July 3 - 9:20am EDT   Demand for notebook hard drives should lead to a shortage of disks throughout much of the summer, integrated circuit producers GMI Technology and Weikeng Industrial warned on Friday. As sales agents for hard drives from Hitachi, Toshiba and Western Digital, they tell DigiTimes that their clients hadn't anticipated demand and didn't adjust until it was too late. Hitachi and Western Digital were fiscally conservative due to the economy and didn't expand until early spring, while Toshiba is simply seeing very high demand for a single-platter 250GB drive. [full story]

July 2 - 3:50pm EDT   While it was reported just yesterday that Toshiba's first full touchscreen smartphone, the TG01, will be officially unveiled at a launch event in London on July 9th, it is now known the handset will make its debut in the UK at provider Orange on the same date. The wireless provider already has a product page up for the device; pricing is unknown but may be unveiled at the July 9th launch event. [full story]

July 1 - 11:55am EDT   Toshiba today at last said it will hold a launch event for its TG01 smartphone. The July 9th gathering in London is expected by SlashGear to mark the formal start of sales for the Windows Mobile handset in Europe; it's already on sale in Japan as the NTT DoCoMo PRO T-01A and should be available not just in the UK but Germany, Spain and possibly other countries. [full story]

June 26 - 11:40am EDT   Samsung may be triggering a sudden crunch in supplies of 1.8-inch hard drives through a strategic decision, Taiwan-area notebook builders reportedly said today. They claim that the Korean company has stopped development of the ultra-mobile disks in favor of solid-state drives, cutting the number of suppliers in half. Only Toshiba is left, DigiTimes says, and it's feared that prices might go up as the remaining producer tries to control demand. [full story]

June 23 - 3:20pm EDT   Toshiba today quietly started offering its NB205 netbook within the US. First shown in American trim at the start of the month and already on sale in Canada, the netbook is slimmer than before but lasts much longer on battery, running up to 9 hours. A slightly faster 1.66GHz Atom N280 also sets it apart. [full story]

June 23 - 2:20pm EDT   Toshiba on Tuesday announced the release of its updated Portable Hard Drives with new system backup functionality and password-protected encryption. The drives also now ship with pre-loaded software to make them compatible with either Windows or Mac systems. The drives are the first to include NTI's BackupNow EZ software, which not only allows users to backup their entire system with but also restore the complete system even if Windows doesn't start. [full story]

June 19 - 7:45am EDT   A teardown of the just-launched iPhone 3G S by RapidRepair this morning has revealed that Apple is using a processor capable of HD video and otherwise more than what Apple has enabled. The disassembly confirms the existence of a 600MHz ARM processor, Samsung's S5PC100, based on the much more advanced Cortex A8 platform. However, official specifications (PDF) show that the chip could run at 833MHz and that, while Apple officially limits video recording to 640x480, the full-speed component could not only play but capture 720p. [full story]

June 18 - 2:50pm EDT   Toshiba and NEC together said today that they would extend their agreement with IBM to produce 28 nanometer chip technology. The deal sees the members of the larger alliance continuing to work on the smaller, more efficient technology with the intention of using it for home user products. They now also say they expected 28nm to be particularly useful for "mobile communication devices" such as smartphones. [full story]

June 16 - 1:15pm EDT   Clearwire on Tuesday officially released its 4G WiMAX wireless broadband network in Atlanta, making it the largest city in the US to offer the service. The service, CLEAR, is available to about three million people in a 1,200-square mile area, offering users DSL-like cable speeds wherever they are, wirelessly. Running on a WiMAX radio system from Motorola, the service is said to deliver realistic download speeds between 4 and 6Mbps, with burst speeds greater than 15Mbps. In comparison, existing 3G networks provide download speeds between 1 and 1.7Mbps. [full story]

June 10 - 12:20pm EDT   In response to last week's accusations by the Russian government that Microsoft is pulling copies of its Windows XP operating system from store shelves early, the Microsoft Russia CEO Nikolai Pryanishnikov on Wednesday said the software maker will fully resolve the related issues. The regional chief said Microsoft Russia has received documents containing the issues and believes they can be addressed "without any problems." [full story]

June 10 - 10:15am EDT   Toshiba today started shipping the highest-end of its Regza HDTVs first shown at CES and added a new mid-range series to its line at the same time. The SV670 is the range leader with an LED backlight that supports local dimming on individual areas of the screen, giving it contrast levels as high as 2,000,000:1. It also has a 240Hz panel and 14-bit internal color processing. The SV670 comes in 46- and 55-inch variants that sell for $2,300 and $3,000 respectively. [full story]

June 1 - 4:05pm EDT   Toshiba this afternoon confirmed that it would bring its NB200 series netbooks to the US. Now called the NB205, the line is much thinner and sleeker than its earlier counterparts while also including a more comfortable, optional "chiclet" keyboard. It also promises to upstage competitors with a six-cell battery as standard and making one of its USB ports a sleep-and-charge port that can power media players, phones or other devices while the system isn't fully active. [full story]

June 1 - 11:25am EDT   Qualcomm upped its stake in the mobile space today with an upgrade to the Snapdragon line of mobile processors. The QSD8650A jumps from the previous 1GHz to a new 1.3GHz but is also Qualcomm's first 45 nanometer processor; it's about 30 percent faster than its predecessor but simultaneously uses 30 percent less average power than earlier parts. Video performance in 3D and elsewhere has also been given a boost, the company says. [full story]

May 25 - 1:25pm EDT   Toshiba has recently introduced a KDDI handset known as the biblio that, in addition to voice support, will double as an e-book reader as well. Instead of an electronic paper display like ones found in established e-book readers, such as Amazon's Kindle, the biblio makes do with a traditional 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen with an extra-long 480x960 resolution. The handset will have 7GB of internal memory for storing content that can be expanded thanks to microSDHC memory cards up to 8GB. [full story]

May 25 - 1:20pm EDT   Wireless providers NTT DoCoMo and Telefónica on Monday announced that the TG01 full touchscreen handset, Toshiba's first, will launch in their respective markets of Japan and Spain. The Japanese version, called PRO T-01A, will arrive sometime in June, while Spain will get the TG01 in July. [full story]