Google to Open Online Tablet PC Store

Our favourite internet behemoth – Google – is planning to open an online store to sell tablet PCs directly to consumers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Google’s online store would offer tablets made by Samsung and Asus based on Google’s Android software, according to the WSJ report.

Google briefly sold a specially-designed Android smartphone – Nexus One – directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations.

Google now relies on retail and carrier partners to sell Android smartphones made by a variety of handset makers and Android has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system, ahead of iPhone-maker Apple Inc.

But Apple still dominates the market for touch-screen tablet computers with its two-year old iPad. Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet is based on the open-source Android code, but the device features a customized interface that does not use many Google services.

Google may co-brand some of the tablets sold through the store and has considered subsidizing the cost of future tablets to make them more competitive with the Kindle Fire, according to the Journal report. It is unclear when Google plans to open the store.

ASUS Transformer Prime: Übertablet, Portable Gaming Powerhouse and Sweet Business Suite

The ASUS Transformer Prime has already had to endure such superlatives as blazingly fast, super slim, functionally brilliant and sexy as hell, it would blush if only it weren’t true. Don’t be fooled by the name though The Transformer Prime is no child’s toy, it is in fact the must have tablet for Christmas, ASUS certainly hopes it will be anyway. Earlier this month ASUS and NVIDIA officially announced the Prime and it’s specifications. At the same time NVIDIA introduced to the world it’s brand new QUAD core chipset, Tegra 3. Only a few days after the announcement videos appeared of Google’s latest operating system – Android 4 Ice-Cream Sandwich - running happily on the Prime. Thankfully the wait for Prime won’t be long, GameStop yesterday let the cat out of the bag by listing the Prime for pre-order with the product release date of December 9. Get ready world, the Transformer Prime is about to take over Christmas.

The Prime is pushing the boundaries with firsts, the first quad core tablet, the first tablet to run Ice-Cream Sandwich. Even more importantly it may be the first tablet to pull off the split personality trick. By day with the keyboard attached the Prime is a sleek productivity machine, by night it separates from it’s keyboard doc, loosing the business suit to become an on the go entertainment guru.  The Prime’s leading edge technology may well give ASUS a generational lead over it’s competitors. ASUS has literally leap frogged a generation, the generation that it’s competition is still using. Read the full article »»»»

ASUS Republic of Gamers MARS II, The Über Video Card KING

Über Video Cards, the pinnacle of pixel pushers are the stuff of dreams for us mere mortals. Keeping the dream alive ASUS has released the ultimate Über MARS II video card, the most powerful video card in the world. ASUS has pulled out all the stops for the MARS II, with 22% higher performance than it’s younger NVIDIA GTX 590 the MARS II is a video card on fire.

Hidden under nearly  2kg of aluminium heat sinks sits twin GeForce GTX 580 cores along with 3GB of superfast GDDR5 video memory, a potent combination. If all of this has you salivating and reaching for you wallet, pause and know only 999 of these Über video cards are being produced and each one will cost you $1,400 USD, oouch. Read the full article »»»»

ASUS Padfone at Computex Taipei

Computex Tapei, June 2011: Our new favorite tech behemoth Asus, launched it’s ubercool new Padfone.  CEO Jonney Shih unveiled the prototype of the companys new Padfone at Computex 2011 in Taipei. Padfone is an Android-based 4.3-inch smartphone capable of turning itself into a tablet with a handy 10.1-inch touchscreen dock.

Although details are limited, we’re betting the new tablet~phone hybrid will be running Android Ice Cream Sandwich by the time it debuts in early 2012. Talking with Asus, the company told highpants that it was definitely going to be running “the latest version there is” of Android, so Ice Cream Sandwich would make sense – the OS will be designed to run across both traditional smartphones and tablets.

Asus says it’s working with Google to get the operating system right, and is looking to get the ball rolling with the Padfone early next year. It sees the software as the main sticking point right now, “the hardware is not a limiting factor,” we were told. Asus is still to settle on the final dimensions and tech specs for the Padfone before releasing it as a final retail product, although we’d bet on it having an Nvidia Tegra processor – and perhaps the new Kal-El quad-core variant at that. Asus has been making phones for years, but the devices have rarely seen the light of day in the UK. That’s set to change with the Padfone though, a device which has got Asus so excited it just had to announce it right now anyway.

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