Hasta La Gadget!

Only this morning we were being teased with the idea of a touchscreen Chromebook. Well, good news for people who hate waiting — it’s here, it’s called the Pixel, and you can pre-order today. The all-Google laptop is aimed at those who live in the cloud, but want a little more from their machine. Built from the ground up for the web, the 12.85-inch 3:2 ratio display claims to offer 18 percent more vertical space than 16:9 does. The screen the Pixel has is — as you can imagine — one of its proudest features, sporting a 2,560 x 1,700 resolution, giving a PPI of 239, and offers a brightness of 400nit. Oh, and of course, it’s touch-enabled so whatever your input preference, you’re covered. On the inside, there’s a dual-core 1.8Ghz Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and two SSD options — 32Gb or 64GB. If that’s not enough, Google’s ahead of you, and is throwing in 1TB of Drive storage with every Pixel for three years — what it expects the life of the machine to be. You won’t be basing your choice just on storage though, as the smaller capacity model is WiFi only, while the 64GB comes with Verizon LTE baked right in, and a choice of plans.

As for the rest of the features, the Pixel also has a triple-microphone configuration — with one under the keyboard — which helps improve noise cancellation, including the rattle of your typing during excited hangouts. This is also where the speakers are hidden, so it will be interesting to see how those play nice together. Other features include an “HD” camera, a custom keyboard action for less finger-fatigue, and an enhanced smooth glass trackpad. As for ins and outs, there are two USB ports, a mini displayport, a mic / headphone jack and an SD card reader — notably, no Ethernet. Wirelessly, you have WiFi a thru n and Bluetooth (plus that LTE if you opt in). Wondering what effect that display might have on the (59Wh) battery? Well Google claims its open-source test (available for criticism online) has rated the Pixel at five hours. If you want to get yourself some touchscreen Pixel action, you can order starting today from the Play store, or Best Buy starting tomorrow. The WiFi-only model will cost you $1,299, rising to $1,449 if you want some LTE (currently US / Verizon only). Not enough info for you right there? Why not head over to our minty-fresh hands-on.

Filed under: Laptops, Google

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In the smartphone market devices seem to always be getting thinner with each new generation. In the quest to make devices thinner and thinner manufacturers have turned to all sorts of technology including special glass for the touchscreen displays. Glass company Asahi Glass Co. Ltd, or AGC, has announced that it has set up a new facility to chemically treat glass for the smartphone industry.

The company has set up a new chemical strengthening facility for Dragontrail specialty glass that will be used to cover smartphones and tablet PCs at its plant at its Kansai Plant in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The manufacturer says that its new chemical strengthening facility is able to handle up to sixth-generation glass panels measuring 1850 mm x 1500 mm.

The company’s class strengthening process enables more efficient production of thin next-generation touchscreens and the new facility is scheduled to begin production in March of 2013. The company says the traditional touchscreens for smartphones and tablet PCs have used a triple-layer design that includes a sheet of glass, a touch sensor, and the display. The manufacturer says that demand for dual-layer touchscreens has grown.

The key to efficient production for these double-layer touchscreen is large-size chemically strengthened glass according to AGC. The manufacturer is able to build a large amount of cover glass with built-in touch sensors at one time by neatly arranging touch sensors on a large sheet of its chemically strengthened glass prior to cutting the glass into pieces of the intended size.

The company says that its new facility will contribute to even thinner smartphones, tablet PCs, and ultra books as well as other touchscreen devices moving forward. The Dragontrail glass is damage and scratch resistant and the manufacturer says it’s in use by over 20 companies on 60 smartphone and tablet PC models already.

[via AGC]

New Dragontrail facility chemically treats glass for strength is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

LG’s convertible Windows 8 tablet/notebook hybrid will be hitting store shelves in Korea this week, the company has confirmed, freshly branded as the LG Tab-Book and packing LTE connectivity. Announced back in October 2012 as the H160, the Tab-Book runs Microsoft’s full OS – not the RT version – on an Intel Core i5 processor, with a sliding 5-point multitouch display if you don’t want to plug in an external mouse.

Unlike Sony’s VAIO Duo 11, for instance, LG has opted not to include a trackpoint nub in the middle of the keyboard; instead, if you want to to interact with Windows 8, you’ll have to reach up to the touchscreen. Still, you do get a clever auto-sliding mechanism, opening up the display and revealing the keyboard.

As for the display itself, that’s an 11.6-inch IPS LCD panel boasting 178-degree viewing angles. Connectivity includes USB, an HDMI port, and a microSD card slot, as well as the LTE radio and the usual WiFi and Bluetooth. LG has previously claimed that the H160 will run for up to ten hours on a full charge.

What LG isn’t discussing is pricing, nor specific availability outside of Korea. It’s also perhaps telling that the company is yet to announce any plans to make a Windows RT tablet; currently options for those wanting the ARM-variant of Microsoft’s OS – which trades app compatibility for power frugality – are limited, with Microsoft’s own Surface RT the best-known model.

LG Tab-Book Windows 8 tablet/hybrid hits Korea with LTE this week is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Bill Gates conducted a Reddit AmA today (Ask me Anything) to talk about developments with his charity, as well as answer question on his past as Microsoft CEO. Gates provided a ton of insight on his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the progress its making towards providing vaccines for various illnesses. However, when asked what devices he uses, he decided to snap a quick photo of his Perceptive Pixel 80-inch touchscreen, for which he actually used for his AmA.

Of course, Microsoft bought Perceptive Pixel over the summer last year, so it makes sense that Gates is technically using a Microsoft Product, considering how loyal he is with the company. The former CEO is also using a new Surface Pro tablet, which he received “a week ago,” meaning that he got his personal unit before anyone else.

Gates also noted that these big-screen Perceptive Pixels “will come down in price over time and be pervasive,” according to his own predictions. Of course, we’d love to see that happen, and hopefully we’ll see these things in more homes as the years pass, but for now, it looks like Gates will be stealing all of the big touchscreen glory.

Other than that, Gates answered a ton of questions, and while most of them were about his philanthropy work, he did discuss what he thought the future would hold as far as technology was concerned. Gates says that “robots, pervasive screens, and speech interaction” are some of the emerging technologies he thinks will create a lot of buzz within the next few years.

Bill Gates shows off his 80-inch Perceptive Pixel display is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we’re hearing quite a few responses from the public on their surprise at the amount of actual usable hard drive space on the new Microsoft Surface Pro. While the standard ways to free up the space taken up by apps, photos, and videos that you don’t necessarily need, there’s also a slightly more dangerous route you might take. One of the largest space-users on the Microsoft Surface Pro (see our full review here) is the Windows 8 on-board recovery partition.

If you’re going to be wanting to delete this bit of code, you should know right away: if you do delete it and your computer crashes (in any of a variety of different ways), you could potentially have a completely bricked machine. The nice thing about Windows 8 is that you’re free to create a backup bootable USB stick with great ease. Once you’ve got a recovery USB stick, you’ve only to start your machine up holding down the volume button to boot into advanced options and recover from there.

Creating a bootable recovery USB stick is easy in Windows 8: you’ll first need a USB stick that’s at least 256 MB in size. After you’ve inserted that USB into your Surface Pro, you’ll want to press your Windows Key and your “R” key at the same time, then type RecoveryDrive.exe – you could also open your Control Panel and click or tap on the “Recovery” icon, from there you’ll see an option to Create a Recovery Drive. If at this point you’re prompted by UAC, you’ll want to click or tap on “Yes.”

From that point on, creating a USB recovery drive is self-explanatory : the guide screens will make it quite simple for you. The one other thing you’ll want to make sure you’ve done before a final push to the USB stick is to empty out the USB stick itself – if you’ve got anything on there you want to keep, of course.

The actual deleting of the partition that takes up a chunk of your internal storage for recovery is extremely similar to what you’d have done in previous versions of Windows. You’ll find Computer Management under settings, click or tap Control Panel, System and Security, Administrative Tools, and finally “Computer Management.” You may have to type in your administrator password at this point if you have one.

After that you’ll go to Storage (in the left pane) and click Disk Management. This screen is where you’ll be doing the most damage if you’ve not already created a USB recovery partition. If you delete the partition reserved for recovery at this point and lose your USB stick, you may very well be up a river without a paddle should your Surface Pro catch a bad bit of crash action.

Basically what we’re saying here is that you’re better off working with alternate storage options while this bit of space continues to be taken up by the Microsoft-added recovery. It’s there for a reason, and that reason is a good one. Stay safe!

PSA: How to free up space on your Microsoft Surface Pro is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.