Word is that NVIDIA has won a contract with Nintendo for an upcoming handheld game console. Some are describing it as the “successor of the DS/DSi”. Speculation is that the new device would be available around 2010. If true, would this be the current Tegra? Or the next-generation Tegra?

The DSi isn’t that old, so I’m wondering if we are really talking about the next Wii here. Even if it is for a handheld, this would certainly give a nVidia a foot in the door for the next Wii. It’s just rumor for now, but interesting.

Since January when the Ion platform from NVIDIA first launched, not many netbooks or nettops have taken advantage of the HD capable platform that crams a 9400M GPU into the netbook chassis. A few machines have trickled onto the market using Ion but not as many as NVIDIA had hoped.

NVIDIA has confirmed that Samsung will be launching an Ion-powered netbook model soon. The GPU maker won’t confirm details like model, specs, or pricing other to say its Ion platform is being used.

The Mobinnova élan netbook, a NVIDIA Tegra-powered machine, weighs just two pounds, but can deliver 720p video on its 8.9-inch screen. We aren’t sure what OS it’s running, but we do know that it has an “innovative 3D graphical user interface,” supports hardware-accelerated Flash video, has both WiFi and 3G, and can play video for five to ten hours on a single charge.

NVIDIA claims that its Tegra platform can play an audio file continuously for 600 hours (thats 25 days!) assuming that the display is turned off. Take a deep breath. We don’t know what the pricing looks like after all. Mobinnova’s Tegra announcements also include the T8 tablet, which repackages the élan in a 10.1-inch tablet form factor with GPS and HDMI out.

The global computer market is down thanks to the poor economy around the world. When the computer market goes down the market for other tech that goes along with the computers drops as well. That means companies providing software and hardware needed for PCs are having a tough time.

NVIDIA is traditionally a very profitable company, but with the global recession, the GPU maker is struggling to get back to profitability. The firm has announced the financial numbers for Q1 fiscal 2010. The GPU maker reports revenue for the quarter was $664.2 million compared to $1.2 billion for the same quarter a year ago.

Apparently nVidia’s next-generation GT300 will be different than the GT200. How different? Very, very different. They are calling it the “first truly new architecture since SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data) units first appeared in graphical processors.”

Here’s the gist of a whole bunch of techno-jargon: NVIDIA could be close, very close, to a single chip that can handle tasks that have been separately handled by the CPU and GPU. And that is seriously big. Life changing stuff. Now all we can do is wait for nVidia to actually give us some details.

When it comes to video cards for gamers there are two brands to chose from — ATI and NVIDIA. The two companies routinely fight for the title of most power video card and make a slew of parts for gamers shopping in the mid-range where prices aren’t too high.

NVIDIA has announced a new mid-range video card called the GTX 275 that will sell in the $229 to $249 price range. You can count on the factory-overclocked versions of the card form XFX, BFG, and EVGA to sell for more than that though.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 3D Vision package is loaded up with powered 3D glasses (charged via USB) and an IR emitter to keep everything synced between the display and your glasses. The good news is that you’ll have something to use these with since Left 4 Dead, WoW: WotLK and several other games are already compatible. More are expected to follow soon.

CES had a demo and so far we haven’t heard about any headaches or other strange side-effects so it’s all good and completely stereocopic 3D. The price? $399 for the display and $199 for this set when it’s available in the next few days. But I have one question for you. Just how close do you really want to get to those zombies?

NVIDIA is the biggest name in discrete video card sales. It has among its wares some of the best performing video cards available. The graphics giant purchased Ageia and gained from the buy PhysX technology that it has been enabling on its GPUs and peddling to game developers.

Over the last few weeks, some of the biggest game publishers in the world have licensed NVIDIA’s PhysX technology including EA. EA showed footage of its new title Mirror’s Edge with PhysX enabled and it looked like a different game.

I am a big fan of netbook computers. I have tested several and found them to be great for reducing my load when traveling to places like CES. The catch is that netbooks offer little graphics power meaning that you get a less than ideal HD video and gaming experience on most netbook computers.

NVIDIA announced a new platform this week called Ion that promises to provide Intel Atom powered netbooks and net tops with the graphics muscle they need for better HD video viewing and even PC gaming.

NVIDIA has been having a rough couple of quarters recently posting a loss thanks to defective GPUs in notebooks and then seeing profits decline significantly. That hasn’t stopped the graphics firm from bringing new products to market like the 9400M GPU and today it has announced a new professional graphics card.

The Quadro FX 5800 is the industry’s first graphics card to use 4GB of graphics memory. The card features CUDA massively parallel processing architectures and is aimed at the oil/gas exploration, medical imaging, and styling/design markets.

The GPU has come of age and is no longer something that titillates hoards of gamers with promises of better video game graphics alone. Today the GPU can do many things from being used as a super computing platform to greatly accelerating many applications more efficiently than a CPU can.

One of the biggest new features in Adobe Creative Suite 4 introduced not so long ago was the ability for the software to take advantage of the power of the GPU for faster processing and applying of things like filters. NVIDIA has announced a new GPU-based product called the Quadro CX that is designed specifically to accelerate Creative Suite 4.

If there’s one thing NVIDIA has been known for over the last several years, it’s being late to the game with drivers. However, NVIDIA has been working hard this week to announce several new drivers, which gamers have been waiting for.

Earlier this week, NVIDIA announced the drivers to enable PhysX on its eight series and higher GPUs that gamers have been anticipating since NVIDIA bought PhysX. NVIDIA has now announced that it is first to ship OpenGL 3.0 drivers, just two days after the OpenGL 3.0 standard was announced.

NVIDIA is by far the largest and most profitable maker of video cards and GPUs on the planet. This week NVIDIA announced its Q2 fiscal business update and its profits weren’t up to expectations from investors or analysts.

NVIDIA stated that its Q2 revenue and gross margins are expected to be lower that it previously stated in its conference call in May. NVIDIA says that it expects total revenue to be in the area of $875 million to $950 million. This reduction is blamed in part on market weakness around the world and delayed next generation MCP products along with price adjustments to be competitive.

NVIDIA today unveiled a 512MB version of its GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card targeted towards PC gamers. The new Nividia GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB is priced between around $300 and $350.

The Nividia GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB card comes with what Nividia says is 25% more graphics processing than similar Nividia products offered in its price range. It sports a HD graphics engine which can do full offload of H.264 video decoding so the CPU can perform other tasks. It also supports SLI technology, though you’ll need another 512 MB card to pull this off.

The GeForce 8400 GS graphics card from NVIDIA is now available for purchase across the land. This entry level gaming accessory is at a low price point, somewhere around $50-60, and gives PC owners 450MHZ clock speed, 256 MB of DDR2 memory, 16 shader processors but at the cost of half the GeForce 8500’s bandwidth.

NVIDIA’s PureVideo HD is also included with it to increase decoding speeds for Blu-ray, HD-DVD, MPEG-2 or VC-1 video files. It also has the Quantum Effects physics processing technology, dual DVI outputs for two monitor support and is HDCP, PCI Express, OpenGL and turbo cache ready. It’s not high end but for a cost effective solution to speeding up your system while playing a movie or a game, this should do nicely.

via Electronista