Hasta La Gadget!

This week the Dell XPS 13 has been re-introduced with a Full HD iteration, this version prompting the manufacturer to suggest that it’s not just the MacBook Pro they’re gunning for, it’s the MacBook Air. This device has already been revealed and released in a 720p edition – we reviewed it right here on SlashGear, in fact – and here in 2013 the Dell team is showing off not just the Full HD version, but an XPS 13 Developer Edition as well, this time with the same display as the original (now called “standard display”) but here based on Project Sputnik. And it’s all about definition from here on in.

The Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook with Full HD display option takes on a massive 1920 x 1080 resolution across its 13-inch display, this containing almost twice the amount of pixels compared to what Dell calls a “typical 720p display”. The image you’re seeing below comes from Dell and shows the XPS 13 in both of its non-developer editions. It’s made clear instantly how much more you’re going to be able to see in the same physical display size – hot stuff!

Also note above that yes, the physical machine sizes are the same, it’s no optical illusion. The amount of pixels inside the display allows for more to be shown from a standard app like Excel from Office 2013 (see our review of Office 365 for more info on that iteration of Excel). Dell also lets it be known that this version of the Dell XPS 13 offers a 72% color gamut vs the 45% color gamut on the “standard” panel.

Viewing angles have been bumped to 178 degrees up from 80 degrees on the standard panel – and it’s worth noting that each of these measures comes from Dell comparing the standard and the Full HD panels on the Dell XPS in a general way. They’re all just a little bit subjective when it comes down to it since it’s really up to your own eyes to decide how much more excellent one panel is compared to its predecessor. The display has also been amped up to 350 nits in its Full HD iteration, this “up to 75% brighter than a typical 200-nit display.”

Dell notes in their press materials for the Full HD XPS 13 that the unit is “often judged against the MacBook Pro 13, but in terms of size and weight, the MacBook Air 13 is a more realistic comparison.” The folks at Dell note that the XPS 13 is smaller than the MacBook Air 13 “as it fits a 13-inch screen into something barely bigger than an 11-inch footprint.” This machine is getting ready to be unleashed upon the public this Spring, aka “in the next few weeks” – stay tuned for more details, pricing, and hands-on action.

Bonus! This device is also offered from Dell starting at $1,449 USD working with Ubuntu – fun stuff for all!

Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook Full HD edition guns for MacBook Air is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Microsoft have made it clear that they’re aiming for Google’s throat with a loving dose of all-out Valentine’s Day coverage straight from Bing – full of love, of course! This coverage comes in the form of not just Windows Phone-centered functionality for all your Valentine’s Day needs, but both the Bing mobile site and the Bing app as well. Once you’ve gone to m.bing.com or downloaded Bing from your smartphone or tablet’s own app store, you’ll be well on your way!

Bing is out to take on the masses of Valentine’s Day lovers with Local Scout on your Windows Phone 8 device first and foremost. Local Scout makes it simple to find all the best nearby food and drink locations right from the palm of your hand while m.bing.com does instant searches near you for similar results. Bing offers up their “snapshot” results for restaurant reviews from Yelp as well as restaurant booking straight from Open Table.

Bing Maps is ready and willing at this point in history to take you wherever you need to go with the GPS on your smartphone or through any mobile web browser with point to point directions that include traffic conditions on-the-go. Bing Shopping has you covered for gifts with millions of listings of products from every single corner of the consumer universe. Bing’s social sidebar also provides you help with gifts with expert reviews from all over the web – and your Facebook friends if they’re also connected to the network.

Let us know if you’re ready to use Bing this holiday or if you’re planning on using a competing search engine to make sure you’re stacked up and ready for the big love-bound day of heart-throbbing goodness. The heart you’re seeing above is not a direct result of Bing’s search engine results as the search bar implies – not directly, anyway – instead it’s a poll conducted by Bing that shows Trustworthiness as the most important quality a partner can have in general. Microsoft is showing that it’s not afraid to say that Google isn’t a partner they’d choose to go home with.

[via Bing]

Bing makes it’s case for your one-stop Valentine’s Day resource is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

PC gamers of a certain age will have very fond memories of the Commander Keen series — usually trying to pogo toward a hard-to-reach gem or frantically escaping a Dopefish. Key creator Tom Hall and his startup Pieces of Fun may be playing our heartstrings like a fiddle, then, by launching a crowdfunding drive for the Keen series’ spiritual successor, Secret Spaceship Club. Along with reintroducing the core sci-fi platform hopping we know so well, the game will include its own editor to let players build their own masterpieces. Newcomers just wanting to whip up a quick map should get a simple mode with easy drawing and visual, cause-and-effect scripting; those with some coding chops will have access to an advanced mode that lets them customize the scripting for objects, cutscenes and even the win conditions. We’ll have the option to publish maps for the world to see, and the results should be playable on a swath of platforms that include Android tablets, iPads, Macs and PCs running either Ubuntu Linux or Windows.

It’s an ambitious plan, and Hall’s development house would like to raise $400,000 by March 1st to make Secret Spaceship Club a reality by February 2014. There’s perks for jumping in early, however, such as becoming an in-game character. Anyone who’s still trying to learn whether or not aliens ate their babysitter will want to at least swing by the source link.

Filed under: Gaming, Software

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Via: Polygon

Source: Pieces of Fun (Kickstarter)

Nokia was an early mover in the tablet space – in 2007, years before the iPad burst onto the scene, it was unboxing its N800 Internet Tablet (which looks more like a phablet by today’s enormo-phone standards). But these days the Finnish high-end and low-end mobile maker does not play with slates — at least, not yet. That could soon change though, judging by comments made by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop who has given the company’s clearest hint yet that it wants to get back into the tablet space.

Speaking to the Australian Financial Review, Elop stopped short of announcing a Nokia-branded tablet is coming but confirmed the company is taking a close look at the space. “We haven’t announced tablets at this point, but it is something we are clearly looking at very closely,” he told the newspaper. “We are studying very closely the market right now as Microsoft has introduced the Surface tablet, so we are trying to learn from that and understand what the right way to participate would be and at what point in time.”

“It is the case that in the months and years ahead, you will see us broaden out the portfolio, which means pushing to lower and lower price points, in some cases smaller form factors and so forth,” he added.

So what OS would a future Nokia tablet run? Windows seems inevitable — what with Nokia being a Microsoft partner for its Lumia line of Windows Phone-based smartphones — but Elop was careful not to rule out alternatives such as Android.

“We would consider any option [Android or Windows],” the newspaper quotes Elop saying, although he went on to described “the Microsoft side” as Nokia’s “first focus”.

“It is important to note that the opportunity for companionship is something that any user is looking for. So, when you think about the Lumia 920, running on Windows phone, having a Windows tablet or PC or Xbox is something that will give us the opportunity to have a pretty integrated experience. Our first focus on what we look at is clearly in the Microsoft side,” he said. “But we have made no decision or announced nothing.”

Elop has previously talked about keeping an open mind about OS alternatives, telling Spanish newspaper El Pais last month that it was looking further ahead in smartphones and considering what role Android or other alternatives might play, while remaining “immediately focused” on Windows Phone. But in the interview with the Australian Financial Review, Elop said that Samsung’s growing dominance of the Android market had vindicated Nokia’s decision to eschew Google’s platform.

“On the Android side, we were very worried that we would be entering Android late relative to everyone else in the industry, that perhaps one vendor was already well on the road to being the dominant Android vendor at the expense of everyone else,” he told the newspaper. “If we look back two years to when we made the decisions, then Samsung was big, HTC was pretty big and Motorola was pretty big. Of course what has happened in the two years is that Samsung has captured the lion’s share of it and the others have been squeezed down to much smaller market share. We were worried about exactly that pattern forming.”

If you’ve ever messed around with Linux, you’re probably familiar with a little program called “Wine,” WINdows Emulator/Wine Is Not an Emulator. With its magic, you can run Windows applications on your Linux box (as well as other operating systems), and soon, Wine could be running them on your Android phone as well. More »