| Job Postings Point to 'Next Generation' Microsoft Surface Posted: 07 Aug 2012 07:57 PM PDT  Whether or not Microsoft's upcoming Surface tablets go on to disrupt the tablet market, one thing's for sure: their release will change the company's relationship with PC manufacturers forever. PC vendors have already starting voicing their discomfort with Microsoft's decision of entering the tablet market with its own devices, which it says are "built to be the ultimate stage for Windows." This is despite the fact that at this point nobody really knows whether Surface is simply meant to jumpstart the whole Windows 8 tablet category or if it's an ambitious pilot project that could lead to more devices in the future. Going by a dozen or so job postings that were recently posted on the Microsoft Careers site, it looks unlikely that the Redmond-based company will stop making tablets anytime soon.
Discovered by our sister site TechRadar, these postings point to more devices joining the Surface family over time. That this recruitment drive is for the next generation of Surface tablets is amply clear from this brief by the Surface team: "Are you passionate about building cool devices and technologies? The Surface Team focuses on building devices that fully express the Windows vision. A fundamental part of our strategy is having desirable and powerful devices that enable the experiences people want, and elicit their excitement. Creating these devices involves a close partnership between hardware and software engineers, designers, and manufacturing. We are currently building the next generation and Surface needs you!" With Microsoft looking for a wide variety of engineering talent to work on everything from "new materials" to "alternative power sources", you can expect the next Surface to be more than just an incremental upgrade. We're wondering what Microsoft's OEM partners will have to say about all this? |
| Outspoken Acer Chief Tells Microsoft to Tread Carefully on Surface Posted: 07 Aug 2012 04:27 PM PDT  On the Surface, Microsoft is hoping its tablet strategy will ignite Windows 8 in the mobile space and steal a slice of Apple's market share pie, but at what cost? It's not an insignificant question. Microsoft relies on its hardware partners to drive its Windows platforms, and by taking the reigns and racing alongside them, the Redmond company is essentially biting the hands that feed it. Lest anyone think Microsoft's OEM partners are taking this lightly, Acer chairman J.T. Wang issued some words of warning to Microsoft.
Acer's message to Microsoft is to "think it over," the Financial Times reports. Wang tells FT.com his company spoke with Microsoft and told the software giant that its plans to launch Surface into the market place "will create a huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction. It is not something you are good at so please think twice." Reading between the lines, that's about as thinly veiled as a threat can get. Acer's basically telling Microsoft that if it insists on playing with fire by directly competing against its hardware partners, the company's going to get burned. Whether or not Acer and others would actually abandon Windows, out of spite or as part of what they feel would be a business savvy move, remains to be seen. Surface is a calculated risk for Microsoft. The company doesn't have a presence in the tablet market, which is dominated by the iPad, followed by a spattering of popular Android devices. Surface solves that problem, or at least will attempt to, but will also anger OEM partners who have stuck with Microsoft through the years. Acer's president, Campbell Kan, echoed Wang's remarks by asking the million dollar question: "If Microsoft is going to do hardware business, what should we do? Should we still rely on Microsoft, or should be find other alternatives?" In a couple of months, Acer and every other OEM partner invested in the tablet market will have to come up with an answer. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Samsung, Hynix May Ease Back Flash Production to Drive Prices Up Posted: 07 Aug 2012 09:45 AM PDT  Samsung and Hynix, two of the world's largest NAND flash memory producers, are reportedly planning to scale back production in order to deal with an oversupply situation that is forcing prices down. Toshiba is said to have already slowed down its operations at one of its Japan plants for the very same reason, and now that the first domino has fallen, others are expected to follow suit.
Citing "industry sources," DigiTimes reports Samsung and Hynix may cut production by as much as 10 percent, while Toshiba is aiming to slow things down by about 30 percent. The problem chip suppliers face is that USB and memory card device sales haven't been as strong as anticipated, so now companies like Samsung are stuck holding bags of excess NAND flash memory chips. Also at play, according to DigiTimes, are late roll outs of new model smartphones, tablets, and Ultrabooks. News of the production cuts come at a time with solid state drive (SSD) pricing is finally coming into mainstream territory. It's not that difficult these days to find high end SSDs selling for less than a buck per gigabyte amid a flurry of recent price cuts. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Apple, Google Lowball Kodak in Patent Auction Posted: 07 Aug 2012 08:56 AM PDT  Apple and Google are both reportedly interested in Kodak's digital patents, but the amount each one is willing to pay is far below what the cash strapped company thinks they could be worth. By Kodak's estimation, the patents up for auction could bring in as much as $2.6 billion, which would go a long way towards settling the company's financial woes and bankruptcy proceedings. Early bids, however, haven't even topped $250 million.
Two investor groups representing Apple and Google placed initial bids ranging from $150 million to $250 million, The Wall Street Journal reports. That's the very definition of lowball, but depending on how badly Apple and Google want to keep the patents out of each other's hands, the bids could quickly balloon. That's what Kodak is hoping for so that it can pay off its debts and emerge from Chapter 11, with enough money left to restructure its organization. In a bankruptcy hearing earlier this year, Kodak informed the court its patents were worth anywhere from $2.2 billion to $2.6 billion. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Plextor Promises Advanced Data Protection with New M5 Pro Series Solid State Drives Posted: 07 Aug 2012 08:05 AM PDT  One thing the storage market doesn't lack is a healthy selection of solid state drives (SSDs), and you can be up to your eyeballs in options when shopping a new drive. How does a company separate itself from the pack? If you're Plextor, you tap Marvell to provide the controller chipset and then boast about "unique enterprise-grade double-data protection technology" baked into each SSD.
Plextor's new M5 Pro Series uses Mavell's 88SS9187 Monet controller rather than anything from SandForce, the latter of which is the popular man on the SSD campus these days. According to Plextor, the multi-core controller is capable of handling extreme work loads and suitable for use in workstations, servers, and even RAID 0 configurations. The M5 Pro Series offers a 128-bit error correction system complemented by a second layer of protection baked into Plextor's firmware. Marvell's Monet controller is also AES-validated by the U.S. government and provides 256-bit full drive encryption. From a performance standpoint, Plextor rates the M5 Pro Series at up to 540MB/s read and 450MB/s write speeds, while delivering up to 94,000/86,000 random read/write IOPS. Plextor says the drives will ship later this month in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, each backed by a 5-year warranty. Unfortunately, the company didn't say how much they'll cost. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Only Windows Phone 8 Will Receive In-app Purchase Support, Microsoft Says Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:58 AM PDT  The good news for Windows Phone developers is that support for in-app purchases is being added to your platform of choice, helping to level the playing field with Android and iOS. Unfortunately, the same courtesy isn't being extended to Windows Phone 7.8, a move that will leave existing WP users and developers in the cold, provided they're interested in the whole upsell business to begin with.
Microsoft confirmed the in-app roll out on its Windows Phone Dev Center page, noting that "you can only add in-app products to Windows Phone 8 apps." Developers who choose to implement in-app purchases to their apps are asked to provide the "fundamentals of your in-app product -- alias, price, type, and language(s)." Why not invite Windows Phone 7.8 users and developers to the in-app purchase party? The Verge points out Microsoft is introducing its Wallet Hub feature in Windows Phone 8, which will be the one and only way Redmond supports in-app purchases, among other features. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AMD Announces New FirePro GPUs, Lays Claim to Planet's Most Power Workstation Cards Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:25 AM PDT  The spunky chip designers at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) just launched the company's latest line of GPU work horses, claiming the new FirePro parts are the fastest workstation graphics cards the world has ever seen. Leading the pack is AMD's FirePro W9000, a $3,999 graphics solution that offers 4 TFLOPS of single precision floating point performance, 1 TFLOP double precision, and a GPU that's capable of pumping out 1.95 billion triangles per second.
AMD's FirePro W9000 is equipped with 6GB of GDDR5 memory with ECC support on a 384-bit bus. It has six mini DisplayPort connectors and can drive resolutions up to 4096x2160, AMD says. Target markets for this one include high performance CAD engineers, media designers, and digital signage professionals. Three other FirePro cards round out the latest additions, including the W8000 ($1,599), W7000 ($899), and the W5000 ($599). The least expensive of the bunch has 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus (but without ECC support) and can deliver 1.3 TFLOPS of single precision and 79.2 GFLOPS of double precision floating point performance. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Lian Li Unveils PC-V650 Mini Tower Case with Side Mounted Power Supply Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:04 AM PDT  Whether or not you're a fan of Lian Li's products, one thing everyone can agree on is that the company isn't afraid to take design risks. Sometimes they're visual, like the snail shaped PC-777 Memorial Edition that you either loved (we gave it a 9/Kick Ass) or hated. Other times, it's about what's inside. The latter is the case with Lian Li's new PC-V650 mini tower chassis, a square shaped enclosure that mounts the power supply on one of the sides rather than the traditional bottom or top placement.
Lian Li's intent is to offer more vertical space to worth with. The case measures just 9 inches long by 14.1 inches tall by 9.8 inches wide, yet it can accommodate up to seven 3.5-inch hard drives (two of which are hot swappable), four 2.5-inch solid state drives, and a single 5.25-inch optical drive. Alternately, you can remove the bottom 3.5-inch HDD and fit expansion cards up to 14.5 inches in length, at the expense of four HDD mounts, Lian Li says. Two removable 140mm fans sit behind the front panel and draw cool air into the chassis and over the drive cages (or expansion cards). Hot air is expelled via a 140mm fan up top and a 120mm fan in the rear. Lian Li claims you can "comfortably" fit CPU coolers up to 4.7 inches high, or go the water cooling route with two rubber grommet holes in the rear. Finally, the front I/O panel offers access to a single USB 3.0 port, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, HD audio connections, and a card reader. The PC-V650 is available now in black or silver for $199. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
