Device-spanning Ubuntu Touch OS gets October 17 launch date

The audacious Ubuntu Edge smartphone crowdfunding experience may be dead, but the dream of merging phone and PC lives on. Ubuntu Touch, the form factor-spanning mobile operating system intended to power the Edge, finally has a release date: October 17, alongside Ubuntu Linux 13.10.

The news comes courtesy of a Ubuntu Phone team mailing list message by Canonical technical architect Loïc Minier, as well as a blog post by QA community coordinator Nicholas Skaggs.

“We are exactly one month away from the release of [Ubuntu 13.10] Saucy Salamander,” Skaggs wrote on the 17th. “As part of that release, Ubuntu is committed to delivering an image of Ubuntu-Touch, ready to install on supported devices.”

“Only four and a half weeks to go, and phone 1.0 will be a reality!” Minier excitedly exclaimed.

Canonical

The developer version of Ubuntu Touch was released in February and works on Samsung Galaxy Nexus and (now discontinued) Nexus 4 smartphones, as well as the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets.

Ubuntu Touch is basically a slick mobile interface for Ubuntu. Beyond smartphones and tablets, Ubuntu Touch can launch the full-blown desktop version of Ubuntu when docked with a desktop monitor. The idea: One device to rule them all, if by “them all” you mean “smartphones, tablets, and PCs.”

Don’t expect Ubuntu Touch devices to flood store shelves anytime soon, however. While the version 1.0 image will be available to download next month, Canonical says the first discrete devices running the OS aren’t expected until late 2013 or early 2014.

The company said it received numerous manufacturer queries in the wake of the Edge smartphone campaign, which raised nearly $12 million from would-be buyers in $600-ish chunks.

In the meantime, adventurous (and technically minded) souls can help out the cause by downloading the developer preview of Ubuntu Touch and reporting any bugs you stumble across. As with any Linux distribution, the development of Ubuntu Touch takes a group effort.

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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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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Old tricks help German hackers bypass iPhone 5s Touch ID security

Apple's Touch ID authentication system can be defeated using a well-honed technique for creating a latex copy of someone's fingerprint, according to a German hacking group.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), which hosts an annual hacking conference and publishes computer security research, wrote on its blog that their experiment shows that fingerprint authentication "should be avoided."

Apple introduced Touch ID with its latest high-end iPhone 5S on Sept. 10. A person's "fingerprint is one of the best passcodes in the world. It's always with you, and no two are exactly alike," according to the company's website.

A hacker who goes by the name Starbug found that while Touch ID scans at a higher resolution, it can be beaten by increasing the resolution of the victim's fingerprint.

The CCC posted a video of what it wrote is a successful attack. Faking the print involves photographing the victim's fingerprint at 2400 DPI. The image is inverted and laser printed at 1200 DPI onto a transparent sheet using a "thick toner setting," according to the CCC.

Pink latex milk or white wood glue is smeared into the pattern created the toner. After it cures, a sliver of latex is lifted from the sheet, and blowing on it gives a bit of moisture like that on a human finger. It then can be placed on the iPhone's fingerprint sensor, the CCC wrote.

The technique is not new. "This process has been used with minor refinements and variations against the vast majority of fingerprint sensors on the market," the CCC wrote. Apple officials did not have an immediate comment on the CCC's findings.

Security experts have long warned that fingerprint authentication should not be solely relied upon, but rather used in concert with other technologies. Photos of fingerprints and molds have successfully bypassed fingerprint checks.

Touch ID is intended to reduce the number of times a person must enter a passcode, but Apple still requires a passcode in some circumstances, such as restarting the phone and if the devices hasn't been unlocked in two days.

Changes to the fingerprint settings also require a passcode, which can be configured to be longer and more complex than four digits.

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Dell Inspiron One 20 Touch review: An attractive budget all-in-one with unsatisfying peripherals and sound

Dell Inspiron One 20 Touch $699.00 The Dell Inspiron One is a sturdy, non-nonsense all-in-one. But Dell's ho-hum component choices deliver equally ho-hum benchmark performance.

I’m a big fan of Dell’s Inspiron One lineup of all-in-one PCs. These computers manage to be gorgeous, sturdy, and versatile while remaining relatively budget friendly. The Inspiron One 20 reviewed here has a smaller display than the Toshiba, but it costs more than $300 cheaper ($699 as of 8/29/13). It’s equipped with an Intel Core i3-3240T processor; 4GB of DDR3/1600 memory; and a 1TB, 7200rpm hard drive. It also has built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi adapters, and a 20-inch capacitive touchscreen.

Design-wise, the Inspiron One 20 Touch is tough to beat, though the Toshiba PX35t-A2210 has a slightly more premium look. This all-black AIO features an edge-to-edge glass screen, which gives it a bezel-less appearance and also makes for easy swiping when performing common Windows 8 gestures (such as swiping from the side to pull up the charms bar). The minimalist bezel sports a small, mirrored Dell logo at the bottom and a built-in webcam at the top. The system’s speakers are just below the screen. There are no buttons or ports on the front of the One 20 Touch, these are all relegated to the system’s sides and back.

Dell's Inspiron One 20 Touch boasts a great design, but its performance leaves a bit to be desired.

The One 20 Touch’s great-looking design is slightly marred by its below-average peripherals. The system comes with a wired mouse and keyboard, both of which are utterly basic (though mostly comfortable to use). The keyboard offers very light tactile feedback, which can make accurate typing difficult. The mouse is large but comfortable, and offers an average input experience.

As for performance, the Inspiron One 20 Touch is good, but not great. It will get you through schoolwork and basic entertainment, such as streaming HD movies and playing music, but it won’t handle PC games or media-editing software very well. This Inspiron scores a very average 109 on WorldBench 8.1, which means it’s just nine percent faster than our Acer baseline model . Compared with the other AIOs in this roundup, the One 20 Touch is solidly in the middle – it comes in fourth, but it’s just one point below our third-ranked HP Pavilion TouchSmart 23 (110).

PCWorld's Desktop Worldbench 8.1 benchmark suite measures performance with a number of productivity, creation, and entertainment programs.

In our graphics tests, the One 20 Touch performed as expected: It managed a playable, if far from excellent, 30.7 frames per second on our Dirt Showdown test, and but only 14.8 fps with the more demanding BioShock Infinite (with both games, resolution was set to 1024 by 768 pixels, and image quality was set to Low). In other words, it can handle low-end PC games at an acceptable frame rate, but it’s about as far from a gaming powerhouse as a Commodore 64. HD video looks just okay—there’s quite a bit of artifacting and foreign objects in scenes with a medium amount of motion—and skin tones have a tendency to look burnt and oversaturated. Audio is also somewhat disappointing: The speakers aren’t very loud, and music lacks depth, even when all the software enhancements are turned on.

This chart indicates how well each all-in-one PC performed with a variety of media editing and encoding tasks. If this is an important consideration for your,the PCs with the shorter bars are your best choices. 

The Dell Inspiron One 20 Touch is a nice starter machine for those who like the Inspiron One look and feel. The touchscreen remains one of the better touchscreens that I’ve used, with smooth, accurate touch and a nice glidey feel to the glossy display. I especially like the adjustable stand, the minimalist design, and the overall sturdiness of the chassis. But it has its issues, including cheap, basic peripherals; mediocre performance; and weak speakers.

Editor's note: This all-in-one was reviewed as part of a roundup for back-to-school season. You can read that story, along with reviews of the five all-in-ones we compared it to, here.

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Lenovo C540 Touch review: An excellent budget all-in-one that delivers on performance

Lenovo’s C540 Touch is one of the two best all-in-ones in this roundup. And while I have no significant complaints about the quality of its multitouch display, the manner in which the glass is recessed behind the bezel is disconcerting when you’re sweeping your finger in from the edge to call up the Windows 8 charms bar. The display measures 23 inches diagonally—just like the Acer, HP, and Toshiba models—but it’s mounted to a stand rather than being incorporated into a monolithic frame.

Lenovo pairs the Intel Core i3-3240 CPU with 8GB of DDR3/1600 memory—more than any of the other machines we looked at—and it packs a 1TB, 7200 rpm hard drive inside its somewhat thick chassis. All-in-ones are notoriously difficult to upgrade, so having lots of memory onboard to start is a major benefit.

PCWorld's Desktop Worldbench 8.1 benchmark suite measures performance with a number of productivity, creation, and entertainment programs.

The C540 Touch’s Desktop Worldbench 8.1 score of 129 identifies it as nearly 30-percent faster than our Core i5-powered reference machine, Acer’s Aspire A5600U-UB13 , and just a whisker behind the Toshiba PX35t-A2210. The Lenovo has a faster CPU, which helped it deliver very good media editing and encoding scores, but its weak Intel HD Graphics 2500 integrated GPU left it running in the back of the pack on our gaming benchmarks, producing just 16.1 frames per second with BioShock Infinite, even with the game running at resolution of just 1024 by 768 pixels and with its visual quality set to Low. The Toshiba, which features an Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated GPU, produced this game at a much quicker 26.6 frames per second. Neither experience is ideal, but at least the Toshiba won’t leave you looking at a slideshow.

The recessed display on Lenovo's C540 Touch is a little weird for a touchscreen computer.

Although Lenovo doesn’t have any big-name speaker manufacturers to boast of, the C540 Touch produces surprisingly good sound from its down-firing speakers. Lenovo is rather stingy with the USB 3.0 ports, providing just two on the left side of the display (along with mic and headphone jacks). Four USB 2.0 ports, hardwired gigabit ethernet, and an HDMI input are located in the back. You’ll use two of those rear USB ports to plug in Lenovo’s mouse and keyboard. The mouse is a two-button, bargain-basement cheapie; but the keyboard, while also exceedingly basic, delivers excellent tactile feedback.

It’s tough to say which all-in-one is best, the Toshiba TX35t-A2210 or the Lenovo C540 Touch. The Toshiba looks more attractive and performs better with games, but the Lenovo’s more-powerful CPU and additional memory delivers better performances on our audio-encoding, video-encoding, and image-editing benchmarks. Their Worldbench scores, meanwhile, leave them essentially tied.

Editor's note: This all-in-one was reviewed as part of a roundup for back-to-school season. You can read that story, along with reviews of the five all-in-ones we compared it to, here.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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Microsoft's Surface slates get permanent price drops, cheaper Touch Covers

Not that Microsoft was fooling anyone before, but the Surface tablet discounts that the company previously advertised as “limited time” are now permanent.

The Surface RT will remain priced at $349 for 32 GB, and $449 for 64 GB, a discount of $150 in both cases. Microsoft is also offering a black Touch Cover bundle with both Surface RT models for an additional $50.

The Surface Pro retains its $100 discount on all models, bringing the price to $799 for 64 GB and $899 for 128 GB. No Touch Cover or Type Cover bundles are available with the Surface Pro.

Microsoft has also slashed the price of its standalone Touch Cover accessories by $40. Regular covers now cost $80, and Limited Edition covers are $90. Pricing for the Type Cover, which has actual mechanical keys compared to the Touch Cover's pressure-sensitive sensors, remains at $130.

Microsoft's struggles to sell the Surface are no secret. Last month, the company revealed that it would take a $900 million writedown on the Surface RT, as the company slashed prices in hopes of unloading excess inventory. It's unlikely that Surface Pro sales are much better, given that Microsoft spent more to advertise the tablet and Windows 8 than it actually earned in Surface revenue.

On the plus side, the price cuts have sent Surface RT usage skyrocketing over the past months.

Tech-savvy consumers, however, might want to stay away from these permanent price cuts, with the possibility of new Surface models around the corner. The Surface Pro, in particular, would greatly benefit from Intel's Haswell processors , which offer big improvements to battery life. It's unclear when Microsoft will launch new Surface tablets, but something timed around the October 18 launch of Windows 8.1 would make sense.

According to ZDNet, Microsoft will be rolling out the price adjustments in phases, “in order to meet customer demand and retailer expectations.” Check Microsoft's Surface Website for details.

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Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch review: A 15.6-inch budget laptop that's strong on performance and can survive some rugged handling

This solidly built notebook features a great touchscreen display, an even better keyboard, and a huge and fast hard drive. But Lenovo’s networking component choices are a bit disappointing.

Lenovo laptops are the models of choice for many corporate IT departments, and the company manufactures some very good consumer-oriented machines, too. The IdeaPad Z400 Touch is a case in point. You wouldn’t mistake it for a sleek Ultrabook—it’s thick and heavy, and its battery life is wretched—but the Z400 did finish second on Notebook WorldBench 8.1 in our five-laptop competition. And despite Lenovo’s copious use of plastic, the Z400 is built like a brick outhouse.

LenovoLenovo's IdeaPad Z400 Touch is a strong contender.

Lenovo stuck with Intel’s third-generation Core processor for this budget-priced machine, pairing a 1.6GHz Core i5-3230M with 6GB of DDR/1600 memory. At 14.0 inches, its 1366-by-768-pixel display is much smaller than the Acer Aspire E1-572-6870’s 15.6-inch display; but the IdeaPad Z400 boasts a ten-point touchscreen, whereas the Acer does not.

The Z400 is an attractive PC, with charcoal-colored soft-touch paint on the outside and a pretty carbon-fiber look on the inside. Lenovo’s computer feels as rugged as Acer’s feels fragile. Though the display exhibits a little flex, the lower chassis is as rigid as some all-metal bodies I’ve tried to bend. The downside to the solid construction is weight gain: Despite its smaller display, the Z400 outweighs the Acer by 0.7 pound. Still, it comes by most of that weight honestly. Lenovo provides 6GB of memory (as against Acer’s 4GB); packs a 1TB, 7200-rpm hard drive (versus the Aspire’s 500GB drive); and includes a DVD burner (Acer provides no optical drive at all).

The tests in this suite evaluate how well a system handles editing digital media files and encoding them to different formats.

The IdeaPad Z400 comes with the type of top-notch keyboard that Lenovo is famous for building. The island-style keyboard is fully backlit and feels great under the fingers. It lacks a dedicated numeric keypad, and there’s no provision for temporarily assigning letter keys on the right side an alternative function to serve as one, but I was happy to see the full-size arrow keys in the familiar inverted-T formation at the far edge.

Augmenting the touchscreen is a responsive trackpad that supports most Windows 8 gestures, including two-finger scrolling, swipe, zoom, and rotate. The trackpad doesn’t have distinct right and left mouse buttons, but clicking in the lower right and left areas of the pad perform the same function. Unlike Lenovo’s higher-end notebooks, the Z400 does not embed a trackpoint in its keyboard; however, I found that the trackpad and the touchscreen were all I really needed.

Benchmark performance

The IdeaPad Z400 took a solid second place in our Notebook WorldBench 8.1 benchmark competition (behind the Acer Aspire E1-572-6870), with a score of 132, marking it as 1.3 times faster than our reference Asus VivoBook S550CA, which comes outfitted with a 24GB SSD cache for its hard drive.

None of these inexpensive laptops delivered especially good performance on high-level games such as BioShock Infinite.

The Lenovo placed third in the PCMark 7 Productivity, despite having a 7200-rpm hard drive (both the Acer Aspire E1-572-6870 and the Toshiba Satellite L55Dt-A5253 were much faster). But the IdeaPad captured first place on our media editing and encoding tests. It finished in the middle of the pack on our gaming tests, delivering a leisurely frame rate on BioShock Infinite of 18.4 frames per second, even with resolution set to just 1024 by 768 and visual quality set to Low.

Our Notebook WorldBench 8.1 suite includes a broad array of benchmarks for evaluating a notebook's performance.

Connectivity and conclusion

The IdeaPad Z400’s networking capabilities are a bit disappointing. Though Lenovo selected a high-quality Wi-Fi adapter—Intel’s Centrino Wireless-N 2230—it’s a single-band adapter that doesn’t give you any choice but to connect to crowded 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks. On the bright side, it’s a 2x2 adapter, meaning that it supports a maximum physical link rate of 300 mbps. It also provides Bluetooth 4.0 support, and is compatible with Intel’s WiDi video-streaming technology. The wired ethernet adapter, meanwhile, is limited to 100 mbps—I thought those adapters had gone the way of the PS/2 port.

LenovoAll of the touchscreen notebooks had highly reflective displays.

In addition to WiDi, you have your choice of HDMI or VGA video outputs for connecting to external displays. And like the Acer Aspire, the IdeaPad has three USB ports, but only one of them is the speedy USB 3.0. Lenovo does provide a memory card reader that supports both SD and MMC media, and the company includes Dolby Home Theater technology and a set of decent speakers, so you won’t have to rely on headphones for an enjoyable audio experience.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch is a heavy computer for its size, its network connectivity is weak, and its battery life is very poor. But this laptop is a very good performer, with a great keyboard, an optical drive, and the largest, fastest hard drive in this group. It’s also the machine I’d recommend if you need a computer in this price range that’s rugged enough to tolerate a little rough handling. Overall it finishes a solid second in our roundup.

Editor's note: This notebook was reviewed as part of a roundup for back-to-school season. You can read that story, along with reviews of the five notebooks we compared it to, here.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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Cisco's 4,000 job cuts won't touch new acquisition Sourcefire

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