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It's the Summer of Honeycomb and we now have two lucky readers who have won Eee Pad Transformers thanks to our friends at NVIDIA. Congrats to AnandTech reader unbellum for winning our second Eee Pad Transformer. Be sure to respond to my email to claim your prize! If you didn't win this time, don't worry – there are still two more chances to win.

With our Eee Pad stock depleted, we're switching over to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as our giveaway this weekend. Read on for entry details!

It's the Summer of Honeycomb and we now have two lucky readers who have won Eee Pad Transformers thanks to our friends at NVIDIA. Congrats to AnandTech reader unbellum for winning our second Eee Pad Transformer. Be sure to respond to my email to claim your prize! If you didn't win this time, don't worry – there are still two more chances to win.

With our Eee Pad stock depleted, we're switching over to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as our giveaway this weekend. Read on for entry details!

We're all out of memory, congrats to AnandTech reader raimondi1337 for winning our last giveaway of 16GB of G.Skill DDR3-2133 memory. Be sure to respond to my email to claim your prize! The giveaways aren't over however, in fact we've got a great month ahead of us thanks to our friends on the NVIDIA Tegra team. Last week a big box full of four new tablets arrived at the office in Raleigh:

In the box were two Eee Pad Transformers and two Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1s, our two favorite Honeycomb tablets. We'll be giving one away every week until they're all gone. We're kicking off the giveaways with the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer.

Read on for contest entry details!

If desktop graphics hardware can be more than a little confusing, deciphering performance of mobile graphics parts can be (and has historically been) an absolute nightmare. Way back in the day it was at least fairly easy to figure out which desktop chip was hiding in which mobile kit, but both AMD and NVIDIA largely severed ties between mobile and desktop branding. They may not want to readily admit that, and in the case of certain models they still pretty heavily rely on the cachet associated with their desktop hardware, but it's by and large true. So to help you make sense of mobile graphics, we present to you the first in what will hopefully be a regular series of guides.

Congrats to AnandTech reader: awkward for winning G.Skill's 8GB DDR3-1600 memory kit in our last giveaway. Respond to my email to claim your prize! There's still one more chance to win memory, this time we've got a 16GB DDR3-2133 kit from G.Skill. The kit comes with four 4GB DDR3-2133 modules rated at 9-11-9-28 @ 1.65V. The four modules even come with their own fan cooling kit for the aggressive overclockers out there.

Read on for details on how to enter!

Remember our Antec soundscience giveaway? reckert and OMGkragnor were the first two winners, however Antec was so pleased with the number of entries that it gave us an additional two units to give away! Silent_Rage and elessar25 were our two extra winners. Make sure you two respond to my email to claim your prize if you haven't already!

If you didn't win last time, never fear – it's contest time again. G.Skill is back with another pair of giveaways. Today we're giving away a G.Skill Sniper DDR3-1600 memory kit. G.Skill sent an 8GB kit (4GB x 2) rated for 9-9-9-24 operation at a low 1.25V. The kit is ideal for P55/P67 platforms:

Read on for entry rules!

For many, the deal breaker for the Logitech Revue and other Google TV products was two words: IR blaster. Opting to act as a supplement to your current home theater set-up rather than a replacement for a cable/satellite set-top box, the device was hamstrung by a somewhat complicated set-up process. But this was never about the hardware, the workhorse of this product was the Android-based OS behind it all. Bringing the web to the TV has been a concept bouncing around the consumer electronics industry years, and Google’s effort leveraged the Chrome browser to bring any content to your living room. The execution, though solid, failed to meet expectations; primarily because there seemed to be so much left on the table. Like Apple TV, Google TV products had no access to the apps that made their respective OS’s so popular and full featured. 

Google used I/O 2011 to announce that apps would be coming to Google TV during a reset that brings Honeycomb 3.1 to the table. First reported by GTV Source shortly after the conference, Google went so far as to invite some devs to participate in a beta of the new software under a project called ‘Fishtank.’ In recent days there’s been signs of progress in this program based on the appearance of device listings for Google TV devices under the Android Market’s settings menu. Though apps could not yet be sent to user devices, this was a good indicator.

Now, it appears that the appearance may be tied to the Fishtank programs deployment. As reported by Geek.com’s Russel Holly, images and details of the hardware received by Fishtank developers. The hardware closely mirrors that of Logitech’s Revue, featuring the same Intel CE4100 SoC and even the same wireless keyboard. Port selection mirrors the Revue but is notable for the presence of a blanked out second HDMI in port; a coaxial connection is noted but, based on its size and appearance, is likely to be used with a WiFi antenna. 

Loaded in the device is what’s known as Google TV 2.0 beta, the Android 3.1 based OS we’ve been waiting for, complete with apps. Unfortunately the only apps up right now are a Clock app and Live TV app, whose source is the HDMI input on the device. The interface retains Honeycomb’s blue and black theme and shows plenty of effective optimizations for the big screen. Fishtank is supported by a private Groups message board through which the main request from the 50 or so participants is the ability to overlay video with data from an application. This feature is apparently available while on the home screen, but not open for developers to use. 

Fishtank isn’t the only testing ground for Google TV 2.0, though. We can confirm that Logitech is testing the new software on Revue units on their campus and working with in-house developers to prepare a suite of apps for its users. Current Revue owners can expect the new software to land late this summer, a broad window to be sure, but better than no window at all. Logitech would not comment on new hardware, though with such an upgrade in software it would be surprising to not see something new in hardware. It’s certainly comforting to see that GTV early adopters will not be left behind, as can so often be the case. More information on Google TV 2.0 as it becomes available.

Asavin Wattanajantra THE INQUIRER

Froyo for Atom-based netbooks and tablets

CHIPMAKER Intel is going to ship a native x86 version of the Linux-based Android 2.2 operating system for use on netbooks and tablets.

Renee James, Intel’s SVP for software and services, told APC that she expects developers will get the opportunity to play with it this summer.

It’s an important step that will have Microsoft looking nervously over its shoulder, as it will see Google’s mobile OS, already very popular on smartphones, moving to the PC standard x86 architecture.

Android was originally built to run on ARM chips in smartphones, but Intel has been beavering away at adapting Android’s open source code to run as a native x86 operating system. This makes sense, as it will allow Intel’s partners to use its Atom processor for Android-based devices.

It might deal a blow to ARM chip designs already seen on smartphones and other small devices.

So far Microsoft has dominated the netbook market based on Intel’s Atom processor, while Android has mainly focused on ARM processor-based smartphones. But getting an x86 version of Android 2.2, code named ‘Froyo’, might help Intel’s Atom chips make inroads into the smartbook market, and possibly even enter the smartphone market as well.

As The INQUIRER revealed at Computex, Intel and Google are already working on a Atom-based smartphone that will run on a yet to be identified release of Android. µ