AllThingsD » computer

Can These iPad Apps Teach Your Kid to Code?

Lauren Goode — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:00:20 +0000

The pillars of elementary education in the U.S. — reading, writing, math — have remained the same for a long time. Now another skill set is increasingly coming into focus: Computer programming.

This week, I tested two new mobile apps, Kodable and Hopscotch, that are aimed at teaching young children the basic skills necessary for computer programming. Both are for iOS — specifically, for iPad — although Kodable plans to introduce an Android version of the app. And both are free to download, but Kodable does include advanced levels that cost $1.99 to access.

What is programming, exactly? Also called coding, it’s the execution of different languages that make computer software, websites and mobile apps run. A series of symbols, like text, are grouped together to imply or prompt something else. A very common example of this is the use of a semicolon to signify a break in a line of code. There are also visual programming languages, which use graphical blocks of code.

Coding tools for kids and beginners are hardly a new thing, but many earlier applications are browser-based, while these apps capitalize on the gravitational pull that tablets seem to have on kids.

[ See post to watch video ]

Kodable, which launched late last year, is aimed at kids in kindergarten through second grade. It takes a levels-based game approach, reminding me in some ways of a popular app called Cargo-Bot, which lets you move cartoon robotic arms using commands. Or, think Angry Birds, except instead of slinging birds through the air using your finger, you’re moving a fuzzball using arrow commands. Kodable also sprinkles game coins throughout the app as an incentive.

I found it easy to get the hang of Kodable, which is based on Basic, an early and simple programming language. But to say it teaches “coding” is a stretch. It more or less teaches kids how to think logically to get an object moving.

Hopscotch, on the other hand, is more advanced, aimed at kids age 8 and up. It’s based on Scratch, a visual programming language created at MIT. Hopscotch offers colorful blocks of code with which to execute a program on what is basically a blank slate. This means Hopscotch can be as easy or as difficult as you make it, but it also works under the assumption that you already know some programming basics.

Since I’m a few years beyond fourth grade at this point, it’s tough for me to approach these apps exactly as a child would. But I’ve never learned to code, so I can claim beginner status there. Hopscotch was definitely more challenging for me than Kodable was. But I learned more about actual coding from Hopscotch.

Let’s start with Kodable, and then “graduate” to Hopscotch. Once you get past the intro animation with ambient music (maybe meant to lull kids into a total state of relaxation and quietude? Parents and teachers can only wish …), you’re asked to enter your name. From there, you’re taken to a “Smeeborg” of unlocked levels.

Kodable’s main character is a blue fuzzball with eyes and a mouth. There’s a short course laid out for you, littered with coins; as the levels progress, the course gets more maze-like. On the upper right there is a toolbox with arrow keys. On the left, there’s a “script” area where, using the iPad’s touchscreen, you drag the arrow keys to create a command. With each new level of difficulty, a small cartoon hand will simulate the commands for you to give some guidance, but that’s all there is in terms of tutorials.

I dragged a sequence of arrows over to the script and hit the play button. My fuzzball made it through the course, and I went on on to the next level.

I made it through about a dozen levels on Kodable, even unlocking a new fuzzball named Simon Fuzz — he’s green and wears hipster glasses — before I found out that by swiping to the left I could skip to new areas in the game. These are called Function Junction and Bugs Below. Each costs $1.99 and contains 30 new levels of varying difficulty. For example, Function Junction teaches you to create a second sequence of arrow commands under the one you’re already using.

Kodable says it plans to add more curriculum-like education features to the app in the next couple months, including vocabulary exercises, so kids can learn programming words. I think Kodable on the whole could be a bit richer, but I like the app, and there’s no cost to download it and try it.

On to Hopscotch: This app takes you through a quick tutorial at the start, showing how to put together blocks of code to program a little monkey to draw a line. At the top of the app is a plus sign that allows you to choose from one of 10 different cartoon characters, including the monkey. Then, there are “method blocks” of programming on the left, including commands like “move,” “rotate,” “leave a trail,” “repeat” and “scale by.”

You drag these blocks to an empty script on the right, building them on top of one another and squeezing commands in between other commands the way you might play Tetris. Then, you can choose different prompts from a dropdown menu. So, for example, I could tell the app to execute the program I built when I tap the character, or when I shake the iPad, or when I simply press play.

For my first project, I attempted to make a space pod draw a line. I got the space pod to move across the screen, but it didn’t leave a line trail as I thought it would. I tried the same thing with a cupcake character, but still, no line drawn. In another project, I made a gorilla run around the border of the app, scaling up in size every time he turned a corner, but again, I was missing something.

This is where a “debugging” mode — something that lets you see the code being executed in real time to help you pinpoint your errors — would help; Hopscotch says it’s considering adding this feature.

I finally asked the app’s co-creator what I was doing wrong. It turns out that I was putting certain movement-specific blocks outside of the C-shaped “leave a trail” block, instead of inside of it. This kind of troubleshooting might be obvious to some people, but it just didn’t click for me without some basic knowledge of how visual programming languages work. In addition to the debugger, Hopscotch plans to build out more tutorials for this exact reason.

After I completed projects, I could save and share my work with others via email. I still need to hone my Hopscotch skills before I deem anything shareable, but I’ve seen projects by others that are pretty creative, including a chess game in which the Hopscotch characters represent different chess pieces.

These are just two apps in the growing area of coding apps for kids, but both offer value for beginners at varying stages of their learning processes.

Dell Laptop Does Flips to Try to Be a Thick Tablet

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 01:03:06 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Welcome to another in our series of reviews on efforts by Windows PC makers to make laptops that are also tablets, with very little success. This time, the attempt comes from Dell and is especially creative, and even kind of cool. But as with many other convertible laptops, it still results in a computer that’s a perfectly fine laptop, but a thick, heavy tablet.

Dell has been in the news lately mainly due to a proposed corporate restructuring, but that topic won’t be addressed here. The company still makes PCs for consumers. So I have been testing its flagship convertible, the XPS 12, a Windows 8 Ultrabook that starts at a pricey $1,200, and has a vivid, bright 12.5-inch touchscreen.

To turn the XPS from a laptop to a tablet, push the bottom of the screen from the back and spin it around to the opposite direction.

What makes the XPS 12 notable is the method Dell has chosen to enable it to morph from a clamshell laptop to a tablet. While other companies have resorted to slider mechanisms, or hinges that require bending or twisting the whole lid, Dell has created a flip screen. The screen pivots within the frame of the lid to either face toward the keyboard, or away from it.

When the XPS 12 is in the classic laptop position, you just push in at the bottom of the screen from the rear and it spins around so the screen faces in the opposite direction. You then close the lid and the touchscreen is facing up, ready to be used as if it were a tablet. To return to laptop mode, you open the lid and reverse the screen-flipping process. When you flip the screen from one position to the other, it snaps back into the aluminum frame of the lid firmly and reassuringly.

I found this method easy and reliable, and commendably innovative from a company that hasn’t historically been hailed for industrial design. I found it a bit quicker and less of a hassle than some of the other mode-shifting techniques I’ve tested.

Then, close the lid so the screen is facing up.

However, as with all of its competitors I’ve tested that don’t completely separate the screen and the keyboard, the XPS 12 doesn’t make for a very usable tablet, both for hardware and software reasons. The hardware weighs 3.35 pounds, more than double the weight of the heaviest iPad. At its thickest point, it’s twice as thick as an iPad. It’s also much larger.

The XPS 12 was uncomfortable to use as a tablet, in my hands or lap, for long periods. Like its convertible rivals, it is, at best, a standard laptop that can be occasionally used in tablet mode, preferably on a desk or table.

And then there’s the software. Although it’s now six months old, Microsoft’s Windows 8, in my view, hasn’t made much progress in improving its tabletlike aspect, the Start Screen. Its core Start Screen apps, like email and calendar, while improved, are still crude. The latest insult: You can no longer directly sync Google calendar data to the new Windows 8 calendar app. And its store still lacks key apps common on Apple and Android tablets, such as an official version of Facebook, or the popular news app, Flipboard.

As a traditional laptop, the XPS 12 does better, but still has drawbacks, especially when it comes to battery life.

Its strongest point is the screen, which is especially bright, crisp and very responsive to the touch. It has a sturdy body, partly made of carbon fiber. It was able to run everything I threw at it, handily and speedily. This included not only Microsoft programs, like the latest version of Microsoft Office, but traditional desktop programs from competitors, such as Adobe Reader, Google’s Chrome and Apple’s iTunes.

On the Start Screen, it ran tablet-type, full-screen apps like Twitter, Kindle, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Dell has cut way back on the amount of craplets — unwanted software or trials and come-ons — it preloads on this machine.

However, partly because of the flip mechanism and the hidden components needed to make it work, the XPS 12 is heavier and thicker than the largest MacBook Air, which starts at the same price and has a bigger screen, at 13.3 inches.

Battery life is a big downside on this Dell. In my tough laptop test, where I turn off power-saving software, crank up the screen to 100 percent, leave the Wi-Fi on to collect email, and play a continuous loop of music, the XPS 12 lasted just 3 hours and 31 minutes. That’s awful compared with the 6 hours and 13 minutes I got on the 13-inch MacBook Air in the same test.

In more normal use, with power-saving on, I suspect you could get 4 to 5 hours on the XPS 12, but that’s still nothing to write home about.

And there’s one more issue with this Dell: Available storage. Of the 128 gigabytes on the solid state drive, only 102 were available to me out of the box. Dell explains this is because of things like the space claimed by Windows 8, and an Intel system that guarantees fast starting and resuming.

One consideration for consumers buying any Dell product is the company’s proclaimed strategy to cater mainly to business customers. But Dell executives insisted they remain committed to the consumer market.

Dell deserves credit for a clever flip screen design in the XPS 12. But it’s very hard to make a computer that’s both a great laptop and a great tablet, even if the operating system contains elements of both.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

A PC and Tablet "Brick" for the Price of One

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:13:35 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Just because two things work well on their own doesn’t mean they’ll be great together. Think spaghetti and ice cream, or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. In the tech world, companies regularly try to combine two or more products into one device. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail.

This week, I reviewed an example of the latter. I tested Asus’s Transformer AiO, a $1,300 PC available April 12 that offers dual functionality in both its software and its hardware. It’s an all-in-one desktop computer with a wireless keyboard and mouse that runs Windows 8 and, with the press of a button, switches to running Google’s Android operating system, Jelly Bean 4.1.

As the Transformer’s name suggests, it also transforms into another device: Pull up on the PC screen to separate it from its stand and it becomes a tablet you can move around the house. It has a handle and a kickstand for propping up on flat surfaces. Like the desktop version, the tablet runs two systems: Windows 8 Remote and Jelly Bean 4.1.

Though this concept sounds smart, it’s laughable in practice. The screen measures a whopping 18.4 inches diagonally and weighs an arm-straining 5.3 pounds. Apple’s iPad screen measures 9.7 inches and weighs 1.4 pounds; Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 has a 7-inch screen and weighs 0.8 of a pound. At home, carrying this around and using it on my lap elicited fits of laughter from my husband. When I flipped the tablet into vertical mode, it looked like I was reading from a giant, stone tablet. And in Android mode, the tablet’s battery only lasted five hours.

So where does this Asus Transformer AiO fit in? In tablet mode, I propped it up on my kitchen island to watch a YouTube video while cooking, and though the giant screen took up a lot of space, its display looked sharp and didn’t force me to lean down to the screen as much as I do with my iPad. Some people may prefer making Skype video calls on the front-facing camera of this movable screen rather than using a stationary computer. Families might even gather around this tablet to play a digital coffee-table game. As an all-in-one desktop PC, this Asus works fine.

But as a desktop and a tablet, the dual software systems made me scratch my head. I found myself forgetting about Windows 8 while I used Android and vice versa. I’m willing to bet that most people will stick to one operating system rather than frequently switching back and forth.

In either tablet or PC Station mode, above right, the Asus Transformer AiO runs Windows 8 and Jelly Bean 4.1. Left: Pull up on the PC screen to separate the screen from its stand and it becomes a heavy tablet you can move around the house.

In my harsh tablet battery test, where I play a constant loop of video with the screen set to 75 percent brightness and Wi-Fi on to retrieve email in the background, I got almost exactly five hours, which is Asus’s official battery life estimate.

The Android and Windows operating systems each have their own independent storage, so if you save something on one system, it won’t be saved on the other. Asus calls the Transformer’s desktop stand the “PC Station.” The model I tested runs on Intel’s midrange Core i5 processor and offers a one-terabyte hard drive. The tablet runs on Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor and comes with 32 gigabytes of storage. I didn’t notice any significant lag in either one of these modes.

The PC Station is loaded with five USB ports, four that use the newer USB 3.0 technology and one that uses USB 2.0, but this USB 2.0 port is designed for a small Bluetooth dongle that corresponds with the included Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I liked typing on the keyboard’s Chiclet-style keys, and the flat mouse gives clever haptic feedback where a mouse wheel appeared on older models. The PC Station also has speakers, a slot for three types of memory cards and a DVD drive.

The Asus Transformer tablet also has speakers, though I found these weren’t nearly as strong as those built into the PC Station. It, too, has a memory card reader for MicroSD cards, just in case you wanted to offload some photos and didn’t have the tablet in its PC Station stand. It also has a mini USB 2.0 port. The tablet’s front-facing camera worked fine in Android mode; in Windows mode the camera failed, but Asus said this would be fixed before the Transformer is out next month.

I was relieved this 5.3-pound, 18″ x 12″ tablet didn’t have a rear-facing camera. I’d get a bicep workout just from holding this thing up to take a photo, and I can imagine the strange looks I would get from passersby.

The Asus Transformer tablet can’t be discreetly tucked away on the lower shelf of a coffee table; it’s massive. After using it for a little while one night, and then letting it just sit on my lap, I had to move it to the floor five minutes later because it weighed so much.

If you move the tablet too far away from the PC Station and you’re running the Windows operating system, it will automatically switch to Android tablet mode. An Asus spokesman said this shouldn’t be a problem within 30 to 65 feet of the PC Station on most setups.

Asus tried to kill two birds with one stone when it created the Transformer AiO, but wound up building a giant brick. Your best bet is to stick to a traditional PC that does one thing well.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Weighing In on Wi-Fi Scales

Lauren Goode — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:00:46 +0000

Over the past week, I’ve been posting my weight all over my social networks. It’s not a sick joke, and I haven’t been hacked, as some concerned friends suggested after seeing updates like “My weight: 124.3 lb. 5.9 lb to go” on Facebook and Twitter.

The too-much-information blasts were part of my test of Withings WS-30 and the FitBit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale, two high-tech scales that measure your weight, body mass index (BMI) and, in some cases, body fat percentage. Digital scales have long offered these measurement categories — and often cost less than the scales I’ve been testing — but a growing trend is the ability to wirelessly share this health data to smartphones and your social networks, with apps that analyze the data for you.

Some might cringe at the idea of sharing their weight, but for others the social sharing can be motivating, especially around the time of New Year’s resolutions. Whether consumers opt to publicly share the data or not, these scales can still save the time of manually logging your weight into a notebook, smartphone or computer.

[ See post to watch video ]

You might know FitBit for its tiny, clip-on activity trackers that measure your movement throughout the day, and also your sleep patterns. The FitBit Aria scale began shipping in the U.S. in April of this year, and costs $130.

The WS-30, which launched in November, is the second scale made by France-based Withings; at $100, it costs $60 less than the company’s first scale.

The two I tested looked nearly identical, with all-white bodies and gleaming surfaces. But the more costly FitBit Aria scale measures weight, body fat and BMI, an estimated calculation of your body fat based on weight and height, and the Withings WS-30 measures just weight and BMI. The Aria relies solely on your home Wi-Fi network, while the Withings WS-30 adds a twist with Bluetooth options.

From left to right: The Withings WS-30 and the FitBit Aria Smart Scale.

With both scales, interoperability with software and other hardware can get confusing. The Aria shares data to FitBit apps on the Web, iOS and Android devices, while the Withings won’t have full Android compatibility until sometime in January. Both Withings and FitBit say they work with dozens of other health and fitness apps, though sometimes they pull the data in and sometimes they share it.

I experienced some minor glitches with both scales, but the FitBit Aria scale stood out to me because of its simplicity.

While testing the Aria scale over the past week, I also wore a FitBit One activity-tracking device ($100). A FitBit tracking device isn’t necessary to use the scale, but it does offer a bigger picture of your activities.

The Aria scale is powered by four AA batteries, which should last around six months, assuming four to five weigh-ins a day. Setting it up was easy. I signed up at FitBit.com, found the Aria scale listed as a device option, and downloaded the software I needed to get started. It asked me if I wanted to connect the scale with my home Wi-Fi network. Thankfully, I didn’t have to punch my ridiculously long home Wi-Fi password into the scale. I also downloaded the FitBit app onto my iPhone, and set a weight goal.

The top of the scale has a small, round display that greets you by your initials, flashes you a smiley-face emoticon, and shows your stats. The bottom of the scale, which has bumps like moguls on a ski slope, felt solid and sturdy.

I stepped on the scale, and it showed me a series of numbers. Then a “sync” symbol appeared on the display. When I checked FitBit on my iPhone and Web apps a minute later, my weight, body percentage and BMI data were all there.

The only issue I encountered with the FitBit Aria scale was that it didn’t always measure my body fat, as promised. A question mark would appear on the scale, and in those instances the body fat percentage didn’t show up in the FitBit apps, either.

FitBit notes that if you’re wearing socks or shoes, have wet feet, or if you’re wobbling on the scale, it could impact the measurement.

The FitBit app and Web site, where I viewed not only my weight data but also my activity levels from the FitBit tracker, are refreshingly simple to use. And FitBit allows integration with some other apps, too, so I was able to upload jogging data from my RunKeeper app into FitBit.com.

Those are not my feet.

The Withings WS-30 scale, which also uses four AA batteries, is slightly larger than the FitBit Aria scale, with a square display instead of a round one. It comes with four plastic stick-on feet that feel sort of cheap. There are two buttons on the underside of the scale: one for basic menu options, and one for Bluetooth connectivity.

Withings says it added Bluetooth tech to this scale so that people traveling with the scale wouldn’t have to rely on a Wi-Fi network to share their data to their iPhone. I personally wanted to avoid weighing in while I was traveling — and eating too much — during the holidays, but this is a useful feature for people who do travel a lot and want to constantly weigh in or need to send the weight data to a doctor. The Withings scale also shows little arrows on the display to guide your feet for an accurate reading.

The Withings scale had more quirks than the FitBit device. It inexplicably reverted back to kilograms once, even after I told it I wanted to weigh myself in pounds. My first few weigh-ins didn’t appear in the Withings Health Companion app for iPhone, even though they registered on my Withings account online. I had to log in and out of the mobile app a couple times to get this data to sync.

The Withings Web dashboard was also a lot busier than the FitBit Web site. There’s a standard dashboard and an enhanced one; both use a variety of charts and graphs to display weight data. Sloping colored lines showed that I was not, in fact, meeting my made-up weight goals.

Initially I cringed at the idea of broadcasting my weight. “Big dinner?” a friend joked after I tweeted my weight — a half-pound heavier than the night before. But others told me it was motivating. “I’m off to the gym now,” my sister-in-law wrote after seeing my weigh-in. Another friend text messaged and said she was hoping to achieve a weight goal similar to the one I had set for myself.

The social sharing is optional with both scales. So if you’d rather not broadcast your weight for fear of employers or marketers seeing it, you don’t have to.

Withings, like FitBit, could be synced with my RunKeeper app. And there’s a buried option to link the Withings scale to your FitBit account. In fact, Withings says it works in conjunction with more than sixty health and fitness apps.

In theory, it’s great that both Withings and FitBit will integrate this information. But it also makes things really complicated when you have to use several apps to get a comprehensive reading on your health. For example, I could use the Withings for weight, the LoseIt! app for calorie-counting and the Zeo app for sleep efficiency, but that’s a lot of apps. The FitBit scale, along with a FitBit tracker, offered weight, activity and sleep-tracking all in one app, with the ability to manually enter more info if desired.

Despite my almost-obsessive monitoring this week, I ended up gaining weight — something I’d blame on holiday food, and not on the scales. And despite its high price, I’d probably stick with the FitBit scale if I was going the Wi-Fi route.

Computing Pioneer Ada Lovelace Gets Deserved Google Doodle

Kara Swisher — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:14:42 +0000

Google does commemorative logos — called Google Doodles — pretty regularly now. But today, it’s a much-deserved tip-of-the-pen to celebrate the 197th birthday of Ada Lovelace, a woman who is one of computing’s earliest pioneers. She was a collaborator of Charles Babbage, designer of the ground-breaking mechanical computers — which he never actually built — the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. Lovelace’s notes on the Analytical Engine are considered to be among the first algorithms created; she also theorized about the larger potential of computers beyond mathematics, including to make music. All that with just a quill and some paper.

Making Sense of All the New Laptop Flavors

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 02:03:42 +0000

Just when you thought it was safe to shop for a new laptop, a fresh problem stands in the way of laptop buyers: Confusion. The shelves are now filled with shiny new PCs and Macs running revamped operating systems, but it’s suddenly more complicated to choose a new laptop, especially for Windows shoppers.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, for this year’s fall laptop buyer’s guide, I’ll focus on sorting out some of the muddle. As always, this guide is for consumers doing the most common tasks. It isn’t meant for corporate buyers or for hard-core gamers or serious media producers.

Windows, Mac Diverge Even More

There always have been some core differences among the many Windows laptops and Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops. Computer makers using Windows tended to offer much greater variety and lower prices, while Mac models had better software, were much less prone to viruses and were generally more reliable and elegant.

Now, with the release of the new Windows 8 operating system, there is an even more fundamental difference. MacBooks remain traditional laptops, controlled by touch pads and keyboards. Apple has kept the Mac separate from its touchscreen computer, the market-dominating iPad tablet.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro now comes in regular display and higher-priced Retina display.

But Windows 8 laptops combine the two approaches, with two different user environments in the same computer. One is the traditional Windows desktop mode, best used with a touch pad or mouse and a keyboard. The other is the Start Screen mode, which operates like a tablet, has tablet-like apps and is best used with a touch screen.

So, if you’re looking for a familiar laptop, focus on a Mac. If you like the idea of both approaches in one device, and can handle switching back and forth, pick a Windows 8 laptop.

Which Windows 8?

If you opt for Windows, it gets more confusing. Windows 8 comes in two versions, plain Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Laptops with the latter have a handful of extra features that make it easier to connect with many corporate networks from home. So, if you need that ability, look for a laptop with the Pro version.

But there is an even trickier division. Some new Windows portables, like Microsoft’s first computer, the Surface, use a variant of Windows 8 called Windows RT. Regular Windows 8 lets you run all the traditional desktop programs in Windows 7, like Microsoft Office 2010, Chrome, Quicken or iTunes. However, RT doesn’t run these common programs. Windows RT machines mostly run the new tablet-type apps that work in the Start Screen. They come with a special version of Microsoft Office, but it omits Outlook. So, if you want to use old Windows programs, don’t buy an RT machine.

Microsoft’s Surface RT uses a variant of Windows 8 called Windows RT, which doesn’t run most traditional desktop programs.

Touchscreen or Not

Windows 8 is a “touch first” operating system. It can be operated with a mouse or touch pad, but its newest, coolest component, the Start Screen, and the tablet-like apps sold for that environment via Microsoft’s online store, are best used with touch. And there are some traditional laptops, like Acer’s slender Aspire S7, with touchscreens to complement their touch pads and keyboards.

However, many if not most Windows 8 laptops available right now lack touchscreens. On a visit to a Best Buy store this week, I found the retailer promoting only three touchscreen Ultrabooks, slim, light, well-equipped Windows laptops. There were a few larger well-equipped touchscreen models and one low-end model. All the others used standard screens.

Because I believe Windows 8′s tablet-style mode works best with a touchscreen, I don’t advise buying a Windows 8 laptop without one.

Tablet or Convertible

Unlike Apple, Microsoft has no separate tablet operating system. Windows 8 was designed to run both tablets and standard computers. In my tests, I have found it runs well, maybe even best, on tablets, which can have add-on keyboards to handle traditional desktop programs. But there are a number of laptops, called convertibles, whose screens can flip, or slide, or twist, so they cover the keyboard and look like tablets.

Don’t rely on these convertibles for extended use as tablets. The ones I’ve seen are too heavy and bulky for more than occasional use in tablet mode. If you use a tablet heavily, stick with an iPad, an Android tablet, or a Windows 8 or Windows RT machine that’s actually a tablet.

Storage

Windows 8 and other system files appear to take up a lot more of your storage space than Windows 7. On the Lenovo Yoga laptop I reviewed last week, only 70 gigabytes of the 128GB of storage are available to the user. Get at least a 500GB hard disk or a 256GB solid-state drive.

Mac Confusion

Despite its new Mountain Lion operating system, the Mac hasn’t changed nearly as much as Windows has. There’s one version of the OS, for home and corporate use, and no stripped-down equivalent of Windows RT. While Mountain Lion borrows some features from the iPad, it doesn’t attempt to mimic a tablet.

However, Apple has redesigned its top MacBook Pro models, and introduced confusion. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch Pros now come in two versions: regular display and higher-resolution — and higher-price — Retina display. Be sure you need the extra pixels before opting for the latter.

Price

The least costly Mac laptop, the 11-inch MacBook Air, is still $999. And you can still buy some poorly equipped non-touchscreen Windows 8 laptops for about $300. In general, expect to spend between $600 and $1,000 for a well-equipped, thin and light touchscreen Windows 8 laptop.

Bottom Line

It’s an exciting time to buy a new laptop, especially for Windows lovers. But be careful to wade through the confusing options so you get what you need, nothing more or less.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Digital Interrogation

Voices — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:59:02 +0000

They knew everything about me … My computer was arrested before me.

– Taymour Karim, a Syrian anti-government activist and one of many hacking targets since the country’s rebellion began in 2011

Yoga PC Flips and Bends, but as a Tablet, It's Clumsy

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 02:04:06 +0000

Windows 8 presents a dilemma for PC makers. It contains two very different user interfaces: a touch-oriented, tablet-like one with clusters of tiles, full-screen apps and an on-screen keyboard; plus the traditional Windows desktop and apps, which are best used with a mouse or a touch pad and physical keyboard. So the hardware companies are trying to create laptops that work well with both environments.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I’ve been testing one of the most creative and best-known of these new laptops, the $1,000 IdeaPad Yoga 13 from Lenovo. It takes its name from the fact that, like a yoga practitioner, it can contort itself into multiple positions, some of them unusual, using a sturdy but flexible hinge.

The Yoga PC can look and work like a standard clamshell laptop, with an excellent keyboard at the front and its sharp 13.3-inch touch screen display behind it. Or it can be folded into tablet mode, with the keyboard hidden under the display, which faces up for tapping and swiping on it.

A third position, “stand mode,” turns the Yoga into a sort of mini-monitor for, say, viewing movies on an airplane, by allowing the screen to flip up from its base, with the keyboard behind it. And a final position, “tent mode,” stands the machine in an inverted V, with the slanted display facing toward you. In this mode, the screen is more rigid than in stand mode, so it’s better for tapping and swiping while doing active tasks, like scrolling through Web pages.

In its clamshell position, Lenovo’s Yoga works like a standard laptop.

I’ve been testing the Yoga for the better part of a week and I admire its creativity and the typical Lenovo quality with which it’s built. I found it did a good job with popular, traditional Windows programs, as well as the new-style, tablet-type apps. It is speedy and fluid, and relatively light and thin at 3.3 pounds and 0.67 inch thick. It runs the full version of Windows 8, which supports most existing Windows programs.

I also found some significant downsides to the Yoga. Despite its hefty price, it has limited storage, only fair battery life and lacks a backlit keyboard. In tablet and stand modes, the exposed keyboard is on the bottom, raising the possibility that it could attract moisture or dirt when on a sticky, dusty or wet surface. The keyboard is recessed slightly to mitigate this risk, and it is disabled in these modes. But I still worried about a naked keyboard being the bottom surface of a computer.

In its “tent mode,” center, the PC is better for tapping and swiping.

Worse, it has a bug which periodically disables key functions of the touch pad, such as two-finger scrolling and the ability to swipe on the touch pad to activate key Windows 8 features. Lenovo pledges to fix the bug, which it attributes to a mysterious interaction between the third-party touch-pad software it uses and Microsoft Office. But the company’s attempts to solve the problem during my testing failed.

If you’re considering buying the Yoga, I recommend checking to make sure the bug is fixed. Even though it has a touchscreen, the touch pad will be a more natural way for many people to navigate traditional desktop software.

The 13-inch Yoga I tested will be joined in December by a similarly flexible 11-inch model, which will start at $800. But this smaller, lighter model will run a variant of Windows called RT that — unlike the larger Yoga — doesn’t allow you to install any traditional Windows desktop apps. Though both machines can act either as laptops or tablets, Lenovo officials describe the larger model as notebook-centric and the smaller one as tablet-centric.

In fact, like a lot of competing Windows 8 laptops that can be converted in some way to lie flat like tablets, I found the Yoga 13 to be clumsy to use in tablet mode. It’s more than twice as heavy than the weightiest iPad and almost twice as thick. I tried reading an e-book with the Yoga in tablet mode and had to give up after a while because I just found it unwieldy as a tablet.

As a regular laptop, however, it performed well, except for the touch-pad bug. All the new tablet-style apps worked smoothly and swiftly. And I easily installed and successfully ran some of the most popular desktop programs, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook; Google’s Chrome browser; Apple’s iTunes; and Adobe Reader.

You won’t be able to store much data on the Yoga, however. It is only available with a 128 gigabyte solid-state drive, and, shockingly, only 60 gigabytes of that is available to the user — the rest is occupied by system files. Lenovo will soon be increasing available storage to 70GB, but that is still paltry. An optional 256GB drive also is in the works, but it will cost at least $100 extra.

Its “stand mode” turns it into a mini monitor good for movie viewing.

In my harsh battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, crank the screen to 100 percent brightness, leave on the Wi-Fi to collect email and play music until the battery dies, the Yoga 13 lasted just 4 hours and 31 minutes. By contrast, Apple’s similar-size MacBook Air lasted just under 6 hours in the same test. In normal use, I suspect you might be able to squeeze between 5 and 5.5 hours out of the Yoga. The Yoga 13 configuration I tested, a special one made for Best Buy, uses a midrange Intel processor and has 4GB of memory. Models with more memory or faster processors cost up to $1,300.

This computer feels great in the hand. The case has a soft, matte feel, and the palm rest is covered in leather.

I salute Lenovo for design imagination. But the touch-pad bug, available storage and battery life, combined with the hefty price, make the Yoga 13 less than ideal.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

If Your Computer Cared About You (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:31:31 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

Back to School With Two Thin Laptops -- One Pricey, One Not

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 01:02:54 +0000

While many potential laptop buyers are waiting for the Oct. 26 release of Windows 8 and the new hardware designed to use it, not everyone can afford to tarry. Students going back to school, or folks whose computers desperately need replacing, are in the market now, and computer makers are bringing out new models to entice them.

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple has recently refreshed its laptop lineup and equipped it with a new version of its operating system called Mountain Lion. These Macs are excellent machines, well worth considering. But for people who prefer Windows PCs, there are new choices packaged with Windows 7, but upgradable later to Windows 8.

I tested two new Windows laptops, aimed at different ends of the market. One, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, is a high-end, thin and light Ultrabook model with a high price tag. The other, the Hewlett-Packard Envy 6 Sleekbook, is a handsome, midrange machine meant for the budget-conscious.

Both machines have their virtues. I much preferred the ThinkPad, from a design and performance standpoint, but it starts at a whopping $1,399 and is meant for people like business travelers with deep pockets. The HP delivers good value and a larger screen for a very attractive $599 starting price, and is meant more for students or people who are willing to trade price for somewhat slower performance, and greater bulk and weight.

Neither machine was very impressive in my battery tests, and the costly Lenovo did worse than the much more affordable HP.

The LenovoThinkPad X1 Carbon is a high-end Ultrabook that fits a 14-inch screen into the body of a 13-inch laptop.

Before getting into the details of each of these laptops, a word of caution is in order. Windows 8 is designed to work with touch-screen computers, and neither of these two laptops, nor most others on the market today, have touch screens. Microsoft says Windows 8 will still work fine with a standard, nontouch-screen laptop, and both Lenovo and HP assured me these models will handle Windows 8 well. But as I’ve said before, you’ll get more out of Windows 8 with a touch-screen PC.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon, available Aug. 21, pulls off an impressive feat: It fits a 14-inch screen into a body more typical of a 13-inch laptop. It weighs just 3 pounds, is less than ¾-inch thick, and is only about 13 inches long and 9 inches deep. It is eminently portable, easily usable on an airplane seat tray.

One reason for the machine’s light weight is that it uses carbon fiber, a strong but light material, for much of its tapered body, which is in the traditional ThinkPad black. It felt rugged and solid.

Not only has Lenovo crammed a larger screen into a small case, but it has endowed the screen with an especially high resolution of 1600 by 900. That means that more of a Web page or document is visible without scrolling than on some larger displays.

ThinkPads have long been known for great keyboards and the X1 Carbon is no exception. For this model, Lenovo has tweaked the keys to provide a larger top surface and greater separation. I found typing on this backlit keyboard to be a real pleasure.

The touchpad, which is made of glass, is 37 percent larger than on the prior model and the company says it will accommodate the gestures built into Windows 8. It was smooth and responsive in my tests.

The new ThinkPad handled every app or program I tested quickly and well. It doesn’t use a traditional hard disk, but instead relies on a solid-state drive — essentially flash memory — and was able to resume from sleep almost instantly. The downside of this is that you only get 128 gigabytes of storage in the base model.

I was disappointed that such a premium laptop was mediocre in my harsh battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, set the screen brightness to 100 percent, leave the Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background and play a continuous loop of music.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon got just four hours, one minute in this test, which means that in more normal use, you’d likely get about five hours. That is well below the company’s claim of 6.3 hours.

The Hewlett-Packard Envy 6 Sleekbook uses an AMD processor and has a design that makes the machine look lighter, with a red, rubbery bottom.

HP’s Envy 6 Sleekbook, available now, is an entirely different type of laptop. It costs less than half as much, but is a lot larger. It has a 15.6 inch screen, though with a lower resolution of 1366 by 768, so it actually displays less of a Web page or document without scrolling.

HP calls this laptop a Sleekbook, not an Ultrabook, because it uses an AMD processor, and Ultrabook is a term that applies to Intel-based laptops. The Envy 6 Sleekbook is almost 15 inches long and 10 inches deep and just under 0.8 inch thick. It weighs 4.5 pounds. It isn’t hard to carry, but if you’re used to a smaller, lighter laptop, there’s no mistaking the fact you’re lugging something bigger. The design makes the machine look lighter, with a black, brushed aluminum cover and a red, rubbery bottom.

In general, I found the Sleekbook to be a bit sluggish, though it handled every program properly. The touchpad also felt stiff, though the keyboard was fine. The desktop is marred by icons for trial software, especially games.

But the Sleekbook has some advantages beyond price. It boasts a 500 gigabyte hard disk, an HDMI port for connecting to a TV, and an Ethernet port for wired Internet connections — ports that the costlier Lenovo lacks.

The HP also outperformed the Lenovo on my battery test, clocking in at four hours, 40 minutes, which means you might get six hours in normal use. The company claims up to nine hours.

The X1 Carbon continues the tradition of the ThinkPad’s superior design and performance, and is a solid choice for those who can live with its price tag and middling battery life. The Envy 6 Sleekbook is a good choice for students, provided they want a heavier, larger laptop.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Happy 100th Birthday, Alan Turing. Love, Silicon Valley.

Kara Swisher — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 22:32:56 +0000

Although the circumstances of his death — considered a suicide, due to persecution over his being gay, although that conclusion has recently been disputed — were tragic, there is no question that computing owes a great deal to Alan Turing.

Britain’s math whiz and famed codebreaker would have celebrated his 100 birthday today. His theories that helped crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma code in World War II might be enough, but Turing pushed the boundaries on machine intelligence and algorithms to levels that changed technology.

The development of the modern computer — including work on the stored program concept — was born from many of his key insights.

No surprise, the doodle today on Google — a company that knows a thing or two about algorithms — today is in tribute to him, a version of Turing’s hypothetical computing machine.

Here it is:

And, if you want to learn more about this tech legend, visit the Web site of Bletchley Park, the location of the secret British codebreaking activities during WWII. Turing worked there, along with 10,000 others — including 5,000 women.

A Laptop Screen That Promises an Eyeful

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 22:35:51 +0000

Are you intensely disappointed by the resolution of your laptop screen? Didn’t think so. Yet, Apple thinks it could be better. This has long been a theme for the famed technology company: Find a product that people don’t think is all that flawed (early MP3 players) and replace it with a product so captivating (iPod) that they forget whatever came before it.

[ See post to watch video ]

The company continued its pattern last week with a new addition to the MacBook family: the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. This isn’t a laptop for average, mainstream consumers, but for pros and enthusiasts. (The MacBook Air, once an exotic niche, has taken over the mainstream role.)

I’ve been using this laptop over the past week, and my retinas are properly impressed, if that’s scientifically possible. Apple describes its Retina Display as such a high pixel density that a user’s eyes can’t see individual pixels on it. On this screen, colors pop, text seems crisper and image details — like light catching on water droplets — seem more pronounced. Its screen makes others look muted, including my regular MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air and two Windows PCs that I set up near it. On the downside, its battery life came up short in my tests, and its 15.4-inch-diagonal screen size is too big for some people’s taste.

The MacBook Pro with Retina Display is the first MacBook Pro to rely solely on flash storage and has an improved processor and graphics. This new build makes it thinner and over a pound lighter than a 15-inch MacBook Pro with a hard drive. It is only 0.03-inch thicker than the thickest edge of the slender MacBook Air. And its speakers sounded remarkably good as I blasted Latin and classical tunes throughout my living room.

Beauty and power like this come at a price. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display costs $2,200 for 256 gigabytes of flash or $2,800 for 512 gigabytes of flash, making it one of the most expensive MacBooks.

Meanwhile, prices have dropped for three of the four MacBook Air models, which, since their 2008 debut, have been thought of as the gold standard in ultra-thin laptop design. The least expensive, 11-inch MacBook Air remains at $1,000, while the other 11-inch and two 13-inch MacBook Airs have come down by $100 each. All MacBook Airs were updated with improved processors, graphics, faster flash storage and larger amounts of memory.

Apple says its MacBook Pro with Retina Display has such a high pixel density that a user's eyes can't see individual pixels on it.

Regular MacBook Pros without new screens were upgraded with features like new processors and faster graphics, and they start at $1,200 for a 13-inch or $1,800 for a 15-inch.

The MacBook Pro with Retina Display is the first MacBook Pro without a disc drive slot, though MacBook Airs never had one. The ports that remain include two USB ports (compatible with both USB 2 and the faster flavor, USB 3); an HDMI port for directly connecting this laptop to a TV; two Thunderbolt ports, which provide fast connections to external screens or data devices, and an SDXC memory card slot.

I don’t normally run half of the programs that a power user might, but this MacBook zoomed along as I used it for tasks like downloading music, importing dozens of high-resolution photos, opening over 30 tabs at a time in my Web browser and editing images in iPhoto and Aperture, Apple’s high-end photo editing software.

I also used it to record songs in Apple’s music program, GarageBand. It took less than seven seconds to open iPhoto and generate high-resolution thumbnail images for 183 12-megapixel images. In five seconds, it imported 42 of those images onto the computer. Using Aperture I edited a 43.6-megabyte, RAW (unprocessed) image with instant results. It started up in just a few seconds.

In my standard battery test, which I performed twice for accuracy, I got just over four hours each time, though Apple claims up to seven hours. My test taxes the computer more than a normal user and involves keeping Wi-Fi on, cranking the screen to full brightness, turning off all power-saving features, keeping email retrieval going in the background and playing an endless loop of music. Four hours of juice with this test likely means that a person using it more regularly would get 5 or 5 ½ hours of battery life.

When I used my own MacBook Pro after using the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, its screen appeared as if a thin, hazy film was floating on top of it. Apple says the 2880-by-1800 resolution of the Retina Display has more than five million pixels, or over four times that of the previous MacBook Pro and over three million more than an HDTV. Apple claims this computer’s screen cuts down on reflective glare by 75 percent. While I did notice less glare when I compared it to other glossy screens, sunlight did affect it.

It’s no surprise that Apple’s newest product improves on its last. This move to a better screen, all-flash storage and the elimination of a physical slot for discs shifts the company ahead in its typical, pack-leading style. Power users will be thrilled by the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Average users will now consider the MacBook Air more seriously.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Mobile App Bump Can Now Push Photos to Your Desktop

Mike Isaac — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:00:01 +0000

Bump Technologies launched a new Web site feature on Thursday morning, allowing Bump’s mobile app users the ability to share smartphone photos to their computers by physically bumping the phone against the PC keyboard. The photos are hosted online, and users can choose to download the images to their hard drive or share them using a short URL. Previously, Bump’s mobile app allowed for sharing photos and contact information between mobile phones, but not directly to a computer.

Permission to Procrastinate: Wait to Get a New Laptop

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:13:10 +0000

If you’re thinking of buying a new laptop this spring, my advice is to think again. Unless your laptop is on its last legs and you have to move quickly, there are compelling reasons to wait until at least the summer, and probably the fall, to buy a new machine, especially if you are looking for a Windows PC, but even if you are in the market for a Mac.

[ See post to watch video ]

That makes this annual spring buyer’s guide a bit different. People always worry that buying tech products today carries a risk of obsolescence. Most of the time, that fear is overblown. But this spring really is a bad time to buy a new laptop, because genuinely big changes are due in the coming months.

On the PC side, Microsoft is set to introduce Windows 8, the most radical new version of Windows in years, probably in the fall. PC makers will be introducing new laptop designs to take advantage of it. While Windows 8 will work with a mouse or touch pad and a keyboard, it will be heavily oriented toward tablet-type touch-screen navigation. Many PC makers are planning convertible Windows 8 models for the holiday shopping season that can act as either tablets or regular clamshell laptops.

If you buy a traditional Windows 7 laptop now, Microsoft says it will very likely be upgradable to Windows 8, but you won’t find the new styles of laptops on store shelves now. Even if you buy one of the rare touch-screen laptops now, Microsoft says it will likely work with the touch features of Windows 8, but it may not be optimized to do a great job with the new software. Also, in my view, it is always better, especially with Windows computers, to buy a new machine if you want a new version of Windows.

On the Mac side, Apple also is bringing out a new operating system, this summer. Called Mountain Lion, it won’t be as big a change as Windows 8, partly because Apple already has integrated a lot of touch gestures and tablet-type features into the Mac using the touch pad, and has given no indication it plans touch screens.

While current Macs will most likely be upgradeable to Mountain Lion, you risk missing out on new hardware if you buy a machine now.

However, Apple is overdue for redesigned laptops, especially in its MacBook Pro line, and it is a good bet that new, possibly heavily redesigned, models will begin appearing later this year. Current Macs will likely be upgradable to Mountain Lion, but if you buy now, you’ll miss out on the likely new hardware.

There is another factor that calls for waiting. Intel, whose processors are used by most Windows PC makers and by Apple, is on the verge of introducing a new family of chips, called Ivy Bridge, which the chip maker claims will offer much faster graphics performance without sacrificing battery life. While some Ivy Bridge laptops will be available very soon, the new chips won’t show up in large numbers of consumer laptops until around June. So, even before Windows 8 appears, many consumer laptops you buy now will be outclassed by similar machines that will be introduced this summer.

There is a silver lining. If you watch prices carefully, you may find bargains on Windows 7 laptops running the current Intel processors — which are plenty capable — as the newer models get closer. And PC makers are likely, at some point, to offer free upgrades to Windows 8.

With all of that in mind, here is a cheat sheet to choosing a laptop now, if you must. As always, these tips are for average consumers doing common tasks — email, Web browsing, social networking, general office productivity, photos, music, videos and simple games. This guide isn’t meant for corporate buyers or for serious gamers and media producers.

Tablet or laptop

Tablets can reduce your reliance on a laptop and allow you to wait to buy a new one. Tablet users often find they use their laptops less often for daily tasks like email, Web browsing, or social networking.

Windows 8, the most radical new version in years, will likely be out this fall, accompanied by new PC designs.

Price

Windows PC makers are trying to nudge up the price of their laptops, since they feel they make too little profit on them. You can buy a stripped-down Windows laptop for under $300 and an adequate model for around $500. But a well-equipped model typically runs between $600 and $900. The cheapest Mac laptop, the 11-inch MacBook Air, costs $999, and prices quickly climb to $1,200.

Windows vs. Mac

Windows 7 laptops offer more variety in styles, and often more ports and larger hard disks, at less cost. But Apple laptops are sturdy, sleek and offer better built-in software. They have excellent customer support and can even run Windows, at an extra cost.

Also, Mac users have only the rare virus to contend with, while Windows users must worry about hundreds of thousands of potential attacks. Finally, Apple’s slim, light, speedy MacBook Air, which starts at $999, is a gem. It isn’t only a great traveling machine, but it can be used as your main machine.

Ultrabooks

Nearly every PC maker now has a MacBook Air-type model called an Ultrabook. I have yet to find one that is quite as good as the Air, especially on my battery tests. But I like the ultrabooks a lot, and think most consumers will, too. The main downsides to the ultrabooks are that they are relatively pricey — some top $1,000 — and have less storage. Like the Air, most use fast solid-state drives instead of hard disks, and these top out at just 256 gigabytes.

Memory

Get at least 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new Windows computer. On a Mac, you can get away with 2 gigabytes, but 4 GB is better.

Processors

Intel’s chips — even the new ones coming soon — are called the i3, i5, and i7. An i5 is fine for most consumers, and even an i3 will do. But a laptop with chips from AMD is also fine.

Graphics

Usually cheaper machines have weak graphics hardware and costlier ones have better graphics. Better graphics can make a machine faster.

Hard disks

A 500 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, except bargain and very light models. As always, be wary of sales pitches and don’t buy more laptop than you need.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Searching for a Mighty Mouse? Here Are Three Options.

Lauren Goode — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:01:22 +0000

Even in an increasingly trackpad-and-touchscreen-driven computing world, I’m pro-mouse. There’s something to be said about the precision that comes with a computer mouse, and about the comfort of using one for extended periods of time, versus hunching over the limited real estate of a laptop trackpad.

But, admittedly, my last mouse was a low-tech, corporate-issued, clunky thing. So I’ve been exploring a whole new world of mice. Many modern mice have taken cues from Apple’s wireless Magic Mouse, which has a multi-touch surface for easy swiping through functions like scrolling up and down a Web page or document, or minimizing and maximizing browser windows with a simple flick of your fingers.

For the past five days, I’ve been playing with three mice that are compatible with Windows 7 computers: Microsoft’s Touch Mouse, Logitech’s new m600 Touch Mouse and HP’s X5000 wireless mouse with touch scrolling. While HP’s mouse comes at the much more reasonable price of $40, it isn’t a full multi-touch mouse and is bulkier than the others. The entrants from Microsoft and Logitech are pricey — $79.95 and $70, respectively — but have multi-touch capabilities and sleeker designs.

All three mice are easy to set up. In each case, I turned on the mouse and just plugged its USB adapter into my laptop, which the machine quickly recognized.

The Microsoft Touch Mouse was my favorite in terms of design. Some new mice on the market have funky shapes, high arcs, or are almost flat. I found that the Touch Mouse was a nice blend of modern tech appeal with a curved mouse feel.

The Touch Mouse measures 2.4 inches in width and 4.7 inches in length — roughly the size of an iPhone. It was longer than the other two mice I tested, but I liked the extra real estate under my fingers. It has tiny laser-etched marks on its front half, to create a little more traction. There’s also a limited edition “artist” version of the mouse, which is white and has a calligraphy-like design.

Since it’s a multi-touch mouse, that means a one-finger swipe on the surface works like an old-school scrollwheel for navigating up and down a document or Web page. Swiping two fingers down minimizes a Web-browsing window. For people like me who are used to two-finger swiping on a laptop trackpad to move up and down a page, this can take some getting used to.

[ See post to watch video ]

A three-finger swipe presented all of my Web browsers and open apps in a Windows instant-viewer format on the desktop. Also, swiping two fingers from side to side “snapped” my current window to the side and allowed me to open up another window next to it.

One tiny part of the Touch Mouse I found to be useful: It has storage space on the underside of the mouse for the USB connector, which frequent travelers will appreciate. It’s easy to lose these mouse connectors, especially if your bag of gadgets, wires and dongles looks like mine.

In terms of battery life, Microsoft says the mouse will run for three to six months, depending on usage habits. It uses two AA batteries.

The Touch Mouse, as with the others I reviewed, is meant to be compatible only with Microsoft Windows. But this isn’t entirely true — my Mac laptop recognized each mouse’s USB connector as a keyboard accessory, and I could still move the cursor with each mouse. I was also able to use the touch surfaces of the mice — or in the case of the HP mouse, the touch strip — to swipe up and down pages on the screen. In the case of the Touch Mouse, functionality on the Mac was limited. For example, I could swipe up and down, but not snap my windows to the side.

Microsoft has also said the Touch Mouse will be compatible with Windows 8, the upcoming operating system that is expected to launch by the end of this year. The mouse’s horizontal scrolling function is actually meant to cater to the new Windows 8 interface.

Logitech’s Touch Mouse M600 is flatter than Microsoft’s Touch Mouse, measuring 2.52 by 4.41 inches, and is smoother to the touch. Its shape and glossy shell reminded me a bit of a giant bug. It’s mostly black, with a gray bottom half, and has barely perceptible squiggly designs along the edges of it, along with a Logitech logo, giving it a somewhat toylike appearance.

The M600’s swiping functions were pretty basic, and it doesn’t offer as many functions as the Touch Mouse. Whether I was using one finger, two or three, the M600 scrolled up and down the page I was on. I found these movements to be pretty smooth. I also felt like I could navigate my cursor more quickly with the M600, probably because it’s slightly lighter weight than the Touch Mouse.

The M600 does have one feature I really liked: Side-to-side swiping for Web browsing. Swiping my finger to the left brought me back to the previous Web page I was on; swiping to the right pushed me ahead to the next page.

The M600 also comes with a unifying USB dongle, which allows users to connect up to five other Logitech devices to the same tiny adapter.

As with the Microsoft Touch Mouse, the M600 should last for three to six months, depending on how many batteries you use. Logitech says two AA batteries will get you closer to six months.

The HP X5000 is the fattest mouse of the three, with the highest curve. Bulkiness aside, it’s got a smooth, tear-shaped plastic top, and its sides have a velvety feel.

The X5000 isn’t a multi-touch mouse. Instead, it’s got a touch-sensitive strip built into the mouse, right where a scroll wheel would be on an older mouse model. It also comes with the traditional right-side, left-side clicking functionality, which some users might appreciate. The tiny touch strip felt a little limited compared to the full-touch surfaces I’d been playing with on the other mice, but I did like the split clicking function.

The mouse also boasts a button that’s supposed to allow you to upload photos to Facebook with one click. In order for this to work, I had to install the software that came with the mouse, and allow the HP mouse’s app access to my Facebook account. Next, I had to open up a photo file on my computer, use the mouse’s Facebook-specific button to draw a square around my photo and create a preview file, and then indicate that I wanted to upload that photo to Facebook. The first time I tried this, the photo didn’t upload.

In my test, the whole experience really wasn’t as simple as “one click.” And while some users might like easy access to Facebook, the idea that distraction is one click away didn’t appeal to me. Maybe I’m just using Facebook less these days, or am more selective about the photos I upload to the site, but I’d welcome another productivity function over the Facebook button.

One of the X5000’s upsides is that it claims a super long battery life of 24 months with two AA batteries. And the USB dongle that comes with the HP X5000, like the Logitech mouse, will allow you to wirelessly connect up to four other HP devices to your laptop.

When it comes to these three mice, I found you get what you pay for. The Microsoft Touch Mouse was my top pick out of the three; Logitech’s M600 mouse is a very close second, and users who like a flatter, smoother design might prefer that one; and HP’s X5000 mouse falls short of what a modern mouse should be.

The Hottest Trend in E-Commerce? Clothes.

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:07:20 +0000

Apparel is the fastest-growing segment in e-commerce this year, thanks to new ways to display clothing online.

EMarketer predicts that the apparel and accessories category is expected to grow by 20 percent to $40.9 billion this year, up from $34.2 billion in 2011.

That beats the sale of books, music and videos, which have historically been considered the most dominant e-commerce categories — those are now expected to grow by only 18 percent to $20.4 billion this year.

The report published by the Internet market research firm today is the first time it has broken down its forecasts by category.

EMarketer attributed the gains in apparel to retailers’ improved methods for displaying products online that make purchasing clothes, in particular, less of a guessing game.

Some of the visual innovations are stunning.

For instance, Amazon.com’s MyHabit, a private sales clothing site, produces animated videos of models wearing the clothing for sale. The representations are so realistic, the fabric sways as the model struts and turns as if walking down a catwalk.

On the more whimsical side of innovations is eBay’s augmented reality app that allows users to “try on” a pair of sunglasses by layering them over a picture of their face.

But in addition to new display technology, there are also many more apparel sites for consumers to choose from. Over the last two years, the idea of private sales or flash sales — offering expensive, high-end fashion at steep discounts — has spread like wildfire.

Free shipping also plays a role since it removes some of the risk for consumers: If they don’t like a shirt or pair of pants, they don’t have to pay a fee for delivery back to the retailer.

Overall, the report is predicting another big year for e-commerce. It expects U.S. retail sales to grow 15.4 percent to $224.2 billion in 2012, which is higher than eMarketer’s previous forecast that called for e-commerce to grow 11.3 percent to $209.3 billion in 2012.

The biggest category in 2012 is expected to be computer and consumer electronics, which have a higher price point, and are expected to bring in a total of $48.6 billion.

Forget the Ultrabook -- Go With the New Commodore!

Lauren Goode — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 23:18:55 +0000

Why buy a modern computer with a standard operating system, keyboard and display, when you can buy a Commodore Amiga?

Commodore USA, the Florida-based start-up company that has been producing replicas of the popular Commodore computers of the 1980s, has introduced a new Commodore Amiga Mini, a 7.5-inch by 3-inch computer with an Intel i7 quad-core processor. Unlike the much, much earlier Amiga models, this one features two Wi-Fi antennae and Bluetooth capabilities.

This is clearly a product for, shall we say, enthusiasts. As with the original Amiga, the new version doesn’t come with a keyboard or display screen. It runs a Linux OS, and ranges in price from ~~$1,995 to $2,495~~ (see update below).

Commodore USA says it plans to serve up more nostalgia in aluminum housings. It will put out more Amiga models in the next month or so, timed around the anniversary of the release of the Commodore Amiga 1000 in April 1985.

In addition to the Amiga, the company has announced a new “supreme” C64x, with 4 gigabytes of memory, an Intel D27000 dual core processor and an Nvidia GeForce GT 520 graphics card for “enhanced gaming capability.” This one comes with a mechanical keyboard, WiFi and Bluetooth capablilities, and HDMI and USB ports, so there are some modern touches to this retro piece.

In 2010, Commodore USA put out a replica of the popular Commodore 64 computer due to “high demand” and lots of emails from C64 fans, Commodore USA CEO Barry Altman said at the time.

Update: A day after Commodore USA announced the new Amiga Mini, it lowered the price of the computer due to “overwhelming outpouring of customer comments, along with those posted on the major tech blogs”. The starting price point of the Amiga Mini is now $1495. At the high end, however, an Amiga with a 600 GB solid state drive and 16GB of memory will still cost $3000.

Sold Out! The $35 Raspberry Pi Mini-Computer.

Lauren Goode — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:29:16 +0000

The $35 Raspberry Pi, a credit-card-sized Linux-based computer originally created for educational purposes, has already sold out after it became available earlier today, following five years of research and development. The surge of traffic to Raspberry Pi’s Web site earlier today forced the company to temporarily put up a static page, where visitors have been directed to Twitter instead. The Verge reports that the $25 model of the mini-computer, which now will have 256 megabytes of RAM, is going into production “immediately.”

On Valentine's Day, Ol' Fashioned Phone Calls Beat Video Chat for Long-Distance Love

Lauren Goode — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:10:05 +0000

Turns out Stevie Wonder knew what was up when he just called to say he loved you: Out of all the means of digital communications available to us, the overwhelming majority of users plan to use a smartphone to connect with significant others today.

This is according to a new report from Rebtel, a Stockholm-based VoIP company and Skype competitor.

Of all the participants in Rebtel’s recent survey, 79 percent said they planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day in some way, with 56.8 percent indicating their significant other will be away from home today. A full 86.6 percent of those people said they planned to get in touch with their long-distance lover — which left us scratching our heads a bit about the remaining 13.4 percent who wouldn’t be getting in touch at all. But, hey, not everyone’s into hearts-and-flowers day.

When told they had to choose just one method for communicating with their S.O. away from home, here’s how respondents ranked them:

Mobile phone: 64.3 percent

VoIP calling: 15.4 percent

Landline call: 6.4 percent

Video chat: 4.6 percent

Email: 3.9 percent

SMS: 2.5 percent

Social networks: 1.8 percent

Instant Messenger: 1.1 percent

With lots of free or cheap VoIP calling options out there — Skype, Rebtel and Viber, to name a few — it’s somewhat surprising that VoIP service and video chats ranked so far below mobile phone calling, but many consumers might find it easier just to punch in a number, or simply might not be aware of some of the VoIP apps.

And it’s nice to see that face-to-face video chatting ranks somewhere above SMS text messaging, scribbling on a Facebook wall or sending an IM.

For those of you reading this with sinking stomachs — having just now realized that today is Valentine’s Day — there are a slew of last-minute applications to bail you out, or buy you some time while you search for real, live, analog gift ideas. Like Tom’s Love Letters, or Lovestagram, an Instagram plugin created by the girlfriend of the one of the founders of the popular photo app. You could also send a love-themed playlist from Spotify or Rdio.

There’s also a super-nerdy but fun Web application from Desmos that can draw personalized Valentines with an HTML5 graphing calculator. According to its creator, Eli Luberoff, anyone can choose a romantically-themed graph, add a caption, and then email or tweet it to their significant other. The premise: Math and love are the two universal languages — combined, who knows the power?

Lastly, you can always turn to 1-800-Flowers.com. Which, despite what its name suggests, doesn’t even require a smartphone. Have at it, dudes.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr/Gawen947)

White MacBook, It Was Good Living With You

Lauren Goode — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:16:45 +0000

It’s official: The white MacBook is now really, truly dead. Apple is said to have notified resellers that its white plastic 13-inch laptop will no longer be available to educational institutions. MacRumors first reported the news on Wednesday.

The white MacBook’s availability to the public actually ended last July, on the same day Apple introduced its new MacBook Air for just $999, but Apple had kept the distribution channel open for schools.

(Now, it seems, Apple would rather have those schools buy lots of iBooks-equipped iPads – or stripped-down MacBook Airs!)

As I sat here writing this, I realized that I have one of these relics lying unused on the desk next to me — or rather, next to my shinier, newer laptop.

First launched in 2006, the MacBook was, as AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg put it, a “low-end portable computer aimed at average consumers” — and the best-selling Macintosh in history.

I bought a 2007 model of the white plastic MacBook in early 2008, and it was the first Apple computer I’d used since my elementary-school computer classes, in which we used (I’m fairly certain) the Apple II. It had a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor! A glossy display! A built-in iSight camera! Six hours of battery life! Smooth, clean keys — and at five pounds it seemed so light (though hardly by today’s laptop standards).

But things change. And I eventually graduated to other laptops.

Oh, white MacBook: You couldn’t handle heavy video editing, and after a while, your battery wouldn’t hold a charge and your keys never, ever looked clean, no matter how hard we tried. But we did have some good times. Au revoir.

Vizio Jumps Into PC Fray

Ian Sherr — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:57:53 +0000

Vizio Inc., which shook up the market with inexpensive high-definition televisions, now wants to become a computer manufacturer.

The Irvine, Calif., company, which ranks as one of the top sellers of televisions in the U.S., plans to show a line of thin laptop computers and all-in-one desktop PCs running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Raspberry Pi, a Credit-Card-Sized Computer, Set to Launch

Lauren Goode — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:33:51 +0000

The Raspberry Pi, a credit-card sized computer that plugs directly into your TV via an HDMI input, is launching next month, following five years of research and development. Developed in the U.K. by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the $35 version of the device runs Linux, has a 700MHZ ARM 11 processor and 256MB of RAM, and features the first-person multiplayer video game Quake 3 Arena; the $25 version has similar specs, but with 128MB of RAM. Videogame veteran David Braben, the brains behind the Pi, has been quoted as saying he originally created the Pi for educational use.

HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang Talks Android, Smartphones and More: The Full AsiaD Interview (Video)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:10:11 +0000

We are now posting the full videos from the recent AsiaD conference, which took place in Hong Kong in October.

Over the next week or so, we’re going to follow the schedule of the actual event. Up now: HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang.

When Cher Wang co-founded the Taiwan-based company in the late 1990s, it made notebook computers. Now, HTC is all about smartphones and tablets — two of the fastest-growing consumer electronic segments in the world — in a close relationship with Google’s Android unit.

But HTC has also been considering using its own mobile operating system, and faces challenges from a myriad of competitors.

Here’s Wang, in an onstage interview with Walt Mossberg, talking about all this and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

Netflix Officially Launches in Latin America

Kara Swisher — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:35:33 +0000

As has been expected, Netflix has officially launched its online video streaming service in Latin America. In a blog post today, the company said: “By September 12, people throughout the Americas will be able to instantly watch a broad selection of movies and TV shows streaming from Netflix on computers, game consoles like the WII and PS3, and Smart TVs.”

Essay: Jobs's Departure as CEO of Apple Is the End of an Extraordinary Era

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:18:37 +0000

Steve Jobs’s resignation as chief executive officer of Apple is the end of an extraordinary era, not just for Apple, but for the global technology industry in general. Jobs is a historic business figure whose impact was deeply felt far beyond the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, and who was widely emulated at other companies.

And now, for the first time since 1997, he won’t be the company’s chief executive.

To be very clear, Jobs, while seriously ill, is very much alive. Extremely well-informed sources at Apple say he intends to remain involved in developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active chairman of the board, even while new CEO Tim Cook runs the company day to day.

So, this is not an obituary. But his health is reported to be up and down, and even an active chairman isn’t the same as a CEO.

CEOs resign every day, so why is this departure so meaningful?

Most people are lucky if they can change the world in one important way, but Jobs, in multiple stages of his business career, changed global technology, media and lifestyles in multiple ways on multiple occasions.

He did it because he was willing to take big risks on new ideas, and not be satisfied with small innovations fed by market research. He also insisted on high quality and had the guts to leave out features others found essential and to kill technologies, like the floppy drive and the removable battery, he decided were no longer needed. And he has been a brilliant marketer, personally passionate about his products.

In his first act at Apple, the company he co-founded in 1976, he helped envision and catalyze the personal computer revolution. The Apple II computer he developed with Steve Wozniak wasn’t the only mass-market PC released in 1977, but it was the one that had the most enduring impact.

In 1984, he again upended computing by leading the development of the Macintosh, the first commercially successful computer to use a mouse and graphical user interface. It cemented the template for how every computer works today, even though Apple was handily bested in the PC sales wars by archrival Microsoft.

After being forced out of Apple in 1985, it’s well known that Jobs ran an unsuccessful computer firm called NeXT. But he also did a couple of game-changing things during that exile. First, NeXT developed an operating system that later morphed into the excellent Macintosh operating system, called OS X, and also the operating system that drives Apple’s mobile devices, called iOS.

In addition, he purchased Pixar, a small computer animation firm which he was able, over years, to turn into one of the world’s most successful movie studios and later sell to Disney for billions. It changed animation forever.

In his most recent act, he returned in 1997 to take over as CEO of Apple as part of that company’s purchase of NeXT. What he found was a diminished company which was reputedly only months from bankruptcy and saddled with mediocre products.

Fourteen years later, the company is a highly profitable behemoth, the most financially valuable and influential technology company in the world, whose every product is eagerly anticipated, snapped up quickly by consumers, and aped by competitors, even though they are often priced higher than rival devices.

While CEO of the revived Apple, he introduced the dominant digital music player, the iPod, and created the most successful digital media service, iTunes. He introduced the first super-smartphone, the iPhone, and the only truly successful tablet computer, the iPad, which is in the process of replacing the laptop, at least in part. And he built the world’s largest app store.

One almost forgets that he built a phenomenally successful chain of retail stores, too.

Apple’s devices and software services have dramatically changed the mobile phone industry, the music industry, the film and TV industries, the publishing industry and others.

Meanwhile, even while declaring that we are in the “post-PC era,” Jobs resuscitated his early baby, the Mac. While it may never become the world’s biggest selling computer, it is lusted after worldwide, and its sales have outgrown those of the overall PC industry for five years running. Plus, with models like the sleek, solid-state MacBook Air, he’s actually merging the tablet and the PC.

Now, rumors are rife that Apple is working on re-inventing another common device: the TV. The secretive company won’t say a word about that, but nobody should be surprised if it happens, just based on Jobs’s track record.

And that’s why the day Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple isn’t like the day a typical CEO resigns.

Here is a video of me taken recently, talking about Jobs’s career:

[ See post to watch video ]

AllThingsD » computer

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A Laptop Screen That Promises an Eyeful

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Permission to Procrastinate: Wait to Get a New Laptop

Tablet or laptop

Price

Windows vs. Mac

Ultrabooks

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Graphics

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Searching for a Mighty Mouse? Here Are Three Options.

The Hottest Trend in E-Commerce? Clothes.

Forget the Ultrabook -- Go With the New Commodore!

Sold Out! The $35 Raspberry Pi Mini-Computer.

On Valentine's Day, Ol' Fashioned Phone Calls Beat Video Chat for Long-Distance Love

White MacBook, It Was Good Living With You

Vizio Jumps Into PC Fray

Raspberry Pi, a Credit-Card-Sized Computer, Set to Launch

HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang Talks Android, Smartphones and More: The Full AsiaD Interview (Video)

Netflix Officially Launches in Latin America

Essay: Jobs's Departure as CEO of Apple Is the End of an Extraordinary Era

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