December 12 - 1:00pm EST   Toshiba on Friday introduced three new Dynabook Qosmio-series notebooks for its home territory of Japan, with the multimedia-focused G50 and GX and FX pair meant for gamers with nearly identical specifications. All three feature a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel CPU set into Intel's PM45 Express mainboard and an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics card with a dedicated 512MB of memory, along with 4GB of RAM. The two gaming notebooks get 320GB hard disk drives and an integrated draft-N 2.0 Wi-Fi module. The key difference between the two is the GX notebook's 18.4-inch, 1680x945 LCD screen and the FX notebook's 15.4-inch, 1280x800 display. [full story]

October 21 - 8:35am EDT   Toshiba this morning gave the Qosmio X305 a major upgrade by updating nearly all its architecture. The 17-inch gaming system's new Q708 variant adds a 2.53GHz Core 2 Extreme quad-core chip and upgrades from the GeForce 9700M video hardware of before to dual GeForce 9800M GTS graphics chipsets that should provide more desktop-like 3D performance than before. Like the MacBook Pro, however, the X305 also uses a GeForce 9400M as its mainboard chipset and so is not only more space-efficient but can switch to integrated video to save power when the system isn't attached to a wall outlet. [full story]

September 22 - 12:30pm EDT   Sony and Toshiba today said they would start producing 45 nanometer versions of the Cell processor next year. The process is 50 percent more complex than the 65 nanometer process used for most current Cell chips and will allow the PlayStation 3 to use both a much smaller and cooler-running processor but also to cost less. Versus the current manufacturing process, the two companies' new technique can produce about 50 percent more chips at a time, reducing the cost for each processor. [full story]

July 18 - 12:45pm EDT   NVIDIA today quietly published details for its two highest-end GeForce 9M series notebook graphics chips following leaks by PC makers. The 9800M line is now NVIDIA's flagship and is much closer to desktop-class graphics than the earlier 9600M; the top-end 9800M GTX has 112 effects processors that compares closely to the 128 of the desktop 9800, suiting it to desktop replacement portables and very compact desktops. It runs at 500MHz at its core with a 1.9GHz effective memory speed. [full story]

July 15 - 2:50am EDT   With announcements from HP, Lenovo, and Sony, Toshiba also took the opportunity to announce (and ship) new Centrino 2 versions of its recently announced notebooks for faster networking, better performance, and improved battery life. The Satellite Pro S300 laptop, updated with latest Core Duo processor and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, offers Toshiba's fourth-generation EasyGuard technology, sleep-and-charge USB ports, optional SSD/flash-memory drive configurations, built-in docking capabilities and Webcam with business card reader software (starts at $1,2993). For its business-oriented Tecra models, Toshiba is using Intel's Centrino 2 with vPro micro-architecture ... [full story]

June 17 - 9:15am EDT   Toshiba this morning revealed a near-total overhaul of its Qosmio notebooks with three new models, all of which are the first with new features. The Qosmio G55 is the first-ever notebook to build in a variant of the Cell processor from Sony's PlayStation 3. In the portable, the chip is set to use just four cores but uses them to transcode video far faster than would be possible using the main processor. A 10-minute video that would take an hour to process takes just one minute to handle on the G55, the company says. It also upscales DVDs to 1080p to minimize the low-resolution artifacts that creep up on an HD-capable screen. [full story]

December 17 - 8:45am EST   In a late addition to its PC range, Toshiba on Monday revealed its first-ever portables to support HD DVD re-recording. New versions of the 15.4-inch Qosmio F40 and the 17-inch G40 each sport HD DVD-RW drives that allow them to be used hundreds or thousands of times for HD DVD content, such as large data backups or for videos. An update in February will allow either of the systems to burn copies of unprotected HDTV broadcasts pulled from their built-in digital TV tuners, the company adds. [full story]