Hasta La Gadget!

This morning we’re getting prepped for a week that’s going to be full to the brim with no less than the latest and the greatest in Google development news, as Google I/O 2012 starts on Wednesday! Look for a spattering of news bits surrounding the events starting with no less than a leak of the tablet we’ll likely see popping up for all – Nexus style. Meanwhile Microsoft will be going big with Microsoft Connected Car plans for the near future with Kinect, Windows Phone 8, and the cloud.

AT&T’s Samsung Galaxy S II has its Ice Cream Sandwich update sent out this week. BlackBerry 10 has been leaked with the BlackBerry L-Series and QUERTY N-Series. The folks at T-Mobile and Verizon are shaking hands this week over a big-time spectrum swap.

You’ll want to check out the column: Surface Detail: Microsoft’s Tablets Are Too Big To Fail.

It appears that the Microsoft Surface project was born of timid manufacturers – go big or go home! The iPhone is looking more and more like an NFC-toting beast for its next release. Sony is trying again for the Google TV with their NSZ-GS7 this July!

And don’t forget to see our Alienware M17x R4 with Ivy Bridge Review to see what the most massive gaming laptop in the land is all about.

SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: June 25, 2012 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Fears of Windows tablet manufacturer apathy spurred Microsoft’s Surface development, despite insistence that the slates are intended to support not compete with OEM efforts, according the latest batch of rumors. Observations of the extent to which Apple will go to secure the materials necessary to develop distinctive and unique products – and concerns that its own Windows OEMs were playing device strategy too safely – prompted Microsoft taking Surface into its own hands, a former executive told the NYT, burned too by the ill-fated HP Slate 500 project.

That tablet, demonstrated by Steve Ballmer back in 2010 as a poster-child of Windows 7 on touchscreen hardware, highlighted the shortcomings both of off-the-shelf components and Microsoft’s own platform. Components sufficient to run Windows 7 left the slate heavy, thick, hot and expensive, while the performance of the OS itself fell significantly short of the iPad’s usability. “It would be like driving a car, and the car not turning when you turn the wheel” a former HP executive who worked on the Slate 500 project said, blaming underwhelming finger-friendliness in Windows and the multitouch display for the issues.

HP went on to spend hugely on acquiring Palm for webOS, then dropped the platform into open-source vagueness after the initial HP TouchPad feedback proved subpar. According to insiders at the firm, HP was frustrated at the apparent lack of time and investment Microsoft appeared to be demonstrating in getting Windows 7 to the level where it could legitimately compete with iOS on the iPad. For its part, Microsoft was supposedly reluctant to free up engineers and developers from coding Windows 8, which is designed from the outset to accomodate touchscreen control.

Opinion is now divided as to whether Microsoft wants to continue with its own hardware range or if, after it has shamed OEMs into action, it will bow out. “I think once they jump-start it, they plan to make money the way they always have,” MIT management professor Michael A. Cusamano suggests, “from licensing software,” echoing similar comments recently from Acer’s founder.

The company itself, though, is playing its cards close. “Microsoft has tremendous respect for our hardware partners and the innovation they bring to the Windows ecosystem,” Microsoft corporate VP Steven Guggenheimer insisted in the aftermath of the Surface reveal last week. “We are looking forward to the incredible range of new devices they are bringing out for Windows 8.” No pricing or specific release dates for either the ARM-based Windows RT Surface or the more expensive Intel-based Windows 8 Surface Pro have been confirmed.

As of late-2010, the ex-Microsoft exec claims, it was still undecided internally whether Surface would be Microsoft-branded or licensed out as a hardware reference design. The added control of helming the project from drawing board to store shelves seems to have tipped Microsoft’s hand, however.

Surface spawned over timid OEMs tip ex-Microsofties is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft is looking to bury its Kinect, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Bing and other technologies into your next dashboard, with a job listing outlining the ambitions of the next-gen Connected Car Platform. The advert sketches a telematics system that can pulls together ”speech, gestures, face tracking, augmented reality, vehicle networking, navigation, [and] entertainment” that turns simple cars into “intelligent assistants.”

“For the next generation of the Connected Car Platform, we plan to leverage the full power of the Microsoft ecosystem including Kinect, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Live, Bing, Azure, and Tellme. The combination of rich local sensing, user identification, cloud access, and data mining will transform tomorrow’s cars from passive objects into intelligent assistants for both the driver and their passengers. The new Connected Car will know its riders, and will interact with them naturally via speech, gestures, and face tracking. It will learn their habits, and offer personalized contextual information and driving assists to get them to their destination as quickly and safely as possible. Through a growing catalogue of applications, it will inform and entertain them, and keep them connected with the people and information they care about. The possibilities are endless”

Most interesting is perhaps the degree of inter-device connectivity Microsoft envisages. Current in-car entertainment systems generally limit their interaction with phones and other devices to streaming music, making hands-free calls and occasionally tethering so as to share a 3G/4G data connection. However, Microsoft’s intentions call for “distributed, concurrent, and adaptive software running on a network of devices spanning cars, mobile devices, PCs, and the cloud.”

That could lead to cars that know your favorite routes, your preferred playlists, automatically adapt to changes in schedule, and that can be upgraded with downloadable apps in the same way that a Windows Phone might. Cloud synchronization could ensure your latest music downloads are automatically ready to be listened to on your next journey, or instantly load presets and preferences into a rental car.

Meanwhile the increasingly contentious matter of dashboard distraction – with too many buttons, dials, touchscreens and displays taking driver attention away from the road – could also be addressed using new motion gestures and simple speech commands.

Earlier this year, Microsoft’s Project Detroit demonstrated how a 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback could be brought up to speed with 21st-century tech like remote starting from a smartphone, integrated WiFi and cloud analytics, Kinect sensors for all passengers and more. The conversion was intended to encourage developers to consider cars the next great frontier for apps.

Microsoft’s current Connected Car system powers telematics kit in vehicles from Honda, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin, and McLaren, among others, and is the backbone of tech such as Ford SYNC, Fiat Blue&Me and Kia UVO (as in the Kia Soul we reviewed recently). Exactly when we can expect this next-generation of all-singing, all-dancing technology to show up in road-going vehicles remains to be seen.

[via istartedsomething]

Microsoft Connected Car plans include Kinect, WP8 and the cloud is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.