Intel VP: 'Lack of LTE' hampers our approach to the US smartphone market

During Intel's press conference today, we got a brief glimpse into how Intel's smartphones are fairing globally. The noticeable gap, however, was the US. Answering questions during a Q&A session following the Computex keynote, Tom Kilroy, Executive Vice President of Sales said that there was a major reason why it was lacking US carrier support: LTE.

"Absence of LTE is the reason. We can't get ranged by US carriers without LTE, so once we have multi-mode LTE coming to market later this year, we have an opportunity to compete in that business."

While we've seen Intel add 4G radios to its Atom processors for global-roaming tablets, there's no news yet of the capability launching on its smartphone designs. Last year, Intel ran a Medfield-powered version of Verizon's RAZR M in Europe and Asia, under the RAZR i branding and 3G radios.

Sandisk introduces Extreme II SSD, boasts 19nm tech and faster speeds

We haven't heard a peep about Sandisk's solid state drives since CES, so we perked our ears when the flash maker announced a new consumer SSD today. It's called the Extreme II, a SATA III SSD the company claims is fast and responsive enough to please gamers or just anyone hungering for a performance boost. Built with 19nm process and nCache technology, the Extreme II promises quicker boot-ups and faster runtimes. The hardware boasts up to 550MB/sec sequential read and 510MB/sec sequential write speeds, and up to 95,000 random read Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) and 78,000 random write IOPS. You can snag one now in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities for $129.99, $229.99 and $439.99 each. Or you can save some cash and get something a little more budget-minded.

Intel announces Creative Senz3D Peripheral Camera at Computex 2013

Intel's just announced the Creative Senz3D Peripheral Camera at the company's Computex keynote in Taipei. The camera lets users manipulate objects on the screen using gestures and is able to completely eliminate the background. It appears to be an evolution of the Creative Interactive Gesture Camera we recently played with at IDF in Beijing. This new 3D depth camera is expected to become available next quarter and Intel plans to incorporate the technology into devices during the second half of 2014. "It's like adding two eyes to my system," said Tom Kilroy, VP of marketing. The company's been talking about "perceptual computing" for some time and this certainly brings the idea one step closer to fruition.

Intel teases fanless Haswell Core processor tablet at Computex

It was barely a glimpse, but Intel's pushing the physical limits of its 4th generation Haswell processors. Here on stage, at Computex, we saw one very slender (and as-yet unnamed) tablet that packs the aforementioned processors without the need for fans for cooling. Sure, we've seen fanless Windows 8 tablets with Clover Trail-based hardware, but never with the potency of Intel's Core processor series. Alas, slimline profile (and hybrid skills) aside, that's all we can say for the moment. We'll update if we glean any more details from Intel.