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Acer recently announced pricing and availability for its Iconia W700, and now its other Windows 8 tablet, the Iconia W510, is getting that same treatment. The 10.1-inch slate will ship for $500 and up when it goes on sale November 9th.

The W510 sports an IPS display with a 1,366 x 768 resolution, and that panel is coated in Gorilla Glass 2 for some extra scratch resistance. Unlike the Ivy Bridge-packing W700, this device runs a 1.5GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2760 processor (from the Clover Trail series) with 2GB of RAM and up to 64GB of solid-state storage. Connections include a microSD card reader, micro-HDMI and a micro-USB 2.0 port. Acer also offers a $150 keyboard dock, which connects to the tablet from the top and offers a full-size USB 2.0 port. Without the dock, the tablet is rated for up to nine hours of battery life; the dock adds another nine. We got a chance to play with an early unit of the W510 — head over to our in-depth preview for a closer look.

Continue reading Atom-powered Acer Iconia W510 on sale November 9th for $500 and up

Filed under: Tablets, Acer

Atom-powered Acer Iconia W510 on sale November 9th for $500 and up originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re visiting New York or San Francisco, or if you’re a resident, well be prepared to receive free WiFi! Yup that’s right, it seems that in an attempt to generate some buzz for the upcoming launch of their Windows 8 platform, Microsoft has sponsored Boingo’s WiFi, so from now until the end of the holidays, visitors and residents to New York and/or San Francisco can expect to access WiFi hotspots. For San Francisco, Microsoft has rolled out WiFi coverage to certain popular areas, such as Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf, but for New York, Microsoft has gone all out and starting 1^st November, 200 locations in Manhattan and six subway stations will be offering up free WiFi coverage. Granted it’s a publicity stunt but hey, free WiFi, right?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Windows 8 event on Oct 25, Microsoft rolls out invitations, Windows 8 companion app for Windows Phone 8 spotted,

AMD has revealed its new processor for tablets, the AMD Z-Series APU, intended to take on not only Intel’s Atom but the ARM-based chips found in the majority of slates on sale today. The AMD Z-60 has, with a 4.5W TDP, the lowest power consumption of AMD’s line-up, and is expected to bring its 1GHz dualcore speed to tablets as slim as 10mm with the first models – running Windows 8 – tipped for later this year.

The Z-60 includes Radeon HD 6250 graphics with 80 cores, as well as 1MB of L2 Cache and USB 3.0 support. There’s also support for AMD Start Now, the company’s fast boot/resume system, as well as an HDMI output capable of Full HD, and Microsoft’s DirectX 11.

AMD’s tablet reference design is built around a Z-60 paired with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 30Whr battery, and running Windows 8. On that sort of setup, the company says it’s seeing up to eight hours of browsing or six hours of playing back a looped 720p H.264 video with the display brightness set to 60 nits.

That’s on the dim side, mind. AMD’s own anecdotal research from back in 2009 found that many people set their displays at more than 2.5x that brightness as a level of minimum comfort, and that 60 nits is roughly equivalent to 20- to 30-percent brightness settings on notebooks tested at the time.

At idle, AMD is supposedly seeing up to 10hrs of runtime. AMD is already shipping the Z-60 to its customers, with tablets running the chip expected later in 2012. No word on what sort of pricing we can expect.

AMD Z-60 APU for skinny Windows 8 tablets revealed is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Welcome to Monday evening everyone. Today featured a couple of a big stories, including the House Intelligence Committee warning of Huawei and ZTE potentially allowing the Chinese government to spy on the US. Huawei was quick to release a statement giving us its own side of the story and defending its business, and those US lawmakers also delivered a list of five things the government must do to prevent Huawei and ZTE from helping China with espionage.

We also had plenty of news about SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which launched for the ISS yesterday. The launch went well despite a rocket blowout, and we learned that the capsule is carrying – among other things – ice cream and silly putty to the space station. Later on in the day, SpaceX released a statement about the minor problems on the launch pad, telling us that the mission should still go as planned. We heard that 10 million iPad Minis are on order, despite the fact that we don’t know for sure that it exists yet, and today Google started calling for more tablet-friendly apps.

The Samsung Galaxy S III was named T-Mobile’s best-selling device of all time today, and speaking of T-Mobile, the carrier received the LG Optimus L9 today as well. A 32GB Nexus 7 model was accidentally shipped to one lucky Japanese customer, and Microsoft has launched free Wi-Fi in both New York City and San Francisco. Windows 8 PCs started showing up early on HSN’s website today, and Microsoft released a Kinect SDK for Windows 8 too. Microsoft has apparently dropped its “Live” branding from its Windows 8 launch, and T-Mobile looks primed to receive iPhone 5 owners with a new NanoSIM delivery.

After being teased last week, Rovio revealed Angry Birds Star Wars today, an announcement that was quickly followed by additional details. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is available for pre-order on Steam today, while Blizzard told us that a World of Warcraft hack that allowed one player to murder others one city at a time has been patched. Pokemon Black and White 2 launched yesterday, and PETA has something to say about it, while Nokia announced that its new Lumia 810 will be bringing the Windows Phone 8 touch to T-Mobile.

That about does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, but before we part ways, we have one original story to cover: Chris Burns tells us why Nokia will need to push its graphic design abilities when it comes to making Windows Phone 8 a success. Enjoy the rest your night folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 8, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft’s real money to “Points” conversion has always been a point of contention among consumers, but that may all be about to change — if the Windows 8 Zune Marketplace is any indicator, that is. Movies and music purchased via Windows 8 no longer default to the bizarre indirect system Microsoft set in place years ago with its Xbox Live platform, instead allowing actual currency for payment as well as MS Points (Windows 8 exclusively used the MS Point system for media purchases throughout beta). In fact, the system even automatically selects hard currency as the standard, reports The Verge.

The MS Point system converts 80 MS Points to $1, and points much be purchased in a minimum of 400 point blocks — a practice criticized as both deceptive and consumer hostile. Points were first implemented on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for purchase of games and associated content on Xbox Live Marketplace; the practice has since expanded to Microsoft’s Zune music and movie platform, as well as Xbox.com. Direct payment is available as well, but only for select content, such as Games on Demand.

As of this morning, the change hadn’t affected the Xbox 360 Marketplace, though rumors earlier this year indicated that MS Points may be wholesale phased out by the end of 2012. Microsoft had yet to respond to a request for comment as of publishing.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Microsoft

Windows 8 defaults direct cash payments for music and movies, puts Microsoft Points on backburner originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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