Toshiba announced a dual-screen laptop in the first half of a year, and it appears that it is a real product that is actually coming to market. Called the Libretto W105, it’s a limited edition model with no physical keyboard. Spec wise, it’s not anything too exciting, a 1.2GHz Pentium, 2 GB of RAM, a 62GB(?) hard drive, and Window 7 Home premium. Dual screens or not, the Libretto is priced at a wallet melting $1,099.99! While Amazon does have the Libretto W105 available for pre-order, there is no actual release date listed as of press time. Dual 7-inch touchscreens are cool and all, but without the proper software, I doubt this thing will be much of a game changer. Check out the video after the jump. [via Tech Report] → Read More
A step forward in data security: Toshiba today announced what it claims to be the world’s first technology that makes it possible to automatically wipe sensitive data from self-encrypting drives when a system is powered down or the HDD is removed from the system. Dubbed Wipe, the solution automatically invalidates the security key that was used to encrypt the stored user data. → Read More
Is the electronics industry recovering from the recession? If you ask some of Japan’s biggest tech companies, the answer is a resounding “yes”. Various Japanese media are reporting that the country’s leading chip makers have asked their workers to call off their summer vacations – a highly unusual move, even in Japan. → Read More
As if the eight 3D LCD TVs Toshiba yesterday announced for the Japanese market weren’t enough (three CELL Regza and five conventional REGZA models), the company also showed [JP] a 3D powered and Blu-ray recorder and another three that can be upgraded to 3D via a “3D upgrade kit”. All devices have an additional HDD on board. → Read More
You can’t say Toshiba isn’t following up on its announcement in April to enter the 3D game. Apart from the pretty awesome (but pricey) CELL 3D TVs the company showed today, Toshiba is also ready to roll out [JP] some more affordable 3D LCDs for the rest of us. There will be a 46- and a 55-incher in the REGZA F1 series and three models (42, 47, and 55 inches) in the REGZA ZG1 series. → Read More
The 3D TV boom isn’t ending. As announced back in April, Toshiba Japan today showed [press release in English] a total of three new Cell Regza LCD TVs, and all of them are 3D enabled and full HD. These are the “CELL REGZA SLIM” 46XE2 (46 inches) and CELL REGZA SLIM 55XE3 (55 inches) plus another 55-inch model, the CELL Regza 55X2 (pictured). → Read More
On Monday, the Toshiba Storage Device Division released a new line of 2.5” mobile drives. These 7200 RPM SATA drives are designed for the more demanding user and are optimized for “demanding performance, power consumption, and durability requirements.” Excellent; bigger and better notebook drives are always nice to have. → Read More
Toshiba made a bit of a mistake back in early June. They ran a series of ads in Germany, England, Portugal, Italy, and Spain, promising that if someone bought a Toshiba product before the end of the World Cup, and your team won it, Toshiba would refund your purchase. Sounds like a great deal, right? Well.. you’ve got to read that fine print. Turns out that Toshiba is rather particular about the exact terms of the refund. Turns out that the time frame is really limited, you had to register your product during the World Cup, and you have to send the forms in via certified mail. Quite the series of hoops, but hopefully everything will work out in the end. There’s more to it, because all this is going on in Europe, Toshiba might find themselves in trouble, but it’s certainly shaping up to be an interesting situation. → Read More
When I say “new,” I mean “not new at all.” These Canvio drives have been around for a while in their original forms, but this Mac-themed refresh gives them grey and white colors and OS X backup software. They come in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities for $100, $120, and $140 respectively. → Read More
It took a lot of time, but Toshiba is now ready to bring the Classmate tablet PC it created together with Intel to the Japanese market. Rebranded as “CM1″ [press release in English], the goal is to go after the nation’s educational sector. Both companies involved also announced they will launch initiatives to “foster ICT environments in schools” in order to boost IT literacy among Japanese schoolkids. → Read More
Short version: The H30 represents the final and most refined form of the traditional family camcorder. But with HD cameras appearing on every device, is a traditional camcorder something you need? → Read More
Hot on the heels of the W100 dual touchscreen tablet, Toshiba also unveiled the AC100 today, a 10.1-inch netbook that runs on Android 2.1. One of the big selling points of the AC100, which is the company’s first Android machine, is that it can remain in standby mode for up to seven days (the eight hours of battery life aren’t too shabby either). → Read More
What’s better than a tablet with one touchscreen? A tablet with two touchscreens. That’s at least what Toshiba must have thought when they cooked up the Libretto W100 with its dual 7-inch multi-touch displays (1,024×600 resolution and LED backlighting for both). There’s no physical keyboard, but you’ll get a virtual one with haptic response. → Read More
Expect your smartphone, digital camera or tablet computer to get a big spec bump in the near future: Toshiba today announced it has developed the world’s first embedded NAND flash memory module with 128GB capacity. That’s enough to store 2,222 hours of music (at 128Kbps), 16.6 hours of full HD video, or 38.4 hours of SD video. → Read More
We reported last week that two of Japan’s top cell phone makers, Fujitsu and Toshiba, were in talks to merge their cell phone businesses. And today, we have the rumor confirmed. Under the agreement, Toshiba will spin off its handset unit and Fujitsu is expected to take the majority stake in the joint venture (between a whopping 70 and 80%, according to reports in Japanese media). → Read More
Toshiba in Japan announced [JP] a new Qosmio laptop today, the Dynabook Qosmio V65. The main selling point of the device (of all Qosmios, in fact) is the “multi-media” capability: Toshiba promises that the laptop produces high-quality images, thanks to the SpursEngine coprocessor (that Toshiba has been using in its CELL TV and Qosmio laptops since 2008), LED backlight, and the 15.6-inch “Clear SuperView LED” HD TFT screen with 1,366×768 resolution. → Read More
Big news from the Japanese cell phone industry today: Two of Japan’s top handset makers, namely Fujitsu and Toshiba, are in talks to merge their cell phone operations within this year. According to the Nikkei (“Japan’s Wall Street Journal” and usually a reliable source), negotiations already reached the “final stage”.
The joint venture, if it happens, will create Japan’s second largest cell phone maker (with a combined 18.7% domestic market share), following Sharp (26.1%). Fujitsu (the current No. 3 among Japan’s handset makers with over 5 million handsets shipped in 2009) is expected to become the main stakeholder in the joint venture. Toshiba is the eighth biggest (1.28 million units). → Read More
Not a week passes without a Japanese company announcing a 3D-enabled device lately. Today, it’s Toshiba, which just unveiled [JP] a 3D-capable notebook, the dynabook TX/98MBL. According to the company, it’s the world’s first notebook that lets you view 3D content stored on Blu-rays (next to playing NVIDIA 3D Vision games). → Read More
Natural user interfaces using gestures aren’t really new, but AirSwing, a technology developed by Toshiba, offers something unique: it neither requires expensive hardware nor substantial CPU resources to work. After installing AirSwing (which is in prototype stage) on your computer, all you need is just a conventional web cam as the input device to start. → Read More
Many hardware makers, especially in the mobile device area, are betting high on touchscreens to let users interact with their products. Toshiba subsidiary Toshiba Information Systems has now developed the “New Sensation UI Solution”, which is supposed to make user interaction via touchscreens more intuitive through tactile feedback.
While this approach isn’t new in itself, Toshiba’s technology is different from other solutions as it doesn’t actually “move” hardware through actuators. Instead, the system is based on a special film that’s affixed to the touchpanel. That film, made by a Finnish company called Senseg, gives tactile feedback to the user when he or she touches the screen, charging the film. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
