Agam Shah, Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service

Lenovo on Wednesday finally shipped the IdeaTab S2109 tablet after months of teasers, calling the US$349 tablet one of the lightest in the market with a 9.7-inch screen.

The tablet weighs 576 grams and measures just 0.83 centimeters thick, Lenovo said in a statement. It is the first tablet that the company is shipping in the U.S. that includes Google's latest Android 4.0 OS.

The TransferJet Consortium will show devices at the Computex trade show in Taiwan next week that wirelessly charge and transfer data simultaneously.

The prototype devices are intended to demonstrate new uses for TransferJet technology, which was developed by Sony for wireless data transfers and initially shown in 2008.

Dell on Tuesday announced a prototype low-power server with ARM processors, following a growing demand by Web companies for custom-built servers that can scale performance while reducing financial overhead on data centers.

The proof-of-concept server is code-named Copper and is the first one from Dell that is based on the ARM processor. Dell will not sell the server, but will install prototypes at specific locations so customers can kick the tires around ARM, whose processor designs are found in most smartphones and tablets today.

Dell on Tuesday challenged Apple's popular iMac all-in-one with the introduction of XPS One 27, which has the largest screen in an all-in-one desktop from the company to date.

The XPS One 27 starts at US$1,399 and has a 27-inch screen that can display images at a 2560-by-1440 resolution. The all-in-one has Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors, up to 2TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. Users can select discrete graphics cards for faster multimedia.

Quad-core processors have not yet been combined with 4G LTE in smartphones, but that could change soon.

Nvidia on Thursday said a quad-core Tegra 3 chip and a third-party LTE modem will be used in the Fujitsu Arrows X LTE phone, which will come to Japan in "summer." A company spokesperson could not provide a specific date, and further details of the smartphone were not immediately available.

Hewlett-Packard will trim 27,000 employees as part of its long-term restructuring plan, the company said Wednesday when it announced quarterly financial results.

The company will shed about 8 percent of its workforce through a combination of layoffs and retirement offers that started last Oct. 31 and will continue through the end of its 2014 fiscal year, HP said. Employee reduction plans vary by country.

Touchscreen laptops and tablets with the upcoming Windows 8 OS will be priced higher than their non-touchscreen counterparts, Dell's CEO said on Tuesday.

Dell will offer a full complement of Windows 8 products when Microsoft launches its new OS, CEO Michael Dell said during the company's quarterly earnings call. The touchscreen Windows 8 products will occupy higher price bands, which could mean higher profit margins for Dell, he said.

Dell on Wednesday reported a drop in profits for the first quarter, weighed down by a revenue decrease and slower sales of consumer products.

Dell reported net income of $535 million, down 33 percent from the same quarter last year. Excluding one-time charges, it reported net income of US$761 million for the quarter that ended on May 4, down 28 percent compared to last year's first quarter. Earnings per share was $0.43, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.46 from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

A growing number of smartphones have NFC (near-field communication) capabilities to make mobile payments, but accessories and ultrabooks also now increasingly have the same technology. DeviceFidelity is offering a protective case with NFC that allows iPhone users to make contactless payments, and Barclaycard is offering a sticker that attaches to a smartphone for users to make mobile payments. HP is offering an ultrabook with NFC for data exchange with mobile devices.

NFC is a wireless data transmission technology that enables the exchange of uniquely identifiable data with receivers over a distance of a few centimeters. In theory, NFC can be used for things like tapping two phones together to exchange contact information or to slowly transfer files, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates.

The price bar for PCs keeps dropping, with chip maker Via on Tuesday announcing a US$49 APC computer with a customized version of Google's Android operating system.

The PC is a mini-motherboard without a case, but has the components necessary to make it a functional PC. The APC PC will go on sale in July, according to the company's website. However, the keyboard, mouse and monitor need to bought separately.

The number of options available for Mac users to buy Thunderbolt cables from outside Apple is growing, with companies announcing longer and competitively priced cables that will also work with upcoming Windows PCs with Thunderbolt ports.

StarTech announced a Thunderbolt cable that is three meters long, which is the longest copper cable available yet. The cable is available for backorder on the UK-based company's website for £56.99 (US$90 as of Monday).

Advanced Micro Devices aims to improve the quality of high-definition video and 3D graphics on equipment in casinos and hospitals with its new R-series processors, which the company announced on Monday.

The new chips combine central processing units with specialized graphics processors that can handle some of the most demanding games currently available. The CPU and graphics processors combine to deliver realistic video and crunch complex calculations, which could provide quick response times on medical imaging, information, entertainment and advertising applications, AMD said in a statement.