidentally, this week is also SID 2011, a conference in LA devoted entirely to display technology. Toshiba's LCD panel pictured above is one gem on exhibit. It boasts a 720x1,280-pixel HD resolution on its 4-inch screen, which gives it a pixel ratio of 367 pixels per inch (ppi). The iPhone 4's Retina Display is the current king, boasting 367ppi on a significantly smaller 3.5-inch screen with a 960x640-pixel resolution, but if this Toshiba-made effort makes it to … Read more

The reign of Apple's Retina Display as the highest-quality mobile screen in the land may soon come to an end.

At this week's SID Display Week show in Los Angeles, Toshiba unveiled a new 4-inch display with a pixel density of 367ppi (pixels per inch). With that many pixels, the screen easily bests the iPhone's 3.5-inch display, which offers 326ppi.

More pixels per inch means better visual quality, and Toshiba's screen is headed to a smartphone near you.… Read more

If Samsung's recent 13-inch Series 9 laptop got you thinking about a laptop upgrade, don't pull the trigger just yet. Lenovo's new entry in the high-end laptop sweepstakes is the very impressive ThinkPad X1, and it's the thinnest ThinkPad ever. These two noteworthy systems are part of an exclusive club of thin, light, 13-inch laptops, which also includes Apple's MacBook Air.

The new ThinkPad has plenty going for it, including an excellent backlit keyboard, a fast-charging battery, and a powerful Intel Core i5 CPU. At the same time, it's not quite as thin or light as the competition, and the $1,399 starting price can be deceiving--add extras such an SSD drive and detachable slice-style battery and it can run more than $1,800. … Read more