July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Only a few months after Samsung debuted its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, the company is gearing up to launch a new set of devices.

Samsung announced this morning that it will hold an event in London on June 20, where it will highlight new Galaxy (Android-based) and ATIV (Windows-based) gadgets. For those not local, it’ll be livestreamed at Samsung’s mobile YouTube page.

There’s a chance we could see a new Galaxy Note smartphone — the Note 2 was announced last August — and perhaps a refresh of the company’s Galaxy tablet line. Over the past few years, Samsung has been increasingly focused on its Note tablet lineup, but the company could potentially refresh its Galaxy Tab slates with a lower price to compete with other cheap Android tablets.

As for Ativ, Samsung’s brand for all of its Windows devices, we could potentially see Samsung explore new tablet and Ultrabook designs. Its Ativ smart PCs sport removable screens, so they can function as both tablets and notebooks. At this point, I’m excited to see what Samsung comes up with for the Windows 8 Ultrabook ecosystem.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Hewlett-Packard is unveiling a small army of computers today that will use Intel’s next-generation microprocessors, code-named Haswell, for better processing without an increase in power consumption. The new products are HP’s latest bid to get its mojo back and to embrace the change wrought by tablets on the struggling PC industry.

Some of the devices are already shipping, but many are still waiting on Intel’s official release of the Haswell processors, which are due in early June. The Haswell processors are built in a 22-nanometer manufacturing process that enables both faster processor speeds and low power consumption, mainly by combining graphics and processor functions on a single chip. Haswell promises twice the graphics performance of last year’s Ivy Bridge processors.

Intel introduces major processors about once a year or so, and HP is using the occasion to launch a wholesale redesign of its computers. It is launching a new lineup of laptops, all-in-one computers, and desktops. All of the devices are thinner, stronger, and sleeker in design.

Among the new offerings are a bunch of thinner, lighter, and faster touchscreen laptop computers. They include the HP Envy TouchSmart 14 Ultrabook, with a 3,200-by-1,800 full high-definition touchscreen display, better battery life, Intel’s Haswell, and a 10-point multitouch screen. That model will ship on June 26 for $700. Such low prices mean that Intel-based Ultrabooks will finally reach a sweet spot of good battery life, good performance, and lower prices. The HP Envy TouchSmart 15 notebook (pictured right) also has a full touchscreen with Beats Audio. it will be available on June 5 for $530.

The HP Envy 17 notebook computer will come with a 17.3-inch screen, an Intel processor and Nvidia graphics. It has 2TBs of hard disk space, Beats audio, and a full-HD display. It will start selling on June 5 at $700.

HP is also launching new versions of its mainstream consumer Pavilion-branded computers. The HP Pavilion TouchSmart notebook is a thin laptop with a capacitive touchscreen and 10-finger gesture support. It will sell for $400 starting on June 26. The HP Pavilion 15 notebook will have a 15.6-inch display, a 1-terabyte hard drive, and an optical drive, and it will come in a variety of colors. It will sell on June 5 starting at $430.

As for desktops, HP is introducing a cool new all-in-one PC dubbed the HP Envy Rove 20. The device has a 20-inch touchscreen that you can fix at a variety of angles. You can also lay the device flat.

The device also comes with a built-in battery that can last for three hours while unplugged. In other words, it’s a giant touchscreen tablet running Windows 8. The machine uses Intel integrated graphics and Haswell processors. It has an in-plane switching (IPS) panel with wide viewing angles and 10-finger multitouch. It has Beats Audio and comes installed with software including EA Monopoly, Fingertapps Jigsaw Wars Puzzle, Fingertapps Musical Instruments, and Disney Fairies. It will debut in July for an undisclosed price.

HP is also launching the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 20 and 23 all-in-one PC models. These feature five-point optical touchscreens, widescreen displays, and new processors from both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The hard drives have up to 2TBs of storage. The machines have HP TrueVision WebCams and 25GBs of free Box cloud storage for U.S. users. The 20-inch model will sell for $620 starting June 23, and the 23-inch model will sell for $750 on June 5.

HP is also launching a series of new desktops. The HP Envy Phoenix 800 Desktop PC will have both Nvidia discrete graphics and Haswell processors. It will start selling on June 5 for $1,100. The HP Envy 700 Desktop PC will offer a choice of AMD processors or Haswell processors. It will be available on June 5 for $600.

The HP Pavilion 500 Desktop PC will have Haswell with a choice of discrete graphics from Nvidia or AMD. It will start selling on June 5 for $490. The HP Pavilion Slimline 400 Desktop PC will come with Haswell processors and Nvidia discrete graphics chips. It will start selling on June 30 exclusively at Best Buy starting at $400. And HP is launching the HP 110 Desktop PC. This low-cost machine has Intel processors or AMD processors, up to two terabytes of hard disk storage, and a 6-in-1 media card reader. It will be available on June 5 starting at $290.

HP is also extending the Envy brand name to its printers. The new products include the HP Envy 4500 e-All-in-One and the HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One printers. Those printers are able to print from both mobile devices and web pages. They’re packaged in compact enclosures and offer Instant Ink subscriptions, which make it easy for a home user to get ink refills. Pricing for the printers will be announced later this summer.

Last week, HP unveiled a couple of new consumer notebook computers. Those included the HP Split x2, a laptop that can be used as a clamshell device or converted into a tablet by detaching the keyboard. Such 2-in-1 designs are an example of wider innovation in the PC industry and an attempt to change with the times. The HP Split x2 has a 13.3-inch touchscreen and two batteries. The Split x2 will sell for $800. HP also unveiled its HP SlateBook x2, an Android tablet that can be used either as a tablet or a laptop. It features an Nvidia Tegra 4 mobile processor and a 10.1-inch diagonal screen. The HP SlateBook x2 will sell for $480.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Microsoft’s first Surface tablet was all about disappointing compromise, but the new Surface Pro is full of possibility.

It has an Intel processor, so it can actually run older Windows software. It features a sharp 1080p display that makes text, pictures, and movies pop. And it has has a stylus pen … for some reason.

The Surface Pro ($899 for the 64GB version, $999 for the 128GB model) isn’t perfect, but it comes much closer to Microsoft’s initial vision of the Surface as a machine that can serve as both a fully functional laptop and a solid tablet. Unlike the Surface RT, released just a few months ago, it’s more than just a heavy tablet in a PC’s clothing.

While testing the Surface Pro over the past week, I often forgot that I was using an entirely new type of computing device. It simply felt like a fast Windows 8 laptop. And while it’s far less transparent when used as a tablet, mostly due to its weight, the Surface Pro still worked well enough for casual usage while on the couch or in bed.

It’s close to the no-compromise device I was looking for when I reviewed the Surface RT — though we’re not quite there yet.

The Good: Fast, flexible, and polished

The high points of the Surface RT also apply to the Surface Pro. It features the same polished design, a case made out of a durable metal called VaporMG, and a kickstand that pops out with a satisfying thunk. I was shocked at how well-constructed the earlier Surface RT was, and the Surface Pro gave me the same impression, albeit with a bit more heft.

The Surface Pro weighs just under 2 pounds, compared to the Surface RT’s 1.5 pounds, but the slightly greater weight comes with a payoff; it’s a far more functional machine. The Surface Pro sports a third-generation Intel Core i5 processor running at 1.7GHz, along with 4GB RAM. That’s a huge step above the Surface RT’s Tegra 3 processor and 2GB RAM, and it shows.

Even though it has the same 10.6-inch screen size, the Surface Pro features a much higher-resolution 1080p display than its predecessor. That means it can run HD movies at their highest resolution, and it also makes just about everything on the screen extra sharp. The screen also supports multitouch with up to 10 fingers, while the previous Surface only supported five.

A dream to use

Launching programs, moving around the OS, and opening large media files was buttery smooth with the Surface Pro. For the most part, it managed to keep up with my typical workflow, which involves having several browsers open with dozens of tabs, a media program (Spotify, these days), and an instant messaging client (typically Trillian). In comparison, the Surface RT struggled to launch processor-intensive apps, and its paltry amount of RAM made multitasking a pain.

The Surface RT never quite fit into my workflow because it could only run Windows 8 apps — not so with the Surface Pro. Its Intel processor means it can run any Windows application that ran on Windows 7. I was able to run browsers other than Internet Explorer (there’s still no Chrome or Firefox version for Windows RT), and I even installed iTunes for fun. The freedom and flexibility of the Surface Pro made the limitations of the Surface RT seem even more egregious in retrospect.

Gamers will also appreciate the horsepower behind the Surface Pro, as it’s capable of playing a lot more than just Angry Birds. I installed Valve’s Steam client and was able to pull down Half-Life 2: Episode Two in around 15 minutes. The game took about 20 seconds to launch, and loading the first chapter took only around 12 seconds. That’s about on par with my giant desktop, which has a modern Nvidia GTX 560 video card and a three-year old quad-core processor.

I was able to play Episode Two smoothly at 720p with midrange graphics settings, which was more than adequate for the Surface’s screen size. That’s pretty impressive for a computer with only integrated graphics capabilities. (Going up to full 1080p gaming is perhaps asking for too much: At that setting, Episode Two was playable, but with a low framerate.)

The Surface Pro’s battery life was comparable with other ultraportables, lasting around five hours on a full charge. It’s paltry compared to tablets like the iPad, which typically get around ten hours of usable battery life, but the difference is understandable given the Pro’s size and horsepower.

Ultimately, I was impressed at what I was able to do with the Surface Pro. It’s particularly impressive that it’s lighter than Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air, which at 2.4 pounds is one of the lightest ultraportables around. This is where the Surface’s dual identity comes in handy: It may be hefty for a tablet, but it’s a featherweight dream when compared to other ultraportables.

I’ve been hesitant to recommend any tablet as a PC replacement so far, but the Surface Pro’s capability to offer the best of a complete PC while also dabbing in tablet territory could make it the only computing device some may need.

The bad: Even more awkward as a tablet

I’m no fan of big tablets, and the Surface Pro is by far the biggest tablet I’ve come across yet. It’s far too heavy to hold one-handed (even for short periods), and its wide screen makes it awkward to balance as well. In a time when we have small tablets like the iPad Mini weighing in at .68 pounds and roughly the size of a paperback, the Surface Pro feels like a dictionary.

But I suppose that’s the price you pay for including the hardware necessary to make it a functional Windows 8 ultraportable as well. I was disappointed in the Surface RT because it felt mostly like a tablet. But because the Surface Pro feels more like an ultraportable, its tablet deficiencies seem less egregious. Eventually, I got used to holding it on my lap or knee for casual web browsing.

When it comes to its size, the Surface Pro sits in a space all by itself right now: It’s lighter than other ultraportables, but far heavier than other tablets. That makes it easy fodder for gadget geeks who want the Surface to fail, but I see it more as a sign that Microsoft is actually daring to be different than the crowd.

I didn’t spend much time with the Surface Pro’s stylus pen, mostly because there wasn’t much of a compelling reason to use it. It’s helpful for doodling in image editing apps, but I’ll never get used to taking handwritten notes on glass screens (sorry, Galaxy Note fans). It was particularly useful for navigating Windows apps that weren’t optimized for touchscreens, though I don’t think that was Microsoft’s intent.

The Windows 8 problem: Apps and stability

Windows 8 apps aren’t exactly helping the Surface Pro’s tablet standing either. Microsoft has managed to get a decent selection of Windows 8 apps, but there’s nothing that feels truly groundbreaking or inspired. I spent most of my time with the Surface Pro inside of the desktop environment running older Windows apps.

Microsoft also has some work to do when it comes to the Surface Pro’s stability. It would occasionally get stuck in portrait mode, and on several occasions, the Surface failed to recognize the touch and type keyboards. Rebooting fixed most of the issues I ran into, but I also had a few blue screen crashes when repeatedly plugging and unplugging the keyboards. (At least Windows 8’s blue screen of death has a frowny face. Upgrade!)

The verdict: This is the Surface you’ve been waiting for

For all of its failures as a pure tablet, the Surface Pro is a compelling offering as an ultraportable/tablet hybrid. The Surface RT gave us a mere glimpse at the future of computing, but the Surface Pro’s combination of power and flexibility brings it right to your fingertips.

It may not be for everyone, but it’s worth serious consideration if you’re looking at Windows 8 ultrabooks. I have a feeling we’ll look back at the Surface Pro as the first time Microsoft’s Surface dream was more reality than hype.

For once, the future seems bright for Microsoft.

Additional takeaways:

• I wrote this entire review on the Surface Pro using the Type Cover (which has mechanical keys) something that I found impossible to accomplish on the Surface RT due to a keyboard bug. I was able to type as quickly as I usually do, and I didn’t notice any significant increase in typos.
• On the other hand, I’m still no fan of the Touch Cover (whose pressure-sensitive keys are embossed into the surface) — I used it to take notes during an interview and was left with complete gibberish.
• Yes, the title of this review was taken from John Woo’s seminal crime drama A Better Tomorrow.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Intel made a few big announcements at the Consumer Electronics show today concerning its ultrabook laptop and a new vision for cable.

Though people expected to hear about a new set-top box to revolutionize the way people purchase cable plans, Intel surprised people with a new partnership. And, as it has said for a year now, it is continually interested in putting Kinect-like gesture controls in all kinds of devices.

Ultrabooks at $599

Intel revealed today that its next line of ultrabooks will be released by the end of 2013. You’ll be able to pick one up for $599, and as The Next Web notes, Intel says the battery will last all day long. The ultrabooks at today’s press briefing had detachable keyboards and touchscreens, making them competitive in the tablet market despite being a PC. They also run the new Windows 8.

Comcast partnership

Intel also announced that it is partnering with cable-giant Comcast to bring all of its Xfinity channels to Intel-devices, as Forbes notes — without a set-top box. The channels would be processed and delivered inside the device, without needing an extra piece of machinery to serve the content.

This announcement was actually a bit of a bummer for Intel fans looking to see it do the opposite — release a set-top box. The box was rumored to change cable as we know it, with some saying it would enable people to purchase only the channels they wanted to watch. Instead, the partnership goes in the opposite direction.

Gesture controls

As VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi writes, Intel is digging in deeper with gesture controls. Vice president of the PC client group Kirk Skaugen explained that Intel believes gesture controls can do a lot for the gaming and security industries. On the gaming side, being able to control a game simply by waving your hands in front of the screen is, well, awesome.

As far as security goes, you could also use gesture controls to evolve passwords. Right now, passwords are very weak, and the technology behind iris scans and fingerprinting isn’t cheap or easily distributed. Gesture control could change that by tailoring a gesture, or pairing it with face recognition to give access to accounts and systems.

Intel image via huangjiahui/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Intel announced a new smartphone platform that could get it into more emerging markets where cost is an issue. The code-named Lexington platform includes a Intel Atom Z2420 processor with an XMM 6265 companion modem chip.

Making progress in the mobile chip market is a strategic goal for Intel, which became the world’s largest chip maker on the strength of its business making chips for PCs.

In 2012, Intel launched chips inside smartphones from seven major companies, such as Google-Motorola and Lenovo. Those phones went to 25 countries, said Mike Bell, the vice president of the Mobile and Communications Group at Intel. To jump-start the market, Intel created reference designs for phones that its companies could adopt in order to get into the market more quickly. Bell made the announcement at Intel’s press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today.

Bell showed off a reference design for the Lexington platform, which can handle full high-definition video encoding and decoding. It has good still image-capture capability. It has dual-SIM card capability for those who travel into different countries. It has FM radio, a MicroSD card slot for storage, and a wireless display technology transfer video from the phone to the big-screen TV.

“It’s really designed to be a no excuses, multipurpose phone,” he said. “It has no compromises.”

The first customers for the device include Acer, Lava and Safaricom.

Intel has 10 customers such as Acer and Fujitsu for its Clover Trail chips in tablet computers. The platform includes a dual-core, 1.8 GHz Atom Z2760 processor, delivering high-end performance with 10 hours of battery life, Bell said.

The next-generation Atom processor is code-named Bay Trail, with twice the performance of the current generation chip. It is a 22-nanometer, quad-core processor, and Bell showed it running in Pegatron and Wistron tablets with Windows 8. The device can also run Android. Those tablets are expected to come out in the holiday period of 2013.

“You see visions of things to come,” Bell said.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Intel is holding its annual press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday, and it has described in broad terms what to expect, just so the leaks to the news media don’t get out of control. We may see some new chips from the world’s biggest chipmaker but not the set-top box that the company has been working on as a rival to Apple TV.

Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel (he retiring this spring), will not make an appearance. Instead, Kirk Skaugen is hosting the event; he’s the corporate vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, an Intel spokesman said. Skaugen will likely show off Haswell, a new fourth-generation Core processor aimed at low-power, high-performance mobile devices. Haswell promises to make laptops and tablets much more powerful and power-efficient at the same time.

Intel will continue to focus on Windows 8′s capability to stretch across PCs and tablets. Skaugen will offer updates on Intel-based tablet computers, which are now shipping in the market. He will also talk about Ultrabooks (thin and light laptops) and convertibles (which combine features of laptops and tablets). Intel-based tablets are likely to be on display at the show, as computer makers now fully believe in the touchscreen trends. And Intel will likely talk about lower-power Ivy Bridge chips, based on its earlier generation of combo graphics-microprocessor chips. Those chips will likely run at below 10 watts of power consumption.

Mobile head Mike Bell will talk about new devices such as smartphones, but Intel will not likely say much about new mobile chip customers until later this spring at the Mobile World Congress event. That may disappoint some folks who want to see Intel make more progress in its expansion from the PC into mobile devices.

Mooly Eden, who hosted the press event for the last few years, now runs Intel Israel and he will make a cameo appearance to talk about Intel’s progress on “perceptual computing,” or using gestures and voice to enhance the touchscreen, keyboard and mouse input features of the PC. But those features aren’t necessarily going to arrive right away in new models.

Intel has already gotten notice for its work on a set-top box to rival Apple TV, but the spokesman said that it will not be shown at CES. Some work is going on at Intel, but it’s not ready yet. The Wall Street Journal reported that negotiations with content partners have delayed any announcement. CES press events start on Sunday, but the show floor opens on Tuesday and runs through Friday.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Microsoft’s Surface tablet has been a contentious subject for many PC makers, but don’t count Lenovo as one of them.

“Surface is a tablet, but it’s purely a tablet. Our products are very distinguishable, so I don’t see that there’s any conflict there at all,” Lenovo product president Peter Hortensius told VentureBeat during the launch of Lenovo’s newest convertible Ultrabooks.

“Customers will gravitate to whichever devices they think make the most sense for them,” he said.

Whether consumers will flock to the Surface over Lenovo’s convertibles remains to be seen, but we’ll find out soon enough: The Surface, IdeaPad Yoga 13, and ThinkPad Twist all launch on October 26.

How does Lenovo plan to set its devices apart? By focusing on their biggest feature — flexibility.

All of Lenovo’s new devices can transition from “lean-back” tablets to “lean forward” laptops in a matter of seconds. Why’s that a big deal?  Hortensius points to typing.

“When people use tablets, they inevitably have to type something. And they end up typing on glass, and it’s not the best experience,” he said. That’s where the keyboards on devices like the Yoga and Twist step in.

Besides Surface, the other big question for Lenovo nowadays is what factors are going to help it top HP in the consumer PC market. It seems inevitable, but will devices like the IdeaPad Yoga finally do the trick?

“We think it’s the breadth of the portfolio that’s really going to do it. The market is so big that it’s hard to see one product pushing us over,” Hortensius said.

“From my perspective, if we keep making good products that solve real problems, the marketshare part will take care of itself,” he added.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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SAN FRANCISCO — Intel executives are excited about the next refresh coming for the PC. Kirk Skaugen, the general manager of the PC Client business at Intel, said today at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco that “more innovation [is] coming in the next 18 months on the PC than you’ve seen in a decade.

Skaugen, pictured above, said that Intel and IDT have teamed up to produce wireless charging for laptops and PCs, allowing you to charge a device such as a phone (pictured) simply by putting it near a PC.

“Our goal is to eliminate wires from the PC,” Skaugen said.

The refresh is expected to begin on Oct. 26 with the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft’s new touch-oriented operating system, and continue through the next year or so. If it happens as expected, the refresh could generate $200 billion in annual sales for the computer industry.

Kevin Krewell, an analyst at The Lynley Group, said, “A lot of the innovation has to do with the new user interface, with touch, gesture and voice. All of the technologies have been around for a while. We are getting to a critical mass where people are used to touch and voice. The technologies are pervasive around us in things like Apple’s Siri. The PC is a natural place to incorporate those as well.”

He said the moves are clearly driven by concern that the PC is losing ground to tablets and smartphones. “Absolutely,” he said. “The whole platform development of Ultrabooks (thin and powerful laptops) is an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by tablets to the pc infrastructure.” But he doubts people will be excited about convertibles, which incorporate the tablet into a laptop.

Here’s the checklist of innovations coming for the personal computer:

• Windows 8 operating system with touchscreen controls. About 80 percent of people prefer touchscreens to other controls in tests by Intel, Skaugen said.
• Close-range depth tracking from a range of 6 inches to 3 feet, using SoftKinetics’ 10-finger recognition software and camera. Creative and SoftKinetic have created a camera that will debut in 2013 and eventually be built into a PC.
• All day battery life on a laptop.
• Voice recognition from Nuance. You can command your PC with your voice, dictate short sentences, and translate text to speech synthesis.
• 2D/3D augmented reality. Intel worked with Total Immersion to let you do things like try on a pair of sunglasses and see what they look like on your face, even if you’re doing it virtually via online shopping.
• Face analysis. A camera can recognize you and use that as your security password.
• A Perceptual Computing software development kit beta to enable developers to create new apps for the PC taking advantage of the above innovations.
• Intel’s fourth-generation Core microprocessor, code-named Haswell, will debut in the second half of 2013. It will have twice the computing power for the same amount of power consumption of today’s chips. A new version of the Core processors will operate in the range of 10 watts of power dissipation. That compares to 17 watts to 15 watts for Core processors today and 2 watts for Atom processors.
• In the next year, the number of Ultrabooks in the market will double from 70 today to more than 140.
• Convertible laptops, which will double as laptops or tablets, will debut in the near future.
• Better security, including anti-theft technology 2.0, which shows where your lost laptop is and hardware locks it if needed. Intel also has Identity Protection Technology so you can have a more secure social networking experience.
• Near-field communications. A short-range wireless technology allows for communication between a laptop and a mobile phone or tag.
• Support for the next-generation of high-definition video, with 4K resolution.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Intel chief executive is taking a break this year. But the world’s biggest chip maker will show off some cool new computers and technologies next week at its Intel Developer Conference.

Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and chief product officer at Intel, plans to discuss the evolution of computing technology and he will introduce the idea of “perceptual computing,” which will focus on computer controls beyond touchscreens and keyboards. Intel is pouring a lot of investment into technologies that will debut this year and next, including voice processing and the “interactive space between you and the screen,” said an Intel spokesman.

The technologies include gesture recognition, face recognition, cameras and sensors, and other ways to make your intentions known to a computer. Perlmutter will also talk about the latest trend in computer designs, such as the “hybrid” or “convertible” devices like the Lenovo Yoga, pictured above. These devices have flip screens or sliding cases that allow you to use them as touch-enabled laptops or touchscreen tablets. Those machines are “starting to act like an iPad but function like a full-fledged PC,” the Intel spokesman said. Computer makers working on the hybrids include Asus, Lenovo, Dell, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba.

Intel will show off a number of Windows 8 tablets based on the Clover Trail chip, a new member of the Atom low-power microprocessor family. Otellini previously said that 20 such Windows 8 tablets were under design, and the Intel spokesman said that Clover Trail third-generation Core chips will be shipping to computer makers very soon.

Perlmutter will also likely give a preview on Intel’s fourth-generation Core microprocessor, code-named Haswell, which will officially ship in the second half of 2013. The Haswell chip will cut power consumption significantly, and Intel is expected to include a family of low-power chips that dissipate about 10 watts, or significantly less than most laptops in the past. The Haswell chips are the first ones designed to be part of an Ultrabook — a thin and powerful laptop similar to Apple’s MacBook Air — from the ground up.

Intel’s other speakers include Kirk Skaugen, vice president of the PC Client Group, who will show off new laptops; Diane Bryant, head of the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group; Renee James, head of software and services; Mike DeCesare, co-president of McAfee; and Justin Rattner, chief technology officer, who will talk about the future of wireless on Thursday.

IDF runs from Monday Sept. 10 to Thursday Sept. 13 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco.

Say what you will about Windows 8, but it sure is getting PC manufacturers to bring out their innovation guns. Take HP, which is today announcing three new Windows 8 Ultrabooks with touchscreen capabilities — one of which could be its answer to Microsoft’s Surface tablet.

At the high end, there’s the HP Spectre XT, a 15.6-inch beauty that truly pushes the boundaries of the Ultrabook ideal (remember, they’re supposed to be thin and light laptops like the MacBook Air). Then there’s the HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4, which is a more typical 14-inch consumer laptop.

Source: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

HP’s Envy x2 (in tablet mode)

But while those laptops are nice upgrades to HP’s current lineup, it’s HP’s Envy x2 hybrid PC that’s truly getting me excited. Not only is it a sleek 11.6-inch Ultrabook, you can also pop out the screen and use it as a fully capable Windows 8 tablet. Just like Microsoft’s Surface, which (surprisingly) got the tech world drooling back in June, the Envy x2 shows just how versatile Windows 8 can be as an operating system.

We’ve seen attempts at hybrid laptop/tablet devices in the past, but the latest generations of mobile processors and Windows 8′s touch-friendly interface is finally making them a viable PC form factor. Earlier today, Samsung unveiled its own hybrid Windows 8 PCs, and we can expect other manufacturers to follow suit. (All of these announcements are fueling my sneaking suspicion that most new computers will be hybrid PCs in the next five-to-ten years.)

The Envy x2 sports a substantial all-aluminum casing (which looks and feels a lot like the 11-inch MacBook Air), a high-quality IPS display, and it weighs 3.1 pounds altogether. The screen pops off easily to be used as a tablet, and it weighs just 1.5 pounds on its own. HP says it spent a long time developing the hinge for the Envy x2, which is notable in how effortless it is to dock and remove the screen from the keyboard. (There’s a nice hefty click when the screen locks into place, even though it requires little force on your part to dock.)

In my brief time playing with the Envy x2, I was surprised by how high-quality it felt. You could also tell that HP’s obsession with its hinge paid off. Browsing through apps felt zippy as well (HP isn’t discussing the chip powering the x2 yet, but the company says it’ll be a next-generation Intel “Cedar Trail” model). The Envy x2 also sports batteries and SD card slots in both the keyboard and screen portions — which could make it the ultimate productivity hybrid PC.

I’ll be honest with you, I was so enamored with the Envy x2 that I didn’t really have much time to spend with the other Ultrabooks in HP’s lineup. The Spectre xt looked like a noble attempt at a MacBook Pro-like PC, and it’s fairly light and slim for a 15.6-inch machine at 4.77 pounds and 17.9mm thin. It’s also HP’s first laptop with a Thunderbolt port, which makes it perfect for people who need to deal with huge files.

The Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 is basically a touch upgrade to the company’s existing Envy lineup. It weighs 4.77 pounds and measures 23mm thin.

All of the Ultrabooks feature Beats Audio — but I’ll be honest with you, who cares? In my experience, Beats integration doesn’t really add much to music quality, and in some cases (thanks to aggressive post-processing) it can even detract from the original source.

The TouchSmart Spectre xt will be available in December in the U.S. starting at $1,399.99. Pricing and availability for the Envy x2 and the Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 haven’t been announced yes. (Interestingly, HP reps asked the press what we thought the ideal price for the Envy x2 would be. I voted for something in the $600 to $800 range.)

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Sleek, fast and slim notebook computers are coming as early as this fall. But that might be the last hurrah of the laptop, as tablet computers are expected to overtake sales of notebook computers by the end of 2016. That’s the forecast for the changing computing landscape, according to Richard Shim, senior analyst for mobile devices at DisplaySearch.

The change reflects a shift in consumer preferences, Shim said at the Emerging Display Technologies conference on Tuesday in Santa Clara, Calif. Tablets have screen sizes ranging from 5 inches to 10 inches, while notebook computers range from 10 inches to 17 inches. Tablets are focused on convenience, while notebooks are built for performance. Tablets are selling strong in mature markets like the U.S., while notebooks are selling better in emerging markets. That’s because notebooks are often the only computing devices in a household and they have to be used for high-performance tasks and productivity apps.

Tablets like Apple’s iPad have taken the market by storm. So far, Intel’s campaign to kickstart laptop sales with the Ultrabook label — or thin machines with high-performance and built-in security — has fallen flat in the market, Shim said. The larger market, which includes non-Intel devices and Apple’s MacBook Air, is dubbed the Ultraslim PC market. Tablets are likely cannibalizing sales of PCs at a faster and faster rate, Shim said.

A big change in the market could come with the Oct. 26 launch of Windows 8. At that time, we’ll see Windows 8 laptops, Windows 8 tablets based on Intel chips, and Windows RT tablets based on chips in the ARM ecosystem. By next year, when laptops will sport Windows 8 and Intel’s Haswell generation of power-efficient processors, thin laptops will take off in a big way, Shim said.

But that growth rate for laptops will slow as consumer tastes shift from performance to convenience. By 2016, tablet shipments are expected to overtake notebook shipments. Tablets are more responsive, are easy to carry, are more accessible, are thinner, lighter, and more intuitive to use, Shim said.

The mix of tablet sales may change. With the Jelly Bean 4.1.1 version of the Android operating system, Google finally has stable software that could jumpstart the tablet market beyond the iPad, Shim said. But the iPad is still expected to be dominant through 2017. Windows RT tablets are debuting soon. but they may come out at the high end of the market, Shim said, making their future uncertain. That’s because those Windows tablets are expected to be bundled with Microsoft Office software, which will make them more expensive.

Apple’s 9.7-inch tablets have ruled to date. But Shim expects the emergence of new screen sizes at 7 inches or so, as reflected in devices such as the Amazon Kindle, the Google Nexus 7, and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Apple is expected to debut a 7.85-inch tablet this fall.

“Resolution is a big topic these days, with pixel densities changing fast,” Shim said.

Screen quality for tablets will get better, but it’s an open question as to whether consumers can discern the quality difference above 200 pixels per inch. Apple’s iPad is already at 264 pixels per inch. Costs will naturally fall for tablets in the future. By 2017, the largest tablet category will be $201 to $300. Right now, the largest price band in terms of unit sales is $500 to $600.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Synaptics announced today that it is releasing three new touch-focused technologies for laptops and other mobile devices: ForcePad, ThinTouch, and ClearPad. The new components are timed to complement upcoming Windows 8 and Window 8 RT launches.

ThinTouch is an ultrathin keyboard for super-slim laptops or ultrabooks, and ClearPad is a component to enable touch sensitivity on screens as large at 17″.

But the most interesting new technology is ForcePad, which is a touchpad that incorporates variable force detection … meaning that laptop manufacturers will soon be able to build in functionalities that can react differently based on how hard you push that pad.

Synaptics thinks it will be a big deal, saying the technology “literally redefines the human-computer interface.”

That’s a rather magnitudinous statement, but it certainly does add another dimension to touch, which currently has just two factors on most platforms: location and longevity.

Drawing is an obvious use case, but others exist. Setting sensitivities to ignore spurious touches would be one, and using a soft tap to select a document and a hard tap to open it might be another.

ClearPad is expected to ship in late 2012, while ForcePad is currently scheduled for a mid-2013 launch date. ThinTouch is in testing with PC manufacturers, but Synaptics did not release a shipping date.

Image credit: Realinemedia/ShutterStock

Mark your calendars folks, Microsoft’s Windows head Steven Sinofsky just announced that Windows 8 will officially be available on October 26th, 2012.

Sinofsky made the announcement at Microsoft’s annual sales meeting today. Microsoft previously hinted that Windows 8 would be released in late October, but it’s good to finally have specifics.

Current Windows users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 for just $40 with a digital download, or $70 in a boxed update available in stores. In a sign that Microsoft is aiming for clarity with Windows 8, it’s rumored that Microsoft is dropping the confusing “full retail” box version of the OS.

If you can’t tell by our extensive Windows 8 coverage, we’re excited to see where Microsoft goes with Windows 8. It’s obvious that Microsoft is trying to make up for lost ground by making the OS tablet-ready, but the more we see from Windows 8, and the more we hear about Microsoft’s Surface tablet (check out our extensive hands-on), it seems that Microsoft is attempting a longer play with this OS than it has with past releases.

Windows 8 is a complete reinvention of Windows as we know it. And while that will certainly lead to lots of complaints from consumers who can’t find their Start button, it sets Microsoft up to rule the post-post PC era, where all of our computers may resemble the Surface more than they do traditional laptops today.

In recent Windows 8 news, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said there are currently 20 Windows 8 tablets in the works, and we reported on how common sense (imagine that) is the key to Microsoft’s Windows 8 keyboard design.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Intel beat analysts’ expectations for its earnings for the second quarter today, reviving hopes that the PC isn’t dead. But the company also cut its revenue guidance somewhat for the third fiscal quarter, citing a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Intel is the world’s largest chip maker and the largest maker of PC microprocessors, making it a bellwether for the computer industry. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant has been busy launching its Ivy Bridge hybrid microprocessor-graphics chips that are the heart of Ultrabooks, or the thin and fast laptop computers that are the industry’s best attempt to hold off tablet sales.

Revenues for the quarter was $13.5 billion, compared with $13.1 billion a year ago. Net income was $2.8 billion, compared with $3.2 billion a year ago. Earnings per share were 54 cents, matching what they were a year ago. Analysts had expected Intel to report a profit of 52 cents a share.

Intel also said it expects revenues to be $14.3 billion for the third quarter, plus or minus $500 million. The midpoint for the guidance is $200 million lower than what analysts expected. Research and development cost in the third quarter is expected to be $4.6 billion, and gross margin percentage is expected to be 63 percent to 64 percent, plus or minus a couple of points.

“The second quarter was highlighted by solid execution with continued strength in the data center and multiple product introductions in Ultrabooks and smartphones,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and chief executive, in a statement. “As we enter the third quarter, our growth will be slower than we anticipated due to a more challenging macroeconomic environment. With a rich mix of Ultrabook and Intel-based tablet and phone introductions in the second half, combined with the long-term investments we’re making in our product and manufacturing areas, we are well positioned for this year and beyond.”

Intel said that PC Client Group revenue was $8.7 billion, up 3 percent from the prior quarter. Data Center Group revenue was $2.8 billion, up 14 percent sequentially. Other Intel Architecture Group revenue was $1.1 billion, up 3 percent.

In the first quarter, Intel’s revenues were $12.9 billion and earnings were $2.7 billion, or 53 cents a share. In after-hours trading, Intel’s stock price fell 1 percent a share. It has previously closed at $25.38 a share.

Analysts believe the quarter was affected in part by slowing growth in the PC market, which has been hurt by sales of tablets.  During the quarter, Intel shipped its first chips for smartphones in an attempt to assault ARM’s empire in mobile chips.

With the definition of what makes an Ultrabook becoming increasingly muddy these days, Intel has stepped in to provide more requirements for its new ultraportable laptop label in a blog post this morning.

Now in addition to thickness and 5-hour battery life standards, Ultrabooks must also include USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt for speedy access to external devices, include Intel Identity Protection and Anti-Theft technology, and they must also be “responsive while active,” which we assume refers to multitasking. These new requirements only apply to laptops running Ivy Bridge processors.

Today also marks the launch of the rest of Intel’s third-generation Core processor line, dubbed Ivy Bridge, with the debut of new dual-core and ultra-low voltage chips. Intel’s announcement comes more than a month after it first launched Ivy Bridge with its high-end chips  — but in many ways the low-voltage models are more interesting, since they will power the Ultrabook revolution.  (I’ve written at length about how Ultrabooks represent the future of laptop computing.)

It’s certainly nice to see Intel taking a firmer hand with the Ultrabook designation, as some manufacturers have started applying the term to laptops that aren’t exactly thin or light. If the term Ultrabook is to mean anything, Intel can’t allow manufacturers to apply it willy-nilly. Unfortunately, there still aren’t Ultrabook requirements for things like weight, price, and screen quality, but we’re hoping that Intel will be able to lay down the law within the next few years.

Via The Verge; Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Intel just made a million nerds swoon with the announcement that it would be giving the gift of free, universal WiFi to new ultrabooks and tablets.

The chip maker, which powers a huge range of devices from multiple manufacturers, is partnering with WiFi-focused software company Devicescape. That company’s software will integrate with Intel’s Smart Connect technology to keep those super-skinny computers and shiny tablets online, all the time, automatically.

Devicescape confirmed the news on its website and told reporters that Intel would be using its connection manager software to link laptops and tablets to millions of open global hotspots. The connections will happen automatically, and devices will be able to detect and automatically get onto WiFi networks even while in sleep mode.

Devicescape’s network includes more than 8 million open, quality-controlled WiFi access points. They call it a “curated virtual network,” and it’s constantly being updated by a crowdsourced army of mobile devices that run Devicescape in the background.

To date, the software is being used mostly for mobile devices, which allows carriers and users to switch to open WiFi networks when cellular networks are congested.

Here’s a video showing Devicescape execs explaining how their tech works. You should watch it; the CEO has a hypnotic Scottish accent.

“Smartphones have changed end-user expectations around their device experience, and elements of the mobile experience will naturally make their way into personal computers and tablets,” said the company’s CEO, said David Fraser, in a release today.

“These devices shouldn’t be offline but should be capable of reaching a network automatically to allow for syncing information and notifications. Intel-based devices will now be able to use our global WiFi Offload Network to do exactly that.”

Top image courtesy of Realinemedia, Shutterstock

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is introducing a new generation of chips that combine graphics and processors on a single integrated circuit. Code-named Trinity, the new chips are supposed to stop Intel from dominating the consumer Ultrabook laptop and all-in-one desktop chip markets.

The A-series accelerated processor unit (APU) chip family is speedy, and so it goes to show that five brains are better than one. AMD also intends to show that its hybrid chips are better than Intel’s latest hybrid processor-graphics chips, code-named Ivy Bridge. The timing of both families of chips arriving at the same time is a coincidence and a happy one for consumers shopping for PCs.

The new chips have double the performance-per-watt of power consumed. They enable high-performance laptops with as much as 12 hours of battery life.

Trinity has two dual-core processors embedded in it for a total of four processing brains. It also has a high-end graphics core that is more capable than the Ivy Bridge graphics, said John Taylor, director of global product marketing at Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD. The central processing unit (CPU) portion of the chip is 29 percent faster than last year’s Llano-based APUs while the graphics render 56 percent faster.

“We’ve boosted the CPU and graphics architecture over last year’s Llano chips,” Taylor said. “This is the best-in-class, all-in media performance from gaming to high-definition video.”

While Llano chips had 1.178 billion transistors, or basic computing components, Trinity has 1.303 billion. The Trinity chips are slightly bigger at 246 square millimeters, compared to 228 for Llano. And they operate on about the same amount of wattage, from 35 to 100 watts. A dual-core version of the A series chip family runs on 17 watts, while a quad-core version runs on as little as 25 watts.

Like Intel’s Ivy Bridge chips, which were formally unveiled last month, the AMD chips are aimed at high-performance but thin laptops. Intel calls these laptops Ultrabooks, and it is spending hundreds of millions of dollars marketing them this year in the hopes of staving off the encroachment of smartphones and tablets on the PC market. AMD believes that laptops based on Trinity will be less expensive than the $700 to $1,000 prices that computer makers are charging for Ivy Bridge-based Ultrabooks.

“We’ve got a clear value leadership position in this ultrathin category,” Taylor said.

Trinity also represents a threat to Nvidia, which makes stand-alone graphics chips. AMD is trying to make the hybrid graphics in its APUs so good at running 3D graphics that consumers won’t see the need for the extra Nvidia chips anymore. The AMD graphics core is based on the AMD Radeon Northern Islands graphics technology. On games such as Crysis, AMD’s graphics will render 40 percent faster. Games will run 20 percent to 50 percent faster on AMD compared to Intel, Taylor said.

From May 15 through the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system this fall, AMD believes more than 100 computers based on Trinity will debut. Trinity chips will compete head to head against Intel’s Core i7 and Core i5 microprocessors. Taylor contends that AMD chips will provide laptops with a couple of more hours of battery life in some usage scenarios. AMD’s chips will be priced below Intel’s Core i7 chips.

The world’s biggest microchip maker is not only making faster chips. It is also making them more power efficient, and that is allowing Intel chips to move into mobile devices where low power usages yields longer battery life. It is also moving deeper into the data center and communications infrastructure, as well asinto cars and retail kiosks. For competitors, there is nowhere to hide.

“We’re delivering experiences across the compute continuum,” Otellini said.

In particular, Intel sees growth in thin laptops known as Ultrabooks, mobile devices, and data center chips. The annual Intel analyst day is useful for providing perspective on Intel’s operations. Last year, Intel generated $54 billion in revenue, up from $35 billion two years ago. Its operating income was $17.5 billion, up from $5.7 billion two years ago. Otellini noted that Intel now gives a dividend of 90 cents a share each quarter. Over the past 10 years, Intel has given back $80 billion to shareholders. And while Intel focused on a 100-million unit PC market in 1995, it now focuses on a broader computing market with the potential for billions of units.

Web-connected data centers are creating huge demand for Intel’s server chips. One of the inexorable trends helping Intel is the huge growth of data that is uploaded to the cloud. Seven exabytes of data are created every day, Otellini said. That’s equal to 17,000 high-definition movies uploaded every second. In one minute, 60 hours of data are uploaded to YouTube.

The tectonic plates are changing around computing. In 2011, the U.S. was the No. 1 market for PCs, followed by China, Germany, Japan and Brazil. In 2011, China surpassed the U.S. and Brazil passed Germany and Japan. By 2016, the top five will be China, the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India.

Otellini noted how fast Intel has moved on Ultrabooks, or the high-performance, thin laptops that resemble Apple’s MacBook Air. In the middle of last year, Intel set up a $300 million investment fund for Ultrabooks. It is now kicking into high gear shipping chips based on its code-named Ivy Bridge design, which combines graphics and a microprocessor in the same chip.

Those 22-nanometer Ivy Bridge chips are the heart of the new Ultrabooks and enable them to operate on low-power levels that give the laptops all-day battery life. Intel is expecting 110 Ultrabook designs coming to the market by the end of 2011.

“We are on track to meet our goal of 40 percent of the consumer notebooks this fall being Ultrabooks,” Otellini said.

The Ivy Bridge chips will be shipping at 2 million chips a week by the end of this quarter, and they will exceed the predecessor Sandy Bridge chips by the end of this year.

Otellini said in mobile that “we’re just getting started here.” Intel has been criticized for failing in mobile device chips before, leaving the market to ARM-based rivals.

Intel’s first chip for the new generation of smartphones, the Intel Atom Z2460, is getting good reviews. Intel partnered with Google last fall on Android, and it followed that up by scoring deals with Orange, Lenovo, ZTE, and Motorola. All of those partners will use Intel’s chips, and Intel has a mobile payments deal in place with Visa. Otellini said that Intel-based tablets will take off with the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system this fall.

Over time, Intel will move at twice the rate of Moore’s Law (the idea that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every couple of years or so) as it improves its Atom chips. It will move further with miniaturization of its Atom chips as it does with all of its product lines, but it will also move them from older manufacturing processes to the most advanced ones. By 2014, Intel will move to 14 nanometer chips where the circuits are 14 nanometers apart (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter).

Moore’s Law, articulated by Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore in 1965, has delivered chips that are 4,000 times more powerful than Intel’s first 4004 microprocessor in 1971. The chips use 5,000 times less energy per transistor and are 50,000 times cheaper per transistor. Meanwhile, the cost of factories are skyrocketing. With 200 millimeter wafers (the pizza-dish-size disks that are processed and then sliced into chips), factories cost $1 billion. Now they cost $5 billion. By the time the industry shifts to 450 millimeter wafers, they will cost $10 billion.

With the costs rising, inventions for new ways of making chips are becoming more important. Intel launched such an innovation with “tri-gate” transistors that make use of vertical space. Otellini argues that its rivals will become less competitive in terms of manufacturing chips with economic and volume scale. Otellini foresees a “golden age” for companies that can afford to make their own chips.

Otellini said that chips that are embedded in kiosks or robots or terminals will become smarter, so Intel is labeling this $2 billion a year business as “intelligent systems.” Intel is moving its chips into cars with dashboard entertainment systems, retail kiosks, and communications infrastructure. In the latter, Intel has deals with Huawei, China Telecom and Verizon.

“The world is moving to client-aware computing,” where the network understands the computing device and exploits it if it is based on Intel architecture, Otellini said.

Intel’s acquisition of McAfee and Wind River have contributed about $4 billion a year in revenues. McAfee is now embedding its security functions inside Intel chips.

“We’ll continue to deliver shareholder value through” chip manufacturing, architecture, and new markets, Otellini said.

Speaking about Intel’s overall strategy, Patrick Moorhead, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said, “This makes a lot of sense for Intel because it leverages their strength in the data center. If Intel can tie client processor features to server features like security, this will create in a sense, a ‘lock-in’ that would be difficult to break apart. Intel’s competition knows this and will do everything they can to block these advances.”

As for Intel’s manufacturing advances, Moorhead said that the company is typically years ahead of rivals, but smaller companies such as TSMC and Globalfoundries have found ways to be competitive in the past, even with rising factory costs.

“Regardless, it will be tougher to stay close to Intel on process technology and manufacturing,” Moorhead said.

Hewlett-Packard has joined the swarm of computer makers introducing Ultrabook laptops based on Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors.

HP introduced new consumer Ultrabooks and business laptops under the Pavilion dv and Sleekbook brand names. HP has more than 30 new business desktops, business laptops, and monitors in the new lineup. The back-to-school lineup — launched before this year’s school is letting out — is based on Intel chips that are debuting in large volumes in the coming weeks. The Ivy Bridge processors combine graphics and a microprocessor on a single chip.

“The products we unveiled today are inspired by our customers and confirm our passion to fuse form, function, style, and reliability into great computers and printers,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Printing and Personal Systems at HP. “We are well positioned to continue delivering innovation in the future for customers in China and everywhere else around the globe.”

Among the new products are the HP Envy SpectreXT, an ultramobile premium Ultrabook for high-end consumers who value both good design and performance. HP is also launching the HP EliteBook Folio 9470m, an Ultrabook designed from the ground up for business users.

It is also unveiling HP Envy Sleekbooks and HP Envy Ultrabook systems, or entertainment-focused machines with 14-inch and 15.6-inch diagonal displays. The HP EliteBook 2170p is the company’s smallest and lightest-weight business notebook with an 11.6-inch diagonal screen. And for home consumers, HP is launching the HP t410 All-in-One Smart Zero Client.

We all knew Ivy Bridge would be fast, but these new processors are about 20 percent faster than Intel’s previous offerings. Intel also says the third-generation Core chips operate with 20 percent less energy than Sandy Bridge, the code name for the previous generation of processors.

“[Ivy Bridge is] 20 percent better performance on multithreaded applications, two times better 3D graphics, and twice as fast media processing, compared to the previous generation,” said Intel corporate vice president Kirk Skaugen at a press conference in San Francisco.

“I’m here to say that Moore’s Law is alive and well,” Skaugen said.

The new chips boast a 22 nanometer transistor design, in contrast to Intel’s Sandy Bridge, which has 32 nanometer transistors. The higher density chips mean computers with Ivy Bridge chips will be faster and will handle media playback much better than before.

Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 support is integrated with Ivy Bridge, which makes data transfer between cameras and external hard drives faster. USB 3.0 has been introduced for PCs and Thunderbolt is available on Apple computers and one Sony Vaio model.

“A video that used to take five minutes to transfer will take 30 seconds and going from five minutes to less than 30 seconds is a big deal,” said Skaugen.

What will catch many gamers’ and video editors’ eyes is the integrated graphics processing unit, which will make editing videos faster and game play sharper. One-third of the chips’ estimated 1.4 billion transistors are contained within the GPU.

Ivy Bridge will also offer support for up to three displays, for those who like wide computer real estate on their desks.

Previous computer chips had a flat transistor design, but Ivy Bridge employs tri-gate designs, in which the microscopic transistors contain a small, raised “fin,” enabling greater density of transistors on the chip and also facilitating lower power consumption. The raised nature of the chip has led to Ivy Bridge’s “3D” moniker. Intel has been working on tri-gate technology since 2001, and made a splash when it announced the new transistor in 2011, but this is the first family of chips to contain the new type of transistor.

“Even back [in 2001] we realized the planar structure would run out of steam,” said Mark Bohr, an Intel senior fellow who led the development of tri-gate transistors.

“We had reservations [about adopting tri-gate], but after Mark described the performance enhancements…especially at low voltages, we were convinced its was the right choice,” said Intel program manager Brad Heaney.

Intel’s chips fall into “Tick” and “Tock” releases. Tocks are major processor architecture changes and ticks are smaller process changes based on the same architecture. Intel is calling Ivy Bridge a “Tick+” because it is adding a new processor and media subsystem.

Despite a marketing campaign that Intel started at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2012, the new chips won’t be immediately available for Ultrabooks, powerful and thin PC laptops that would compete with the MacBook Air. Instead, they will be used in Intel’s Core i7 and Core i5 quad-core processors for desktop and laptops first.

Intel said that manufacturers are planning more than 270 desktop and all-in-one models and 300 laptops based on the new processors. Pricing for the new processors will be close to Sandy Bridge, so we shouldn’t see a dramatic price increase on the consumer end.

Intel wouldn’t say exactly when we can expect ultrabooks with Ivy Bridge, but said it would be in the next couple of months. Ivy Bridge for ultrabooks will be dual-core processors ad run at a lower voltage to accomodate the thinness of a ultrabook, Skaugen said.

Intel declined comment, except to say that it’s “on track for our spring 2012 launch, in line with previous guidance.”

If true, the delay could be a hiccup for the computer ecosystem, which is already reeling from the hard drive shortage caused by floods in Thailand.

Intel plans a huge marketing campaign around Ultrabooks, but Intel will only ship a small volume of the processors in early April and mass shipments are not expected to occur until after June.

One of the reasons is that the weaker economy has slowed demand for notebook computers, leaving computer makers with excess Sandy Bridge processors. The delay of the mass shipments will help minimize the impact on computer makers with big inventories.

Most of the big PC replacement trend is unlikely to start until after September. That is when Microsoft is expected to launch its Windows 8 operating system.

“If this is true, this would be challenging for Intel to hit the back to school season with new Ivy Bridge UltraBooks,” said Patrick Moorhead, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.  “This could impact Intel’s (computer makers) like HP, Dell, Lenovo and channel partners like Best Buy. Timing would be tighter than the ecosystem would prefer. If the timing is true, this could potentially give AMD an opening with Trinity ultrathins.”

After sticking with a fairly consistent unibody MacBook Pro design for some time, Apple may be gearing up to bring design elements from its popular MacBook Air line into its more powerful models later this year.

The company is preparing a “top-to-bottom revamp” of the MacBook Pro lineup that will result in thinner unibody cases and solid-state hard drives and the loss of optical disk drives, sources tell AppleInsider.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard such talk, as rumors of a MacBook Air-inspired redesign for the MacBook Pro first started last year.  There’s also word that Apple is working on a 15-inch MacBook Air model, which could be related to this report.

That Apple will finally redesign the MacBook Pro this year doesn’t come as a surprise—the real question is to what extent. I have a hard time believing that Apple will completely remove the choice of larger traditional hard drives (SSDs are much faster but hold much less) from the MacBook Pro. And while the optical disk drive is easy to forgo on an ultraportable laptop, consumers who rely on the MacBook Pro as their only computer would certainly miss the ability to throw in a DVD.

There are benefits to completely dropping older hardware on the MacBook Pro. It would allow Apple to bring the quick boot and instant-on capabilities of the MacBook Air to its wider notebook lineup, and it would also significantly improve battery life. And of course, such a move would help Apple one-up Intel and the many Ultrabook manufacturers trying to ape the style of the MacBook Air.

AppleInsider says that Apple is prioritizing the 15-inch MacBook Pro’s redesign over the 17-inch model, but that’s par for the course for Apple.

It’ll be interesting to see how Apple juggles its MacBook Pro and Air lines as they begin to more closely resemble each other. Most companies would be terrified about cannibalizing a successful new product, but Apple has already shown that it isn’t afraid to make sweeping changes if the result is better products.

Advanced Micro Devices will compete with the world’s biggest chip maker by coming out with high-performance laptop chips that are a lot less expensive for consumers.

“We like the idea of Ultrabooks as thin and powerful computers, but we think they should be for everybody,” said Rory Read, chief executive of AMD, in comments made to VentureBeat after Thursday’s analyst meeting.

Lisa Su, senior vice president for global products at AMD, said in an interview that a number of the Ultrabooks — some 7o to 75 models are coming out this year — are going to be priced at around $900.

But Su said that thin laptops based on AMD’s upcoming chips will likely hit the market priced as low as $599. AMD plans to introduce a series of chips code-named Trinity, which will be its second generation of accelerated processing units, or APUs. The APUs combine a microprocessor and graphics processor on a single chip, much like Intel does with its Sandy Bridge chips. But Su said AMD has loaded its combo chips with much more graphics capability than Intel does. So the AMD-based $599 laptops may actually perform as well as or better than many of the Ultrabooks.

Intel, of course, begs to differ. And it plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars starting in the spring promoting all of the great things people will be able to do with its Ultrabooks, which are no more than 18 millimeters thick, can be turned on instantly, and have enough processing power to run full-fledged PC applications. There is no reason that these Ultrabooks have to carry a higher price, and Intel says it fully intends to get Ultrabooks in the hands of everyone.

When Intel last launched a major advertising campaign in 2003, it sold consumers on its Centrino chips, which made it easier for laptops to get on the Internet. Intel also designed low-power chips and captured a much larger market share in laptops than it had in the general market. Now it wants to steamroll the market again.

“We have to play our playbook,” Su said. “We think you’ll see $600, $700, $800 AMD-based laptops, and they will be under the comparable Intel prices.”

The Ultrabook campaign thus represents a big threat to AMD, even if AMD’s chips might be better. Su believes that computer makers will be able to discern the true performance of the upcoming chips and create superior, low-cost laptops for consumers that don’t have the Ultrabook prices.

“I’d expect AMD to message better graphics performance, better battery life, good enough general compute, at a lower price enabled by lower priced silicon,” said Patrick Moorhead, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, and a former AMD executive. “By leveraging Intel’s investment in thin chassis and Windows 8 fast start, they have a chance of getting some business. One element AMD has not addressed yet is advanced security, a feature that Intel has invested in heavily. This play is a reasonably simple one which AMD has run before with a twist.”

Su said that the timing of Trinity is good for the summer, since Microsoft will be launching the Windows 8 operating system later in the year and computer makers will be launching a huge number of new computers later this year.

“We’re going to a lot better on power and performance trade-offs,” Su said.

Phone credit: Dean Takahashi

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Mark Miller has one of those hot and cold jobs. He is the director of marketing at Intel for netbooks and tablets. Tablets, of course, are hot. But netbooks are cold. Still, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, Miller said that netbooks aren’t dead.

Netbooks are the stripped-down laptop-like computers that cost around $200 to $300 and were created only for surfing the web. They were a hot commodity a couple of years ago, but now they’re in the dustbin where consumer computers go to die. In their place, Intel is preparing to launch a huge marketing campaign around higher-priced Ultrabooks, which have high performance, good security, instant responsiveness, and razor-thin cases. Intel has also been touting chips that power both smartphones and tablets.

Netbooks debuted with some fanfare in 2007, when Asus launched the Eee PC and sold hundreds of thousands in a few months. Every computer maker followed suit, some of them grudgingly. Miller acknowledges that the glamour has left the netbook category, but he refuses to say it’s dying. More than 100 million netbooks have been sold to date. They have taken a hit in sales because of the popularity of the Apple iPad and other tablets. But the decline of sales in 2011 was in the single-digit percentages, Miller said.

In the second quarter of 2011, tablet sales overtook netbook sales, according to ABI Research. In markets such as Western Europe, netbook sales collapsed 40 percent. But like the Maytag repairman, Miller still holds out hope.

“They are affordable, on-the-go, mobile computing,” Miller said. “For what netbooks do, they do very well. I think netbooks will still be a sustainable business for us in 2012. Our new (code-named) Cedar Trail chip is going to help that. We don’t see it going away.”

There are big declines in netbooks in mature markets in the U.S. and Western Europe, but netbooks are selling in other territories. Some of the Windows 7 netbooks are selling at $179 to $199. Those are attractive prices, Miller said. Still, Intel usually wins no matter what people buy, since it has chips that range from the low end to the high end, covering all the bases.

Asked if tablets had taken market share from netbooks, Miller said, “I don’t know if I entirely agree or disagree.” There were declines in low-end computers in general, he acknowledged, as tablet sales soared in 2011.

“While their growth rate has declined and in some markets even decreased, the death of netbooks has been greatly exaggerated,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strateg. “Intel invented the category in 2007 and AMD fundamentally changed it in 2010 with Brazos, their Fusion-based solution. Brazos provided higher-end gaming graphics, higher video resolutions with HDMI-out, and very long battery life with larger than 10-inch displays. This blurred the line between netbooks, low end and in some cases mid-range notebooks.”

Moorhead added, “In 2012 I expect to see netbooks starting at much lower price points, $199, and even some that are convertibles that can transform into tablets with a touch screen. The netbook isn’t dead yet as today it provides a different value proposition versus tablets. This could change in 2013 with Windows 8 as convertibles, netbooks and tablets blur in industrial design and utility.”

At CES, there were well over 50 tablets on display among various vendors. But Intel itself could only count around six to eight models of netbooks. Toshiba, for instance, showed off a brand new 10-inch tablet at CES, but it had no netbooks on display because of the decline in demand for them. The same was true for Dell: It had no netbooks but plans to enter the tablet market at some point.

Ultrabooks, by contrast, are coming in at higher prices of around $1,000, plus or minus a few hundred dollars. Leslie Sobon, vice president of worldwide product marketing at rival Advanced Micro Devices, says she doesn’t think Ultrabooks are priced right and are adding a few hundred dollars to the cost of a laptop. AMD is shooting to provide chips for lower-priced laptops.

Over time, the netbook category could get squished as prices for tablets and Ultrabooks come down.

“If I could get an Ultrabook for $199, I would get an Ultrabook,” Miller said. “But that’s going to be a while.”

They also took a lot of photographs. Here are some of our favorite images and finds from the CES 2012 floor, including an Atari controller for the iPad, exciting in-car computers, and the hottest new laptops and mobile phones. For even more images, check out the VentureBeat Flickr photostream.

You can find in-depth articles about these products and events in our collection of CES 2012 coverage, including hands-ons and videos.

Photos by Dean Takahashi, Devindra Hardawar, Dylan Tweney, and Sean Ludwig.

There’s a good chance that your next laptop will be thinner and lighter than you can possibly imagine.

This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Intel unveiled its grand plan to make Ultrabooks — its snazzy name for ultraportable MacBook Air-like laptops — the next big thing in computing. This year alone there will be more than 75 Ultrabook models on the market, and Intel has said that it’s gearing up its biggest marketing push since the Centrino lineup for the new machines.

Ultrabooks are poised to replace boring old Windows laptops for good in the next few years, and that’s a good thing.

While Apple’s MacBook Air is the obvious inspiration for Ultrabook PCs, the move towards impossibly thin laptops has been in progress for decades — from ultraportable IBM ThinkPads in the 90s, to netbooks, to the razor-thin Ultrabooks. Initial ultraportables were always too expensive, and netbooks generally weren’t powerful enough to serve as primary computers. It’s just now that the hardware to make Ultrabooks powerful and useful is actually affordable.

So what’s the big deal? Ultrabooks promise to be lighter than typical laptops, weighing in around 3 pounds for the most part, allowing them to practically disappear in your laptop bag. They’ll sport solid-state drives (SSDs), instead of traditional hard drives, which will make them extra-thin and fast. (Expect startup times under 10 seconds and practically instant resume from standby speeds.) And thanks to Intel’s next-generation Core processors, Ultrabooks will be peppy under the hood and even capable of decent 3D graphics performance.

You could get the same benefits from Apple’s most recent MacBook Air model, but as is typical of PCs versus Macs, Ultrabooks promise to be cheaper. (Technically, the MacBook Air is an Ultrabook, though it’s unlikely Apple will make any effort to get it labeled as such by Intel.) Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air starts at a reasonable $999, but the larger (and preferable for doing work, in this reporter’s opinion) 13-inch model will run you $1,299. Most 13-inch Ultrabooks, on the other hand, are aiming for a price well below $1,000.

Ultimately, the proliferation of cheap ultraportables means consumers will no longer have to decide between buying a boxy laptop and saving money, or aiming for something thin and light. With Ultrabooks, ultraportability will become the new standard consumers who want a new laptop. Boxy laptop designs will stick around on the very low-end, and desktops will become even more endangered among general consumers.

Ultrabooks will be particularly useful for students and professionals — basically, anyone who needs to carry their computer for most of the day. And given that they’re so light, Ultrabooks will completely erase the need for a tablet for many. Intel has also said that PC makers are working on bringing touchscreen capabilities to future models (in addition to voice and motion controls), blurring the line even further between Ultrabooks and tablets.

Having used a MacBook Air for almost a year now, there’s honestly no way I could go back to anything thicker, or anything not running a SSD.

Aside from the extreme portability, what I love most about the MacBook Air is the way it completely gets out of the way to let you be productive. I can turn it on and begin working from a cold boot within 15 seconds. Or, if it’s in standby mode, I can flip open the lid and begin working almost immediately. That’s mostly thanks to the fast SSD and graphics capabilities — and it’s something that Windows-based Ultrabooks will share.

Speed. Simplicity. Portability. I realized fairly quickly that this is how I’ve always wanted my computers to fit into my daily life. With Ultrabooks, soon everyone will learn this is the way computers were meant to be.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Lenovo has been busy at CES 2012 with debuts for smart TVs and laptops, but its coolest device may be the upcoming IdeaPad Yoga, a laptop that can bend over backwards and turn into a Windows 8 tablet.

With laptops beginning to model tablets in terms of thinness and lightness, it was only a matter of time before we began to see a model that blurs the line further by essentially being both. The IdeaPad Yoga is an Intel-powered thin-and-light Ultrabook laptop that mimics the MacBook Air when it is positioned like a laptop and mimics the iPad when it is set up like a tablet.

Lenovo product ambassader Ashley Perry walked me through the motions and showed me how the device’s hinges allow it to bend backwards and transform into a tablet. In a way, this takes after the dock-able IdeaPad S2 tablet, except it goes one further by being a combo device. Having the machine run Windows 8 also adds allure, because it’s still only available to developers.

I also got my hands on the device briefly and it was as cool as I expected it to be. The machine’s 13.3-inch screen with 10-finger touch was entertaining to try. The form factor itself is fun to play with too, but it was a little too heavy to use frequently as a tablet. The iPad is 1.5 pounds, while this thing is more than double that.

Lenovo expects the IdeaPad Yoga to ship when Windows 8 is available commercially, which should be in the third or fourth quarter of this year. The company expects the device to run for less than $1,200.

Watch the full IdeaPad Yoga hands on video below:

For more gadget news, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.

While Sunday was the unofficial start to CES 2012, the real fun began on Monday with press conferences and announcements from heavy hitters like LG, Intel, Sharp, Samsung, Nvidia, Sony and Microsoft.

At the end of that incredibly busy day, fellow VentureBeatnik Dean Takahashi and I decided to chat about how the events unfolded and what stood out from the pack. Notably, smart TVs for home and business, thin-and-light Ultrabook laptops, the upcoming Windows 8 operating system and a jarring, funny performance of tweets by a choir were what made the most impact on us.

The day’s major CES events officially concluded with the final Microsoft keynote, where a choir sang tweets about Microsoft products. But after that, Dean and I made our way to the Pepcom showcase of products that ties into CES. We walked the floor and saw few interesting things, including fitness technology from Striiv and an iPhone-controlled toy from Sphero.

Watch the video above for more on CES Day 2, and look for more CES stories coming at you this week. Plus, here’s a shortlist of Monday’s biggest CES stories:

• LG debuts HDTV with built-in Google TV and a new Spectrum Android superphone
• Intel: More than 75 Ultrabooks coming in 2012
• Sharp intros 80-inch touch displays for businesses, ultra-lightweight TVs
• Samsung’s Smart TV evolves with motion, voice controls and upgrade slots
• Nvidia shows Microsoft’s Windows 8 running on a Tegra 3 tablet
• Sony aims to deliver 300M connected devices in the next 3 years
• Xbox 360 surpasses 66M sold and Kinect passes 18M units
• WTF CES: Choir sings sweet tweets at Ballmer keynote (video)

For more news out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Samsung announced the redesigned Samsung Series 9 and Series 5 laptops, two slim, light and smart-looking notebooks that will challenge Apple’s Macbook Air head-on. The company debuted the laptops Monday at CES 2012 in Las Vegas.

Samsung was one of the early adopters of the ultra thin-and-light laptop craze, with its first Series 9 laptop that came out early last year. At $1,650, the cost of the original Series 9 was hard to justify compared to a slightly cheaper Macbook Air. But with this new generation Series 9 notebook, the company packs even more power and speed into a thinner body to make it more worth the high price tag.

Samsung claims the new Series 9 took 30,000 hours of development and design to get it to where it is today, and it will offer a 13-inch model and a 15-inch model. The updated Series 9 (being held in the above photo) measures a half-inch thick and weighs 2.5 pounds. The design features an aluminum body with a sandblasted surface that prevents fingerprints, and a backlit keyboard.

The Series 9 has a 1600-by-900 resolution screen, 128 GB SSD hard drive, Intel Core i5 processor, approximately 6 hours of real battery life (up to 10 hours max), and any traditional ports (USB, HDMI, etc.) you can think of. The company claims it can boot-up Windows 7 in just 9.8 seconds.

The Series 9 will be available in February 2012. The 13-inch model will cost $1,400, and the 15-inch model will cost $1,500.

On top of the Series 9, Samsung also used its high-profile CES spot to debut the Series 5 Ultra, a still-powerful but much more affordable version of its ultra-thin laptops. The Series 5 Ultra will come in 13-inch and 14-inch editions. All variations will measure less than an inch think and weigh less than four pounds.

For specs, the Series 5 Ultra features a 1600-by-900 high-resolution screen. The design will include multiple USB ports, an SD memory card slot, Ethernet port and as a built-in optical drive in the 14-inch model. It will come with two internal storage options — a 128 GB SSD or 500 GB drive with 16 GB ExpressCache memory.

The Series 5 Ultra models will go on sale at the end of January. The 13-inch model without SSD will run $899 while the 13-inch with SSD will cost $1,099. The 14-inch edition is expected out some time in Q1 2012 and will cost $950.

Ultrabooks will start out with touchscreens, but they will eventually add voice controls as well, said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC Client Group in a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show. Some of the Ultrabooks will be convertible, meaning they can be used as either laptops or tablets.

The Ultrabooks can also be designed with accelerometers or gyroscopes built into them, so you can pick up an Ultrabook and move it around to make things happen on the screen via motion sensing.

Nuance voice technology will let you can control an Ultrabook in nine languages.

Intel’s Nikiski notebook technology senses if your palm is touching a palm rest and touch pad on a computer. If it detects that your palm is touching the touch pad, it will consider the touches to be accidental wrist brushes and ignore them. But if you put a finger on the touch pad, it allows you to move around the cursor on the screen.

Eden also said that you’ll be able to control a laptop with motion controls by waving your hand in front of a screen.