Acer's Aspire One 532G Is First Netbook With NVIDIA's Ion 2 Graphics

Acer's keen on racking up lots of firsts for its netbook arm, with this Aspire One 532G having the claim of being the world's first to use NVIDIA's Ion 2 graphics technology for 1080p playback.

The 10.1-inch LED-backlit screen will playback videos at 1080p with 7.1-channel audio output. It'll also be suitable for 3D gaming, Acer claims, though why you'd want to do that on a little netbook is beyond me. A 10-hour battery life, Wi-Fi and the choice of embedded 3G all figure, along with an Intel N450 Pine Trail chip and HDMI video output. On sale in just a month or two, it'll be available in several colors—blue, red, and silver.  The Aspire One 532G will start shipping at the end of Q1 2010.

Acer developing true MacBook Air rival?

Acer is reportedly readying an ultraportable that it hopes could take on Apple and HP in one fell swoop, the company reportedly said today. While it has had a relative amount of success with its Timeline lightweight notebooks, the Taiwan firm is believed to be developing an "ace in the hole" system that would use ULV Core i5 or i7 processors and measure just 0.75 inches thick, slightly thinner than the MacBook Air and much thinner than HP's current lineup.

The system would consequently be sleeker than the existing Timeline series but offer speed closer to a full-size notebook. Although the low-energy Core i5 and i7 have at most a 1.2GHz regular clock speed, they can ramp up to 1.86GHz and 2.26GHz in Turbo Boost mode and support Hyperthreading to occasionally perform more like quad-core processors.

Acer recently overtook Dell for the second place spot in world PC shipments but has set the ambitious goal of unseating HP for the top spot as soon as this year. Much of this has been accomplished simply by shipping inexpensive PCs but also by dominance of the netbook space, where the Aspire One actually has more traction than netbook pioneer ASUS' Eee PCs. HP has a large presence in netbooks but hasn't caught on in popularity; most of its sales are of low end, full size notebooks.

Laptop Makers not using Intel’s i5 are in the slow lane

As performance laptops powered by the Intel I5 family of processors begin to appear in stores in quantity, it is clear that laptop makers not using them, including Apple, are behind the performance curve.

More and more laptop manufacturers are releasing models powered by Intel’s mobile i5 chipset, which by far outperforms the now lower-end Core i3 model processors. To get an idea of the performance improvements, one just need look at the reviews of the newer chips. AnandTech says that the i5 chips represent “the single largest performance improvement we’ve seen from a new mobile processor in years.” Tom’s Hardware said that the i5 “boasts the best balance between desktop-class speed and true mobile usability we’ve ever seen.”  Other reviews of the new Intel chip are equally glowing.

The new Intel Core i5 is built using on Intel’s cutting-edge 32-nanometer manufacturing process. It is positioned between the Core 3 line, which it outperforms significantly, and the Intel i7 family of processors, Intel’s highest performance chipsets, along with their Xeon processors. The i5 processors were released in January 2010 and laptops using the chipsets began to appear shortly after, according to a CNET story. Manufacturers that have released notebooks based on the i5 include Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Toshiba, among others.

One manufacturer noticeably missing from that list is Apple computer, usually at the forefront of the performance wars with its MacBook Pro line of computers. Savvy laptop shoppers know that the i5-powered portables are quite a lot faster than the previous-generation i3s and those looking for performance (who isn’t?) and those willing to pay for it (most of those who want it) have been waiting for the new Windows machines to come out. No doubt Apple MacBook users are also biding their time, which could hurt Mac notebook sales until they update the MacBook pro lineup. That being the case, it is fairly easy to predict that we will see a series of Macbook Pro upgrades coming from Apple sooner rather than later.

Google's 1Gbps Experimental Fiber Network

Check out Google’s plan to build an experimental ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States to make the Internet better and faster.

Video of Google Buzz: Google’s New Social Networking Tool

Check out video of Google's new Buzz social networking tool in action.

Google announced their new social networking tool Google Buzz today. Buzz is built right into Gmail so users already have an existing set of contacts and friends and won’t have to start from scratch. One feature that sets buzz apart from services like facebook is it’s mobile location-based integration. This feature allows users with mobile phones to leave comments tagged with geographical information which provides an extra dimension of context.

 

Intel loves Nvidia for Optimus

Power saving technology

Nvidia will soon launch its Optimus technology and we've learned that Intel really likes what Nvidia did this time. The technology is basically Hybrid SLI done right, but it works really well this time around.

Nvidia will soon launch it, but the key point is that Optimus needs Intel’s IGP and lives in symbiosis with the GPU. Once Nvidia launches this technology, it won’t go against Intel’s IGP and will stop preaching that Intel’s HD IGP is bad.

Since many Arrandale equipped notebooks are on the way, and Arrandale has an IGP inside the CPU socket, this was a logical decision for them to make. Jensen is a feisty player but he also knows when it is good to stop and simply make money. 
Intel’s advantage will be that Optimus only works with Intel IGPs and that Intel can defeat AMD even in GPU power, of course with the help of Nvidia GPUs and Optimus.

AMD reveals Fusion CPU+GPU, to challege Intel in Laptops

The "Llano" processor that AMD described today in an ISSCC session is not a CPU, and it's not a GPU—instead, it's a hybrid design that the chipmaker is calling an "application processor unit," or APU. Whatever you call it, it could well give Intel a run for its money in the laptop market, by combining a full DX11-compatible GPU with four out-of-order CPU cores on a single, 32nm processor die.

Details on the highly parallel vector hardware—the "GPU" part of the device—have yet to be disclosed, but AMD is focusing today's revelations on the CPU part of the design. In a nutshell, AMD has taken the "STARS" core that's used in their current 45nm offerings, shrunk it to a new 32nm SOI high-K process, and added new power gating and dynamic power optimization capabilities to it. Each out-of-order core has a bit under 35 million transistors, and a 1MB L2 cache that's not included in that number. AMD is targeting sub-3GHz operation, and a power consumption range of 2.5 to 25 watts.

The chipmaker will put down four such cores, shown in the micrograph below, along with enough vector hardware to power a DX11 GPU. Overall, most of the work on the x86 side of Llano was done on dynamic power optimization and on fitting the design to the 32nm process.   In this respect, Llano differs from the upcoming "Bobcat" mobile part in that the latter is more portable across a range of processes and configurations, and features less custom work.

 

 

iPad Developer Explains Why It's 'So Revolutionary'

Since Apple unveiled its new iPad tablet, reactions from the developer community have been pouring in. While some seem genuinely excited, there are many others in the industry who essentially let out a collective "meh" upon seeing the iPad. The most common complaint appears to be that iPad is basically just a big iPhone or iPod Touch. Nintendo's Satoru Iwata was particularly dismissive of it.

Developer Joe Hewitt, however, is a big fan and he explained for TheStreet.com why the iPad is "so revolutionary."

"iPad is exactly the product I've been wishing for ever since I wrapped my mind around the iPhone and its constraints. Although the rumor mill was churning with all kinds of crazy possibilities for the Apple tablet, I mostly rolled my eyes, because I felt strongly that all Apple needed to do to revolutionize computing was simply to make an iPhone with a large screen," he began. "Anyone who feels underwhelmed by that doesn't understand how much of the iPhone's operating system's potential is still untapped."

Hewitt continued, "Of all the platforms I've developed on in my career, from the desktop to the Web, iPhone's OS gave me the greatest sense of empowerment, and had the highest ceiling for raising the art of user-interface design. Except there was one thing keeping me from reaching that ceiling: The screen was too small. ... The bottom line is that many apps which were cute toys on iPhone can become full-featured power tools on the iPad, making you forget about their desktop/laptop predecessors. We just have to invent them."

What really excites Hewitt is that the iPhone OS leverages the Internet and will continue to be improved for iPad. "What people are overlooking is that the Internet is an integral part of the iPhone OS, and it is the part of the OS you can tinker with to your heart's delight," he said. "So, in the end, what it comes down to is that iPad offers new metaphors that will let users engage with their computers with dramatically less friction. That gives me, as a developer, a sense of power and potency and creativity like no other. It makes the software market feel wide open again, like no one's hegemony is safe. How anyone can feel underwhelmed by that is beyond me."

Sony interested in challenging Apple's iPad

Sony hinted on Thursday that it's preparing a challenger to Apple's upcoming iPad.

"That is a market we are also very interested in. We are confident we have the skills to create a product," said Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's CFO, who was speaking at a Tokyo news conference held to announce the company's quarterly financial results.

Oneda didn't provide any details of any planned products but did say Sony is eyeing a similar market to the upcoming Apple gadget.

"Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it's a space we would like to be an active player in," said Oneda.

Sony said in October that it plans to launch a number of new mobile products that are built around network-based services.

The devices will connect into Sony's new online service, an Internet-based store that will bring music, movies, games and electronic books to a range of Sony products including Bravia TVs, Vaio PCs, Walkman music players and Reader e-book readers.

The launch of the iPad, due in March, isn't expected to impact the e-book reader market, which Oneda said is growing "exponentially."

"The [Sony Reader] Daily Edition with 3G network connectivity has received great acclaim and we plan to expand sales going forward," he said.

Microsoft 'no longer brings us the future,' says Former Exec

Windows 7 may have pushed Microsoft's revenue to record levels last quarter, but a former executive still has a dim outlook on the company's future. The root of the problem? The company's alleged inability to innovate.

Writing in the New York Times' op-ed section, former Microsoft VP Dick Brass ponders why Microsoft "no longer brings us the future." As he points out, many new and innovative products from the past decade or so—the iPad, Amazon's Kindle, the BlackBerry, the iPhone, the iPod, Google, iTunes, Facebook, and Twitter—all originated at other companies. Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to get the lion's share of its profits from Windows and Office, products deeply rooted in the past. Brass believes the firm "can't count on these venerable products to sustain it forever."

The former executive goes on to call Microsoft a "clumsy, uncompetitive innovator," saying its grip on high-end laptops, smart phones, and web browsers is slipping, while the Xbox 360 is failing to outshine other consoles. Part of the problem, he asserts, is that Microsoft "never developed a true system for innovation." Quite the opposite:

Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.

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Free E-Book : Complete List of Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

The WindowsClub.com has just released The Complete Windows 7 Shortcuts eBook.  Windows 7 includes a lot of new keyboard shortcuts that are unknown to a new user. This eBook comprises of more than 200 keyboard shortcuts containing almost all the keyboard shortcuts that are available in Windows 7 and its default programs like Paint, WordPad, MS Office, Calculator, Help, Media Player, Media Center, Windows Journal, Internet Explorer, etc.

The eBook is pretty exhaustive and the topics covered include:

- What is Keyboard & how to use it?
- How keys are organized on a standard Keyboard
- Typing & editing the text using Keyboard
- Using Keyboard Shortcuts
- Find program shortcuts
- Choose menus, commands, and options
- Some useful shortcuts
- Using the keyboard extras
- Using navigation keys
- Using the numeric keypad
- Three odd keys
- Use your keyboard safely
- Create keyboard shortcuts to open programs
- Make the keyboard easier to use
- Type without using the keyboard (On-Screen Keyboard)
- Set On-Screen Keyboard to use for various handy tasks

Download Here

Google Shows Off its Tablet Concept

Google shows us a first peek on its official Chromium site what a Chrome OS tablet might look like.

Notice also in the demo the prescence of multi-tasking.

Keep in mind that these only show what a Chrome OS might look like in a tablet and not necessarily on a Google tablet.  But who knows, Google might also be cooking up a surprise for Apple’s iPad.

You can see the latest tablet pictures below and more from the Chromium site here.

Enjoy!

Internet Explorer 8 Officially Becomes World’s Most-Used Browser, Windows 7 Rising

Net Applications had just released their January browser market share report. The report shows that Internet Explorer 8 is not only the most popular browser on Windows (for Windows PCs alone) with 27.9% usage share, but that it now has 22.37% of market share across all OS’s on a worldwide-weighted usage share basis (data provided by Net Applications). Launched just less than a year ago, it must be both humbling and thrilling for MIcrosoft to see so many people choose their product so quickly – making it the most popular browser of choice worldwide.

Meanwhile, Microsoft wasn’t lying about Windows 7 being the fastest selling OS ever.  January data showed that Windows 7 continues its rise with almost 8% market share from just 5.17% last month.

Microsoft Chases Windows 7 Battery Drain Problems

Microsoft officials confirmed Friday that they are looking into reports of radically shortened battery life on some laptops after installing Windows 7.

Although a few users reported similar problems during Windows 7's beta test cycle last summer, particularly with some netbooks, wide availability of Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) new OS following its October consumer release seems to have triggered significantly more cases.

"I upgraded my laptop from XP to Win 7 and my battery life went from about 2 hours to 30 minutes. The system shuts down (hibernates) without any warning. The powercfg-energy report shows the battery stored less than 40% of the Designed Capacity the last time the battery was fully charged," one frustrated user, going by the screen name "dabruton," said in a post on Microsoft's TechNet user forums on Jan. 1.

"The battery life dropped to almost nothing after doing a clean install of windows 7 (it was fine before that, about 1.5-2 hours)," echoed another poster with the screen name "jw98029."

How big the problem has become is unclear at this time. The TechNet forum dedicated to Windows client issues had 100 posts during January alone. Many received a Windows 7 error that said, "consider replacing your battery."

Quite a few complained that their laptop batteries were permanently damaged by the drainage problems after upgrading to Windows 7.

"Good job Microsoft, you just cost me (and almost all windows 7 laptop owners) their battery!! Now what are you going to do!!?" asked one annoyed user with the screen name "DanLee81."

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Unboxing of Microsoft LifeCam VX-700 I recently won on Microsoft Phils. IE8 Trivia Mania! Contest

Yesterday I stopped by Microsoft’s office at the 6750 Bldg. along Ayala Ave. to get my prize LifeCam which I won last January 23.  Further details of the webcam can be found here.  But now I’ll proceed to the unboxing photos.  Thanks Microsoft!

Cool office by the way and staff members including Mr. Ralph Sarmiento were very nice!

Office 2010 Generally Available in June 2010 - Microsoft

The next iteration of the Office System is now approximately five months away Microsoft confirmed to Softpedia. At the start of this week, you were able to read a report on a remark from Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, in which the CEO indicated that Office 2010 would be out in only a couple of months. I contacted the Redmond company on the matter and I’ve got a clarification on this topic.

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