June saw several technological breakthroughs this year, ranging from amazing battery life on Apple Notebooks to iPhone 3G S. While WWDC’09 caught most of the attention, Computex didn’t just go unnoticed. While it didn’t announce some glamorous spotlight-hopping products, NVidia’s demonstration of Tegra platform did mark a serious development in mobile computing.

Does 720p and 1080p video playback on your palm sounds good? How about PC grade RPGs and FPSs running @ 45 FPS on just on your hands? NVidia Tegra claims to do just these. And the best thing is that it manages to do all these consuming less than 1W of power. That makes way for amazing battery life in portable gadgets without taking a toll on performance. Inside Tegra, lie 8 independent processors each programmed to serve its own purposes.

Tegra houses Eight different processors for efficient operations

According to NVidia, each of these independent processors works only when needed and otherwise stays powered down. They are also claiming 25 days of music playback (yeah, it’s days not hours!) and 10 hours of HD video playback, quite insane for today’s mobile chips. Interestingly, the platform is not just meant to be used in PCs which is turned on when needed but rather on mobile devices which remains always on.

The Tegra chipset is not bigger than a regular Pen Drive

Tegra shows immense potential for a mobile platform combining never seen before performance and battery life together. It just needs suitable operating system that can manage tasks efficiently and offload them in proper fashion to those 8 processors. Microsoft recently confirmed that their upcoming Zune HD will be based on Tegra and even the prototype models showed a great fluency in using them. Planned to be released on Q4 of 2009, Tegra has the innate capability of blowing away the competition.

For more information on Tegra, check out the official webpage @ http://www.nvidia.com/page/handheld.html

Apparently, a source close to Microsoft, on terms of being anonymous, revealed information about rumoured Zune HD specs, supporting the fact that the device is indeed real and on the horizon. This came as a little surprise to me since it’s announced on the same day when I busted the speculation of a ‘Zunephone’. A direct MS manufactured cellphone looks more vague now. According to him, Zune HD will have the following hardware configuration,

• 3.6 inch-ish OLED full touch screen.
• NVIDIA Tegra powered.
• 8GB, 16GB, 32GB
• HDMI Connection to stream straight to your TV.
• HD Radio.
• Web Browser.
• Wi-Fi compatible, with wireless marketplace.
• Released, early fall.
• International release of the Zune device itself.
• Home AV packs, Car packs, Charge packs.

Rumoured Zune HD pics

Although none from Redmond confirmed the presence of Camera or 3D XBOX gaming support in the upcoming device, speculations are going crazy over these. Since the PMP is far more powerful than almost anything present on the current market in terms of raw hardware count, it’s not a meaningless idea to crave from 3D gaming support. I wish, if Microsoft is definitely going to stick with the above said configuration, they’ll add some blazing games to its favour. That will also be a fitting answer to PSP, while Microsoft doesn’t currently have a portable gaming platform.

Zunephone doesn't make much sense.

A lot of rumours are flying recently on the web about a whole new genre of Microsoft products. Yes, I’m talking about the rumoured, busted and rumoured-again hi-flyer Microsoft phone aka ‘Zunephone’. Since the leaks of apparent first shots of a new product called ‘Zune HD’, people are also speculating hard about MS entering into cell phone business. Add another mysterious thing called ‘Project Pink’ to it and the whole story gets hyperactive.

Zune, since its launch, was underdog to the world of PMPs, striving to take a solid step on the dominance of iPods. A plan to restrict the release within US wasn’t a good idea for something which would strive for a worldwide significance. Unfortunately, MS didn’t bother about the world audience then, leaving a rather dissatisfying impression of a product launch. Since then, a lot of progress happened to this market segment with Apple domination growing big. With iPod Touch caching the eye of young generation and Apple Store making portable computing easier, Microsoft is on a tough spot even for leaving a mark.

Therefore, a obvious question arrives even on a less inquisitive mind if Microsoft is planning a fight back by shelling out something path braking in recent future. A ‘Zunephone’ rumour is easy to swallow here, an usual idea that comes to mind. But I don’t think they are going to announce anything like that anytime soon.

First of all, Microsoft was never too eager to venture on cellphone manufacturing market. They were just making mobile version of Windows forever and likes to continue the trend till doomsday. A new phone means a whole lot of responsibility with hardware, firmware and off course a service provider. I think they’re happy with their current position as a major software maker.

Before iPhone shook the world with innate magnificence, Apple was just gambling a large stake of sum behind the whole idea. Steve Jobs manoeuvred for making a global craze and the idea got ticked. On the other hand, Microsoft never liked to put on a wager to get a product launched that could make a stir after the company established itself as a large software producer. And I don’t think they are going to follow Las Vegas ways this time also.

Windows Mobile is a more open platform that runs on various devices, unlike the mobile version of MacOSX which powers iPhone or iPod Touch only. Apple is famous for their lockdown mania making it sensible to have a phone from their stables. It’s their tradition, they love being everything for their products. On the contrary, Microsoft doesn’t have a PC manufacturing business of their own to run Windows and that’s completely unnecessary. Besides, Win Mo is already powering a plethora of devices across many manufacturers including HTC, Samsung etc. So it doesn’t make much sense on having a new phone from the Redmond Giants.