Stories about: Texas Instruments

Microsoft has released technical design details about the new version of Windows for devices that use ARM chips, outlining in a lengthy blog post different ways in which this OS, called WOA and still in the works, will be alike and different from existing versions of Windows.

ARM will announce its first 64-bit processors later this year for servers and high-end smartphones, and is also taking steps to build up software support for the processor designs, said CEO Warren East earlier this week.

For a touch-based interface it was awfully hard to get hold of. Microsoft's Windows 8 OS was shown on a handful of prototype ARM-based tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, but almost no one was allowed to try it out.

At about 6.8 millimeters thick, Huawei Technologies' Android 4.0-based Ascend P1 S is the thinnest smartphone yet introduced, the company said on Monday.

A company making ARM processors used in inexpensive Chinese tablets hopes to make a splash in the U.S. and Europe this year and drive down prices of Android 4.0 tablets to under US$100.

In 2011, the increasingly mobile and socially networked world of technology became more intertwined than ever with politics and the law. Patent wars shaped competition in tablets and smartphones, hacktivists attacked a widening array of political and corporate targets, repressive regimes unplugged citizens from the Internet, and the U.S. government moved to block the giant merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA. With the passing of Steve Jobs, the world lost a technology icon who redefined the computer, entertainment and consumer electronics industries. These are the IDG News Service's picks for the top 10 technology stories of the year:

Samsung on Wednesday said it has started shipping test units of its latest dual-core mobile chip based on ARM's new Cortex-A15 processor design, which could boost the performance of applications and graphics on smartphones and tablets.

Qualcomm on Wednesday said its quad-core Snapdragon chips, designed to run Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 OS, will appear in tablets in the second half of next year.

All eyes are on the Amazon Kindle Fire to provide fresh competition for Apple's iPad 2, today's dominant tablet. Not so fast: Beneath the Kindle Fire's slick veneer and unparalleled shopping integration lies a tablet that fails to impress as either a tablet or as an e-reader.

Tablets and smartphones will soon get quad-core processors with Nvidia's new Tegra 3 chip, which will eclipse the application and graphics performance provided by dual-core processors found on tablets like Apple's iPad and Motorola's Xoom.