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Super-vague report in the Nikkei this morning about NEC working on a seven-to-eight-inch “mobile device as capable as a personal computer” that’s aimed at business customers — no specs are given, but the tiny accompanying pic definitely shows the Android app tab at the bottom of that custom UI. Very mysterious. The report says NEC thinks it’ll move 100,000 to 200,000 of these a year after it launches next fall, and plans to sell a million a year over time, but we’ll wait to see what’s real and what’s not before we tackle that prediction. [Via Slashgear ; warning, read link requires registration] Filed under: Handhelds , Tablet PCs NEC working on …

” Retina display technology ” sounds frightening if you think about it for more than a second. Brother’s upcoming specs beam 800×600 images refreshed at 60hz directly onto your retina, so that they appear, transparently, about a meter in front of you. They’re coming out next year, though they haven’t set a price. Separate, NEC’s planning a pair of similar shades, except that they’d translate foreign languages in real time, with subtitles hovering in front of you, like you’re watching a movie of your life. Which is how I feel a bunch of the time anyway. [ Register , FarEastGizmos via Popular Science via Engadget ]

Big news from Japan’s mobile phone industry today (Friday afternoon Japanese time). Various Japanese media are reporting that NEC, Hitachi and Casio are in talks to merge their cell phone operations to become Japan’s second biggest manufacturer, following Sharp. Reportedly, NEC plans to integrate its cell phone business into a tie-up that already exists between Hitachi and Casio. According to rumors, NEC wants to take a majority stake in the new entity, which would then control about 20% of the Japanese cell phone market. The joint venture is apparently scheduled to start operations as early as April 2010 and seen as a way to cut development costs in a quickly shrinking domestic market. This could also mean that more Japanese handsets find their way to the…

The big rumor out of Japan today has NEC locked in heated negotiations with existing joint venture Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications to add itself into the mix — a JV that’s currently a 51 / 49 percent ownership split between Casio and Hitachi , respectively — with NEC wanting to pick up a total of 50 percent of the combined operation. Japan’s one of the more competitive, low-margin mobile markets in the world ( just ask Mitsubishi ) so it makes sense that a lot of these guys would be looking to consolidate and work on their sourcing scales of economy; if it happens, the rumor has the deal targeted for an April 2010 close that would make the combined operation the second-largest in…

It’s not every day that we hear about new Linux phones so we definitely should check them out. Panasonic and NEC seem not to care about Android, Windows Mobile or Symbian OS that much. They seem to prefer LiMo instead. In fact they love it so much that they have announced a daring project which involves creating nine new Linux phones. KDDI and Immersion Corp will work on those phones but LiMo is also hoping for other important manufacturers to be impressed by the initiative. What about you? Would you buy a cheaper touchscreen smartphone running on Linux ? Can’t wait to see when these new phones will be officially unveiled. via Reuters Related Posts Limo Foundation Is Alive: …

Another challenger enters the ultrathin notebook arena. This time it’s NEC, prepping its lightest and daintiest edition of the UltraLite line, the Type VS. Its thickness ranges from 15.8mm to 29.9mm, comparing unfavorably to the 19.4mm MacBook Air or the 16.51mm Adamo . But, its 725g weight (about a pound and a half) definitely undercuts the competition, and its three USB slots, Ethernet port, and SD card reader give reasonable connectivity without external adapters. Its 10.6-inch screen has a resolution of 1208 x 768, the CPU is Intel’s 1.86GHz Atom Z540 (the same as found in the higher-spec version of the Vaio P ), 1GB of RAM is on tap, and a 64GB SSD keeps things persistent. Solid specs for sure, and with an asking…

We all will get faster USB devices very soon. NEC Electronics just announced the µPD720200 chip , which is the world’s first USB 3.0 host controller. The so-called SuperSpeed controller features a transfer speed of up to 5Gbps, which is ten times faster than USB 2.0. NEC claims that it takes just 70 seconds to transfer 25GB of data to a Bluray disc, for example. The same procedure would take 14 minutes via a USB 2.0 connection. The controller also supports USB 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0. NEC plans to ship the first batch of samples of the chip to customers as early as next month with each unit priced at $15. The company says it wants

SoftBank today not only announced six new cell phones made by Sharp but also nine other models from companies such as NEC, Panasonic, Samsung and Armani (well, the Armani handset is really made by Samsung). The carrier will start rolling out the handsets between May and October this year. Here is the rest of the SoftBank summer 2009 line-up (all models that are not made by Sharp): NEC 931N (Wi-Fi cell-phone featuring a maximum performance of 54MBps, a rotating 3-inch touch screen and a 8MP camera) NEC 930N (featuring a super-slim body (13.9mm) and a 8MP camera) NEC 831N (easy-to-use handset with earth quake information function) Panasonic 931P (VIERA handset …

According to Nikkei