tegra

Nvidia, an emerging power in the world of ARM processors for smartphones and tablets, has published a demonstration game called Glowball the company says shows what can be achieved with its quad-core Kal-El mobile processor project.

In the demo, an internally lit ball rolls around a playing board. With "dynamic lighting," shapes on the ball's exterior casting shadows on stacked barrels, lurking jack-in-the-boxes, hanging rugs, and a creepy clown face. The game's physics engine is wired into the tablet's accelerometer to determine how the ball rolls, the rugs hang, and the barrels tumble.

"All … Read more

Android tablets could outsell Apple's iPad in less than three years, says Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, according to Reuters.

Speaking at the Reuters Technology Summit in New York on Monday, the outspoken CEO noted that it took Android smartphones less than three years to outpace the iPhone.

"The Android phone took only two and a half years to achieve the momentum that we're talking about," Huang said at the summit. "I would expect the same thing on Honeycomb tablets."

With Nvidia supplying the Tegra 2 processor that powers many Android tablets, Huang has been … Read more

Nvidia's CEO is not pleased with the cool reception Android tablets have gotten so far. And he expressed frustration over marketing gaffes in an interview with CNET earlier this week.

Sales of the first Android Honeycomb tablet, the Motorola Xoom, have not been impressive when compared with those of the iPad. Though Motorola claimed in late April that Xoom shipments hit 250,000, that number is far lower than the total being enjoyed by market leader Apple, which sold about 1 million iPad 2 tablets in the first weekend of sales alone.

During an earnings conference call, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, articulated part of the problem, saying, "Consumers want more apps for Android tablets."

That's not the whole story, according to Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, who I chatted with on Thursday. Nvidia's Tegra 2 is the core piece of silicon inside Honeycomb tablets, including the Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

"It's a point of sales problem. It's an expertise at retail problem. It's a marketing problem to consumers. It is a price point problem," he said, for starters.

Though Huang didn't mention the $499 starting price for the iPad, it was clear that this was a reference point. "The baseline configuration included 3G when it shouldn't have," he said. "Tablets should have a Wi-Fi configuration and be more affordable. And those are the ones that were selling more rapidly than the 3G and fully configured ones," he said. … Read more

Apple is not known as a kingpin of the graphics chip industry. That would be Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices. But one review site shows Apple's iPad 2 and its A5 chip handily beating Nvidia's chip, which is housed inside the Motorola Xoom.

As CNET reported previously, the iPad 2 is significantly faster than the original iPad. That's not in dispute. But the bombshell that Anand Shimpi, CEO of the highly regarded review site Anandtech, has dropped is indeed surprising.

I queried Anand via e-mail. The answer to the second question, based on his "performance preview&… Read more

In the wake of the iPad 2 announcement, how can Android tablet manufacturers compete? Antuan gets closer to winning his Android form factor bet with Justin and the world's most exclusive messaging platform may be coming to Android OS. All that and more on this week's episode of Android Atlas Weekly.

iPad 2: Big trouble for Android tablets? http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_7-20038411-82.html http://webnotes.net/?Me9LlU

Top 5 ways Android Tablets can compete Cut the … Read more

One wouldn't naturally associate chip- and GPU-maker Nvidia with apps, but nevertheless, the free Tegra Zone appeared today in the Android Market. The app showcases current and forthcoming games that have been optimized for the Tegra 2 platform and promise cutting-edge gameplay and graphics.

Clicking on a game title provides reviews, trailers, videos, and comments. If you want to buy a game, Tegra Zone redirects you to the Android Market.  Some of the games highlighted at launch time include optimized versions of Fruit Ninja and Backbreaker Football, which now carry a Tegra High Definition "THD" suffix. … Read more

Best Buy is taking preorders for Motorola's Xoom, a tablet that is expected to challenge Apple's dominance of the market.

A new entry on Best Buy's site shows the Xoom priced at $799 for a version that is 3G-capable and upgradeable to 4G.

The 10.1-inch tablet is expected to give the iPad a run for its money, just as Motorola's Droid phones have done in the smartphone space. The Xoom will pack a dual-core Nvidia processor, a 1,280x800 resolution display, and dual cameras. Available in stores Thursday, the tablet has a 32GB flash drive … Read more

As chipmakers trip over each other to announce tablet-centric chips packing four processing engines, it's not hard to see where a product like the Motorola Xoom is headed.

Where? The same performance space a mainstream laptop occupies now. A graphic Nvidia released to CNET shows its next-generation Tegra processor exceeding Intel's Core 2 Duo processor (the chip used in many, if not most, laptops today) in performance.

And Nvidia is claiming benchmarks back up this (see second embedded video below). Benchmarks aside, it's easy to imagine a future Motorola Xoom tablet crunching image data at speeds similar … Read more

With its Tegra chip already well-ensconced in some of the most highly anticipated tablets from Motorola and Samsung, Nvidia is keen on moving the market quickly to super-high-octane tablets packing quad-core processors.

Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 is already in the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and LG Optimus Pad. Those products are due in the coming weeks and months.

Not resting on its laurels, Nvidia has started sample shipments of a quad-core Tegra processor codenamed Kal-El. "We're providing samples now to our customers. We're expecting the first products with this processor to be out this holiday … Read more