Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet

Pros Compact and convenient tablet design. Decent battery life.

Cons Intel Atom processor offers limited performance. Keyboard accessory not available. Bottom Line The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet is a fairly well-built Windows slate tablet, but it does little to distinguish itself in a crowded field of competitors.

By Brian Westover

Touch and Windows 8 go together like peanut butter and jelly, each bringing out the best in the other. With the IdeaTab Miix 10, Lenovo has combined the two with a highly portable, energy-efficient tablet, letting you take this sandwich of goodness with you on the go. The Miix 10 is a decent Windows tablet, but it's not the only one on the market, and like a PB&J, if you've had one, you've had 'em all.

Design
The Miix 10 is a 10-inch slate tablet with a slim design similar to other competing tablets, like the Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx K3011 and the Asus VivoTab Smart ME400C—the 10.1-inch display makes up the entire front of the device, and the chassis is backed by a polycarbonate plastic back. While it's sturdier than some, the Miix 10's construction feels decidedly middle-of-the-road. It's not noticeably flimsy, but it lacks the solid feel of an Apple iPad or Microsoft Surface Pro. The Miix 10 measures 6.8 by 10.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD), and weighs only 1.3 pounds.

In many respects, the Miix 10 is similar to the Lenovo K3011, with the main differences being the 1-inch delta in screen size and the Lynx's inclusion of a docking keyboard. Like the Lenovo K3011, the Miix 10 is sold as a tablet alone, but a separate keyboard will soon be offered by Lenovo to offer laptop-like functionality. While pricing isn't yet available, the keyboard puts Lenovo's AccuType chiclet keyboard into a portfolio-style case which doubles as a stand. Retailers are currently offering the Miix 10 tablet for sale without the accessory keyboard, but it was not available for our review, which will similarly focus on the tablet alone.

The 10.1-inch display offers 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is far from impressive, especially when compared to the high-res displays seen on smartphones and smaller CE tablets, but it's par for the course among Windows tablets. The touch screen offers 5-finger tracking, and the touch functionality worked well the entire time I tested the tablet. Tablets rarely have good sound quality, and the Miix 10 is no exception. The sound was fairly anemic, with little bass and tinny sound at the high end. As with most tablets, you'll be better off with headphones.

The 10-inch display is actually a bit easier to use than the 11-inches of the Lenovo K3011, but the 16:9 aspect ratio of the display is a little too long when held in portrait mode. This problem is by no means isolated to the Miix 10, but is something we've run into with most Windows tablets.

Features
The slim confines of a tablet chassis don't leave much room for full-size ports and connectors, so everything's mini and micro on the Miix 10. On the bottom edge of the tablet is a micro USB 2.0 port, along with a micro HDMI port on the side, and a microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB cards). The micro USB port looks a little different, as it doubles as a docking port for the accessory keyboard, but it will still work with any micro USB cable. The micro SD card slot is a little inconvenient, with a removable cover and a recessed slot that's a little hard to reach. The micro HDMI port will also require picking up a separate adapter before you can hook it up to your HDTV.

On extra feature is Lenovo's Motion Control, which leverages the Miix 10's integrated 1-Megapixel webcam to let you use gestures in the air for things like turning pages, fast forward or rewind through music, and adjust volume with the wave of a hand. But why use gestures in the air when you have a touch screen literally in your hands? Webcam based gesture controls have always been something of a gimmick, but incorporating them into a tablet, with touch and gesture controls already baked in, seems like a waste.

Also using the webcam is Veriface, which lets you log into the system with both security and ease thanks to facial recognition. Lenovo puts just a few other programs on the Miix 10, but given the small storage capacity, you may want to remove any that seem unnecessary. On the Miix 10, Lenovo pre-installs a 30-day trial of Microsoft Office 365, one-month trial of McAfee Internet Security, as well as apps for shopping (Amazon, Ebay), media consumption (FilmOn Television, RaRa Metro, Zinio Metro, Amazon Kindle) and some productivity as well (Skype, Evernote). Lenovo also expands on the limited local storage with Lenovo Cloud Storage by SugarSync, which also lets you share files easily between the Mixx 10 and any other PC you use. Lenovo covers the Miix 10 with a one-year warranty.

Performance
With the same 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor and 2GB of RAM seen in a half-dozen other competing tablets, I wasn't expecting much deviation from the norm in terms of performance, and I was right. In PCMark 7, the Miix 10 performed in line with competitors, scoring 1,443 points, and CineBench R11.5 with 0.53 points, nearly identical to all of the similarly equipped systems. The Miix 10 will do the trick for web browsing and media, along with some basic productivity, though you will likely see it bog down if you're browsing with several tabs open or trying to work with a large data set in something like Excel.

This overall performance is okay, so long as you recognize that these sorts of Atom-powered tablets are meant to serve as second or third devices and not replace a Windows PC. For example, the Miix 10 finished Handbrake in 6 minutes 43 seconds. While this is par for the course among its Atom-powered peers, it doesn't compare well against more expensive tablets equipped with Intel Core processors, like the Microsoft Surface Pro, which completed the same test in 1 minute 28 seconds.

But where Atom processors shine is in energy efficiency. The Lenovo Miix 10 lasted 7 hours 20 minutes in our battery rundown test, which means it will last you well through a full day in regular use. Compared with the likes of the Microsoft Surface Pro (4:58), this sort of battery life is superb, but it's actually on the low-end for Atom tablets, which frequently last longer than 8 hours. The Asus ME400C, for example, lasted 8:43, and the pint-sized Acer Iconia W3 lasted even longer (9:24).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet is a solid entry into the ever expanding category of Atom-powered tablet PCs. While the overall performance and battery life don't deviate too drastically from the average, it does have the downside of not being sold with any sort of keyboard, an accessory offered bundled with or sold alongside most competitors. With or without a keyboard, the Lenovo Miix 10 is a thoroughly middle-of-the-road offering, without much to distinguish it from its peers. The current Editors' Choice for Windows Tablets remains the Microsoft Surface Pro.

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HP's first Windows 8.1 tablet to hit stores in November

Hewlett-Packard's first Windows 8.1 tablet will ship in November, along with Android tablets that have smaller screens and powerful graphics.

The Omni 10 will have Windows 8.1 and run on Intel's Atom Z3000 processor code-named Bay Trail. The tablet, with a 10-inch screen, will offer nine hours of battery life, according to the company. Specifications and pricing were not immediately available, but Intel has said that starting prices for Windows 8.1 tablets with Bay Trail chips could range from $350 to $500.

[ Windows 8 left you blue? Then check out Windows Red, InfoWorld's plan to fix Microsoft's contested OS. | InfoWorld has your top picks: the best Windows 8 tablet laptops, convertibles, and Ultrabooks. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]

The Slate 7 Extreme and Slate 8 Pro Android tablets, which will run on Nvidia's Tegra 4 processors, also were announced Thursday. They are being positioned as all-purpose tablets for Web browsing, gaming and productivity. Tegra 4 is capable of supporting 4K displays and the chip is already used in Nvidia's Shield handheld gaming console for high-definition games.

After its TouchPad fiasco, HP reentered the consumer tablet market in February when it announced the Slate 7, which sells for $139. The new tablets will join a lineup that also includes Slate 10 and SlateBook X2, a 10-inch Android tablet that sells for $479 with a keyboard.

HP also announced a range of hybrids and laptops starting at $599 that will ship in the coming months with Windows 8.1, which is due out on Oct. 17.

HP's new Spectre 13 Ultrabook has a 2550 x 1400 pixel touchscreen, with nine hours of battery life. It comes with a low-power fourth-generation Core processor code-named Haswell and is priced starting at $999. A version of the laptop with a detachable screen called the Spectre 13 X2 was also announced starting at $1,099. The laptops can be ordered starting Oct. 16, though a shipping date was not announced.

Also announced were two consumer-grade Pavilion laptops with detachable screens. The Pavilion 11 X2 has an 11.6-inch screen, while the Pavilion 13 X2 has a 13.3-inch screen. The laptops will come with either Intel's Haswell or Advanced Micro Devices' A6 processors and will be available in the U.S starting at $599.99.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's email address is agam_shah@idg.com.

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Dell to revive Venue mobile brand with new Windows 8.1 tablet

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IDF 2013 keynote: Intel announces Bay Trail tablet CPU, slew of Haswell Chromebooks

Intel on Wednesday ended weeks of speculation by launching "Bay Trail," the next-generation Atom Z3000 chip that pushes tablets towards PC-esque levels of performance.

A few years ago, Intel launched the Atom processor, designed for an emerging low-power world.  But over time, Atom's performance has improved to the point that the most recent iteration, Bay Trail, has improved dramatically in PCWorld's hands-on tests.

On Wednesday, Intel touted Bay Trail, which looks like it will cut into Core-based PCs at the low end of the desktop and notebook, and the convertible tablets or "two-in-one" products that will use them. Intel also announced that OEMs would be including a Kinect-like sensor into future PCs, as previously reported, before touching on a wave of next-gen, Haswell-powered Chromebooks slated to land in the coming months.

Hermann Eul, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Communications Group, described how Intel is designing multiple components across the system. "[Mobility] connects us to our partners, to our friends, and to the cloud—even to our own bodies," Eul said.

Intel described its "soup to nuts" approach to mobility: a CPU, an imaging processor, as well as graphics connected to it all. That device, in turn, will be connected via short-range and long-range WWAN technologies, with security layered on top. And on that, Intel can layer its own software, with dozens of investments that Intel has made in the embedded space.

"This, we call a platform: from A to Z," Eul said. "And it all starts with a great CPU."

That core is the "Silvermont," the design revision that forms the underlying technology of the Bay Trail and other chips within Intel. Silvermont is a 64-bit architecture, which Intel revealed a few months ago.

"Bay Trail is architected for the best mobile computing experience," Eul said. It provides leading battery life as well as ample performance on demand, he said, plus a next-generation imaging core.

Intel executives showed off a Bay Trail miniature tablet running and editing video and invited Jerry Shen, chief executive of Asus to introduce the T100, a Bay Trail notebook with over ten hours of battery life. "We are very excited about the Bay Trail quad-core promise," he said.

Dell was also invited on stage. Neil Hand, vice president of tablets, introduced an eight-inch Bay Trail tablet that will "innovate and drive new capabilities," he said. Dell will be branding the new family of tablets with the "Venue" brand, unveiling the entire range of products on Oct. 2 in New York City.

Eul also characterized Bay Trail as a "wonderful gaming platform," optimized for both Windows and Android. Intel also brought up Victoria Molina, a former executive for Ralph Lauren, Levi's, and the Gap, to show off a Bay Trail-powered virtual shopping experience, where a shopper "tried on clothes" with a model who had uploaded her measurements.

Merrifield represents the Silvermont architecture in the phone, with all the performance, battery life, and security components of the Bay Trail platform. Advanced LTE is coming in 2014. Airmont will follow with 14-nm technology for the phone, Eul said.

Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, then turned to two-in-one devices. In 2011, Intel launched the Ultrabook. "Now we've stopped counting [OEM designs], and assumed that the entire world has gone thin," Skaugen said.

More than 40 percent of all Core notebooks have been designed with touch. Seventy percenty of today's Ultrabooks are touch-enabled, on the way to 100 percent touch later this year, creating a "bow wave" driving touch PCs, Skaugen said.

Skaugen described the two-in-one as the "best of a laptop and the best of a tablet," with a 10-inch screen size, a "full PC OS" like Windows 8, and an integrated keyboard design.

More than 80 percent of tablet users say they want to refresh their notebook, Skaugen said, and the company said it believes it can capture a portion of the tablet market. Over 60 two-in-one designs will be in the marketplace by year's end, he said.

A on-stage display showed off the Sony Duo 13-inch slider, the Dell XPS 11, and a Sony two-in-one. An application from CyberLink will be provided on Haswell machines by the end of the year to facilitate content creation, presumably video editing.

Intel also invited Microsoft on stage. Tami Reller, the executive vice president for Microsoft in charge of Windows, said that Microsoft were "fans of the category".

More than 2 million people have downloaded Windows 8.1, Reller said, although she didn't say if that was simply those who downloaded the preview, or the final version via MSDN or TechNet. Microsoft saw the highest number of Windows 8 activations in August, a new record. (Read PCWorld's review of Windows 8.1.) A Facebook app is coming, Reller reiterated, while Foursquare recently released its own Windows 8 app.

GOOGLEThe next generation of Chromebooks.

Finally, Intel also said that a new, unannounced generation of Chromebooks would use the existing "Haswell" Core processor inside Chromebook and Chromeboxes from Acer, Asus, HP, Toshiba, and others. Toshiba and Asus are new to the Chrome family; Google says Asus will supply a Chromebox, rather than a standalone Chromebook.

"With today’s announcement, now six of the top laptop manufacturers are offering Chromebooks," Google's announcement bragged.

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Small-screen Windows 8.1 tablet with Bay Trail chip on tap for IDF

Startup Aava Mobile will show a Windows 8.1 tablet with an 8.3-inch, high-definition screen and Intel’s upcoming Atom tablet processor code-named Bay Trail at the Intel Developer Forum next week.

The tablet’s screen can display images at a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, and the device will join a handful of Windows tablets with screen sizes under 10 inches. Toshiba announced the Encore 8-inch tablet with Windows 8.1 at IFA in Berlin this week, and Acer offers the $249 Iconia W3 tablet running Windows 8.

Aava Mobile’s Bay Trail tablet

The Aava Mobile tablet doesn’t have a name yet and won’t be sold directly to consumers, said Piotr Frasunkiewicz, co-founder of the startup, based in Oulu, Finland.

Instead, the tablet will be built to order for vertical markets such as health care, education and services. Aava will also make the tablet for other device makers who can then sell it to consumers, Frasunkiewicz said.

Aava felt that 8.3 inches is the minimum screen size required to effectively display high-definition content, Frasunkiewicz said. The 8.3-inch tablet is also easy to hold, he said.

Aava did not provide an estimated price for the tablet, but Intel has said that Bay Trail consumer tablets with Windows 8.1 will start at around $350 to $400. Aava is estimating a battery life of 10 hours and has added features that could make the tablet appealing to enterprises.

The tablet has a swappable battery, found in only a few tablets like Hewlett-Packard’s ElitePad 900, which can also be easily disassembled to add memory or storage. Aava Mobile will customize its tablet to meet specific enterprise or tablet-maker requirements, Frasunkiewicz said.

Other enterprise features include docking capabilities. The tablet can withstand a drop of up to 1 meter and has been tested to work in high- and low-temperature environments, Frasunkiewicz said.

Windows 8 adoption in tablets and PCs has been poor so far, but Frasunkiewicz said demand will pick up.

“In vertical markets, the legacy of Windows is a benefit,” said Frasunkiewicz, adding that many companies want to upgrade to tablets that support existing software applications.

Aava will also make a 10.1-inch version of the Windows 8.1 tablet.

Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.
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Duly noted: Samsung announces the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet

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Toshiba intros new Satellites: The ND15t notebook, Encore tablet, and Click detachable

Toshiba took the wraps off a new Windows 8.1 tablet and two new Windows laptops at IFA Berlin today. Toshiba is tapping two CPUs from Intel's all-new Bay Trail family—the Celeron N2810 and an unspecified Atom processor—as well as a low-cost chip from AMD's new Temash family of APUs.

Toshiba’s Satellite Encore is an eight-inch touchscreen tablet with a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels. It's powered by an Intel Bay Trail Atom processor, 2GB of memory, and 32GB of storage. It can support an additional 32GB of storage via its MicroSD slot.

Toshiba's new eight-inch Encore tablet uses a new Bay Trail Atom processor, which is based on Intel's Silvermont microarchitecture.

In a briefing with PCWorld last week, Toshiba’s group product marketing manager, Young Bae, described the Encore as “a hardware platform that can deliver the entertainment and productivity capabilities of Windows. It’s being developed closely with Microsoft, and will be one of Microsoft’s featured devices for the Windows 8.1 launch and Microsoft’s holiday marketing campaign.”

The Encore will feature a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a dual-array beam-forming microphone, and Dolby Digital audio technology with dialogue enhancement. It will be Skype certified and ship with the full version of Microsoft’s Office Home & Student 2013.

The Encore will support Windows 8.1’s InstantGo technology, so that the tablet will receive a constant data feed (email, app, and tile updates) even while asleep. It will resume from sleep in less than 300 milliseconds.

The Encore will run Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system.

The Encore can also operate as a secondary screen for the Xbox One, tapping Microsoft’s Xbox SmartGlass technology. The tablet measures 0.42 inches thick and weighs 16.9 ounces. According to Bae, the Satellite Encore “will be available in November, hot on the heels of Windows 8.1.” Toshiba has priced the tablet at $330.

Bae described the Satellite Click detachable PC as a “productivity machine when docked to its keyboard that behaves like a tablet when detached.” The two-piece unit runs Windows 8 and consists of an 13.3-inch, multi-touch IPS display that functions as a tablet on its own, or as a notebook when docked to its keyboard.

The new Satellite Click can operate as either a 13.3-inch tablet or a conventional notebook.

The Click is powered by a dual-core AMD A4 processor (from AMD’s new Temash family), 4GB of DDR3/1600 memory, and a 500GB mechanical hard drive. The tablet portion of the combo will also feature a built-in webcam, gyroscope, and accelerometer. The I/O ports include micro HDMI and micro USB.

The keyboard dock will have a full-size USB 3.0 port and its own battery. When the combo is plugged into an AC adapter, the tablet will be charged first. When the two units are docked and operating on battery power, the keyboard will continuously charge the tablet. The keyboard also offers Toshiba's USB Sleep & Charge technology and will be able to charge a USB device even when the system is otherwise sleeping.

The $599 Satellite Click will go on sale at Best Buy and Toshiba Direct later this month.

Could we be seeing the resurgence of the netbook? The $380 Satellite ND15t will use a new Celeron N2810 dual-core processor, which—like the Atom in the aforementioned Toshiba Encore—is a member of Intel’s new Bay Trail family of processors.

Toshiba is going after the Chromebook market with this very inexpensive Windows laptop.

During last week’s briefing, Bae said the new Celeron delivers 1.5 times the performance of performance of Intel’s older Cedar Trail processors, and 3 times better graphics performance.

The “clutch-sized,” 3.3-pound notebook will have an 11.6-inch touchscreen, HDMI, USB 3.0, and an 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter. “The ND15t is another option for value-minded consumers,” said Bae, “a more useful alternative to Chromebooks, with 500GB of local storage and Windows 8.” Toshiba expects the ND15t to be available in November.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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Slight drop in tablet sales expected as wearables emerge

Researcher IDC last week slightly lowered its tablet shipment forecast for 2013 and beyond, saying that competing technologies, including larger-sized smartphones, and futuristic wearable computing devices will steal some dollars that would have gone to tablets.

In its revised predictions, IDC trimmed 2013 tablet shipment expectations by 1 percent from 229.3 million units to 227.4 million.

The change also affected forecasts IDC has made for the years 2014-17. IDC said global tablet shipments in 2017 will almost reach 407 million, about 1 percent less than a May estimate of 410 million.

IDC's projection for 2013, however, hinges on the tablet business having a bang-up back half of the year.

"A lower than anticipated second quarter, hampered by a lack of major product announcements, means the second half of the year now becomes even more critical for a tablet market that has traditionally seen its highest shipment volume occur during the holiday season," said Tom Mainelli, IDC analyst, in a statement.

Apple's iPad, for example, had a disappointing second quarter, with tablet shipments down 14 percent from the same period the year before. Like Mainelli, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the downturn on the company's lack of a new iPad in the quarter. The first Retina-equipped iPad debuted in March 2012, and sales ballooned.

Along with slightly lower shipment tallies—which IDC attributed to the influence of larger smartphones, often dubbed "phablets" by wags, and wearable accessories that link to smartphones—the research firm also revised the timetable when emerging market dominate the business.

Phablets and wearables will impact developed markets—the U.S., Western Europe and Japan—before they do other regions, Mainelli said, and cause a faster-than-predicted slowdown there.

Where earlier this year IDC predicted that developed markets would hold a very narrow edge over emerging markets in 2017, now it has flipped the two, saying emerging markets—Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, China, Latin America and the Middle East—will account for 51 percent of all shipments in 2017.

Not surprisingly, China was highlighted as one of the countries expected to drive tablet sales.

"Much of the long-term growth will be driven by countries like China where projected growth rates will be consistently higher than the worldwide average," added Jitesh Ubrani, another IDC analyst, in the same statement.

If IDC's estimates end up accurate, Apple will have to adapt to retain its diminishing share of the tablet business. While the Cupertino, California company dominated the market with relatively high-priced devices until 2012, ever-cheaper models based on Android are continuing to drive down Apple's share.

The price competition will only get more fierce.

"We expect average selling prices to continue to compress as more mainstream vendors utilize low-cost components to better compete with the whitebox tablet vendors that continue to enjoy widespread traction ... despite typically offering lower-quality products and poorer customer experiences," Mainelli said.

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Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news.
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Developers cry foul as PC, tablet makers get Windows 8.1

Microsoft has started sending Windows 8.1 to its hardware manufacturers, hitting the so-called RTM milestone for the much-awaited update to Windows 8.

Both Windows 8.1 for x86 machines and Windows RT 8.1 for ARM-based devices have begun shipping to makers of PCs, tablets and laptops, Microsoft said via a blog Tuesday.

However, commercial and enterprise developers, as well as other IT pros, will have to wait until mid-October to get their hands on the OS update, prompting a chorus of boos from them.

In the past, the RTM release also meant the OS was ready “for broader customer use,” but that’s changed now, in part because the OS has to work with such a broad variety of devices, wrote Microsoft official Antoine Leblond.

“As such, we’ve had to evolve the way we develop and the time in which we deliver to meet customers with the experience they need, want and expect. We’ve had to work closer to our hardware partners than ever before,” he wrote.

Via comments to the blog post, response from developers and enterprise IT customers has been swift and almost entirely negative.

“How are we supposed to test our software for Windows 8.1? The day it will be automatically installed on users’ machines? So we—software developers—can take blame that applications don’t work on Windows 8.1?,” wrote one person.

Another one echoed the sentiment: “Most of us actually want to support Windows 8.1, a lot of us want to get apps ready for the awesome 8.1 features, but we can’t properly do that unless we get the RTM bits before the public gets the Windows 8.1 update.”

In a response to one of the developers commenting on his post, a Microsoft moderator wrote: “We are continuing to put the finishing touches on Windows 8.1 to ensure a quality experience at general availability for (all) customers.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft downplayed the outcry, portraying it as much ado about nothing.

“For developers who want to begin building and testing apps for Windows 8.1, they already have all the tools they need using Visual Studio 2013 Preview and Windows 8.1 Preview,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Windows 8.1 Preview is an earlier version of the OS update that was released at the end of June during the company’s Build developer conference. Visual Studio 2013, the newest version of that application development product, is due to ship before year’s end.

In the statement, Microsoft also said it is moving “to a world of more continuous updates delivered in-product” and that this “rapid release schedule” results in faster access to updates for customers, including developers.

By shipping the OS to hardware makers now, Windows 8.1 devices will be ready in time for the year-end holidays, according to Leblond.

“Over the next several months we’ll see beautiful, powerful devices, from the smallest tablets to the most lightweight notebooks to versatile 2-in-1s, as well as industry devices designed for business,” he wrote.

Windows 8.1 is slated for shipping Oct. 18, when it will be “broadly available for commercial customers with or without volume licensing agreements, our broad partner ecosystem, subscribers to MSDN and TechNet, as well as consumers.”

Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst, said Microsoft met the date for sending Windows code to hardware makers, but breaking with tradition and not making it available to developers and IT pros via MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) and TechNet creates potential problems for subscribers to those programs.

“Not distributing the code beyond OEMs until October buys Microsoft 7 more weeks to work on it and fix things before users actually get it. This is good for Microsoft because the extra time allows it to make improvements and potentially get better reviews,” Silver said via email.

“But it also means organizations get 7 fewer weeks to work on it and with less time between new releases, every week counts. Serious work on projects like evaluating a new release of Windows usually decline during the holidays,” he added.

Billed as one of the company’s most critical products, Windows 8 started shipping in October of last year, sporting a drastically different user interface. That Modern interface based on tile icons was optimized for touchscreen devices to make Windows a better OS for tablets and improve its position against Apple’s iOS and Android.

However, complaints from consumers and enterprise users rained down on Microsoft over a variety of issues, including the learning curve for users to get comfortable and familiar with the new interface.

In Windows 8.1, Microsoft is trying to address that and other main objections. For example, it’s adding something very close to the Windows 7 Start button, which the company took away in Windows 8.

With Windows 8.1, Microsoft will also attempt to improve the interplay between the new Modern interface and the more traditional Windows 7-like desktop, which lets users run legacy applications. For example, it will be possible for users to boot directly to the traditional desktop interface, and toggling between the two will supposedly be smoother.

In Windows 8.1, users will also be able to view all the applications installed on their device and sort them by name, date installed, most used or category. It will also have an improved search engine powered by Bing that will return results from a variety of sources, including the Web, applications, local files and the SkyDrive cloud storage service.

Also new are options for seeing multiple applications on the screen simultaneously, including the ability to resize apps, for improved multitasking. Windows 8.1 also comes with Internet Explorer 11, a new version of Microsoft’s browser that the company has said will load pages faster and offer better performance in touchscreen mode.

Windows 8.1 users will also be able to make a Skype call and take photos with the Windows 8.1 device while the screen is in Lock mode without having to log in. It will be possible as well for users to select multiple applications at once and perform bulk actions on them, like resizing, uninstalling and rearranging them.

Updated at 12:30 p.m. PT with comment from Microsoft.

Juan Carlos Perez covers e-commerce, Google, web-application development, and cloud applications for the IDG News Service.
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Windows Store ad firm sees evidence of new Surface slates, Nokia tablet in its server logs

A new generation of Surface slates may be headed our way, if a new report by advertising firm AdDuplex is any indication, and Microsoft's self-made tablets may be bringing a friend along with them: A Windows RT device crafted by Nokia.

News of refreshed Surface tablets isn't exactly shocking, as Nvidia has confirmed that a next-gen Surface RT slate in the works and Microsoft has been steeply discounting the first generation Surface tablets in a bid to clear stock room shelves.

AdDuplex claims to "regularly see devices named Microsoft Corporation Surface 2 and Microsoft Corporation Surface with Windows 8.1 Pro" on its network, which provides advertising for 393 Windows Store apps. The first device looks to be a completely new model, AdDuplex claims, but the new Surface Pro device might be a first-gen Surface Pro running an RTM version of Windows 8.1.

That said, the firm claims prior preview versions of the Windows 8.1 update didn't change the reported name of the Pro, and a refreshed Surface Pro is almost a given. The original tablet suffered from poor battery life and a slightly chunky design, and those two problems could be significantly reduced if a Surface Pro with Intel's new power-sipping Haswell processors is released.

Digi-wo.comAn alleged image of Nokia's Windows RT slate, as leaked on digi-wo.com.

Repeated rumors have also had Nokia working on a Windows RT device, and AdDuplex claims that Nokia-made Windows 8/RT devices have been pinging its servers since last October.

The device was named RX-107. Then we’ve seen RX-108. And then RX-113, 114, 115, 116. Interestingly enough we haven’t seen RX-109 through RX-112. So it’s hard to say if all of these are just variations of one device progressing through development stages, or 2 device lines (107-108 and 113-116) or something else .

Monday morning, The Verge reported that Nokia's slate is dubbed "Sirius" and will resemble an oversized version of the company's popular Lumia line of Windows Phones. According to the site's sources, the Sirius tablet will be thinner and lighter than an iPad, with a 10.1-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, and a cutting-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. Even better: Nokia is reportedly shooting for 10 hours of battery life.

If Nokia does release a Windows RT slate of its own, it'll have an uphill climb: Windows RT itself is tanking hard, and thus far, third-party Windows tablets—especially Windows RT tablets—are selling even worse than the Surface line.

Brad Chacos spends the days jamming to Spotify, digging through desktop PCs and covering everything from BYOD tablets to DIY tesla coils.
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Intel bringing vision, 3D to laptop and tablet cameras

From mundane 2D devices, integrated cameras in laptops and tablets in the future will change into powerful 3D tools that can sense movement, track emotion, and even monitor reading habits of children, according to Intel.

Intel is developing a "depth sensing" camera, which is an enhanced version of a 3D camera that can go deeper inside images to "bridge the gap between the real and virtual world," said Anil Nanduri , director of perceptual products & solutions at Intel.

The webcam enhancements will help the computer understand a human better, bring new levels of interactivity to 3D games, and make webconferencing fun by blanking out the background and adding a green screen, Nanduri said.

"You'll add the ability to sense your excitement, emotion -- whether you are happy or smiling. The algorithms and technologies are there, but they are getting more refined, and as they get more robust, you'll see them," Nanduri said.

Such depth cameras will be integrated into laptops and ultrabooks in the second half of 2014. The technology will initially appear in external webcams such as Senz3D external webcam, which was jointly developed by Logitech and Intel, and will become available in the coming quarters. The camera technology will ultimately trickle down to tablets and smartphones, Nanduri said.

The camera will also be able to identify characteristics, contours and shapes of items in view. For example, the camera's ability to sense distance, size, depth, color, contours and other parameters of structures could also help in the growing area of 3D printing. A depth sensing picture of a model can be extracted to reveal exact specifications and other details of a design, which can then be printed.

"You are not going to look for a case [for a device] anymore, you'll just point that device, and the cameras will recognize what you have. It'll know the model number...and it'll print [the case] for you, or you go to the store, they will print it for you," Nanduri said.

With the help of eye tracking, it could also track how well somebody is reading and use that information as an evaluation tool. For example, it could track reading, and tell if kids are stuck on words, how much they read, or whether they need help with specific words.

"Having the capabilities to say -- they read about 80 percent of the lines, they had difficulty with these words -- that kind of intelligence for educational tools is phenomenal," Nanduri said.

Other small enhancements also include using a motion-sensing game where hands can be followed to pick up objects in the wider dimension of 3D games. The data collected by the camera could be combined with other modalities like voice recognition to improve human-computer interaction.

There are already 3D cameras out there, but Intel is trying to tack on the algorithm and hardware features that make images more meaningful.

"Kinect was a good initial version of a depth camera more from a long range perspective. When Intel started looking at it, we were primarily looking at it primarily as more personal interaction, short range, which is probably a meter or meter-and-a-half range of interaction," Nanduri said.

Integration in the thin ultrabook display panels may be a challenge. Intel is addressing the challenges with a high resolution short-range camera that focuses on a small area, and what Nanduri called "finger-level articulation."

"You need to have a lot more resolution for that zone. To really scale it to volumes, you need to get to the right form factor from the optics perspective, you need to get to the right power levels and you need to have the right cost structure to help scale it into integration," Nanduri said.

When the technology reaches devices, users may progressively forget the keyboard and mouse when interacting with computers.

"When you have depth information, what you can do with it is pretty phenomenal," Nanduri said.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com

Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.
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Christmas comes early for artists with new Wacom iPad stylus and tablet

Ask any digital artist about their tools, and Wacom’s products inevitably come up: The company is famous for its pressure-sensitive drawing tablets and digital monitors. But when it comes to mobile technology, Wacom has been strangely wary of jumping into the fray, choosing instead to license its technology to third-party tablet computer makers. Even its iPad styluses were bereft of the pressure-sensitive technology the company is famous for. But all that is changing: On Monday, Wacom announced that it would be producing both a pressure-sensitive iPad stylus and its own custom tablet solution.

Wacom’s Intuos Creative Stylus joins the ranks of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus line, and is the company’s first pressure-sensitive iPad stylus. Given that the iPad doesn’t currently offer a pressure-sensitive display, the stylus incorporates both Bluetooth 4.0 technology and third-party app support to perform its wizardry; in this, it follows a similar path first set by fellow stylus-makers Adonit and Ten One Design.

The company boasts 2048 levels of pressure-sensitivity in compatible apps, along with palm-rejection technology. At launch, the Intuos stylus will support Wacom’s own Bamboo Paper app, along with SketchBook, ArtRage, ProCreate, ArtStudio, Inkist, and Flipink, with support coming soon for Adobe Ideas, Psykopaint, and Vision Object Notes. Design-wise, it combines Wacom's traditional two-button interface and rubber grip with the 6mm rubber nib of the company's original iPad model. It’s powered by a AAAA battery (Wacom brags that one will power the stylus for over 150 hours), and ships with a case, two spare nibs, and a spare battery.

The Intuos Creative Stylus will work with the iPad 3 or later. If you’re itching to pick one up already, you’ll unfortunately have to wait a few months—the $99 Intuos Creative Stylus won’t be available until October 7, but you can pre-order one in black or blue.

The company’s second announcement may be more appealing to artists who have held off on purchasing an iPad for its lack of pressure-sensitive screen: Wacom’s Cintiq Companion tablet line offers a full multi-touch pressure-sensitive tablet experience. The company has two models available: a Windows 8 tablet, and the Companion Hybrid, which works as a standard Cintiq when plugged into a Mac or PC, but also as a stand-alone Android tablet with basic sketch tools built in. On the surface, they look identical to Wacom’s Cintiq 13HD, but both offer full multitouch—a feature the 13HD lacks—along with 2048 levels of Wacom’s patented pen pressure-sensitivity and tilt recognition.

The Cintiq Companion has access to all the ExpressKeys and radial dials present on Wacom's other Cintiq models.

The 13.3-inch Ivy Bridge-powered Cintiq Companion is available as a Windows 8 version with 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD or Windows 8 Pro version with a 512GB SSD, and both sport an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor. You’ll even be able to use Photoshop and other Adobe products on it: According to a statement from Adobe senior director of product management Maria Yap, “The Cintiq Companion is optimized for the latest version of Photoshop Creative Cloud.”

The Companion Hybrid is a little less fancy under-the-hood than its Windows 8 companion; when not being used as a display on the Mac, it runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on a Nvidia Tegra 4 processor. Nor does it have access to Photoshop—instead, the tablet comes with Wacom’s new Creative Canvas software for doodling and painting on the go, along with ASTRO File Manager for sending rough images over to your computer. But you’ll still be able to use the tablet as a fully-functional Cintiq monitor when not on the road, so you'll never be too far from a professional drawing program. Sadly, it looks like you still need a power source when using the tablet as a display.

Both models also have a few extra tablet features, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (4.0 for the Cintiq Companion and 3.0 for the Companion Hybrid), 2-megapixel front cameras and 8-megapixel rear cameras, a stereo headset jack, and microphone.

If you were hoping the Cintiq Companion might compete with the iPad on price, however, the Windows 8 tablet leans more toward the cost of a laptop than a tablet: the 256GB model will retail in September for $1999, while the 512GB model is priced at $2499. The Companion Hybrid is a little more reasonable for tablet artists: It’s priced at $1499 for the 16GB model; an extra $100 will buy you 32GB total space. It’s still not easy money, but for serious digital painters, it may be worth it: You’re essentially paying for a tablet with a Cintiq 13HD glommed on, after all. Both models will be available in mid-September from Wacom’s store.

Serenity has been writing and talking and tinkering with Apple products since she was old enough to double-click. In her spare time, she sketches, writes, acts, sings, and wears an assortment of hats.
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Dell drops $299 Windows RT tablet, cheapest offer now $479

Shoppers who tried to buy a Windows RT tablet at Dell's website Friday morning would have seen one listed for US$299. By the end of the day the cheapest tablet came bundled with a keyboard for $479.

Dell made several changes to the RT offers on its website. By Friday evening it had eliminated all the options for a standalone tablet and now only sells the product, called the XPS 10, bundled with a keyboard.

In some ways it bucks a recent trend. Dell has been lowering prices for its Windows RT tablet since May, after the company admitted it was selling poorly. When it was introduced last October, the XPS 10 was priced at $499, and it had dropped to $299 in May.

Dell is apparently trying to up-sell customers to breathe a bit of life into its XPS 10 business after poor sales, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates

Selling the tablet bundled with a keyboard suggests Dell views it as a device for creating content rather than just consuming it, perhaps because Windows RT is designed to provide some "laptop-like" capabilities, Kay said.

"It seems like the direction they are going in. It's a better idea if it's a bundle," he said.

Earlier Friday, a tablet with 32GB of storage priced at $299 was listed as "out of stock." IDG News Service inquired about the product to see if it was still on sale, and shortly afterward, the listing disappeared from the site. Later in the day, a standalone XPS 10 with 64GB of storage also disappeared.

Dell never replied to requests for comment about the changes.

The only models listed on the site by late Friday came bundled with keyboards. And, somewhat confusingly, the bundles with the 32GB and 64GB tablets were listed for the same price -- $479. That's apparently because the 64GB device comes with a steeper discount offer.

There's also an LTE version of the 64GB XPS 10 listed on the site, priced at $579 with a keyboard.

Apart from the storage and connectivity, the other tablet features are the same. They all have a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and a 10.1-inch screen that displays images at 1366 x 768 resolution. Windows RT is Microsoft's version of Windows 8 for ARM processors like the Snapdragon.

Keyboards are expensive as an accessory and can be more profitable for Dell than the tablet itself, and Dell could use all the financial help it can get right now, Kay said. On Thursday, it reported quarterly profits that were down 72 percent.

Bundling the tablets and keyboards together could also be Dell's way of clearing out its XPS 10 tablets and accessories, he said, though it was unclear if that was Dell's goal.

The price changes come at a time when other vendors are distancing themselves from Windows RT. Lenovo has stopped selling the Yoga 11 through its website, Asus has said it was moving away from the development of RT tablets after the failure of its VivoTab RT. Microsoft dropped the price of its Surface RT tablet last month from $499 to $349.

Microsoft plans to announce the successor, Windows 8.1 RT, on Oct. 17. Dell has said it is committed to Windows RT, and the OS got another potential boost with reports on Friday that Nokia will release an RT tablet, though analysts called the idea "bizarre."

Dell will likely not abandon Windows RT because it has a close relationship with Microsoft, Kay said.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com

Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.
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Report: Android tablet app availability still trailing iPad

Android tablets may have come a long way over the last couple of years, but the app selection still can’t compare to Apple’s iPad, according to a new report.

Source: CanalysCanalys listed the top 50 iPad apps and whether they’re available for Android tablets. (Click to enlarge.)

To compare the two platforms, research firm Canalys made a list of the top 50 paid and free iPad apps in the U.S. version of Apple’s iOS App Store, based on aggregated daily rankings in the first half of this year. The firm then looked at how many of those apps are available for Android, along with how many are optimized for larger displays.

Canalys found that 30 percent of these top iPad apps were not available on Android. Another 18 percent were available, but not optimized for tablets. In other words, a little more than half of the most popular iPad apps are available as proper tablet apps for Android devices.

In fairness to Android, six of those unavailable apps—iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers—come directly from Apple. In some cases, Android users can even find alternatives that look great on their tablets: OfficeSuite, QuickOffice, Kingsoft Office, and Google Drive are all capable document editors that obviate the need for Apple’s mobile iWork suite. For photo editing, apps like Aviary and Photoshop Touch fill the void. Unfortunately, Android doesn’t offer anything for music creation on the same level as GarageBand, and there’s a shortage of good movie editing apps for tablets. (I know this because I’ve done my own head-to-head app comparisons.)

Facebook on an Android tablet can look pretty ugly...

It doesn’t take much time with an Android tablet to notice the other cracks in Google’s catalog. Twitter and Facebook both look ugly in Android form, especially on larger tablets where timeline updates stretch unnaturally across the screen. On the iPad, both apps make use of the larger screen with sidebars. ESPN ScoreCenter is another example of a poorly optimized app; unlike the iPad version, the Android app doesn’t let you use it in landscape mode and doesn’t make use of sidebars.

...especially when compared to the better-designed iPad version.

The only consolation is that these stretched out apps don’t look as bad on smaller tablets like the Nexus 7. Given that smaller screens account for the vast majority of Android tablet sales, most users won’t feel the burn as much as users of Google’s Nexus 10 or other large tablets.

But if Android is going to keep up with the iPad, its apps will need to look good on all screen sizes. It helps that the Google Play Store now promotes tablet-optimized apps, with a permanent “Tablet 101” spotlight and a “Designed for Tablets” toggle in every section of the store. Even so, Canalys’ report does a fine job of summing up the current state of iPad vs. Android apps.

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Five Tablet Apps To Dispel Your Doodle Dilemmas

For all those who lament over the neglect that technology has showered on the art of doodling till date – good news has arrived. In a space cluttered with inefficient and inconvenient drawing apps that have failed to cater to one’s doodling instincts, the following tablet apps have arrived as the doodler’s messiah and unleashed a whole new world of creativity for the networked doodler.

Paper by FiftyThree
Recognized as Apple’s iPad app of the year in 2012, Paper by FiftyThree is an extremely slick and smooth app that offers grade one functionality and is clean and simple to use. Indeed, it is an amateur doodler’s dream come true. The free version of this app offers a simple yet comprehensive toolbar, with one drawing pen and some basic brushes. To color shapes more easily and control the size of your lines, you can upgrade to its paid versions that provide more freedom while drawing.

SketchBook Express by Autodesk
This tablet app from Autodesk is indeed a marvel in the world of barely functional doodling apps. Its technology aims to imitate real-world drawing experience, which enables users to draw as naturally as possible. Besides,  it comes with a large variety of customizable brushes and facilitates image layering up to the level of 6 layers – all in the free version of the app.

On one hand it is simple enough for the average doodler who draws on a whim, and on the other, it offers intuitive features to the professional illustrator as well.

Bamboo Paper by Wacom
This app tries to replicate the experience of doodling on an actual paper, and is hugely successful in this attempt.
Despite of its simple features that offer only limited customization, it is definitely one of the popular doodling apps on the block. When used along with a Bamboo Stylus, this app facilitates real-time note-taking and drawing on the go, in as natural a manner as possible. Bamboo Paper is definitely the app to go for if you’re looking for a pen-and-paper doodling experience.

Adobe Ideas
Adobe Ideas is a doodling app with a difference. The USP of this app is that it lets users draw images and then save them on Creative Cloud, wherefrom they can be edited by anyone having access to an internet connection.  It allows the user to customize the brush type and size, and type text within.  For accuracy, it provides doodlers with a 50 level undo and redo facility.
All these features in a simple and minimalistic user interface makes it all the more attractive for an avid doodler.

Sketch Club
Sketch Club is a paid iOS app that beats the rest. It is meant for people who wish to create professional doodles. What makes it stand out from the rest are the interactive abilities build into it. You can share your creations on a social gallery, where other doodlers can rate it, provide feedback and leave their comments. It provides a tutorial to teach users about the use of the app and about drawing complex doodles, apart from offering excellent brush customization and image editing options.

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