On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

As the name suggests, electronics are based on bursts of electricity representing 1's and 0's. But what if the devices of the future transmit and process information using much faster pulses of light... Photonics, if you will?

Researchers at the Unversity of Pennsylvania present a potential step towards such a photonic future (one of exponentially faster systems and quantum computers) by creating the first all-optical switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires.

More importantly the researchers can combine the switches into logic gates, the basic building blocks of computing.

The innovation builds on earlier work from the researchers showing how cadmium sulfide nanowires have "strong light-matter coupling." Meaningefficiency at manipulating light, it is a crucial quality for the development of photonic circuits.

“The biggest challenge for photonic structures on the nanoscale is getting the light in, manipulating it once it's there and then getting it out,” associate professor Ritesh Agarwal says. “Our major innovation was how we solved the first problem, in that it allowed us to use the nanowires themselves for an on-chip light source.”

While far off, Agarwall claims the researchers makes possible "a future where 'consumer electronics' become 'consumer photonics.'" Until then, we will just have to stick to the name "On CE"...

Go Penn Researchers Make First All-Optical Nanowire Switch

Intel's "Next Unit of Computing" (NUC) makes an appearance at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2012-- a red 10cm x 10cm box carrying a new board format and a fairly low price.

We all know compact PCs (such as the Via Pico ITX) are nothing new, but Intel pushes the smaller form factor futher. NUC carries a mobile Core i3 Ivy Bridge CPU, QS77 chipset (with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics), x2 dual-channel DDR3 SoDIMM slots, mSATA and mini-PCIe interfaces, all within a dimunitive motherboard and cooling assembly.

Intel claims the 10x10cm format is the smallest capable of supporting Ivy Bridge CPUs with supporting core logic and expansion.

Ports include x5 USB 2.0 (x2 back, x1 front, x2 internal), HDMI and Thunderbolt, while power comes through an external 19V DC power supply. The casing on show even has VESA mounts for easy wall mounting or attachment to LCD displays.

IDF 2012 houses 2 flavours of NUC-- one with a single HDMI connector, the other with x2 HDMI outputs and an additional ethernet port.

We have no no details of the eventual NUC consumer release, but OEMs can get kits from October 2012 for $400.

Go Intel Developer Forum 2012

While everyone's attention was firmly on the iPhone 5, Apple had yet another yearly update in store-- the iPod nano, now looking more or less like a miniature iPhone.

Over the years Apple played quite a few times with the iPod nano format. The device started off tall and thin, before becoming short and fat. Then it grew tall and thin again. In 2011 Apple even took on the smartwatch format, with the small, square model users can mount on a wrist strap.

Apple claims the 7th generation nano is still thinner (by 38%, apparently), being 5.4mm thick. It also sports a single physical button as well as a 2.5-inch multitouch display, 16GB of storage Lightning dock connector, Bluetooth radio and an FM tuner with DVR-style functionality (for playback control).

The regular iPod (or iPod Touch) also gets an upgrade with iPhone 5-style specs-- 4-inch display (with the same 326 ppi panel as in iPhone 5), 5MP rear-facing camera, Lightning connector and iOS 6.

Go Apple iPod

Here is the turnaround of the week, if not the month-- in an interview with Fox Business CEO Meg Whitman confirms HP is working on a smartphone, saying the company needs to go back to mobile market.

"My view is we have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world, that is your 1st computing device... We’re a computing company, we have to take advantage of that form factor,” Whitman says.

HP used to sell Windows Mobile device before it bought Palm and webOS for all of $1.2 billion back in 2010. It killed off the webOS mobile device making division on August 2011 (due to generally dismal sales) as part of the abortive Great Garage Sale kicked off by then-CEO Léo Apotheker.

Whitman had no part in those decisions. And now she wants back at mobiles.

"We’ve got to get it right this time," Whitman continues. "So we’re working to make sure that, when we do this, it will be the right thing for HP and we will be successful."

The company might have the software-- a skeleton staff still ticks on, turning webOS software into the the open source Enyo. Also, according to a leaked email HP also has "Gram," an internal startup formed from the remains of the webOS Global Business Unit. HP also might go for the easier (or more mainstream) option and simply make Android or Windows Phone 8 devices.

Since HP is repeating past decisions, it might even do a second big mobile-related acquisition-- maybe it can do a big enough offer for RIM? Then again, the more unkind of commentors suggest HP should concentrate on its PC bread and butter instead of thinking it can rival the likes of Apple and Samsung...

Go HP: We Have to Ultimately Offer a Smartphone (Fox Business)