| Report: Office 15 to Feature 'Touch Mode' Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:22 PM PST Microsoft reached a key milestone in the development of its popular Office productivity suite when it launched the "Office 15" Technical Preview Program late last month. At this stage, Office 15 (codename) is being tested by "a select group of customers under non-disclosure agreements." However, not everyone seems to be complying with the NDA.
One such person with access to the technical preview recently shared an image of the preview version of Word 15 with noted Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley. The image reveals the presence of a button for enabling something called "touch mode." While this button is said to be nonfunctional at the moment, Foley's unnamed contact told her that the aim is to let the user switch to a much more touch-friendly UI as and when needed. Of course, it seems to be the only logical explanation for the presence of a "touch mode" button in Office 15 apps. This button is also visible in a number of screenshots of the technical preview versions of various Office 15 apps that were posted on tech blog The Verge on Thursday, but was overlooked until Foley wrote about it the next day. 
Image Credit:ZDNet |
| Dell Begins Shipping XPS 13 Ultrabook Posted: 27 Feb 2012 05:07 PM PST  Dell has begun shipping its first ultrabook, making it the latest PC vendor to jump on the ultrabook bandwagon. Announced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Dell XPS 13 is now available on the company's website from $999. To sweeten the deal, Dell is offering a complimentary T-Mobile 4G Hotspot device to early adopters. Hit the jump for details.
The XPS 13, which weighs 2.9 lbs and measures 0.71 inches at its thickest point, sports a 13.3-inch, 1366 x 768 display made out of "edge-to-edge hardened Gorilla Glass." Dell, in fact, is marketing the XPS 13 as the most compact 13.3-inch ultrabook yet. The frame is made up of machined-aluminium and carbon fiber. Inside you will find the following: - Intel Core i5 2467M and i7 2637M processor choices
- Intel HD 3000 video graphics
- 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333Mhz memory
- 128 GB SSD or 256GB SSD drive options
- Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 802.11 A/G/N and Bluetooth 3.0 wireless connectivity[13]
- High definition audio with Waves MaxxAudio 4
- Built-in 47WHr 6-cell battery (not replaceable by the customer) with nearly nine hours of battery life; 45W AC adaptor
- USB 3.0 (1) + USB 2.0 with PowerShare, mini Display-Port, and headset jack
- Built-in 1.3MP webcam with dual array digital microphones
As mentioned earlier, the XPS 13 has a starting price of $999. Then there is a $1,299 model that includes 256GB solid-state storage instead of the standard 128GB SSD. The most expensive model costs $1,499 and includes a Core i7 processor in addition to 256GB of solid-state storage. The complimentary T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot is available with all models and includes 90 days of mobile broadband. |
| Lenovo Dumps Netbooks From Online Store Posted: 27 Feb 2012 11:04 AM PST  With all the talk about the hot new tablets and smartphones at this year's Mobile World Conference, it's easy to forget about the lowly netbook. Once the cool kid in the computing club, netbooks have suffered an amazing fall from grace, with sales plummeting even faster than Congressional approval ratings. How bad are things for netbooks? About a year ago, Lenovo was pumped about three new netbook offerings. Now, the company has stopped selling netbooks whatsoever on its website, and doesn't know if it will ever offer them online again.
The netbooks that were online have all sold out, and Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman told PC World that they are "not being replaced in the near future." There's no word on whether or not Lenovo will continue to sell netbooks in stores. (Although, to be fair, Lenovo's IdeaPad S110 "mini notebook" toes the netbook line pretty hard.) Part of the reasons for Lenovo's decision to dump netbooks: online sales of the company's A1 and K1 tablets are much more brisk. It's the same "tablet killed the netbook" story we've heard over and over again, and we have to say, between the abundance of cheap laptops and the ability to pair tablets with Bluetooth keyboards, the future of netbooks isn't looking so hot. Are any of you diehard netbookers? Why? |
| Asus Shows Off PadFone Tablet/Smartphone Hybrid, Two New Transformer Tablets Posted: 27 Feb 2012 10:41 AM PST  Asus is one of the few manufacturers who have been able to carve itself a niche in the Android tablet market, but the company isn't about to rest on its laurels following the successes of the Eee Pad Transformer and Transformer Prime. Two new Transformer products -- one high end, one low end -- were unveiled today at the Mobile World Conference, the smartphone/tablet/notebook hybrid called the PadFone got hard specs and a release date, and if that wasn't enough, Asus dropped the "Eee" and started calling its tablets plain ol' "Transformer Pad."
First up, the two new tablets are the flagship Transformer Pad Infinity and the more budget-friendly Transformer Pad 300. Both models pack Nvidia's new Tegra 3 proc, although interestingly enough, the 3G/4G models of the Infinity use Qualcomm's energy-efficient "Krait" S4 processor. The 10.1-inch Infinity also sports a Super IPS+ 1920x1200 display, setting a new high water mark for "Oooh, pretty" in tablets. (You can check out more details here.) The $400 Pad 300 sports a normal 1280x800 IPS display and a plastic -- rather than aluminum -- body available in several color choices. The PadFone is an interesting little beast(s) for people who can't decide whether they need a smartphone, tablet, notebook or some mixture of all three. We'll let Asus' press release describe it for you: The ASUS PadFone is an incredible 4.3" smartphone featuring a Super AMOLEDqHD display, the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual core processor and an ultra-sharp 8-megapixel digital camera with Fuji image processor all wrapped in an exquisite design that is optimized for Google's Android 4.0 operating system. When placed inside the optional PadFone Station, it transforms into a 10.1" tablet with 5 times the battery capacity. The PadFone offers unmatched versatility via ASUS' proprietary Dynamic Display technology which allows seamless transition between the PadFone and PadFone Station display screens. In addition, the PadFone Station offers an optional keyboard dock that essentially turns the PadFone into an ultraportable computing device. Do any of these products pique your interest? |
| Windows Live, Zune Brands Purged From Windows 8 Posted: 27 Feb 2012 10:04 AM PST  The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the old saying goes. The cliché looks to be in full effect in Windows 8. No, Microsoft hasn't suddenly and miraculously decided to drop the contentious-to-some Metro UI for its upcoming operating system, but it will be killing two other branding efforts. Windows Live and Zune are all rumored to be going the way of the Dodo, dropped in favor of Apple-esque simplified program names.
According to The Verge, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Calendar, Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Contacts will be replaced by the creatively named Mail, Calendar, Photo and People apps, respectively. Dumbed down for the masses? Sure, but we always thought the "Windows Live" branding seemed a bit superfluous anyways. Windows Live IDs will be shoved off the proverbial cliff as well and replaced with "Microsoft Accounts," a term that grandmothers and other casual users are sure to confuse with standard Windows user accounts. Zune Music Player and Zune Video Player will be replaced by -- you guessed it -- straightforward Music and Video apps. Zune Pass will stick around, at least for now; reports say Microsoft wants to kill off Zune and Windows Live completely by the end of the year. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is barreling towards its February 29th launch at the Mobile World Congress, so you'll be able to see the changes for yourself very, very soon. |
| Intel Executive Further Confuses Ivy Bridge Situation Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:54 AM PST  We've never been so confused about a processor launch date as we are now. Actually, it's Intel that appears the most confuzzled over when exactly Ivy Bridge will make its official debut, as conflicting and incomplete reports continue to surface. The latest we're hearing is that Ivy Bridge is definitely being delayed until June, but let's back up a moment and see if we can make some sense of it all.
News of an Ivy Bridge delay first surfaced a couple of weeks ago when DigiTimes reported it was hearing that Intel was intentionally pushing back Ivy Bridge's launch so OEMs could clear out inventory of Sandy Bridge systems, not to mention giving itself a chance to unload its own stockpile of Sandy Bridge chips. It was said that Intel would launch a few Ivy Bridge processors in early April, as planned, but that mass shipments wouldn't take place until summer. A follow-up report a week later suggested that DigiTimes was only half correct. The real situation, as reported by VR-Zone, is that Intel only planned to delay dual-core mobile chips built around Ivy Bridge, for reasons listed above. Desktop and quad-core parts would launch as scheduled, or at least that's where we last left off. Fast forward to today and things aren't looking so rosy...again. Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel and chairman of Intel China, has apparently confirmed Ivy Bridge is being delayed until June, the Financial Times reports. "I think maybe it's June now," Malone is quoted as saying in an interview. Maloney blamed the delay on the new manufacturing process and said it had nothing to do with a lack of demand. What's not so clear, however, is whether previous reports stating the delay only applies to dual-core mobile parts are correct, though FT (and Maloney) make it sound like all of Ivy Bridge is being put on hold until summer. |
| HP Reveals (and Pulls) Windows 8 SKUs from Website Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:28 AM PST  Once you post something on the Internet, it takes about a nanosecond for it be picked up by a wandering Web surfer with his or her finger on the Print Screen key, let alone Google's Web crawling bots that take cached snapshots of everything it finds. So even though Hewlett-Packard has taken down a couple of driver documents that made references to Windows 8 SKUs, we can still take a peek thanks to a pair of cached copies.
ZDNet's Stephen Chapman said he stumbled upon the driver documents on HP's website while doing some research, both of which relate to drivers for an Alcor Micro Smart Card Reader. What's interesting about these documents is the list of supported OSes, which include various versions of Windows 7, XP, Vista, and Windows 8. Here are the Windows 8 versions outlined in the documents: - Windows 8 32 Edition
- Windows 8 64 Edition
- Windows 8 Enterprise 32 Edition
- Windows 8 Enterprise 64 Edition
- Windows 8 Professional 32 Edition
- Windows 8 Professional 64 Edition
Could Microsoft be attempting to streamline its Windows 8 SKUs? It sure appears that way. There were only three versions of Windows 8 listed in HP's support documents, each of which comes in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. There's no mention of a Starter edition or Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate. It's still early in the game and it's possible HP simply didn't list all versions of Windows 8, but wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft kept it simple? |
| Orange Squeezes Intel's Medfield Platform into Upcoming Smartphone Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:06 AM PST  It's fair to say that Intel has conquered the desktop market and will probably remain on top for a long time to come, but it when it comes to mobile platforms like tablets and smartphones, ARM is the one with a stranglehold on the market. The Santa Clara chip maker has long said it plans to make a serious run at mobile devices, and starting soon, you'll see a bunch of smartphones sporting Intel inside.
One of the first companies to tap into Intel and its Medfield platform is Orange, according to a Reuters report. Orange is France Telecom's mobile division, and it plans to launch a smartphone in France and the U.K. this summer built around Intel's mobile chipset. The co-branded smartphone is being designed by Intel and will feature its popular 'Intel Inside' logo on the back cover. More important is the fact that Intel is getting involved in a market segment it's left virtually untouched up to this point. "This is a really big deal for us," Mike Bell, VP and GM of Ultra Mobility at Intel, told Reuters. It's phenomenal that Orange has asked us to participate and put our Intel logo on the back." Other details about Orange's Intel-powered handset are few and far between at this early stage, though it's being reported the device will run Google's Android platform. |
| Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Processor Goes 'Pro' Posted: 27 Feb 2012 05:43 AM PST  Mobile World Congress is now in full swing, which means an added emphasis on mobile devices and related technology announcements. One of the more interesting to come out of MWC is Qualcomm's unveiling of its upcoming Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960 processor. The S4 Pro adds a bit of graphical kick with an Adreno 320 GPU baked in.
According to Qualcomm, the Adreno 320 GPU offers up to four times better performance, which purportedly pays dividends in everything from simple Web browsing to playing games, and of course smoother scrolling through advanced UIs and improvements to other graphics applications. "As a result of strong customer demand for Snapdragon S4 processors, we've added a new Pro version of MSM8960 to continue delivering the highest performing mobile processors in the industry," said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management, Qualcomm. "By delivering the S4 Pro processor in 2012, we are fulfilling our promise that Snapdragon processors will remain the industry's barometer for excellence in mobile computing while helping our customers bring the most innovative smartphones and tablets to market." Adreno 320 brings more multimedia capabilities to Snapdragon, such as computational camera, which gives developers "the ability to tap directly into the computational capability of the Adreno 320 GPU through new APIs like OpenCL," Qualcomm says. The S4 Pro will be capable of more realistic 3D graphic effects though hardware acceleration of advanced rendering features, and it boasts dedicated hardware to accelerate Windows 8. It also fully supports popular game engines from Unity, Epic, and more. Qualcomm says Snapdragon S4 Pro processors will show up in tablets and notebooks in the second half of 2012. |
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