The Nvidia press conference is due to kick off at 10am in Las Vegas, that's 6pm in the UK. Stay tuned, and you'll see updates here as they happen.
Hello! We're in. It's Ben flying solo today while James and Joe scour the central hall for new goodies. We're listening to the sounds of Slough's finest, Hard-Fi, while we wait for the NVIDIA prezzer to kick off here at the Las Vegas Hilton.
We're a few minutes from start so hold tight. Everyone in the audience has been given 3D goggles, so we're expecting some extra dimensional doodah from the graphics company.
What else though? We're hoping to hear more about the Tegra 2, a graphics chip that rumours peg to be in the next Nintendo DS>
Lights are down, and NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is on stage. We're off!
He's talking about the importance of pocket digital devices. Huang loves his BlackBerry.
Huang is discussing the original iPhone. In its first iteration, it had very applications, "but it allowed web connected applications to bloom". With the iPhone "people discovered that they wanted to be online wherever they are".
Huang envisions something with the portability of a smartphone, but the power of a PC. A tablet, per chance?
Hoho. Huang just proclaimed 2010 the tabet revolution, and whipped one right out.
Yep, here it is, a new Tegra.
This thing is powerful. 8 independent processors, and a dual core Cortex A9-CPU.
We'll bring you pictures as soon as the press conference is over.
Battery life in tablets of up to 140 hours, almost a week!
16 hours of video on one charge, impressive with a big screen tablet - in HD too.
On stage now is Mike Rayfield, general manager of the Tegra division. He's just pulled out the new ICD Tegra tablet.
Ah. The browser on this Android slate isn't working. We're off to a good start.
Well now - he's demoing an MSI tablet, and a Foxconn tablet. Hey, don't they make the iPhone for Apple? Hmm....
Time to demo 1080p video on the slate: it's fast.
They're showing the same file running on a Tegra tablet and an Intel Atom netbook. Tegra is unsurprisingly the only one playing video smoothly.
It's not as smooth as a Blu-ray player, naturally, but it is impressive nonetheless. Smatter of applause from the audience.
These Tegra tablets will support Adobe Air, so you'll be able to run digital magazines, and all Air apps as well presumably.
Huang will be showing this element off more at Mobile World Congress next month. We've already booked our place at MWC, so we'll bring you more then.
Up next, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games. That's the company behind Unreal and Gears Of War.
Graphics heavy games, we might point out. Is this new wave of Tegra tablets going to have a mobile games store? Tim is talking about how he first started the company in 1991.
Ah yes, he loves how gaming is possible on mobiles now. Must be why he's here!
Sweeney: Portable gaming devices have been "toys". As much as he loves the Nintendo DS, he wants a device that has more in common with a PS3 or Xbox 360.
Oh wow. They're demoing the Unreal engine 3 running on Tegra. We're talking HD graphics, comparable to home consoles, on a tablet.
We'll get some shots up for you ASAP. Whether you want a tablet or not, you'll want graphics this good in mobile gaming.
The best bit? You won't even need to port games over from PC, they'll run from the same graphics libraries.
Tim's off now to some deserved applause. Huang says this tablet for games is on sale now if you're a developer. Nice!
Over 50 tablets on the way, according to a slide, from big manufactures like Asus, MSI, Compal and Quanta.
(The last two make laptops for a lot of big name brands)
Huang: "This year is going to be absolutely wild...a brand new digital device, a brand new category." And with that, he's moving on from tablets. What next?
Huang wants to open up the car as a new type of mobile computer. We didn't see this one coming. Mathias Halliger, the UI architect at Audi is stepping on stage.
Looks like the dashboard could be getting an HD makeover.
Mobile computers in car need to be supremely easy to use, so you keep your eyes on the road, but at the same time control everything in the car. No easy challenge.
Sensors around a car connected to a car computer can assist you with driving, giving you a heads up when something unexpected falls on to the road ahead.
It's an interesting idea, but would you risk your car getting a blue screen of death on the motorway?
Some Audi cars have up to 100 computers working away inside - needless to say, they need to have seriously low power consumption.
They also need to be heat resistant - most PCs would melt under a car bonnet, Mathias says.
Here's what this has been leading up to: from 2010, all Audi cars will rung with NVIDIA Tegra systems inside. You know what we're thinking, video on demand on the backseat.
And with that, Huang and Halliger have hopped into a model of the inside of a car.
Out pops one bad ass dashboard computer.
Most driver related functions are still controllable from the wheel.
electricpig
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