NYC

A trio of sources speaking to  Bloomberg  have seemingly shed light on Acer's concerns with Microsoft's new tablet strategy. Seems that the boys beneath Ballmer hope to speed delivery of the company's new tablet OS by limiting variations. To accomplish this, Microsoft is offering incentives to chip and computer makers that agree to form sole alliances (i.e., one chipmaker works exclusively with one computer manufacturer) including enhanced feature sets and lower prices on Microsoft software. Under the plan, chip suppliers will be able to select a second company to produce a clamshell-style laptop using Microsoft's next wares. The plan is not mandatory and does not apply to desktop use of Microsoft next operating system, according to  Bloomberg 's sources. However, if true, then it represents a dramatic departure from Microsoft's traditional war-of-attrition approach to the laptop and tablet market that has resulted in a near limitless choice of brands and confi...

The Eee Pad Transformer may be wowing tablet lovers with its unbeatable price-to-features ratio today, but ASUS looks to have its sights set on even mightier devices for the future.  DigTimes  reports that the Taiwanese company is hard at work on a Tegra 3 tablet -- built around the spectacular Kal-El quad-core SOC that we saw demonstrated at MWC 2011 -- as well as another one running an Intel CPU. As far as the Intel slate is concerned, we're probably looking at the tablet-centric 1.5GHz Atom Z670, which promises 1080p playback and great battery life. You'll forgive us if we reserve our excitement for the Tegra 3-powered tablet, however, which should be able to churn through quite a few more pixels than regular old 1080p. There's no indication on when ASUS intends to deliver it, but NVIDIA's roadmap for devices with the quad-core chip expects to start appearing in August. Video of that awe-inspiring MWC demo follows after the break. DigiTimes

We've got a pretty good inkling that it's coming -- the big question is when will Amazon finally ship an LCD tablet. According to  DigiTimes,  and its occasionally trusty sources at upstream component makers, when  is defined by the second half of 2011. What's more, the media tablet will feature a Fringe Field Switching LCD display and touch panel from Amazon fave E Ink Holdings, a company better known for the technology behind the Kindle's EPD e-paper displays. According to  DigiTimes , Quanta has received the manufacturing honors with production expected to peak at about 700,000 - 800,000 units per month. So yeah, the Amazon Kindle tablet won't be sporting a Mirasol display according to this gossip. Then again, it's only gossip so anything goes. DigiTimes