Toshiba has three new tablets for Computex 2013, and while none can match the miserly $129 price tag of the ASUS MeMo Pad HD 7, the 10.1-inch range still promises something for most tableteers. We caught up with Toshiba today to check out the Excite Write, the Excite Pro, and the entry-level Excite Pure, and to see whether the company’s liberal splashing of high-res screens and digital pen functionality made the Excite series the tabs to pick from. Read on for some first-impressions.
Google's green ambitions continue, with the search giant announcing that it has signed its fourth deal for eco-power data centers. The new agreement, which will see Google's Finnish data center fuel its server racks with wind power for the next decade, will make the company carbon-neutral in the country. It's the latest in a series of similar Earth-friendly power schemes that Google has rolled out in the US, Germany, and South Africa already.
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Intel's Computex 2013 keynote wasn't all Atom and Core; the company also had a new gadget to show off, the Creative Senz3D camera. Intended to add depth vision to an Intel-powered computer, the add-on camera is set to go on sale next quarter, and brings Kinect-style motion-gesture control to the desktop. However, Intel also has ambitions to integrate it into future systems.
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Intel has predicted a $399 sticker price for the 2-in-1 tablet/laptop hybrids expected to challenge ARM-based machines from this summer, a newly competitive price tag given the chip maker's previous struggles in the mobility segment. Building on Intel's 4th-gen Core "Haswell" announcement, the new 2-in-1 details are part of the company's attempt to match what have traditionally been the strengths of ARM chips from NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others: low power consumption, strong multimedia performance, and fanless designs.
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Intel has shown off its new chips for tablets, smartphones, and LTE-enabled devices, with Silvermont, Bay Trail-T, and Merrifield all revealed at Computex 2013 today. Merrifield, due to show up in Intel-powered smartphones from early 2014, is the company's next-gen smartphone platform, a 22nm Atom SoC that was, for today's show, wrapped up in a new touchscreen reference design.
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Windows Phone continues to sweep up featurephone upgraders, cementing its third-place position in the US smartphone market according to new research. Microsoft's platform rose year-on-year by 1.8-percent by the end of the three month period finishing April 2013, though its overall market share didn't shift quarter-on-quarter; however, the OS proved particularly popular for those upgrading to their first smartphone.
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Microsoft is believed to be discounting Windows RT tablet OS licenses in an attempt to stimulate interest in the Windows-on-ARM platform. Windows RT had been Microsoft's strategy to directly take on the iPad and Android tablets with more affordable chipsets from Qualcomm and others, but lackluster app compatibility left OEMs hesitant. Now, Bloomberg's sources claim, Microsoft is relying on good old fashioned discounting to drive interest.
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Apple is racing to finalize internet radio deals that will allow it to launch a new service at its WWDC 2013 keynote on June 10, sources claim, with “iRadio” agreements reportedly settled with Warner Music Group and partially with UMG. The Warner deal – which will supposedly see Apple pay 10-percent of its ad revenue to the music publisher, around twice the amount Pandora coughs up – was settled over the weekend, according to both the WSJ and NYTimes, though Sony is supposedly remaining difficult.
Acer has joined the Windows RT naysayers, with the company's chairman, J.T. Wang, criticizing the Windows-on-ARM platform for lacking influence in the market. The Taiwanese company hasn't been slow to jump on board the Windows 8 bandwagon - being the first company to launch an 8-inch Windows 8 tablet, in fact, earlier today at Computex - but Wang told the WSJ that his confidence didn't extend to the sibling OS.
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Microsoft is poised to announce a significant shake-up across its business, with CEO Steve Ballmer tipped to rework the organization into the "devices and services company" he discussed as part of his "fundamental shift" shareholder letter in 2012. A wholesale reworking of how Microsoft is arranged is in the pipeline, AllThingsD's sources claim, including pushing several of its executives further into the public spotlight as the company capitalizes on its investments in entertainment, communications, and more.
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Chalk up a win or two for Intel, with Computex 2013 Day Zero opening to a number of products with Atom chips where usually we’d expect to see ARM silicon. As expected, Intel’s processors found their way into at least one tablet from Samsung, the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1-inch, but the Atom push also got the CPU into a number of ASUS models too. Question is, has Intel managed to squeeze into the Android tablet market too late?
ASUS' Computex 2013 appearance hasn't all been flashy tablets and glass-clad ultrabooks; the company also had a new tower PC, though even with the G10 it couldn't resist a little flourish or two. The seriously-styled tower not only accommodates Intel's 4th-gen Haswell processors but a battery backup system, which can serve as a temporary uninterrupted power supply (UPS) just in case your electricity goes out while you're in the midst of crunching some important data.
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