Dell Streak Pro Tablet

Dell is reportedly readying its new 10-inch Streak Pro media tablet with Android Honeycomb for a June release. If so, that would confirm previously published information about Dell's commercial tablet roadmap.


But the tablet will utilize Nvidia's dual-core, 1.0GHz Tegra 2 T20 system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform, according to unnamed sources cited by German-language Tweakers.net in a Thursday report, not the faster, 3D-capable Tegra 2 T25 SoC as had been earlier reported.

The Dell Streak Pro features a 1280 x 800 touchscreen, weighs in at 1.59 pounds, and has a number of accessories, including a docking station with built-in keyboard, according to Tweakers.net.

The Streak Pro, a business-targeted cousin to the smaller consumer-oriented Streak and Streak 7 tablets from Dell, will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB flavors, according to the site. The device has an SDHC memory slot in addition to 1GB of on-board memory, a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

There will also be options featuring AT&T 4G LTE, though no word on whether connectivity will only be available through that carrier. Pricing was also not mentioned in the Tweakers.net report.

According to earlier reports, the Streak Pro also features a pair of microphones, Dell's "Stage 1.5" user interface, and the computer maker's enterprise application stack.

TiVo Icon

Could the TiVo of tomorrow actually control your smartphone and tablet? That was the vision put forward by a senior TiVo designer at a San Francisco conference on Wednesday.Margret Schmidt, the vice president of user experience design at TiVo, told attendees of the "TV of Tomorrow" show in San Francisco that her vision was that what you're watching on TiVo could trigger apps on your tablet or smartphone. She also envisioned a future where content could be viewed "together" by people in different rooms or houses.


Several of Schmidt's predictions seem similar to a Cisco survey of the future of TV in February, where the company predicted the content would be "flicked" from one screen to another, and that content would be viewed together from different locations. While Schmidt's vision may not become reality, it's a good indication of what the company is thinking behind the scenes.

TiVo's existing iPad app allows users to manage the TiVo Premiere DVR, schedule shows, manage Season Pass recordings, and other management tools. But the app also "knows" what you're watching, and users can explore the cast and crew while you're watching a show. TiVo's Schmidt says she wants to take that to the next level.

"You can connect your iPad app to that DVR and the tablet and control it…and it knows what you're watching on the TV whether it's live, or recorded it's knows the show,the minute you're in," Schmidt said.

What TiVo would like to do is use the iPad as a supplementary screen, with apps and other content, but not do it itself.

"What we'd like to do next... is take the secondary experience, the supplemental content on the iPad, and it could be very rich. It could be associated with the minute you're in the TV show watching, the commercial you're watching, whether it's an app you've designed, or just intelligently linking from the Food Network show you're watching and the recipe they're talking about, to the Food Network app on that recipe, that enhanced content," Schmidt said. "I think that's really interesting."

According to Schmidt, the industry needs a standard set of APIs so that devices like the TiVo Premiere can trigger apps. She also postulated a future where a user might be watching a show by herself, and then share it with another person. Although Schmidt didn't mention it, such an interactive interface was proposed last week by Google with Android@Home, a wireless home interface that apparently can serve both control functions as well as serve as an interface for multimedia.

The Blu-ray industry has already tried the collaborative viewing experience, launching the CineChat app two years ago. But the technology appears to have barely cracked the public consciousness. TiVo's Schmidt, however, endorsed the concept.

"Sometimes there's something you do want to watch on your own, and sometimes you want to share it," Schmidt said. "So let's pause this, what I'm watching now, let's throw this this other one up on the TV."

"Coming back to a shared TV experience - I like to see that shared TV experience, where we don't have to be in the same room. with content in the cloud, there is the ability to watch the same experience but not be together in the same space - that's something very interesting that we could do," Schmidt said.

Rebecca Rusk Lim, the senior director of advanced entertainment for Starz, also told the TVoT audience that she believed the future of television involved recommendations from friends. Brian David Johnson, a consumer experience architect for Intel, also related an anecdote describing how Indian television producers in Mumbai viewed the netbook and phone as the future of television.

Intel Table

Intel plans to showcase more than 10 tablet computer models running its processors at the Computex computer show in Taiwan, according to the Wall Street Journal. A spokesperson said that there was "no more to say on this ahead of Computex." The computer show opens May 31.


Intel's reported introduction of new tablet designs that would use its low-power Atom processors comes on the heels of the company's announcement Tuesday that it is shifting its design direction towards ultramobility products.

"This shift that we're making today is as fundamental as [earlier Intel shifts] to the Pentium and Centrino," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at an analyst meeting at the company's Santa Clara, Calif. campus.

"We are aiming our center point for all of our design activities at sort of the 35 and 40-watt midpoint today in the notebooks that most of us use. We're shifting that down, substantially, to 15 or so watts. We're still going to build products that scale up that dynamic range, for other market needs, obviously. But the center point is going to be about ultramobility."

Intel has seen its x86 architecture for central processors challenged in recent years by makers of ARM-based chips, which have been far more popular for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets due to their ultra-low power consumption, small footprint and low thermals.

The chip giant has shrugged off the competition from ARM to some extent—claiming, for instance, that because data centers require at least one x86-based server per 400 mobile devices serviced, it's really Intel that has profited the most from the rise of tablets and smartphones despite the fact its chips aren't in them.

But Intel is clearly not content with populating servers alone. In an effort to finally become competitive with ARM, Intel said it will accelerate the pace of its process shrinks for its Atom chips to twice the pace of what Moore's Law usually predicts: that transistor counts will double every 18 to 24 months, delivering corresponding increases in performance or else lower voltages and longer battery life.

Intel thinks it can start to match ARM watt-for-watt as it accelerates its process technology, and the company has no plans to use its licenses and build an ARM-compatible chip, Otellini said.

Intel Tables

Computex was heavily focused on tablet introductions last year, and it looks like some things actually don't change with time. This year, the June event will be home to over 10 new tablets that run on Intel chips; that's according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. The show, which is held annually in Taiwan, could be a major launch pad for a slew of slates that use Intel's chips instead of one of the many ARM iterations that have cluttered the market today.


Intel's been all over the map in recent years. Oak Trail for tablets, Moorestown for smartphones, etc. But their mobile plans have been just that: plans. Very little has actually shipped, and it's about time to put up or shut up. Oak Trail may actually be the key the company has needed in the mobile realm, and "Intel's general manager for Asia-Pacific, Navin Shenoy, said more than 35 of Intel's chip-based tablet models are on track to be shipped through the year."

Intel also confirmed that the Japan earthquake has had no impact on their supply chain, which is most certainly good to hear. We're still awaiting details on what tablets will be introduced, but either way, ten new options should be just enough to make your head spin. And we're guessing these guys will run the latest version of Android...or is Microsoft actually planning a legitimate tablet OS?