The HP Slate

Here we go — press images of the HP Slate just hit the web, right as Ballmer showed it off during his CES keynote. The prototype device is said to be coming later this year, and it’s running Windows — Ballmer showed it running the PC Kindle app. It’s also multitouch, and can do some gaming — they showed it playing Frogger. Check one more pic and the teaser vid after the break. And trust us — we’re going to find out everything about this thing before we’re done.

Continue reading The HP Slate

The HP Slate originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft Touts Home Entertainment at CES Keynote

Steve BallmerLAS VEGAS — Microsoft detailed plans for XBox 360 enhancements, a new gesture-driven interface for the XBox and a tablet-style Windows PC tonight at a keynote presentation kicking off the Consumer Electronics Show here.

It was the second year as CES headliner for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who took over the keynote spot from his former boss, Bill Gates, last year.

After a power outage briefly plunged the stage into darkness and delayed the start of the keynote by over 20 minutes, Ballmer ambled onstage in his trademark V-neck sweater. He touted the company’s successes with its recent Windows 7 launch, outlined its plans for enhancing home entertainment and tying together the “three screens” through which people experience media today (television, PC and mobile devices). He provided more details on upcoming enhancements to the successful XBox 360 platform and XBox Live online service.

“From the largest screen on the wall to the smallest screens in people’s pockets, we are delivering the entertainment people want,” Ballmer said.

View the Microsoft keynote live, via a video stream provided by the company.
(Requires Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin.)

It’s been a good year for Microsoft. Ballmer reprised the launch of the company’s search engine, Bing, which he said has attracted 11 million users since its launch. There are now more than 39 million Xboxes in use around the world, and XBox game sales have totaled $20 billion since the platform’s launch, Ballmer said.

And, Ballmer said, “the Zune HD device is getting rave reviews.” That is true — Wired’s review of the Zune HD is quite positive — but the device still has a single-digit share of the portable media player market.

But the centerpiece of Microsoft’s business in 2009 was Windows 7. After taking well-deserved criticism for its launch of Windows Vista in 2007, Microsoft bounced back with many much-needed enhancements in Windows 7. For the most part, the critical and consumer response to Windows 7 has been excellent. The operating system is more streamlined, easier to use and prettier to look at than Vista, and it seems to have injected new life into what seemed like a staggering personal-computing dinosaur. Ballmer called Windows 7 the fastest-selling computer operating system in history, and touted figures showing that it drove a 50 percent increase in PC sales the week it was launched, and a 50 percent year-over-year increase in overall sales of Windows PCs.

The Mac, it seems, has not killed off Windows.

But with rumors of an upcoming Apple tablet looming large in many observers’ minds this week, Microsoft — along with many other computer industry companies — can’t afford to ignore the persistent irritation that is Apple.

Accordingly, one of the gadgets shown by Microsoft tonight was a tablet-like device, produced by HP and running Windows 7. Not the “Courier” tablet that Microsoft previewed in 2009, this is more akin to old-school Tablet PCs, albeit with no keyboard and running the now-multitouch-enhanced Windows 7.

HP said the device would be available later this year, but provided no details on pricing, availability or specifications.

Another not-so-subtle message from Ballmer’s keynote: Apple’s iPhone hasn’t killed off Windows Mobile, either. Microsoft partners shipped 80 different Windows Mobile-based phones last year, Ballmer said, and indicated that more would be coming in 2010. As an example, he showed off the HTC HD-2, a new WinMo-powered phone that will be available on T-Mobile. The HD-2 will feature a 4.3-inch LCD screen and will be about as thick as two poker chips.

Microsoft pushed the message that it’s an entertainment company, too, on two fronts. One was the announcement of Media Room 2.0, software for viewing multimedia content (videos, audio and photos) on your computer. The new version lets you view content on any screen in your home, from a phone to a PC to a TV, Ballmer said.

And the second entertainment front is the XBox 360. Fresh from the wildly successful pre-holiday launch of Modern Warfare 2 (one of the highest-grossing videogames in history, according to Microsoft), the company promised more games exclusive to the XBox platform to come in 2010, including Tom Clancy Splinter Cell, Crackdown 2, Mass Effect 2, Fable 3 and Alan Wake.

An update to the Halo series, Halo Reach, will enter beta testing later this year. In an unusual twist, anyone who bought the previous title, Halo ODSM, will be invited to take part in the Halo Reach beta test, which Microsoft anticipates will include as many as 2 million testers.

Microsoft also showed off a new XBox Live feature called GameRoom, featuring more than 1,000 old arcade games from the likes of Atari and Intellivision, like Tempest and Pac-Man. Users will be able to create “virtual game rooms” that their XBox Live avatars (and those of their friends) can walk around in. Virtual quarters, one assumes, will be available without limit.

Finally, Bach showed off the company’s gestural interface for XBox 360, Project Natal, which first appeared at E3 last year. Natal will be available in time for the holiday season in 2010, Bach promised, as a camera plus software that will work on all existing XBox 360 systems. Developers are currently working on Natal-enhanced games and applications that will be available when the system launches.

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Microsoft CES keynote PR leaks early: HP slate device is just a PC, Natal in holiday 2010

Microsoft’s CES keynote has been marked by disaster: first the power went out, knocking the PCs on stage into recovery mode, and now the PR for Ballmer’s speech has posted early. The big news is no news — that HP slate device is a Windows 7 PC, not the rumored Courier tablet. We’re sure HP and Microsoft will have some interesting things to say about it, but a lot of hearts are breaking out there. Other big items: Project Natal will launch around the holidays in 2010, the HTC HD2 will hit T-Mobile as expected, and the Mediaroom 2.0 IPTVs service will bring on-demand programming to PCs and phones. The full PR is after the break, but we’ll post highlights here if we see anything else as we comb through.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Continue reading Microsoft CES keynote PR leaks early: HP slate device is just a PC, Natal in holiday 2010

Microsoft CES keynote PR leaks early: HP slate device is just a PC, Natal in holiday 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Live Blog: Microsofts CES 2010 Keynote

It’s not a proper CES until we get our Microsoft keynote. Since the departure of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer’s presence has become something of a beloved tradition for the tradeshow. Whatever you might think of the guy, one thing’s for sure: Microsoft’s CEO sure knows how to put on a show.

We’re going to be on hand for the event at the Hilton in Las Vegas. The lights go down at 6:30 PT (9:30 ET) tonight. Expect our live coverage to start shortly before that.

So what do we expect from tonight’s main event? First, it stands to reason that there will be a lot of time devoted to Windows 7‘s successes. After all, Microsoft boasted about Vista until it was blue in the face, and we all know how that turned out.

Microsoft Office 2010 will almost certainly get some face time as well; the company has been doing the hard sell on business software this week. Oh, yeah, and can you say “Bing?” You’d better believe Steve Ballmer can. Over and over again. Here’s hoping he entertains us with a round of that number-one single, “Bing Goes the Internet.”

Project Natal, Microsoft’s forthcoming gesture-based controller, will probably get some face time. The prototype has progressed a good deal since it first debuted back at E3.

Some sources are predicting that Microsoft will attempt to nab some of Apple’s thunder with the announcement of a tablet. According to Yahoo’s MIA CEO Carol Bartz explains her “scheduling conflict” on stage with Ballmer via a big deal between the companies to help the once-great Internet giant’s struggling search division.

Find out the answers to all this and more at 6:30 PM PT time tonight, after the jump.

Real Windows 7 Screenshots?

This article was written on January 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

Windows 7 Desktop
(Click to Enlarge)

In our last post just the other day we mentioned a Neowin forum member who had claimed to get his hands on Windows 7 Milestone 1. He walked through some of the things that he had noticed so far in the first milestone, but it wasn’t much. It was generally the same thing as Vista, and without the screenshots to back it up people were skeptical of the legitimacy.

A Chinese site has stepped forward with screenshots of what is supposedly Windows 7 Milestone 1, and I’m fairly confident that they are real. Why? Because it almost looks the same as Vista, which is what you would expect. Microsoft isn’t going to reveal a new appearance for Windows in such an early stage.

Here are a few of the screenshots that were posted:

  • About Windows 7
    This screenshot shows off the build information for Windows 7, which would be version 6.1.6519 and was put together on December 20, 2007. The full build string is “Version 6.1 (Build 6519.1.x86fre.winmain.071220-1525)“.

    (Click to Enlarge)
    Windows 7 Build ID

  • System Tray
    Instead of expanding the hidden System Tray icons into the Taskbar, it now pops out in a separate window.

    Windows 7 System Tray

  • Control Panel
    The Control Panel is arranged a little differently, but nothing to be astonished by.

    (Click to Enlarge)
    Windows 7 Control Panel

I think it is safe to say that these screenshots are the real deal, and that screenshots of future Milestones will likely be leaked as they become available. Windows development is just too widespread for Microsoft to keep it under wraps and out of the public’s eyes.

[via WinBeta]

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Hands-On With the Lenovo S10-3t Tablet

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LAS VEGAS — Rumor has it the much anticipated Apple tablet will be a blown-up iPhone with a 10-inch screen. While we wait for that fabled device (presumably in late January), take a gander at Lenovo’s S10-3t — a 10-inch part-time netbook, part-time tablet running Windows 7.


CES 2010
The “t” stands for tablet, and that’s because this 10-inch netbook (aka notbook) features a swivel touchscreen that can be rotated for use as a tablet. According to Lenovo, it’s the first convertible tablet using capacitive touchscreen — the same multitouch technology used on the iPhone.

Previous convertible tablets used resistive touchscreens, which required you to firmly press down on the screen or control it with a stylus. Those didn’t succeed in the mainstream. They suffered from a durability issue: The convertible tablet form factor had a weak spot vulnerable to firm presses. The S10-3t should eliminate that problem (unless you insist on jabbing the screen with a brutal amount of force.)

But I wouldn’t bet capacitive touch would redeem the convertible-tablet category. I had some hands-on time with the S10-3t, and I didn’t have very positive first impressions. During a video shoot demonstrating the tablet, the software was glitchy and required two reboots. (These are considered outtakes, so they won’t make it to the final cut of the video.) Particularly, the software — a Lenovo-modified version of Windows 7 — freaked out when I was rotating the touchscreen to use it as a tablet. But when I got it up and running, the touch sensitivity was certainly pleasant and sensitive like the iPhone (or Droid or whatever) experience.

Lenovo included its own custom software to navigate the device in tablet mode. However, you’d have to manually launch individual tablet-based apps in order to take advantage of the tablet UI. I wished that it would automatically detect when it was in tablet mode and launch the tablet-based UI immediately and seamlessly when it was rotated. A geek can dream, can’t he?

unvieled

When used as a netbook, the S10-3t is solid. It has a nice, full-sized keyboard and a comfortable trackpad. And generally, I’m just loving the way Windows 7 looks and runs on new netbooks. It imbues these trendy devices with a more modern aesthetic and a snappier feel.

The S10-3t is shipping later this year with a $500 price tag. Good news if all you’re looking for is a netbook: A non-swivel-touchscreen version of the S10-3t, the S10-3, costs $330.

More photos below the jump, courtesy of Wired.com’s Jon Snyder.

unvieled

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Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


Gateway brings Atom N450 to LT21 line of 10.1-inch netbooks

Gateway got official with its 15.6- and 11.6-inch EC laptops back in October, and now it’s time for the netbooks to get their shine on. Hot on the heels of Intel’s Atom N450 release, the aforementioned company is rolling out its LT21 series here in Vegas, complete with 6-cell 5,600mAh battery options (for up to ten hours of usage), 802.11n WiFi, an N450 under the hood and Intel’s GMA 3150 handling the pixel duties. You’ll also get a chassis that weighs just 2.76 pounds along with an integrated webcam, Ethernet, a 10.1-inch LED-backlit display (1,024 x 600), a 93 percent full-size keyboard and a multi-gesture touchpad to boot. The rest is pretty vanilla: 1GB of RAM, a 160GB or 250GB hard drive, three USB 2.0 sockets, VGA and a multicard reader. The LT21 range will arrive in red, black and white hues, with Windows 7 Starter or Windows XP Home runnin’ the show; check ’em later this month starting at $299.99. Or don’t, whatevs.

Continue reading Gateway brings Atom N450 to LT21 line of 10.1-inch netbooks

Gateway brings Atom N450 to LT21 line of 10.1-inch netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Haleron’s iLet 10-inch tablet starts cheap, gets expensive, ships next week

Haleron's iLet 10-inch tablet starts cheap, gets expensive
You have no shortage of tablet options these days and trust us: by the time the week is through you’ll have many, many more. The Joojoo has been the most notable of late, but if you’re looking to save a little money and don’t mind a clunkier form-factor, Haleron’s Mio iLet (internet tablet) could be an alternative. It starts at $419 and for that you get a 10-inch, 1024 x 600 multitouch screen, 1.6GHz Atom N450, a 160GB HDD, 802.11a/b/g wireless, and a lovely pleather carrying case. Cough up another $100 and you’ll get 3G, a further $50 for quad-band GSM, and upwards of $260 more for a bigger drive. Finally, GPS will set you back another $75, turning what was a solid value into something a bit… more. Windows 7 is at least free, but instead of Tablet edition it seems instead to feature a special version celebrating the Seven Deadly Sins. The iLet is said to be shipping next week, so if you order now you could find out what comes in the box before the month is through.

Haleron’s iLet 10-inch tablet starts cheap, gets expensive, ships next week originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP TM2-1070US tablet details leaked, is temporarily out of stock

HP TM2-1070US tablet details leaked, is temporarily out of stock
Wondering about HP’s TM2 tablet we heard about back in September? Read on and sate thy curiosity, as eCost seems to have updated their database a bit early, spoiling HP’s fun and, if this is accurate, confirming the detailed specs of the TM2-1070US. It’s packing a 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo processor behind a 12.1-inch multitouch screen, 4500MHD integrated graphics, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB disk, and even a fingerprint scanner, all in an aluminum case that’s been given the “factory custom” treatment with some laser etching. It’s listed next to a $1,099 price, which seems fair enough, though the site still won’t let you order one at this point. We’re guessing this one will stay “temporarily out of stock” until HP gets the druthers to make it official. That should be soon enough.

[Thanks, Liam]

HP TM2-1070US tablet details leaked, is temporarily out of stock originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI Wind Top AE2220 unboxing and impressions

In the land of netbooks and nettops, the tried-and-true all-in-one PC still has a place in this world yet. MSI is living proof of that, with its 21.5-inch Wind Top AE2220 bringing Windows 7, multitouch and an eye-pleasing design to the collective masses. Said machine just started shipping to consumers at the tail end of last month, and we’ve been fortunate enough to spend a few weeks tinkering with one of the most cost effective AIO options on the market right now. Thankfully for those who enjoy doing anything with relative speed, MSI overlooked the Atom range and went straight for the Core 2 Duo lineup, and for those with a bit of extra coin to spend, there’s even an optional TV tuner and Blu-ray drive. Care to see how we felt about this touch-friendly rig after some extended play time? Read on to find out.

Continue reading MSI Wind Top AE2220 unboxing and impressions

MSI Wind Top AE2220 unboxing and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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