For months now, the Nintendo Switch has been difficult to find. Strong demand has resulted in restocks that sell out almost immediately, but we're learning today that demand may only be one part of the equation. A new report says that Nintendo may be competing with mobile phone makers for parts, making the Switch even rarer.
Today might be the worst day to announce a new, "regular" Windows 10 laptop. Given the big event surrounding Windows 10 S and compatible laptops. like the Microsoft Surface Laptop, it is almost too easy to presume that new laptops this week will be all about Microsoft's new education platform. The Toshiba Portégé X30, the company's newest ultra-portable notebook, is anything but an affordable, student-friendly computer. It is, instead, all serious business, with serious specs, and a very serious price tag to match.
Toshiba is hoping to sell off a chunk of its most profitable business, planning to let someone else in on its memory chip division as it faces huge bills in its nuclear plant construction division. The Japanese firm faces a complete wipe-out of shareholder equity in the aftermath of cost overruns at a US power station construction business. That was acquired by Toshiba division Westinghouse.
At CES 2017 this week, Toshiba unveiled the latest in its 2-in-1 convertible notebook line: the new Portege X20W. The Windows 10 Pro device features a dual-action hinge with 360 degrees of rotation, allowing it to easily switch between a thin and powerful laptop and a 12.5-inch tablet with support for digital inking. While it measures just 15.4mm thin and has a weight under 2.5 pounds, the most enticing spec is the promise of a 16 hour battery life.
Toshiba client Solutions Division has unveiled a new product today that is aimed at helping notebook users to work better when in the office at their desk. The device is called the Toshiba WiGig dock and it delivers high-speed wireless docking using IEEE 802.11ad standards for connectivity. The dock can support wireless data transfer rates of up to 4.62Gbps and is able to connect up to seven different peripherals.
Not all SD cards are created equal. While these pieces of plastic are more known for providing extra storage for digital cameras and laptops, some cards offer more. These are the so-called Wi-Fi SD cards, enabling wireless transfer from SD card to some other wirelessly connected device. And there are, in fact, two competing, ergo incompatible, brands: Eyefi and Toshiba’s FlashAir. But thanks to a licensing deal between the two, cards from one company will soon be able to work with apps and services of the other, creating one big happy Wi-Fi SD card family.
Four reports of overheated and melted laptop batteries has prompted Toshiba to recall more than 100,000 units in the U.S. and Canada. These lithium-ion battery packs were used in 39 laptops across a trio of model lines, and were also sold separately. Most of the batteries are located in the United States, though 10,000 of them were sold in Canada, as well. Affected batteries start with the part number “G71C."
Security cameras, more often than not, have less-than-ideal image quality, something due in part to storage demands (storing endless hours of high-resolution footage requires ample storage space, after all). Storage isn’t a concern in some cases, though, and for those situations there’s the new Toshiba IKS-WB9518, the maker’s first Ultra HD 4k resolution security camera.
This week was filled with announcements of new and upcoming products but, somewhat ironically, Toshiba did the opposite. It revealed that it is canceling its Wearvue product, a Google Glass like that, like the rumored next gen Glass, was intended for the enterprise instead of consumers. What's amusing is how Toshiba canceled the device just a month after it was announced and just a week before it was meant to go on sale. Rather than an isolated case, however, it could be an indicator of a shift in the market.
Partly thanks to the rise of smartphones and tablets, the once lucrative PC market has been losing its luster for almost half a decade now. These are desperate times for many PC makers, which call for desperate measures. Three Japanese companies have been reported to be close to showing their desperation, by joining forces to tackle the common foe of declining PC sales. That VAIO, Fujitsu, Toshiba merger might actually even happen before the end of March. However, that drop might not even make any ripple in the global PC market.
Toshiba has unveiled a remote controlled robot that will be used to remove fuel-rod assemblies from the spent fuel pool in the reactor 3 building at the Fukushima no. 1 nuclear plant. The robot will begin the work of removing 566 fuel rod assemblies in fiscal 2017. Toshiba was the company that built reactor 3 and recently gave a demonstration of the remote-control crane-like device.
Things are going from bad to worse for Toshiba, with the company revealing plans to lay off another 6,800 workers amidst a record net financial loss. This follows a report earlier this month stating the company will spin off its PC business in an effort to ditch unprofitable business units. At the heart of its most recent troubles is an accounting scandal that came to light earlier this year.
