Chromebooks, Windows touch laptops offer lifeline to PC makers

PC sales may continue to shrink, but hardware makers can point to a couple of bright spots—Chromebooks and touch-based Windows laptops.

Chromebooks, which had negligible market share a year ago, accounted for 3.3 percent of U.S. sales during the back-to-school season, according to market research firm NPD Group. Nearly 175,000 of these low-cost laptops, which run the browser-based Chrome OS from Google, were sold between June 30 and September 7. NPD has previously said that Chromebooks make up 20 percent to 25 percent of the sub-$300 laptop market.

This NPD Group chart looks at how PC sales compared in the June-to-September time frame between 2013 and 2012.

PC makers have been showing more interest in Chromebooks as a potential source of growth. Both HP and Lenovo began producing Chromebooks this year—with Lenovo targeting schools-only—and a new wave of Chromebooks based on Intel’s Haswell processors is coming soon from Acer, HP and Toshiba. Acer has said that Chromebooks make up 5 to 10 percent of its U.S. shipments and that it may bring Chromebooks to tother developed markets. While Google’s operating system has its share of detractors, the software has matured over the last year, and the launch of Chrome Apps may lead to a wider range of offline applications.

While the gradual rise of Chromebooks could be bad news for Microsoft, Redmond can at least take comfort in the news that touch-equipped Windows PCs are gaining some traction, thanks in large to part to lower prices. NPD says that touch-based notebooks made up a quarter of back-to-school sales, and more than 33 percent of those touchscreen notebooks cost under $500.

Touch computing also made its mark on the high-end, contributing to a 24 percent rise in sales of $700-and-up Windows notebooks. Users are upgrading their PC less often, but they may be willing to pay more when it’s time for a new machine.

The main trouble spot for Windows PCs in the U.S. market is the $300-to-$700 price range, which makes up nearly two-thirds of all Windows notebooks sold. U.S. sales in this segment fell by 16 percent from last year, dragging down the entire U.S. market for Windows PCs by 2.4 percent.

Even Apple took a small hit in the laptop department, with NPD reporting a 0.2 percent decline in U.S. MacBook sales and a big drop in average selling price from $1442 to $1286.

“Chromebooks and Windows Touch helped offset what could have been much steeper declines this back-to-school season,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker said in a statement. Still, he cautioned that any declines in this crucial laptop shopping season do not bode well for the holidays. It’ll likely another season of explosive growth for the iPad and Android tablets, as people drift away from laptops for their casual computing needs.

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New HTC Desire 300 and 601 offer big power, low price

As the IFA trade show is set to get underway in Berlin this week, smart phone leader HTC is hitting the ground running with an expansive announcement that broadens its mobile device lineup, particularly extending its reach into the midrange phone market.

The new additions to HTC’s lineup are the Desire 300 and Desire 601 handsets. Both are designed to bring ample, portable power to a phone with a more modest price than the HTC One line.

The Desire 300 is the more basic of the two models, but it still packs plenty of power. Primary features include a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 4.3-inch screen with resolution at 800 x 480 pixels. There’s 4GB of storage space, plus you get room for up to 64GB of additional storage capacity via a microSD expansion slot. Shutterbugs will find a single rear-facing camera, with a 5-megapixel lens, available for photo needs. Under the hood, the Desire 300 runs the Android 4.1.2 operating system.

The Desire 601 upgrades these specs by offering a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 8GB of built-in storage (plus a 64GB-max microSD slot), and a full 1GB of RAM. The screen bumps things up a bit to a 4.5-inch display with HD-quality resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. As well, the Desire 601 upgrades its camera with a second, front-facing lens that offers 1.4 megapixels of resolution. Android 4.2.2 powers the handset.

With these phones, HTC is extending its specific focus on entertainment and social media through a couple of key upgrades. On the Desire 601, HTC BoomSound stereo speakers provide high-fidelity audio output that few phones can match. With rich and authentic sound quality, BoomSound combines with the phone’s spacious screen to give users a true “home theater on the go” experience.

On both the Desire 601 and 300, the HTC BlinkFeed system puts all of your content front and center where you want it the most: on your phone’s home screen. Add social media feeds and news sources to BlinkFeed, and every time you check your phone, you’ll find it updated with the latest information from all of these outlets. No need to check a dozen different sites for news and status updates; BlinkFeed puts everything in one place.

Both phones are set to launch in October of this year. Pricing has not yet been announced (except that they’ll be cheaper than the One line). All in all, this is good news for phone shoppers who have been enamored with HTC’s design aesthetic and its unique features (like BlinkFeed), but who have found the HTC One line to be a bit too expensive.

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10 features the Samsung Gear smartwatch must offer to preempt the iWatch

Your wrist may become the next great mobile battleground.

Rather than play catch-up after Apple releases its much-speculated iWatch, Samsung is set to announce a smartwatch of its own on Wednesday. Although other smartwatches are currently on the market, the now-confirmed Galaxy Gear would be the first smartwatch from an elite mobile-hardware manufacturer with a proven ability to create bleeding-edge devices with mass appeal.

On Sunday, VentureBeat posted images and details of what it described as a prototype of the Galaxy Gear, but the hardware is missing a number of features that Samsung will need in order to steal the smartwatch market before Apple can even enter it.

Johan Loekito / www.behance.net/jloekito

The above is a beautiful (but quite unofficial) 2009 design concept of what a Samsung smartwatch might look like.

The Pebble smartwatch, with its low-powered LCD screen, can last about a week without recharging. And Sony says its upcoming Android-powered SmartWatch 2 will run for three to four days under normal usage. Not bad.

According to a recent unsubstantiated report, Samsung’s Gear will offer 10 hours of battery life, though no one is sure whether that claim refers to continuous, always-on use or to mixed use, including standby. It had better be the former, because any smartwatch that requires midday charging is a smartwatch bound for failure.

The device’s rumored 3-inch-ish OLED screen would probably be the biggest battery drain. One possible solution to help conserve power is a display that would activate only when needed. For example, the screens on Motorola’s new Moto X and Droid phones remain dormant until the user picks up the phone, all thanks to a battery-saving function that Motorola calls Active Display. Using an accelerometer or other sensors, the Samsung watch’s display might activate when you twist your arm to look at it.

The Galaxy Gear would be wise to distinguish itself from existing Android-powered smartwatches such as the Sony SmartWatch 2 by having the ability to pair with iOS devices as well. Unfortunately, nothing in the latest unsubstantiated report suggests the Gear will support anything but Android.

Due to its unique placement on the body, a smartwatch would be the ideal device for gesture controls. For example, a flick of the wrist would let you ignore a notification, while lifting the watch to your face might prompt it to open S Voice (Samsung’s proprietary, Siri-like digital-assistant app).

Since their inception, mobile phones have bzzz bzzz bzzz’d with alerts for incoming calls, new voicemail, and social media notifications. However, a device that’s touching your skin at all times would have the opportunity to use vibrations far more dynamically.

The Gear would get bonus points for using vibrations at different locations around the wrist to signify different things. For example, a new email message might prompt a buzzing on the bottom of the strap. Or perhaps when someone mentions you in a tweet, you would feel a circle of vibration around your wrist.

The Gear should let you pay for your morning coffee simply by holding your wrist out to the counter clerk for a quick, easy transaction. A recent round of rumors suggests that the Gear will come equipped with NFC connectivity, indicating that mobile-payment functionality should at least be possible. Let’s hope the device uses its NFC radio to do some tricks we haven’t seen before.

@evleaksA screenshot of the Gear’s phone interface leaked to the press last week suggests that the device will have both NFC and Bluetooth connectivity, and will access both Samsung-branded apps and regular Android apps.

The smartwatch will be the newest screen to join our multiscreen lifestyles. As such, it would be great if you could, say, begin to read an email message on your Samsung smartwatch and then continue reading it on your tablet or laptop.

Due to a smartwatch’s diminutive size, a mega-spec camera is unlikely to fit. Still, we’d like to see a camera with at least some brawn to it (VentureBeat says the watch will pack a 4-megapixel sensor). How many times have you missed a great photo because you had to dig out a phone from your pocket, unlock it, and open the camera app?

A Samsung smartwatch with concise one-step camera access could solve that problem.

Because of where the device lives, a smartwatch is subject to more elements of nature than a pocket-based phone. Therefore, we’d like to see a Galaxy-branded smartwatch that’s at least as waterproof as the Galaxy S4 Active smartphone, which Samsung claims can survive being submerged for up to 30 minutes under 1 meter of water.

As a highly visible accessory, the Gear will need to come in a variety of styles for men and women. One-size-fits-all is not the right answer.

A smartwatch is a far more visible accessory than a smartphone, so people are going to want design options to express their unique personalities. The Gear should not be a one-size-fits-all proposition.

Also, Samsung should keep in mind that men and women wear watches differently: Women tend to favor the smaller wrist ornamentation, while men don’t mind sporting a big ol’ behemoth. Samsung’s designers would be wise to consider the wants and needs of female users, whom they have tended to disregard in the past.

Home security and control systems such as those from AT&T and Comcast commonly use smartphone apps to control devices and appliances inside the house. But a smartwatch might be an even better device for that. A couple of quick screen taps or gestures performed at the front door might be a good way to unlock the door, deactivate the security system, and turn on the lights—all without having to fish around for a smartphone.

Back in July, Samsung submitted a U.S. trademark filing for “Samsung Galaxy Gear.” The trademark is associated with “wearable digital electronic devices in the form of a wristwatch, wrist band, or bangle capable of providing access to the Internet and for sending and receiving phone calls, electronic mails and messages.”

The filing goes on to describe a device that could be used for “the wireless receipt, storage and/or transmission of data and messages and for keeping track of or managing personal information; smart phones; tablet computers; portable computers.”

Last week, Lee Young-Hee, Samsung’s executive vice president, confirmed to the Korea Times that the company will indeed introduce “a new wearable concept device called Galaxy Gear at our own event in Berlin on Sept. 4.” She went on to say: “The new device will enhance and enrich the current smart mobile experience in many ways. It will lead a new trend in smart mobile communications.” She added that the Gear will not have a flexible display.

Keep tuned to this space tomorrow for our coverage of Samsung’s formal announcement of the Gear.

Evan lives in Brooklyn, NY and enjoys writing about what future may hold and taking long romantic walks on the beach.
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Nissan plans to offer affordable self-driving cars by 2020

Nissan announced today that it expects to begin selling multiple models of self-driving cars by 2020.

Self-driving cars, also known as autonomous drive vehicles, use cameras and sensors to detect roadway lanes and objects around them in order to guide themselves without human intervention.

Among others, GM plans to introduce a semi-automated Cadillac driving system in 2015. Google was among the first tech companies to announce plans to produce a self-driving car for “ordinary people” in less than five years.

Nissan said it’s already building an autonomous-drive proving ground in Japan. Its goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations.

Nissan is currently working with top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford and The University of Tokyo, to develop its self-drive technology.

“Nissan’s autonomous driving will be achieved at realistic prices for consumers. The goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations,” Nissan said in a statement.

According to one new report by Navigant Research, by 2035, more than 95 million self-driving cars will be sold worldwide every year. By that year, autonomous cars will represent 75% of all light-duty vehicle sales, according to Navigant.

“In 2007 I pledged that - by 2010 - Nissan would mass market a zero-emission vehicle. Today, the Nissan LEAF is the best-selling electric vehicle in history,” said CEO Carlos Ghosn. “Now, I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it.”

Nissan plans to demonstrate autonomous driving technologies later this year using an all-electric LEAF.

Nissan said it plans to demonstrate its autonomous drive technology for the first time at Nissan 360, an invitation-only test drive event being held later this year at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as well as on the streets of Orange County, Calif.

Among the technologies the company plans to demo are laser scanners, “Around View Monitor” cameras, and advanced artificial intelligence and actuators. The technologies have been installed in Nissan LEAFs to enable them to negotiate what Nissan called “real-world driving scenarios.”

Nissan’s autonomous driving technology is an extension of its Safety Shield, which monitors a 360-degree view around a vehicle for risks, offers warnings to the driver and takes action, if necessary.

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Adobe Connect upgraded to offer conference recording and mobile streaming

Although Adobe is a household name when it comes to computer software, it hasn’t made serious inroads in the world of videoconferencing services, despite being on the ninth version of Adobe Connect, its flagship Web conferencing system. In this world, Webex and Citrix remain synonymous with online video communication, education, and training.

Today Adobe is rolling out some impressive upgrades that it hopes will increase its competitiveness in this space, with the release of Adobe Connect 9.1.

Adobe senior product marketing manager Rocky Mitarai gave me a personal demo of the new version of the service and it’s looking good. The focus of the system is on “going above and beyond basic screen sharing,” says Mitarai, “with a particular eye on things like training and webinars,” which require more sophisticated videoconferencing environments.

Adobe Connect is optimized for mobile clients, and this is one of the key areas in which Connect is getting an upgrade in version 9.1. Now even more of the service’s desktop features are available on mobile platforms, including the ability to stream recordings across any mobile device. (Formerly, pre-recorded streams were only viewable on desktop clients.) The new version also offers support for multipoint videoconferencing with two live and unlimited paused webcams. Mobile platforms can also now be branded with a customized background (like your company logo), and more advanced features like interactive quizzes are now supported on mobile devices, too.

AdobeAdobe Connect 9.1 for the Apple iPad

Another major feature of the 9.1 update is an enhancement to tools that let you save and re-stream live recordings. Existing tools (both on Adobe Connect and other platforms) to do this, says Mitarai, are difficult and cumbersome. Adobe Connect 9.1 now lets you record any videoconference, host and stream it from the cloud, and post it online just about anywhere, including Youtube. Recordings can be edited (and things like the chat box and attendee list can be removed) before the video is finalized and stored in the cloud. Video conversion costs extra, and this is charged as a service on a per-minute of video converted basis.

Other enhancements are also coming to expand Adobe Connect’s ease of use and increase user productivity. Widescreen webcams are now supported (the user can toggle between a 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio), and the active speaker’s name is now placed as a caption at the bottom of the window in which he can be seen talking.

One thing remaining the same is Connect’s unique feature of creating meetings with a persistent URL that remains static for future meetings. This way, users needn’t be re-invited to recurring meetings every week. They can bookmark one URL and use it in perpetuity. Materials uploaded to the meeting space—like slide decks or other supporting files—are retained for future use, as well, saving users time and centralizing storage. Adobe Connect is also distinguished from most other Web conference platforms by letting attendees very quickly jump into a meeting. For most, a single click is all it takes, with no additional client download required (aside from Flash, upon which Connect is built).

Aside from charges for video conversion, pricing isn’t changing. Adobe Connect is sold per named user or host, by simultaneous users, or per minute. The named host model runs $4,200 per month for 100 hosts.

Christopher Null is a veteran technology and business journalist. He contributes regularly to PC World and Wired, and is a technology columnist for Executive Travel magazine.
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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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Dell OKs new plan for shareholder vote on raised offer from Michael Dell

The Special Committee overseeing Dell’s buyout proposal has reached an agreement with company founder Michael Dell and his associates, Silver Lake Partners, on a proposed purchase in which shareholders will get US$13.75 per share and a special dividend of $0.13.

After multiple delays, the shareholder vote tally on the revised merger agreement is now set for Sept. 12 at 9:00 a.m. Central Time. As part of the new proposal, shareholders will also get the regular third-quarter dividend of $0.08 per share.

With the new agreement, the PC company’s Special Committee and Dell-Silver Lake are now on the same page on the revised offer of $13.75 per share made last week as well as the guidelines to put the proposal to a shareholder vote.

Dell HQ

Dell and Silver Lake in February proposed to buy the company for $24.4 billion, or $13.65 per share. That offer was raised to $13.75 per share, and subject to a change in shareholder voting rules proposed by Dell and Silver Lake in which only “yes” or “no” votes would count, with abstentions left out. Initially, voting rules called for abstentions to be counted as “no” votes. The Special Committee, which is reviewing proposals to buy the company, earlier this week rejected the new guidelines, saying any vote should stick to the original rules.

But the revised agreement reached on Friday, which includes the sweetener of a $0.13 special dividend, modifies the voting standard to count only votes that are actually cast.

“In the context of the current decision, the Committee does not believe it is appropriate to count shares that have not been voted as having been voted in support of any particular alternative,” said Alex Mandl, chairman of Dell’s Special Committee, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In trying to explain the change in shareholder voting guidelines, Mandl said that the original voting rules were set when the choices were Dell-Silver Lake’s proposal or “continuation of the status quo.”

But since then, an alternative proposal—likely a reference to a counterproposal by investors Carl Icahn and his associates, Southeastern Asset Management—has emerged, and Mandl said the nature of the choice facing shareholders has changed. Icahn and affiliated parties believe their counteroffer is worth up to $18 per share for current shareholders.

“We believe modifying the voting standard is in the best interests of Dell shareholders, both because it has enabled us to secure substantial additional value and because it provides a level playing field for the decision facing shareholders,” Mandl said.

The vote has already been delayed twice, which analysts said was because Michael Dell and Silver Lake failed to find enough shareholder backing for its $24.4 billion buyout proposal. The response to that proposal was mixed. Some shareholders came out against the deal, saying the company was being undervalued, while some advisory services were for the deal, recommending stockholders take the money and run, especially with the PC market in decline.

Icahn has been leading the charge against the Dell-Silver Lake proposal. He filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the PC maker to prevent the company from setting a new date for the meeting at which shareholder votes on the Dell-Silver Lake proposal are to be counted. The suit also demanded that if a new vote date is set, the company’s annual meeting “be held on the same date and time, and with the same record date,” according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The new agreement reached on Friday also amends the breakup fee from $450 million to $180 million in case any merger agreement is terminated.

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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