Hasta La Gadget!

This may not be a highly priced diamond in the rough, but we were still rather pleased to come across eFun’s aPen Touch8 while walking around the showfloor at a Showstoppers event here in beautiful Las Vegas. Although not exactly surprising, it’s worth noting the Touch8 aPen takes an obvious cue from its A5 sibling, sporting a very similar design and being powered by the same ultrasonic infrared technology. What’s different here, however, is that the newly announced Touch8’s tailored for laptops (15.6-inch or lower) running Windows 8, with the pen’s main purpose being to bring moderate gesture-based features to non-touch machines. According to eFun, and confirmed by us, installation is relatively simple: you plug in the included receiver (pictured below), pop into the “Tablet PC Settings,” adjust the calibration, and voila, you are all golden.

During our short spell with the aPen Touch8, we did notice a bit of a lag from time to time while using the peripheral, though it did manage to (somewhat) easily swipe its way between screens, launch different applications and bring up the Charms Bar. Naturally, it doesn’t come anywhere near close to what you would experience on an actual touch-capable Windows 8 laptop, but it could definitely be an option if you’re looking for something to hold you over until you finally decide to upgrade your gear. Those interested will have to shell out $80 on the aPen Touch8, with eFun telling us to expect it to be available in about a month.

Continue reading eFun’s aPen Touch8 makes non-touch laptops extremely friendly with Windows 8 (hands-on)

Filed under: Misc, Laptops, Peripherals

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Source: eFun

[CES 2013] Regardless if you like the direction Microsoft took Windows with its Windows 8 OS, it seems the company is celebrating a milestone today as Windows 8 has sold 60 million licenses.

Unfortunatley, with today’s news, Microsoft didn’t disclose just how many of those licenses are based on consumers purchasing Windows 8 or how were sold in bulk to vendors and enterprises, but the Windows blog team had the following to share in regards with today’s news:

At the 11th Annual J.P. Morgan Tech Forum at CES 2013 today, Windows Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller announced that Windows 8 has sold 60 million licenses to date. This represents the cumulative sales of Windows 8 including both upgrades and sales to OEMs for new devices. This is a similar sales trajectory that we saw with Windows 7.

We have seen a significant increase in the number of Windows 8 certified systems since general availability at the end of October. There are now more than 1,700 certified systems for Windows 8 and Windows RT.

In addition to the news of 60 million Windows 8 licenses being sold, Microsoft is also seeing “strong growth” in the amount of developers building for the platform. According to Microsoft, over 100 million applications have been downloaded from the Windows Store after two months of being available to the public.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: NPD: 2013 Will Mark The Year When Tablet Shipments Overtake Notebooks, OLPC XO-4 Arriving This March,

Ready for your quarterly dose of Windows 8 sales figures? After hearing that some 40 million licenses had been sold through last November, the company’s CFO and CMO for Windows Tammi Reller announced here at CES that Microsoft has sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses to date. According to her, that number includes “sell in to OEMs for new PCs,” but she didn’t clarify whether or not it includes blockbuster deals like the $617 million one it recently landed with the US Army, Air Force and DISA. Reller also noted that the numbers are “roughly in line with where we would have been with Windows 7.” Moving 20 million of anything over a single holiday season is pretty impressive, and we’ll be keeping an ear out for more details should they emerge.

Update: Microsoft also announced that “since the opening of the Windows Store the number of apps has quadrupled and it passed the 100 million app download mark – just two months after general availability.”

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

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Source: ZDNet, Windows Blog

[CES 2013] One of the major pet peeves about using a laptop to work on the go is the fact that you can’t go long without plugging it into a power socket. Dell’s answer to this problem has been its Inspiron R laptop series: laptops with impressive battery life. Well, it looks like the company has decided to upgrade them for this year. While still maintaining its optical drive, Dell has managed to reduce the size of the Inspiron R to almost 1” thick, a huge difference from last year’s model.

What else is new? We’ve now got the option to purchase the Inspiron R with a touchscreen – which makes sense, since it’ll be running on Windows 8. However, for those who don’t want to spend the extra money, the extra large trackpad should do the job. The Inspiron R can also be powered by a variety of Intel processors (Celeron, Core etc) and even optional discrete graphics for those who want to game. The variety of customizable features and display sizes means there’s bound to be something for everyone.

No word on pricing or a release date at this time of writing, but expect to find out more in the near future.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Digital Storm Unveils Aventum II Gaming Rig With New Cooling System, Sony VAIO T Series Updated With Touchscreen Option,

Samsung may have focused on Smart TV in its CES 2013 press conference, but the company also had a pair of new lightweight notebooks – the Series 7 Chronos and Series 7 Ultra – to announce. Packing a 15.6-inch and 13.3-inch display respectively, the two new laptops offer up to 11hrs runtime and Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution displays, while throwing in a touch layer for 10-finger action, too.

The Chronos – shown below – runs Windows 8 on a Core i7-3635QM processor with up to 16GB of RAM and AMD Radeon HD 8870M 2GB graphics. There’s up to 1TB of internal storage, a 720p webcam, backlit keyboard, and 4Wx2 JBL speakers.

The whole thing is surprisingly lightweight, given it’s a 15-inch notebook, and the keyboard feels crisp and responsive. The brushed metal finish is suitably premium, but the display is incredibly glossy; true, we were playing with the Chronos in a well-lit hall, but even sunlight from a nearby window could prove more than distracting. It only gets worse when you start to add in greasy fingerprints, too.

As for the Series 7 Ultra, shown below, that runs a choice of Core i5 or i7 processors with AMD HD8570M 1GB graphics and up to 16GB of RAM. It opts for a 256GB SSD rather than an old-school hard-drive, though the smaller form-factor means it makes do with half the speaker power. Samsung will offer both touch and non-touch variants; both will have a backlit keyboard, which is usable despite the smaller size.

It’s a lightweight machine, with easily accessible ports – including USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 – and both HDMI and mini VGA. Samsung reckons up to eight hours can be squeezed from the battery, and there’ll be optional 4G LTE. The portability box is ticked straight off, then, and Samsung’s quoted 178-degree viewing angles work out to a screen you can see clearly, without inversions or blurring even if you’re sat off to one side of the notebook.

Unfortunately, Samsung isn’t talking pricing or availability for either the Series 7 Chronos or the Series 7 Ultra.

Samsung Series 7 Chronos and Series 7 Ultra hands-on is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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