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The 2nd generation of Asus-made, Google-branded Nexus 7 tablets will hit the market on July 2013 Reuters reports, with the search giant aiming to ship as many as 8 million tablets from H2 2013.

The anonymous sources claim the tablet sees a change of innards-- an unnamed Qualcomm CPU (possibly the APQ8064 S4 Pro) replaces the Tegra 3 inside the first Nexus 7, as mentioned in earlier Nvidia-related rumours. Reportedly the Qualcomm option offers both power and cost savings, providing a fully pin-compatible platform interface complete with both processors and 3G/4G radios.

Further details on the Google tablet are slim, other than mentions of higher display resolution, thinner bezel and lower ($149) pricing.

The original Nexus 7 launched to both critical and commercial acclaim on July 2012. According to Asus sales reached close to 1 million per month by October 2012, contributing nicely to the mobile maker's Q3 2012 results.  Therefore it comes as no surprise the two companies are already gunning for a sequel.

Go Google to Sell 2nd-Gen Nexus 7 Tablet from July: Sources (Reuters)

An unlikely-sounding material might replace glass in the mobile device displays of the future, MIT Technology Review reports-- manufactured sapphire, the strong and scratch-proof transparent material of military choice.

Sapphire is a crystalline form of aluminium oxide harder than any other natural material bar diamond. According to some tests it is up to three times stronger and scratch resistant than Gorilla Glass, the material making the displays (and in some cases the body) of most current high-end smartphones and tablets.

However it is also much more expensive-- a Gorilla Glass smartphone display costs all of $3, while a sapphire display costs around $30, even if increased competition and technology improvement should drive prices to below $20 in the near future. A number of companies already make sapphire sheets, such as Rubicon Technologies, Monocrystal and Sapphire Technology.

Intel tells OEM partners its 3rd generation ultrabook plans, DigiTimes reports-- dividing the high-end laptops into 3 price levels to satisfy different consumer segments.

The next ultrabook generation carries Haswell-based processors, WiDi technology and 4GB DDR3 memory as a standard, within pricing tiers ranging from $599-798 to $799-998 and $999+ and display sizes ranging from 11.6- to 15-inch.

The first pricing tier should feature a clamshell industrial design, Core i3 processors, Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU, 500GB hybrid HDD/SSD storage and a battery providing around 8 hours of use and 1 week in idle mode.

The 2nd category includes either convertible or detachable designs complete with Core i5 processors, 5100 GPU and 128GB SSD storage. Further options include HD cameras, speakers, dual-array microphones and sensors.

University of Southampton researchers create hollow, air-filled fibre optic cable-- eliminating the latency of standard fibre technology by pushing data at 99.7% of the speed of light.

The hollow optical fibre transfers data at up to 73.7TBps (roughly 10 terabytes per second), some 1000 times faster than current 40-gigabit optic links.

"Light propagates 31% slower in a silica glass fibre than in vacuum, thus compromising latency," the paper, titled "Towards high-capacity fibre optic communication at the speed of light in vacuum," says.