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The word "Biscotti" does not simply refer to Italian biscuits any more-- it is also the name of a miniature VoIP TV phone that's only a bit bigger than the actual baked goods sharing the name.

The Biscotti consists of a small camera-carrying box designed to sit on top of TV sets, to which it plugs in using HDMI. Connecting to the internet via wifi, it allows users to make video-calls through either Biscotti service or Google Talk from their living rooms.

Control comes via included 6-button remote, while a HDMI-in port allows one to connect the Biscotti to both TV and cable/satellite STB and make calls while watching other TV channels.

Users can also set the Biscotti to automatically answer calls from select contacts and even turn the TV on when receiving calls through a simple menu system.

It works with wifi upload speeds starting from 256Kbps, and delivers HD video at speeds of 1Mbps and over. Now all we need is some coffee to go with such crunchy treats...

Go Biscotti TV Phone

While discussing the French Lumia 800 launch with the newspaper Les Echos, Nokia France GM Paul Amsellem drops an interesting quote-- "...in June 2012, we will have a tablet running Windows 8."

Nokia itself is yet to officially confirm the revelation, preferring to instead concentrate on the newly launched Windows Phone handsets.

Will the Nokia-Microsoft partnership manage to successfully tread in such Apple-dominated tablet territory?

Maybe (Windows 8 is designed for tablet and touchscreen use after all)... but maybe not. DigiTimes says says pure hardware companies (giving the examples of HP, Acer, Asus and Dell) have no chance in a tablet market dominated by content providing heavyweights such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple.

And what's Nokia if a mobile hardware maker?

Why? The content providers make profit from their devices through digital content sales, not hardware sales-- allowing them to heavily subsidise device prices, if not start giving out tablets out for free.

Meanwhile Apple is, well, Apple. The iPad rules the market, and is surely there to stay, even if it will get a couple of bruises on the way.

Moving back to smartphones, Amsellem hopes Nokia will take 22% of the French mobile market-- a region where over 60% of mobile customers still don't use a smartphone. He also compares the Lumia 800 to a BMW 5 Series and says "...we will soon have a full range with a Series 7 and Series 3."

Wonder which car metaphor will describe a Nokia tablet best?

Go Nokia, Microsoft Off To Conquer the Mobile Phone (Les Echos)

Go PC Hardware Players to Phase Out from Tablet Market in 2012 (Digitimes)

Integral Memory says the UltimaPro SDHC card is the fastest yet from the company-- reaching transfer speeds of up to 45MB/s and continuous write speeds of over 10MB/s.

Such speeds makes them ideal for photographers and camera enthusiasts in order to capture high resolution images and HD video recording.

The cards feature a SDHC Class 10 chipset together with a Ultra High Speed 1 (UHS-I/UHS-1) controller, and are available in sizes of 8, 16 and 32GB.

Go Integral Ultimapro Memory Card

FXI Technologies wants to bring Android on nearly any device carrying a display and USB-based storage support with Cotton Candy-- an Android-powered computer inside a tiny USB/HDMI stick.

The little device packs a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 and a quad-core ARM Mali 400MP GPU and handles HD video, wifi and Bluetooth connections and up to 64GB of microSD storage.

It connects to either PCs (via USB) or HDTVs (via HDMI and Bluetooth-using peripherals), providing an Android 2.3 environment complete internet access, media playback and a cloud-based personal desktop.

FXI is currently sampling prototypes to OEMs-- and hopes to have some Cotton Candy ready for consumers by H1 2012.

Go Cotton Candy