Contrary to some reports , Apple CEO Tim Cook said today that the company hadn't seen any slowdown in iPad sales following the introduction of the much-hyped Kindle Fire tablet. When asked by an analyst during today's quarterly earnings call about the impact on the iPad from lower priced tablets, Cook noted that the company sold a record 15.4 million iPads and that Apple doesn't consider "limited function tablets and e-readers to be in the same category as the iPad". A big reason for the iPads success, Cook believes, is that the ecosystem for the iPad is "in a class by itself".

Back in June of last year, IHS iSuppli reported that Apple had become the world's largest buyer of semiconductors in 2010, jumping past HP and Samsung to top the list with $17.5 billion in spending. Apple's lead was expected to grow in 2011 on continued strength of the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air, all of which contain substantial NAND flash memory, which has become a primary driver of semiconductor markets due to the booming mobile device landscape. Research firm Gartner is out today with a new report that appears to utilize a somewhat different methodology in calculating semiconductor expenditures but which now comes to the same conclusion as IHS Suppli's earlier report.

Last August, we reported that Village Tronic was working on a Thunderbolt version of its ViDock PCI Express expansion chassis that serves as a docking hub complete with external graphics card for high-end performance. With Thunderbolt-equipped peripherals making a big splash at CES this week, it should come as no surprise that progress on the expansion hub concept is continuing. AnandTech reports that MSI is the latest entrant into the category, showing off an early demonstration model of just such a product with its GUS II