Microsoft has demonstrated Windows 8‘s super-speedy boot times, part of the company’s attempts to make the incoming OS more user-friendly. By using a combination of traditional boot/shutdown routines, and hibernating the Windows 8 kernel session, as well as taking advantage of multi-core processors common in today’s PCs, the start-up time can be slimmed down to a matter of seconds, as you can see in the video demo after the cut.
This week at IFA 2011 we’ve gotten a hands-on look at Acer’s newly announced Ultrabook, the Acer Aspire S3, an ultra portable thin and light super powerful laptop for the next generation of demanding consumers across the world. This device has a 13.3-inch LED display at 1366 x 768 pixels resolution, is a mere 0.51-inches thick, and features the latest second generation of Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processors at up to 1.7GHz, this with a choice of 240 GB SSD or 320/500 GB HDD with embedded SSD means you’ve got one powerful bit of computing on your hands. Walk with us through this brand new device and see if it’s going to replace your current fat-by-comparison laptop come the end of this year.
What we’re getting a look at with a full hands-on demo here at IFA 2011 this week, amongst other fantastical devices from all walks of life of course, is the IdeaPad U300S, a Lenovo Ultrabook, being both ultra-small and ultra-powerful with aesthetically beautiful chassis all around. On the right side of the device you’ll find a headphone jack, USB jack, full-sized HDMI port, and power port. On the left side you’ll see one more USB port and a grille through which Intel Advanced Cooling Technology will be blowing a lot of your hot air. This system works with the side opening there, a long grille along the rear hinge, and through the keyboard itself to help avoid the “hot lap” syndrome normally associated with laptops of such awesome power as this.
The folks at HP have certainly picked up a whole lotta press over the past few days, and not always for the most positive reasons mostly due to the unsure future of the mobile and/or PC pieces of HP, but one thing remains clear: the HP PCs that are already made right this moment are popular for a reason, that reason being that they're awesome. What HP is presenting today is the HP Compaq 8200 Elite All-in-One PC, an Intel® 2nd generation Core vPro processor toting space-saving Windows 7 machine made for the full home computing experience.
Read The Full Story
If you have a Chromebook and you have wished that you could run Windows on the little rig for software compatibility you will like this news. Chromebooks can now get Windows running on the machine via Citrix virtualization, assuming their company supports Citrix virtualization. A new app has been released recently that will let the Chromebook user runs desktops and applications in the data center via a free client app for businesses that are already running Citrix virtualization.
Read The Full Story
Apple released its new OS X Lion for Mac computers recently, and there was one controversial change that had the technorati chatting nonstop. In the new Lion OS, Apple changed the direction of scrolling. I use a MacBook Pro (among other machines, I’m OS agnostic). On my MacBook, I scroll by placing two fingers on the trackpad and moving them up or down. On the old system, moving my fingers down meant the object on the screen moved up. My fingers are controlling the scroll bars. Moving down means I am pulling the scroll bars down, revealing more of the page below what is visible. So, the object moves upwards. On the new system, moving my fingers down meant the object on screen moves down. My fingers are now controlling the object. If I want the object to move up, and reveal more of what is beneath, I move my fingers up, and content rises on screen.
For those of you who find not being able to preview RAW format images in Windows to be quite annoying, then be relieved to know that Microsoft has finally addressed the issue. You will now be able to preview and edit them natively in Windows. The software giant released a codec pack for Windows 7 and Vista that will bring support for RAW format image viewing to the Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Explorer.
Read The Full Story
Apple has released Safari 5.1, bringing Mac users still running OS X Snow Leopard - as well as Windows users - up to date with the version of the browser bundled in OS X Lion. The updated version includes Reading List, allowing links and pages to be saved for later review, together with Resume, which can automatically reopen all previous tabs when you restart the browser.
Read The Full Story
Plenty of Microsoft news is still underway thanks to their annual Worldwide Partner Conference taking place this week in Los Angeles. Today, the company's COO Kevin Turner revealed plans for expanding Microsoft retail stores with an additional 75 locations over the next two to three years. That's a big step up from the 11 stores currently in operation.
Read The Full Story
With great power comes great responsibility, and also – if you’re talking about Intel’s 2011 Sandy Bridge processor line-up, at least – generally sizable pricing. Acer is looking to change that with the new Aspire TimelineX AS5830TG-6402, a lengthy name for a 15.6-inch Core i5 notebook that ticks all the spec boxes for a high-speed desktop replacement only with a bargain $799.99 price tag. Too good to be true or the best deal around? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
Microsoft released an update today for its cloud platform called the SkyDrive and has finally dropped Microsoft's proprietary Silverlight from the system, opting for a cross-platform compatible HTML 5. Silverlight required users to download a browser plugin in order to work and thankfully the company realized it needed to transition away from it to stay competitive. Over the last few months, it's been slowly expelling Silverlight from its platforms.
Read The Full Story
Microsoft's Kinect for Windows SDK will be released in beta form this week, according to Microsoft Spain president María Garaña, the toolkit allowing developers to use the motion-tracking hardware with PCs rather than the Xbox 360. Among the initially supported features, WinRumors reports, will be skeletal tracking for one or two people along with use of the four-microphone array.
Read The Full Story
