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Dell Bets On Windows 8
Demand for Windows 8 may be still somewhat lukewarm, but Dell is maintaining its stance that it is the best operating system for business tablets and plans to roll out more Windows 8-based products later this year, according to a senior executive at the computer maker.
“Our Windows tablets are more secure and easier to manage than Android-based products and iOS-based products [because Windows is] on our tablets,” said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and president of global operations at Dell. “And we are not going to change that.”
Windows-based devices accounted for just 4.5% of tablet sales in this year’s second quarter, according to research firm IDC. In comparison, Android-based devices had 62.6% of the tablet market and Apple’s iPad had 32.5%.
The slow adoption of Windows 8 tablets is partly due to their high prices, and to the operating system’s lack of mobile apps, analysts say. Windows 8 has also received mixed reviews, with some people citing its lack of a Start button in the desktop mode as a major problem.
But Dell expects demand for Windows 8 devices to pick up with the availability of Windows 8.1, which Microsoft will release in October.
Is The Tesla Hackable?
It’s the curse of the connected car once it’s linked to the Internet, it’s, well, on the Internet. In the case of the Tesla Model S, this means that mischievous hackers could, in theory, control some functions of the vehicle and even snoop without the owner’s knowledge.
Tesla offers Android and iPhone apps for Model S owners, which can be used to check the vehicle’s battery, track its location and status, and tweak several other settings, like climate control and the sunroof. It can also be used to unlock the doors on the Model S.
Dell senior engineer George Reese says the REST API used by Tesla to provide access for Android and iPhone apps has several fairly serious security flaws, which could offer a way in for unscrupulous hackers.
According to an article written by Reese for O’Reilly, Tesla appears to have broken from accepted best practice when designing the API for the Model S.
“It’s flawed in a way that makes no sense. Tesla ignored most conventions around API authentication and wrote their own. As much as I talk about the downsides to OAuth (a standard for authenticating consumers of REST APIs–Twitter uses it), this scenario is one that screams for its use,” he wrote.
However, Reese notes, this is merely a potential attack vector, not one that could be immediately exploited. That said, a compromised website particularly one designed to provide “value-added services” via the API to Tesla drivers could prove highly damaging.
“I can … honk their horns, flash their lights, and open and close the sunroof. While none of this is catastrophic, it can certainly be surprising and distracting while someone is driving,” Reese wrote.
Automotive hacking has been posited by experts for some time, and several presentations at this year’s Defcon detailed fairly comprehensive methods of compromising some models.
Will The Tegra Processor Pay Off?
Last year Nvidia’s Tegra gamble seemed to be paying off nicely, but the insanely competitive SoC market moves fast and all it takes for things to go badly wrong is one botched generation. The Tegra 4 was late to the party and Nvidia eventually ended up with a big and relatively powerful chip that nobody wanted.
In its latest earnings call Nvidia made it clear that revenues from Tegra are expected to decline $200 to $300 million this year from about $750 million last year. Even this seems like a relatively optimistic forecast. Tegra 3 ended up in quite a few high-volume products, such as the Nexus 7, HTC One X, LG Optimus X4 and a bunch of other phones and tablets. On paper, Tegra 4 will end up with a similar number of design wins, maybe even more, but nearly all of them are low-volume products.
At the moment there are only a handful of Tegra 4 products out there. These include HP’s Slatebook 10, Toshiba eXcite Pro and eXcite Write tablets and Nvidia’s own Shield console. Nvidia’s 7-inch Tegra Tab is also on the way, along with the Surface RT 2. Some Chinese vendors like ZTE are also expected to roll out a Tegra 4 phone here and there, but the chip won’t end up in any big brand phones.
Nvidia does not release any Tegra unit shipment info, so we can only guess how many Tegra 3 and Tegra 4 chips are out there, but it doesn’t take much to realise Tegra 4 is a flop. Shipments of the original Nexus 7, powered by the Tegra 3, are estimated just north of six million units. Surface RT shipments were abysmal. Earlier this year analysts put the figure at just 900,000 units after a full quarter of sales. Microsoft eventually took a massive write-down on its Surface RT stock. LG and HTC didn’t reveal any shipment figures for the Optimus 4X and HTC One X, either. HTC shipped about 40 million phones last year, while LG managed about 27 million. We can’t even begin to estimate how many of them were flagship products powered by Tegra, but the number was clearly in the millions.
This time around Nvidia can’t count on strong smartphone sales, let alone the Nexus 7 and Surface RT. Even if it scores high-end tablet design wins, the truth is that high-end Android tablets just aren’t selling well. Nvidia needed high-volume design wins and Android tablets just won’t do the trick. Qualcomm is in the new Nexus 7 and the HTC One. Back in May analysts reported that HTC One sales hit the 5 million mark in the first two months of sales, although shipments have slowed down since then. Millions of Snapdragons found a home in the HTC One and millions more will end up in the new Nexus 7.
Nvidia’s talk of a $200 to $300 million hit this year doesn’t exactly paint the full picture. Tegra 3 shipments in the first two quarters of 2013 were modest, but relatively good. However, nothing took its place and the true extent of the Tegra 4 flop will only become visible in the first quarter of 2014 and beyond. The big hope is that the Tegra 4i and Tegra 5 will start to come online by then, so the numbers for the full year won’t be as terrible, but it is abundantly clear that Nvidia cannot afford another Tegra 4.
As for Nvidia’s Tegra Tab and Shield, they might do well. Nvidia knows a thing or two about hardware, but even if they prove successful, they just won’t be enough, at least not in this cycle.
Is nVidia Working On A Tablet?
August 12, 2013 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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According to a report over at Tabtech.de that managed to spot an unknown device in the result page of the GFXBench, Nvidia might be gearing up to release a phablet or tablet.
The device is listed as Nvidia Tegra Note Premium and scores just slightly lower than the Nvidia Shield in GFXBench. It feature Tegra 4 clocked at 1.8GHz and has a resolution of 1280×800 which probably points out to a tablet rather than phablet but everything is possible. It was running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean when it was tested.
At Computex 2013 back in June, Nvidia showcased a rather unique device that was used to demonstrate pressure-sensitive functions of a stylus and which might be the device that showed up in the GFXBench results. The 1280×800 resolution is not impressive and far off from what the competition currently has to offer, but then again Nvidia might want a cheaper tablet or phablet on the market.
In any case we will surely keep an eye out for Nvidia’s Tegra Note Premium, whatever it turns out to be.
Will Icahn Boot Michael Dell?
Carl Icahn reportedly is drawing up a shortlist of potential Dell CEO replacements for Michael Dell should his bid for the company be successful.
Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management have made a bid to rival that of Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners in the high stakes fight over Dell and its board. Now it is being reported that Icahn has already started drawing up a list of candidates that he and Southeastern Asset Management will propose as replacements for Michael Dell as CEO of Dell.
Icahn has previously warned that should his offer for Dell be accepted by the shareholders he would look to not only oust Michael Dell as CEO but replace the firm’s board of directors. Reuters reports that Icahn is casting his net far and wide, including consideration of former HP CEO and current Oracle co-president Mark Hurd.
According to Reuters’ sources Cisco director Michael Capellas, IBM services head Michael Daniels and Oracle’s Hurd are all in the frame, although none of the individuals would confirm having been approached by Icahn.
Michael Dell’s initial plan to buy back the company he founded has met with strong opposition by existing shareholders, some of whom think they are getting shortchanged. According to Michael Dell, the firm’s reorganisation into an enterprise IT vendor will be easier if the company goes private and doesn’t face investor and market scrutiny.
So far Dell’s board is backing Michael Dell’s and Silver Lake Partners’ buyout offer, suggesting that Icahn’s offer is short of cash. However some of Dell’s investors might like the drastic action that Icahn is promising, along with the fact that his offer allows existing shareholders to maintain a diluted stake in the company.
Should Icahn manage to get his takeover offer accepted by Dell’s shareholders, it will set up a sensational return to the PC industry for Hurd and give Dell renewed momentum to compete with HP.
IBM Buys SoftLayer
IBM has signed an agreement to purchase SoftLayer Technologies, as it looks to accelerate the build-out of its public cloud infrastructure. The company is also forming a services division to back up the push.
The financial details of the deal were not announced, but SoftLayer is the world’s largest privately held cloud computing infrastructure provider, according to IBM.
IBM already has an offering that includes private, public and hybrid cloud platforms. The acquisition of SoftLayer will give it a more complete in-house offering, as enterprises look to keep some applications in the data center, while others are moved to public clouds.
SoftLayer has about 21,000 customers and an infrastructure that includes 13 data centers in the U.S., Asia and Europe, according to IBM. SoftLayer allows enterprises to buy compute power on either dedicated or shared servers.
Following the close of the acquisition of SoftLayer, which is expected in the third quarter, a new division will combine its services with IBM’s SmartCloud. IBM expects to reach $7 billion annually in cloud revenue by the end of 2015, it said.
Success is far from certain: The public cloud market is becoming increasingly competitive as dedicated cloud providers, telecom operators and IT vendors such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard all want a piece. The growing competition should be a good thing for customers if it drives down prices. For example, Microsoft has already committed to matching Amazon Web Services prices for commodity services such as computing, storage and bandwidth.
Not all hardware vendors feel it’s necessary to have their own public cloud. Last month, Dell changed strategy and said it would work with partners including Joyent, instead of having its own cloud.
Did Apple Trick Sharp?
Sharp is really regretting its dependence on Apple as its main customer.
While it made sense at the time to be extremely pleased when Apple sucked up most of its capacity with screens for its iPhone and iPad, now the tide has turned the outfit is reporting a bigger than forecast loss. Sharp is now suffering from low output at its factories and forced to write off excess capacity.
The company had a $5.1 billion net loss for the year which is much worse than it predicted. At the start of the year, Sharp was forced to curtail production of 9.7-inch screens for Apple’s iPad. That has stepped up the urgency for Sharp to find new customers and uses for its leading-technology displays and may make it harder for the company to convince investors and lenders it remains a viable company.
Sharp will officially announce its results for latest business year on May 14. To make matters worse the company is also taking a charge to put aside cash for possible fines from a display price-fixing investigation in Europe, the sources said. Sharp in October received a $4.4 billion bailout from banks including Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi Financial Group in return for mortgaging nearly all its factories and offices in Japan and pledging to cut 10,000 jobs.
Qualcomm Sticks With Windows RT
Tim McDonough, Vice President, Marketing at Qualcomm, was Qualcomm´s commitment to Windows RT. Ever since Microsoft announced Windows RT, ARM supporters had high hopes and Windows RT has yet to live up to some.
Tim confirmed Qualcomm´s commitment to Windows RT and future releases, saying “we are here for the long run”. He describes the partnership as the beginning of a long journey and of course Qualcomm is going to continue rolling out chips that will run great with Windows RT.
Qualcomm mentioned that Samsung ATIV and Dell XPS 10, both of which use Qualcomm’s S4 dual-core APQ8060A chips, run really nice. Tim told us that he is a real fan of both devices and that he is currently using one of them.
We also learned that Snapdragon 600, the one used in the HTC One and some versions of Samsung’s Galaxy S4, is 40 per cent faster than the S4 Pro, adding that Adreno 320 graphics core is significantly faster than the Adreno 225 used in the S4 APQ8060A chip. Another number we got is that the Adreno 330 is up to four times faster than the 225, which is a huge leap forward. Let’s not forget that Snapdragon 800, which is up to 75 per cent faster than Snapdragon S4 Pro, is also coming in mid-year, second half of 2013. The 800 will be Qualcomm’s first chip with Adreno 330 graphics.
One can easily conclude that there should be some Snapdragon 600 and 800 Windows RT convertible tablets at some point in the future. To stay on the safe side, Qualcomm just confirmed that new and exciting things are coming in the next months and quarter and they are Windows based.
We have to notice that most people in the tablet world get really excited talking about convertible tablets in all shapes and sizes, as the physical keyboard is definitely an accessory you want to have.
Windows RT Devices To Drop In Price
Prices of Windows RT devices have started to decline, signaling an attempt by PC makers to quickly clear out stock after poor adoption of tablets and convertibles with the operating system.
Microsoft released Windows RT for ARM-based devices and Windows 8 for Intel-based devices in October last year. The price drop is an acknowledgement that Windows RT has failed, analysts said.
Prices of popular products usually don’t fall, but Windows RT devices were not in demand, and prices fell, analysts said.
The starting price for Dell’s XPS 10 is now US$449 for a 32GB model, scalping $50 off the original launch price. The 64GB model is $499, which is a drop from the original $599 price. By comparison, the price of the Latitude 10 tablet with Intel processors and Microsoft’s Windows 8 OS remained stable at $499.
Asus’ VivoTab RT, which is largely sold through retailers, is being offered by Amazon.com for $382 with 32GB of storage, which is a heavy discount from the $599 launch price. Retailers like Best Buy, Staples and Office Depot have also dropped the price of the tablet by $50, now selling it for $549.
Newegg is listing VivoTab RT as having been discontinued. Asus did not respond to a request to comment on whether the company was still offering the tablet.
Lenovo is offering the IdeaPad Yoga 11 for $599 as part of a seven-day deal, which is a drop from the original $799 price. However, TigerDirect is offering an IdeaPad Yoga 11 model for $599 on its website, while Amazon is selling a model for $499.99.
Samsung did not ship its Windows RT tablet, Ativ Tab, to the U.S. market.
However, the starting price of Microsoft’s Surface RT remained consistent at $499 on its online store. Microsoft also offers Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 11 through its store, but has stopped offering tablets like the VivoTab RT on its website. The company last month said it stocks its store with RT devices based on availability and demand.
Sharp Says No To Intel
January 15, 2013 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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While Sharp is desperately looking for more cash, it appears that it will try busking outside CES with a dog on a string before it takes money from Intel.
A senior senior executive from the Japanese company told the Mercury News denied that the company was looking for money from Intel. Industry analysts had speculated that Intel and Sharp, which supplies screens to Apple (AAPL) for its latest iPhonem, were in investment discussions.
Sharp is fighting for survival after years of losses. In November, it said it may not be able to survive on its own after full-year net losses to doubled to $5.6 billion. Sharp Vice President Kozo Takahashi told reporters at a roundtable briefing on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the company’s finances have been weakened considerably and we are considering ways to deal with that.