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Intel To Unleash Shark Bay In 2013
Intel used a saucy word to describe the 2013 Haswell based notebook platform. It tells us that Shark Bay should reinvigorate the notebook experience. Revive would seem to be the more appropriate word in this case.
Shark Bay promises more sensors, faster resume times, Intel smart connect as well as connected stand by. All this will be present on at least some Shark Bay powered notebooks.
Intel also wants to bring more improved connected capabilities to 2013 notebooks. It promises NFC support, Thunderbolt paired up with now standard Intel Wireless display.
With more fuzz about sensors, NFC, all-day battery and thin and light approach Intel’s notebook of the future is basically a tablet with a keyboard that probably costs a bit more money and offers traditional PC functionality.
Intel Wants To Deliver Cheap Smartphones
February 21, 2012 by admin
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Intel has revealed some additional information on the 2012 mobile strategy to its partners and it even shared some pricing guidelines for mobile products.
According to a slide entitled Mobile Landscape in 2012, Intel wants to sell mobile phones powered by its CPUs for as little as $199 to $299. This is where Intel sees a market opportunity for its phones and the prices are surprisingly low.
It also places netbooks in the same price range $199 to $299 while Intel based tablets should float between $399 and $499. Naturally more expensive options are always a reality. Tablets can go up to 12.1 inches and the starting price for these bigger machines should be $299, and in the high end the sky is the limit.
Hybrid notebooks should stay at less than $699 and this is a category where you can twist the display, slide the keyboard or even take the keyboard off from the netbook, or tablet. Think Asus’ Eee Pad Slider, Transformer, this will give you an idea of what to expect, but with x86 support. Phones, netbooks, hybrids and tablets are all based on Atom architecture.
Intel plans to sell laptops starting at $3xx and up. Probably slightly more than $300, but less than $400 is what they have in mind. Top notch notebooks based on Core i7 chips will start at less than $799 and Ultrabooks with 11-inch or larger screens might be coming down to $599 to $699. Of course, high end models will end up a lot pricier.
Will Windows 8 Beat Android?
February 8, 2012 by admin
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ARM’s CEO Warren East has been having a look at his Tarot cards and has come to the conclusion that Windows 8 will probably put the fear of God into Android in the tablet market.
East said that Microsoft may have some potential advantages over Android particularly now it is going to run on chips lovingly designed on ARM. East told CNET that Microsoft’s brand recognition among consumers was a lot better than Androids and this could mean that they would go for that brand. He said consumers are familiar with Microsoft and very familiar with Windows and they’re less familiar with an Android environment. East added that it will be interesting to see how Microsoft exploits that advantage, but I think that’s a fundamental difference. He believes Android tablet sales will eventually take off as there were similarities between what happened with smartphones.
When Android phones were introduced, there was a lot of hype and nothing happened then a few years later–two years later–half a million units a day, 700,000 units a day and Android phones now are successful. East thought that everyone should give Android tablets a little bit more time. He did not think that Intel would be able to dent the smartphone or tablet market.
Intel Buys RealNetworks Patents
February 4, 2012 by admin
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Intel on Thursday said it had agreed to acquire RealNetworks streaming media patents and video codecs in a move aimed at improving the multimedia experience delivered through devices based on its chips.
The chip maker has agreed to purchase video codec software and about 190 patents and 170 patent applications worldwide, for $120 million. RealNetworks is best known for its RealPlayer multimedia software, which offers multimedia streaming based on its own codec.
The purchase will help Intel offer “richer experiences” across a wide spectrum of devices, including through laptops and smartphones, the company said in a statement. A company spokeswoman declined further comment on specific plans for patents and software.
Intel has been beefing up its on-chip multimedia capabilities to handle more realistic graphics as the company develops newer generations of chips. The new laptop chips code-named Ivy Bridge due later this year for ultrabooks will be the first to have integrated support for Microsoft’s DirectX 11. Smartphones and tablets based on Intel’s Atom chip code-named Medfield will be released later this year.
WIN8 Enter Final Pre-Beta
Microsoft Windows developer build tracking site Winunleaked.tk has recently updated its Windows 8 build number page, documenting the milestones Microsoft developers have been achieving in the compilation of the Windows 8 operating system. According to the latest numbers, it appears that the company has just released the final pre-beta build, marking another significant milestone in the release cycle of the operating system.
The site claims Microsoft’s own testers will then vote on which of the next Windows 8 builds will become the “Final Beta,” with a voting decision being made on Saturday, January 28th. The final beta build will then be shown at an internal Microsoft preview on Monday, January 30th.
The official pre-beta build number is 8189.0.winmain.120120-1830, and according to the site, the next builds for Windows 8 will be labeled as “Beta Escrow” builds. Additionally, the operating system roadmap claims that the “Final Beta” build to be released to the public will be named “winmain_win8b1.”
Motorola, Lenovo To Offer Intel-Smartphones
January 17, 2012 by admin
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Intel announced multi-year deals with Motorola Mobility and Lenovo to create smartphones and tablets, and said the first Google Android phones using the top chipmaker’s processors would go on sale this year.
Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said Lenovo would launch a smartphone for the Chinese market using Intel’s newest chip in the second quarter of the year, while Motorola will release its phone in the second half.
The agreements with the U.S. and Chinese consumer electronics makers help shore up Intel’s boldest foray into the mobile arena. The company is hoping its new “Medfield” chip conserves enough power to compete with rival smartphones using ARM Holdings’ more energy-efficient architecture.
The world’s largest chip maker is also making a concerted push for the likes of Hewlett Packard to go big on super-slim, Apple Macbook Air-like laptops called Ultrabooks, which it hopes will preserve its dominance of the PC market as tablets like the iPad draw consumers away.
“It is a multi-year, multi-product strategy that will bring both phones and tablets to the (U.S.) marketplace starting with a phone in the second half of 2012,” Dave Whalen, a vice president in the Intel Architecture Group, said of the agreement with Motorola.
“You’re going to see us working very closely with them on technologies,” Whalen told Reuters in an interview.
Windows 8 To Have Simple Recovery
Microsoft has detailed the options that will be available to recover a crashed PC running Windows 8.
Users will be offered two alternatives when presented with a Windows crash, with options to either refresh or reset their lost machine.
The changes are detailed in a blog post from the firm where the refresh option was described as a way of retaining some work while restoring core OS functions. The other is a full face wipe.
“We’ve built two new features in Windows 8 that can help you get your PCs back to a ‘good state’ when they’re not working their best, or back to the ‘factory state’ when you’re about to give them to someone else or decommission them,” explains Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky in the introductory blog post.
“The strength of this approach is that you start over from a truly clean state, but you still get to keep the things you care about. With that as the basis of the solution, our goal was to make the process much more streamlined, less time-consuming, and more accessible to a broad set of customers.”
Broadly, the two options work as follows. Fully resetting your PC will remove all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC and reinstall Windows, while just refreshing will keep all personal data, Metro style apps, important settings on the PC and reinstall Windows.
The reset option includes features for erasing old data more thoroughly. This involves choosing the “Thorough” option and should help protect more sensitive users, or firms storing official or compliance related information, from having their data exposed through third party refreshes.
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Is Qualcomm A Threat To Intel?
Intel tried to do gaming graphics cards and it failed, but when it comes to CPUs for desktop and notebooks, it is currently dominating the market. Even the graphics used in Intel’s latest integrated CPUs these days are quite decent for multimedia and even some basic gaming.
Still, Intel is now shifting its focus and it sees Qualcomm as its main competitor in years to come. We heard this from high ranked sources from within Intel who believe that Qualcomm is the only ARM company that has it all, and Intel wants to take it on.
Intel is carefully watching Nvidia and Texas Instruments, again two strong ARM players, but it still thinks Qualcomm has better time to market, more customers and a much stronger portfolio.
Intel should start shipping Medfield just in time for Windows 8, and in case you’ve missed it, Medfield is a SoC (System on Chip) platform that should find its place to a few tablets and probably even some phones next year. Since Intel is trying to speed development up and put as much pressure on ARM players as possible, its next generation SoC will also come before the end of 2012, and it will use the advanced 22nm process, something we won’t see in ARM chips next year.
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Is Intel Ready For The USB 3.0 Standard?
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The USB Implementers Forum has ruled that the Ivy Bridge 7 Series Chipset and other Intel chipsets have achieved USB 3.0 certification. USB 3.0 delivers up to 10 times the data transfer rate of USB 2.0, as well as improved power efficiency. Intel’s Ivy Bridge will ship in Windows PCs in the April and will be the first to have USB 3.0 as a standard feature for the first time. USB 3.0 has been seen on laptops and desktops from AMD or NEC.
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Apple’s Patent Hints At Tablet-Macbook Hybrid
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Apple has received approval from the U.S. Patent Office this week for a patent for a MacBook with a cellular antenna and a rotating display. Such a MacBook could have the super thin qualities of the MacBook Air and the cellular connectivity and touchscreen versatility of the iPad.
It could also strengthen Apple against the onslaught of Ultrabooks that PC makers are gearing up to unleash. “This officially announces to the Wintel camp that Apple now has the ability to match or beat the Ultrabook design that is to come to market in 2013 with the [Intel] Haswell processor,” declared Jack Purcher, of Patently Apple.
Intel announced the Ultrabook category of PC laptops in May. The line is squarely aimed at the MacBook Air. The first wave of Ultrabooks, based on existing Intel processors, has already begun to hit the market. The units are supposed to be priced under $1000 and be super thin–0.78 inches–or in the case of the HP Folio announced today, even less–0.70 inches.
Next year, the platform is expected to be advanced further with the introduction of units based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor. A third wave of Ultrabooks is planned for 2013. They would be based on the Haswell processor and consume half the power of today’s laptops. Some of them also will sport Windows 8 with its touchscreen-enabled Metro interface.