We like Ericsson's idea for the original Tower Tube--take something as ubiquitous and ugly as a cell tower and add a touch of nice design and a streamlined manufacturing process that saves money and energy. Now they're taking the idea in another cool direction by adding a four-blade vertical wind turbine to the already-efficient design, allowing it to generate much of its own power. It's a concept in trial stages currently but something that makes a whole lot of sense. [Ericsson via PC World]

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We've already seen the SpursEngine teased in laptops, but Toshiba is becoming vocal about bringing the SpursEngine—the same technology found in the PlayStation 3 Cell processor—to standalone video cards in 4-core configuration. The first will come from Leadtek later this month for $US286, a 128MB card that can fit into a small form PC, and it will be followed in November by Thomson cards that will start in the high $US300s. SpursEngine cards have built-in MPEG2 and H.264 codecs which equal smooth video playback and the ability to uprez SD content on the fly. And at least Leadtek's offering sounds like a solid alternative to small media PC packed with integrated graphics. [PCWorld]

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Sony and Toshiba announced that they had successfully shrunk the 65nm cell down to 45nm earlier this year, and now thanks to Japan's Nikkan Kogyo, we now have a date for mass production: 2009. At a 40% reduction in power consumption, the shrunken Cell will generate less heat, which would help the PS3 to lose some of its piano-black bulk in a slim version. Cheaper production costs also means more $$ for Sony (or price drops for us). This could also lead to wider adoption of Cell technology in HD upscaling, which Toshiba is already doing in their SRT-enabled TVs and DVD players (but with their own custom chip). [Nikkan Kogyo (Translated)]

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Toshiba's new Regza ZF HDTVs don't upscale your DVDs to HD resolution with any old chipset or engine: they do it with a Cell-processor based system. Bonkers! It's the first TV to upscale with a Cell, and according to its European executive vice president, Toshiba's future "does not involve Blu-ray disc" but will use this sort of tech to deliver high-res imagery. The upscaling system uses the Cell for some advanced image-processing techniques, creating interpolated pixels to give the final image "near-HD" quality. The sets will also have Active Vision M100 100Hz HD picture processing, 178-degree viewing angle, 30,000:1 contrast ratio and 10-bit processing. The ZF TVs will be in 40- and 46-inch sizes, the 40-inch out now with pricing of around US$2,390, the 46-pricing and availability is not announced yet. [Toshiba.co.uk and Toshiba.de-via Google translate.]

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Toshiba's Qosmio G55 has popped up on Giz over the last couple of months, talking about its advanced gesture controls which rely on its use of the PS3's Cell processor tech, and now it's official. Toshiba's calling it the "world's first laptop with cell processor tech inside," and concentrates on four functions it gives the machine. Upconvert/upconversion (basically 1080i upscaling,) transcoding of video formats, face-based video indexing and gesture control. The laptop will have a starting price of US$1,299.99. Press release below.

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Toshiba decided to divvy up its Qosmio line into three very different machines, with starting prices way below the US$3,000 that Qosmios previously cost.
• The 15.4" F55, with starting price at US$1,150, will include built-in GPS—with Garmin navigation and mapping software—while its US$1,750 configuration will have some reasonably decent gaming capability as well.
• The already leaked (and leaked) 18.4" monster G55 includes gesture-based controls—hand gestures in front of the camera—enabled by the Cell chip found in PS3s. This secondary processor also helps transcoding HD video and face tracking while editing video. It is priced from US$1,300 to US$1,550.
• Toshiba has officially rolled its gaming systems into the Qosmio brand, starting with the X305 (which you may have seen). The 17" gaming notebook will cost anywhere from US$1,550 (in retail configs) to US$3,500 with overclocked Core 2 Extreme processor, WSXGA resolution screen and two 7200-rpm drives.
UPDATE: Video showing gestures, GPS interface and more below, along with gallery and press release.

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Its recently been revealed that Toshiba is planning to use Sony PS3 technology in its upcoming TVs and Notebooks. The OC Register's Gadgetress got her hands on the Toshiba's Qosmio notebook (shown above), which will use the SpursEngine chip, jointly developed between Toshiba and Sony around the Cell. The processor will handle much of the video and multimedia processing, taking the load off the main CPU.

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Our good friends over at Kotaku have posted this nugget of gold – Apparently the US Air Force has put in a requisition for 300 40GB Playstation 3 consoles.

Rather than actually use it for good, like playing GTA IV, watching Blu-ray movies or Folding at Home, the Air Force's Research Laboratory plans on "conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors". In other words, using them for evil.

According to the Presolicitation notice found online, the PS3 is the only cell chip on the market that can be acquired at an acceptable cost. So obviously they won't be buying their PS3s from Australia, then.

Sony always said that the PS3 wasn't just a games machine. Now it's a military research device as well. Hopefully future wars won't all be controlled by a DualShock though.

[FBO.gov via PS3mods via KotakuAU]

Now that the war is over, you may be wondering what the future will hold for Toshiba. You may not, too, but yesterday at the local press event for HD DVD's demise, Toshiba's Australian General Manager Mark Whittard dropped some pretty big hints as to which direction Toshiba will be looking to move post-HD DVD. And as you could imagine, it isn't Blu-ray.

He cited that one of the major influences in Toshiba's decision to pull the plug, outside of Warner and Walmart's decision to turn their backs on the format, was the rapidly growing demand for downloadable entertainment. The market for online content was growing faster than Toshiba had expected, and had severely reduced the lifespan of both next-gen disc formats.

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IBM has successfully miniaturised the Cell processor that you know from Sony's PlayStation 3. Formerly built upon the 65nm scale, the new version will be based on the 45nm high-k process. What's this mean? Money, power and heat savings for Sony. And maybe a smaller or cheaper PS3 for you.

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