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

Nintendo unveils its latest entry to the console race at E3 2011-- the Wii U, whose most obvious new feature is a controller one can only describe as a tablet-joypad crossbreed.

The controller keeps true to Nintendo's Apple-meets-Fisher Price school of hardware design, with chunky white plastic buttons and curved edges around a 6.2" touchscreen. It connects wirelessly to the console itself (a simple, discrete white box) and can interact with games in a number of ways-- from showing an inventory screen's contents, to a different view of the action or simply displaying game action instead of the regular TV.

The console also uses Wii remotes (up to four of them)-- one E3 example shows the Wii U control on the floor showing a golf ball on a tee, while the player swings with the remote. It also carries motions sensors, speakers, camera and microphon (for video conferencing).

Nintendo promises the hardware can also handle HD graphics (with 1080p video output) through a custom IBM multi-core processor and an AMD Radeon-based GPU. It also comes with an unspecified amount of internal flash memory, expandable via SD cards or external USB HDD.

The Wii U should be hitting the market on 2012, by which time Nintendo will be phasing out the Wii-- although the new console is backwards compatible with the Wii's games and various accessories.

Go Nintendo Wii U

Microsoft will build Xbox Live right into Windows 8, Microsoft global marketing VP Mike Delman confirms in an interview with The Seattle Times.

The news follows up on an earlier statement on Microsoft's official blog by corporate VP Frank Shaw, where he confirms Microsoft is planning to use the Xbox brand as a more general entertainment brand.

Thus Xbox Live will become something of an entertainment one stop shop for games, movies, TV and music-- or at least that's what Microsoft hopes for.

Shaw claims consumers use the console for "an average of 30 hours of video consumption per month"-- figures probably (if not certainly) relating to Netflix usage in the USA.

E3 2011 also sees the announcement of Microsoft pairing with regional cable providers to bring live TV to Xbox live, with consumers carrying out subscriptions through the platform.

Microsoft also plans to bring Skype on the Xbox using Kinect, with a potential announcement happening on CES 2012.

XBox Live is already baked into Windows Phone 7, through which users can check out their profiles and play mobile games.

Go Microsoft's Big Plans for Xbox Live

Go Xbox: Now That's Entertainment

SanDisk announces 2 new SSDs at Computex 2011-- the U100 and i100, both aimed at the mobile computing market.

The U100 is the successor to the P4 modular SSD series widespread among ultra-thin notebooks. It comes in a number of form factors, including Half-Slim SATA SSD, mSATA, mSATA mini and 2.5" cased.

It delivers SATA III performance (up to 450 MB/sec sequential read and 340MB/sec sequential write) with a low-power architecture available in 8GB to 256GB capacities.

Meanwhile the i100 is SanDisk's smallest SATA III BGA-based SSD yet and is aimed for tablet devices. It comes in 8GB to 128GB capacities and measures only 16mm x 20mm x 1.4mm (for up to 64GB) and 16mm x 20mm x 1.85mm (for 128GB).

It reaches speeds of up to 450MB/sec sequential read and 160MB/sec sequential write while SanDisk says it extends device battery life via its low-power architecture.

Go SanDisk

Remember writing slates? The slabs of flat black material on which people wrote with chalk before the days of electronics (or pen and paper, even)? Improv Electronic's Boogie Board is basically that, only updated by means of a pressure sensitive reflex LCD screen.

Pressure on the Boogie Board with either a finger or stylus (included) turns its screen from dark to light-- and that's all it does, really. No operating systems or apps getting in the user's way. Once one is done, hitting the erase button clears the the screen.

Clearing the screen is also the only time the Boogie Board uses any power-- and Improv says its 2 button cells can power it for 50000 erase cycles.

It comes in either 8.5" or 10" screen sizes (including an 8.5" model fitting ring binders), and a message centre dock allows mounting on a wall or any flat surface-- which makes it perfect for hanging on the fridge.

Go Boogie Board