toshiba

Toshiba may not be the best-known manufacturer of mobile phones, but it certainly keeps things interesting. When it's not making Transformer wannabes, it's churning out peculiar combo devices with strange circular dial pads.

So it really should come as little surprise that its latest offering is anything but conventional either. The "Cosmic Shiner" is a luxury handset with diamond accents presented in a handmade lacquer box, but that's not the unusual aspect of this phone: "Buyers will be required to purchase the April issue of Seven Hills magazine to get the required unique ID … Read more

Small fries everywhere! A bunch of this week's news focused on tiny laptops of the Eee PC variety: the Intel Classmate PC will reportedly hit U.S. and European retailers; photos of a possible "netbook" surfaced on Flickr; and we saw an Eee PC competitor for the Taiwanese market (release date unknown). Meanwhile, the tiny tablet-smartphone hybrid, the HTC Shift, became available for pre-order on Amazon; we have one in hand and posted a full review today.

Phew! There's no indication of a slowdown, either, if reports of ultra-low-priced Intel Atom CPUs for netbooks are accurate. … Read more

Though already expecting losses from the failed HD DVD business, Toshiba's shareholders were told Wednesday to expect more bad news.

The Japanese electronics giant said the market for NAND flash memory (the kind of chips used in portable gadgets) was weak and expected to get worse, the Wall Street Journal reports.

"We now see prices falling 50 percent this fiscal year, after predicting 40 percent in October," said Executive Vice President Fumio Muraoka.

As a result, Toshiba lowered its expected profit for fiscal year 2007, which ends March 31, to 125 billion yen ($1.26 billion), from … Read more

Amazon’s right on Vista SP1 http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9897191-56.html

FCC Ends 700 MHz Auction http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9897722-7.html

Dell refutes solid state drive failure claims (Thanks Russ960!) http://www.cnet.com/8301-13924_1-9897828-64.html

Apple could split device sales with music labels http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9897871-7.html

Adobe CEO says Flash apps coming to iPhone http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9897861-1.html

The reality of the RDF: how Apple motivates us to creativity http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080319-brands-as-personality-why-apple-motivates-us-to-creativity.html

Toshiba losing money in HD DVD business http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080319/ ap_on_hi_te/japan_toshiba… Read more

You're likely shopping for a 17-inch laptop because you really need a desktop to run intensive graphics apps or Crysis, but you want a somewhat portable system you can lug to the couch, the dining room table, or occasionally to the office. Compared with your standard 15-inch laptop, the added screen real estate gives you a larger pallet with which to work in Photoshop and makes games and movies more immersive. The larger chassis also allows for more powerful components, from quad-core CPUs to dual graphics cards and hard drives.

Of the 17-inch desktop replacements we're reviewed in … Read more

Though the MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300 might be prettier and thinner, Toshiba's outdone them both in a crucial area.

Japan's Toshiba announced Monday that it had bumped the specs of its Dynabook SS RX to include a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD) as an option. That's twice the size of the Air and the X300, both of which come with a 64GB SSD. (Note: It's an option for the MacBook and standard on the ThinkPad.) So far, it appears it will be available only in Japan starting next month.

The 128GB SSD is an option, and … Read more

The demise of the HD DVD format has been bad news for both bargain hunters and at least one big-time technology company.

In the three short weeks since Toshiba announced that it was pulling the plug on the high-definition technology, prices for standalone players using the rival Blu-ray format have been headed north. In fact, as noted by PriceGrabber.com, Blu-ray prices are at their high point for the year, at an average of about $400 apiece for the devices. The Sony BDP-S300, for instance, was just a small mocha latte above that level, at $403 as of Wednesday.

Prices … Read more

In the past, I've always felt that Blu-ray would win the high-def format war. After that, I wasn't necessarily sure what the future would hold for the format.

Would it be the success DVD was? Would it flop worse than LaserDisc? Would it cater to a slightly more advanced crowd but never reach the mainstream? Would it be a downright loser?

For a while, I decided to hold off from making any judgements until I could see how the Blu-ray group handled its victory. And while it has only been a relatively short amount of time since that win, the end is already in sight and the format has no hope of survival.… Read more

In a recent post on the News.com blog, David Carnoy opined on the future of Toshiba and its ill-fated decision to back a losing format for so long.

Pointing to a Wall Street Journal interview with Toshiba's CEO, Carnoy extrapolated information from the discussion and concluded that because the company's chief executive said his company would "improve this [upconverting feature] even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images", Toshiba has no designs on a move into the Blu-ray player market.

Carnoy asserts that 2008 will not bring a Blu-ray player from Toshiba, but it may "change its tune" in 2009.

And while Carnoy makes a good point in saying Toshiba Blu-ray players will be available next year, I think he's off by one year.… Read more