A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.

The number of internet connected devices is set to explode in the next four years to over 15 billion - twice the world's population by 2015. Cisco predicts the proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, connected appliances and other smart machines will drive this growth.

Some observers think the company would be better off focusing all its resources on a successful smartphone portfolio first, then worry about a tablet down the road.

Senior Apple executives are in discussion with Samsung to secure supplies of Retina Display-like screens for the iPad 3, even while the two firms turn to the courts to settle some of their differences over mobile device design.

The HTC Puccini, a rumored 10-inch tablet, will feature Android 3.01 and powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. As some of you may recall, the rumors of a larger tablet first surfaced earlier in the year when it was whispered that HTC was working on three devices.

The acquisition of SiGe, a fabless semiconductor provider, complements Skyworks' leadership in wide area front-end solutions by adding SiGe's innovative short range, silicon-based products.

Apple has proposed a standardized SIM card smaller than those it currently uses in the iPhone and iPad in order to be able to produce thinner devices, an Orange executive was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.

Future versions of Motorola's Atrix smartphone-laptop combo will be rolled out as Android "alternatives" to tablets and other newfangled devices, Motorola's chief executive said this week.

ARM, the UK designer of chips that help power Apple's iPhone, said first-quarter sales rose 26% on booming demand for smartphones and tablet computers.

Qualcomm reported record quarterly revenues and raised its guidance for 2011 as global demand for smartphones and tablets grew. Supply-chain concerns stemming from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan had not affected Qualcomm's ability to make chips, and it had seen very little impact on demand for its products, the company said.

Smartphones and tablets will be the first devices to use ARM's upcoming Cortex-A15 processor, and will be available starting late 2012 or early 2013, said James Bruce, the US mobile segment manager at ARM.

SanDisk expects tablet sales will increase from 17 million units in 2010 to nearly 205 million units by 2014. The firm also estimates the flash based storage per device (SSD storage) will more than triple during the same period from 31 Gb/unit in 2010 to 96 Gb/unit in 2014.

[Apple's] focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said "Wife said no..."

Although more flash production capacity is coming online, SanDisk CEO Sanjay Mehrotra downplayed the risk that oversupply will hurt prices this year.

The new naming system will be first applied to the dual-core processor codenamed Orion, which was announced in September 2010. Carrying the name Exynos 4210, Samsung's 1GHz dual-core application processor is scheduled for production in March.

What Intel CEO Paul Otellini said would rejuvenate his company, Cisco CEO John Chambers thinks could kill everything in its path.

The TI OMAP 5 offers quad-core computing at up to 2GHz with power consumption barely breaking into double-digit wattage figures. In terms of raw figures, that level of performance is very near that of current Intel and AMD desktop chips.

"In 2010 there was a big bounce in the semiconductor market marking a recovery year which has seen the industry overall grow about 15%," said Tim Score, ARM's CFO. "ARM grew about 30%, and this year we expect the industry to grow about 5% to 8%, and that we will grow faster."

Texas Instruments has admitted that Nvidia beat it to market with the first dual-core processor for tablets. This is surprising statement from a company that has been in the business of building power-efficient chips based on the ARM design for close to two decades.

HTC has filed for a trademark for a product called HTC Scribe, describing it as a "handheld wireless device, namely a tablet computer." The filing was recorded with the US Patent and Trademark Office on Dec. 26.

The upgrade reflects improving 2011 prospects for NAND flash memory demand, driven by tablets, smartphones and solid-state drives. The improving demand picture offsets concerns about higher supply due to new NAND fabs from Samsung, Toshiba and Micron expanding production in 2011.

Warren East, chief executive of ARM, said the market for tablet PCs could grow to as much as 60m unit sales in 2011 as he brushed aside concerns that Intel would pose a major competitive threat to the UK chip company in the fast-growing market.

Western Digital has sought to reassure investors about the slowing hard-drive business, as the advent of tablet computers eats into computer demand.

LG Electronics said that it had scrapped a plan to launch a tablet computer based on Google Inc's Android 2.2 operation system known as "Froyo," a decision that may delay the rollout of its first tablet PC slated for next quarter.

The so-called BlackPad could be unveiled as early next week at a developer's conference in San Francisco.

LG Electronics plans to release an Android-based tablet under the Optimus name in time for the holidays. Ten Optimus phones are also on the way this year.