More Chromebooks are coming from companies like HP, Acer, and Toshiba, but they might not be the ultra-cheap, browser-based laptops we've gotten used to seeing over the last year.

That's because the next wave of Chromebooks will run Intel's fourth-generation Core processors, codenamed Haswell. These processors are far more powerful than the low-end Intel Atom and Celeron processors that most Chromebooks have used so far.

It's a sign that Chromebooks are trying to grow up, and to move from secondary PCs to your primary computer—but it's also a risky move. By using Haswell instead of Intel's low-powered Bay Trail chips, the new Chromebooks may be targeting a use case that doesn't yet exist.

The story so far

Chromebooks, whose Chrome OS operating system is essentially Google's Chrome browser and very little else, have been around for a couple years now, and the earliest machines hovered around a $500 price point. Not surprisingly, the earliest Chromebooks were not very popular.

Chromebooks didn't start to gain traction until last year, when sub-$300 machines from Acer and Samsung hit the market. Sure, these Chromebooks weren't as full-featured as Windows PCs, but they were fast and efficient at getting onto the Web, and the prices were hard to beat.

The funny thing is that Chromebooks don't need a lot of power. I personally use Samsung's Series 5 550, a $450 Chromebook with a Celeron processor and 4 GB of RAM, and performance has never been an issue. Some cheaper Chromebooks—those with just 2 GB of RAM—struggle with keeping lots of browser tabs open, but that's a memory problem, not a processor one. If all you're doing is checking e-mail, typing in Google Docs, browsing Facebook, and using a few Chrome Apps, your power needs are minimal, and a cheap Chromebook ends up being a good fit.

Enter Haswell, not Bay Trail

Intel's Bay Trail chips seem like a natural next step for Chromebooks. They allow for thin, light, fanless designs with long battery life, they can accommodate up to 4 GB of RAM, and they're much more powerful than Intel's previous-generation Clover Trail processors.

So why are the next Chromebooks using Haswell instead? NPD analyst Stephen Baker said that as Windows PC sales fall, hardware vendors want to move into mid-range Chromebooks, following the success of the entry-level models. (NPD estimates that Chromebooks account for nearly a quarter of sub-$300 laptop sales.)

“With the state of notebook OEMs right now, they don't have a lot to lose trying to move up market a little bit,” Baker said. “It makes sense to test the water and see what'll happen.”

Still, it's unclear what kind of use cases these Haswell-based machines will open up. Baker mentioned better gaming and video playback as possibilities, but Bay Trail is no slouch in these areas, especially for the kind of games you get from a Web browser. More powerful applications may someday arrive as Chrome Apps, but we've yet to see anything that really demands a huge boost in power.

In theory, a PC maker could create a premium Chromebook by using high-quality build materials and a high-res display, but could still use Bay Trail to bring the cost down. All Bay Trail processors support 2560-by-1600 resolutions, for example.

That may still happen eventually. Intel has not ruled out Bay Trail-based Chromebooks, and when asked about the possibility at a reporters' roundtable this week, Intel's Navin Shenoy said to “Watch this space.”

It's just a question of when, than if. As last year's $200 to $300 Chromebooks start to get stale on store shelves, hopefully the answer is “soon.”

Source: http://www.pcworld.com

Dell To Revive Venue Mobile Brand With New Windows 8.1 Tablet

Dell showed a new Windows 8.1 tablet Wednesday called Venue, which is a brand name for mobile devices the PC maker abandoned when it discontinued shipment of smartphones early last year.

The Venue tablet has an 8-inch screen and runs on Intel’s Atom chip code-named Bay Trail. It was demonstrated as shown above on stage by Neil Hand, vice president at Dell, during a keynote at the Intel Developer Forum being held in San Francisco.

The tablet will be marketed to both consumers and enterprises, and will have long-battery life and cellular data connectivity. More details about the new Venue tablet and other devices will be shared at an event in New York City on October 2, Hand said, hinting that more mobile devices from Dell could be on tap.

The new tablet also marks Dell’s reentry into the consumer tablet market. The company today offers the XPS 10 with Windows RT and the Latitude 10 with Windows 8, both targeted at enterprises. Dell last year discontinued its Streak line of consumer tablets, but has reiterated its support for the consumer tablet market and Windows 8 OS.

Toshiba and Aava Mobile recently announced Windows 8.1 tablets. Asustek also showed a Bay Trail tablet on stage during the IDF keynote.

Also on Wednesday, Intel announced new quad-core Bay Trail chips for tablets. Bay Trail tablets could weigh as little 14.1 ounces and offer 8 hours of battery life when the users is watching high-definition video.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com

New Consoles Special Game: Waiting For PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Best Games May Have to Wait

Video game players are always excited to get their hands on new consoles, and in November, two new game machines are scheduled to be introduced: Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. But while new consoles usually lead to better games, often that happens only in the long run. Some of the final games made for aging consoles have been better than the first games that were released for brand-new systems. Neither the PlayStation 3 in 2006 nor the Xbox 360 a year earlier went on sale with a single memorable initial title.

Xbox 360 gamers waited four months for their system’s first great game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and an entire year for the next one, Gears of War. Likewise, a full 12 months went by before PlayStation 3 players were able to get their hands on that system’s first noteworthy exclusive, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. At the same time, two of the PlayStation 2’s most highly regarded games, Bully and Okami, were released mere weeks before the release of the PlayStation 3.

While it’s too early to say for sure, something similar looks as if it will happen in 2013. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One each have a long list of launch titles, but the most interesting games that will be playable on the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft seem to be coming next year, including Titanfall from Respawn Entertainment and Project Spark from Microsoft Studios, both of which are Xbox exclusives on console; The Witness from Jonathan Blow’s Number None, a console exclusive for the PlayStation 4; and Destiny from Bungie, which will be playable on both (and on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3).

Who knows? There might be surprises among the first batch of games being released with the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Maybe Ryse: Son of Rome, an initial Xbox One title, will end up as one of the year’s best games. But Ryse’s E3 demonstration didn’t do much to auger that, instead promising to immerse players in antiquity by letting them repeatedly stab people in the neck. The developers of Dead Rising 3, another Xbox One exclusive, have talked about using the system’s superior technology for the important work of improving the graphical fidelity of zombie blood and teeth. Sony’s big-budget exclusives don’t look any more enticing.

Many games will be released with versions for currently available consoles — the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii U — as well as for the new ones. The most exciting of these games is Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs, coming Nov. 19 for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. (No release date has been announced for the PS4 and Xbox One.) An open-world game about information hackers in a near-future Chicago, Watch Dogs seems impossibly well-timed for the year of Edward Snowden.

Perhaps because two new consoles are coming out nearly simultaneously, the next few months seem to be the most unpredictable video-game autumn in memory. Can the gameplay in Watch Dogs possibly live up to its alluring premise? Will the military shooters Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 be hurt by a form of the blockbuster fatigue that afflicted moviegoers this summer? Will Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag mount a comeback for that series after last year’s divisive Assassin’s Creed III?

And many of 2013’s most-anticipated games won’t be playable at all on the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, the first Grand Theft Auto game in five years, will be released on Sept. 17 and can be played only on an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. Set in an immense virtual Los Angeles, the game features three criminal protagonists instead of the usual one, and players can switch freely among all three characters in the game’s open world. Rockstar says the world that it has built for Grand Theft Auto V is bigger than the ones inside Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption combined. I played Grand Theft Auto V for about four hours at Rockstar’s offices in SoHo last month, and it felt las if I only sampled the game’s possibilities.

Likewise, Batman: Arkham Origins, the third title in an exceptional series of games about that comic book hero, comes out Oct. 25 for PCs, PlayStation 3s, Xbox 360s and Wii U’s.

And Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls is a PlayStation 3 exclusive that stars virtual renditions of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. It lands on Oct. 8. Quantic Dream’s previous game, Heavy Rain, was a bold experiment in interactive storytelling, even if it didn’t entirely succeed.

Super Mario 3D World is the season’s most promising Nintendo game. For decades, Nintendo has often broken the rule of thumb that new consoles don’t ship with their greatest games. New Nintendo systems have been packaged with games like Super Mario Bros., Mario 64 and Wii Sports, after all.

But the Wii U, Nintendo’s newest console, went on sale last year and it is still waiting for its system-selling game. Super Mario 3D World, slated for Nov. 22, gives Nintendo reason to hope. It is being designed by the people behind the extraordinary Super Mario Galaxy games. For the first time since 1987’s Super Mario Bros. 2, players will be able to play as Princess Peach, rather than just saving her from a kidnapping. And now, the damsel can throw fireballs, too, just as Mario can.

There are also a number of intriguing games without scheduled release dates that might come out this fall but also might get pushed to 2014, including South Park: The Stick of Truth, a game for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 that has the close involvement of the TV show creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone; TheWalking Dead: Season Two, the sequel to Telltale Games’ acclaimed series of downloadable episodes inspired by Robert Kirkman’s comic books; and Silent Enemy, a game about bullying from Minority Media, the independent studio that made Papo & Yo, my favorite game of 2012.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

Lenovo Vibe X joins the 5-inch Android 4.2 Fold

Lenovo trotted out its latest smartphone at IFA 2013, an Android 4.2 smartphone it's dubbed the Vibe X.

Joining others in the class of 5-inch 1080p HD screens, the Vibe X encases its large, gleaming display in a slim polycarbonate shell that measures 0.27 inch thick. Lenovo boasts about the Vibe X's laser-engraved 3D finish. From a specs perspective, the Vibe X's Gorilla Glass 3-topped display should look nice and sharp with a screen resolution of 440 pixels per inch.

Weight is also on the manufacturer's mind. Lenovo fancifully describes the 4.1-ounce device as the weight of five AA batteries.

Camera specs on the Vibe X are also sky-high: a 13-megapixel sensor with BSI for the back and a whopping 5 megapixels for the front-facing camera, an 84-degree wide-angle lens.

A 1.5GHz quad-core MTK 6589T processor serves as the Vibe X's engine, and the smartphone comes with 16GB of internal storage and 2GB RAM.

Going hands-on with the Vibe X, we were disappointed to see a slightly sluggish response when we were swiping through the phone's home screens and menus, despite the quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM.

The phone isn't out yet, so here's hoping Lenovo will iron those kinks out before the Vibe X hits ship shelves. It's rare to find a relatively high-spec Android phone that judders during use these days, so those issues ought to be addressed.

Source: http://reviews.cnet.com

Living With Lumia Google+ Hangout: Can an iPhone User Switch?

Want to find out what switching from the iPhone to Windows Phone 8 is really like? Join our Google+ Hangout at 3:00 p.m. EST today and ask away!

When I started the Living With Lumiachallenge earlier this week, I wanted to answer a fundamental question, "Can an iPhone user switch to Windows Phone 8?" I'm only three days into the experiment and the truth is, I don't know. There are aspects of Windows Phone 8 that I really like and there are other aspects that are driving me up the wall.

The most interesting part of this process for me, as a reporter, is the feedback from the community. There are lots of smartphone users on other platforms (not just iOS) that are interested in trying Windows Phone 8. The hold-up: knowing if their apps will work and if they can fit the system around their lives.

That's part of why we wanted to have a Google+ hangout so that we can have a discussion about the pros and cons of switching, I can get suggestions on the best apps to try and so I can answer your questions about the Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8.

Source: http://mashable.com

Lenovo Brings Yoga's Fun Design to Its 'Serious' ThinkPad Laptops

Lenovo may be the No. 1 PC maker in the world, but it got most of the way there by selling brick-like ThinkPad people were "issued" by their employer, not machines consumers would actually buy. The sleek IdeaPad Yoga changed things, however, and now that laptop's inspired design has earned a place in Lenovo's business line with the ThinkPad Yoga.

Just like the consumer version (now the Yoga 2 Pro), the ThinkPad Yoga has a fully articulating screen hinge that lets it "transform" between four modes: laptop, tablet, display and tent. But the ThinkPad Yoga tweaks the design in some key ways. First, there's the ThinkPad's signature red TrackPoint nub in the middle of the keyboard. Also, buyers have the option of a hard disk or solid-state drive for storage (it as just an SSD on the original).

But the biggest change is how the tablet handles tablet mode. With the consumer Yoga (and Yoga Pro), the keyboard is automatically disabled when the screen swings past 180 degrees, but the keys were still depressable, which Lenovo says felt a bit weird for some customers. The ThinkPad Yoga softens this problem by locking the keyboard when in tablet mode. Also a pair of tiny "feet" extend from the bottom to ensure the keys don't get dragged.

I got a little hands-on time with the ThinkPad Yoga, and came away liking it. It's pretty thin (0.74 inch) and light (3.48 pounds) as ThinkPads go, which is a plus. The flexible Yoga design translates well to the ThinkPad, and holding it in tablet mode, I thought the locked keyboard gave me a more confident grip.

As innovative as the Yoga's hinge is, the number of workplace scenarios where it'll be useful is probably fairly limited. If you're like me, and your work laptop is connected to a workstation 95% of the time, you probably won't be needing the multiple "modes" all that much. But for on-the-go workhorses who want all their "stuff" in one machine, it could have real value.

The ThinkPad Yoga runs a fourth-generation Intel Core processor ("Haswell") and the screen is 12.5 inches. It can be either HD (1,280 x 720) or full HD (1,920 x 1,080).

Of course, it also comes packing the same ThinkPad security features as well as the line's OneLink port, which lets users consolidate all connections — including USB, HDMI and power) through a single connector to an external hub (optional, $120). Subtle change: the wireless "kill switch" is now a function key and not on the side.

 Source: http://mashable.com

Google Launches ‘Chrome Apps’ for When the Web Falls Short

Ever since Google and its hardware partners launched the first Chromebooks in 2011, they’ve argued that a browser-based operating system could be enough to serve your computing needs.

Now it’s the fifth anniversary of the Chrome web browser, and Google is admitting, in a sense, that the first Chromebooks were a little too idealistic. The company has just launched “Chrome Apps,” a set of applications that run within the Chrome browser, but look and behave like the kind of apps you’d see on a tablet or PC. You can find these apps in the Chrome Web Store on both Windows and Chrome OS, with Mac support coming in about six weeks.

“Our hope really is to dispel the notion that Chrome OS is just a web browser,” Erik Kay, a product lead on Chrome Apps, said in an interview. “We always thought that just a web browser was actually not a bad thing–it’s immense and powerful–but there are legitimate uses that people … can’t do today on their Chromebooks, and our hope is to really open that up.”

This is not Google’s first attempt at offering apps in Chrome. In 2010, the company opened the Chrome Web Store, with the goal of promoting websites that were app-like in nature. Some of these apps even worked offline.

But Chrome Apps go a little bit further. They open up in their own windows without the usual address bar and browser navigation buttons. They support additional features such as USB and Bluetooth device connectivity, and they’re all made to work without an Internet connection.

“There are some things the web can’t do, and so in order to make it a full-featured desktop operating system we needed to bring richer app capabilities to Chrome OS,” Kay said.

A few examples: Pocket lets you save articles from around the web and read them offline in a low-clutter format; Pixlr Touch Up lets you crop, resize and tweak photos without an Internet connection; Until AM is a DJ app for mixing local and online music files; and Cracking Sands is a racing game with Xbox 360 controller support.

It’s sort of weird to hear people from the Chrome team extol the virtues of offline, native apps, and I do wonder if some of the purity of Google’s browser-based operating system is being lost. Why bother with Chrome OS if it’s just going to become another app-driven operating system? For that matter, why use Chrome apps on a Windows PC or Mac when those platforms already have their own app stores?

Kay insisted that the team’s philosophy hasn’t changed. The allure of Chrome, he said, is that users can work in the browser on multiple devices–Mac, PC or Chromebook–and have all their apps and data travel with them. Chrome provides app developers with tools to enable that kind of syncing across devices. “These apps are still going to be cloud-enabled by default,” Kay said.

Google also brushes off the notion that it’s trying to supplant the open web with its own native apps. “We are not trying to have every bit of functionality people can imagine be running on our platform,” Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, the lead product manager for Chrome Apps, said in an interview. “We want to make sure we exist and interoperate seamlessly with the web.”

On some level, I agree. Several Chrome Apps, such as Pocket’s offline reader and The Economist’s slick new app, weren’t available in the browser before, and Chrome now gives these developers a platform to work with. That’s good for users, and good for Google.

But I still remember being idealistic about web apps that worked in any browser, not just Chrome, and thinking they might some day have all the capabilities of native apps. To hear Google’s Chrome people admit that web apps aren’t always enough–well, it’s a strange new direction as Chrome turns five.

Source: http://techland.time.com