NVIDIA announced their new quad-core Kal-El processor at the MWC 2011 and even showcased bragging about its computing skills. It should be the next Tegra 3 but for now we’ll have to get used to the codename Kal-El.

 

 

The new processor should be running at a 1.5GHz with all its four cores. NVDIA has even promised up to 12 hours of HD playback, so the new processor should be more efficient than Tegra 2. Better battery life, in layman terms, I hope. And the NVDIA Kal-El should be, what, 5 times faster than the current Tegra 2! Thats serious power for a handheld device.

 

 

The NVIDIA Roadmap actually put the new Kal-El in first place and, taking a closer look, we see that three new processors are lined up for the next 3 years. Codename Wayne is scheduled for 2012, Logan for 2013 and Stark for 2014. NVIDIA obviously have big plans for future tablets and smartphones.

 

 

We are guessing that the name will change to something like Tegra 3 or 4, because interestingly enough, the Kal-El nickname derives from Superman birth name, before he came to Earth and was named Clark Kent.

 

 

Video below!

 

 

The company behind Gorilla Glass has posted a rather interesting video showing how our everyday lives could be improved if everything we interact with is covered with Gorilla Glass enhanced displays.

As you probably all know, Gorilla Glass is the type of tough glass that protects smartphones and tablets from scratches and damaging. So imagine that everything in your home has an embedded display protected by Gorilla Glass and watch this impressive demo

 

 

Demo Below!

 

Vodafone launches the Webbox, a keyboard which enables Internet on your TV, via a GSM/EDGE mobile data connection. Unfortunately, 3G is not supported yet, but a 3G version will follow later on.

Connecting the Webbox to the TV sets is done by the standard RCA cables. Plug them in, push the power button on the device and within seconds you are online. The Webbox runs Android 2.1 Éclair, which means it comes packed with various software, including Opera Mini on board, which compresses the size of web pages up to 90%. You can send SMS, emails or even connect to Facebook through an app.

As with any Android OS, there are some useful apps baked in as well, such as a calculator, a notes app, calendar, English dictionary, YouTube app and more. You can also listen to music and watch videos through the TV. And if you think about it, the Vodafone Webbox makes perfect sense, as it will allow people who cannot afford access to PC or smartphones to easily connect to the Internet using their existing mobile data connection.

The Vodafone Webbox is targeted at developing countries, and Vodafone says it will first launch in South Africa, followed by Ghana, Kenya, India and Turkey. In South Africa it will cost 749 Rand (about $102). For that money Vodafone gives you the keyboard itself, a 2GB SD card and 100MB of web traffic.

 

 

Tablets are on fire today with 3 new entries by Acer. While the A100 and A500 pretty much fit the standard tablet profile, the W500 leads the pack with intuitive design and top-end features.

The Acer A100 has all the features you would expect in a tablet these days Android 3.0 Honeycomb on dual-core NVIDIA Tegra, a 7-inch 1024×600 16:9 display, Flash 10.1 support, a 5 megapixel camera and a front-facing 2 megapixel unit for video calls. Wi-Fi, 3G and Bluetooth are also present. The only thing missing is voice call support. The amount of RAM is 512MB, while storage is 8GB.

The A500 is pretty much the same device, only with a bigger screen of 1280×800 resolution. With 1GB RAM, the Acer A500 comes in two flavors: 16 or 32GB of inbuilt storage. Both tablets have MicroSD support.

With dual-core processors and all-you-can-eat connectivity across the board, its hard for a new tablet to stand out. And we arre not complaining or trying to belittle the specs of the new tablets announced in Barcelona. Its just hard to come across something different. Now the Acer W500 Tab stands out easily.

 

With the W500, Acer is getting ahead of the competition and diversifying their portfolio of operating systems. The W500 is a Windows 7 tablet with a 10.1-inch wide-screen multi-touch display.

The Acer Iconia Tab W500 has a 1 GHz AMD C-50 dual-core processor and a Radeon HD6250 graphics card with 256MB video memory. Thats a promise for a solid multimedia performance. The display borrows the CrystalBrite technology from Acer’s laptop and desktop lineups.

All three new tablets have Acer Clear.fi media-sharing feature. Its a way to streamline and wirelessly share content across their own platforms and devices.

 

No one would seriously think that Qualcomm would be weeping in the corner after NVIDIA and Texas Instruments unveiled their quad-core CPUs to come our way in 2012. No sir, Qualcomm wants to play along and today announced a new series of quad-core mobile processors, planned for release in 2012.

 

What we know so far is that NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core chip is planned to run at 1.5Ghz and Texas Instruments will top that with each core ticking at 2.0Ghz. But hold tight, because the quad-core Snapdragon is supposed to run at the breathtaking 2.5Ghz!

Using the industry-first 28nm process, Qualcomm is working on a family of multi-core (single, dual, and quad) chipsets, codenamed Krait. The new quad-core Snapdragon APQ8064 chip is going to use 75% less power than the first Snapdragon chipset. Not only that, but Qualcomm promises the future quad-core Snapdragon APQ8064 will be twelve times faster than any other Snapdragon chip.

The new Snapdragon beast will enable HD gaming, stereoscopic 3D, 1080p video capture, support for 10MP camera sensors and full playback over an HDMI port, thanks to the Adreno 320 quad-core GPU. That, on the other hand, will be up to fifteen times more powerful than the original Adreno.