AllThingsD » touchscreen

Lenovo's Really Ridiculously Big-Looking Table PC to Ship in Late June

Lauren Goode — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:06:13 +0000

Remember this guy — the giant “table PC” Lenovo showed off at International CES this year?

It’s now this much closer to your coffee table — or, replacing your coffee table. Lenovo today announced the Horizon is available for preorder and is expected to ship in late June. Prices start around $1,700, right in line with what Lenovo indicated in January.

In case you missed the news around CES time, this is a 27-inch, all-in-one “desktop” that can be propped up or laid flat on the table, and is geared toward game playing in addition to regular old computer activities. And in case its size didn’t give it away, the Horizon is meant to be used in the home, not on, say, an airplane tray, although Lenovo points out that it includes a built-in battery so it can be easily moved around the house.

The multi-finger touchscreen PC is running Windows 8 and comes with an Intel Core i7 chip and Nvidia GeForce graphics capabilities. Lenovo says the customized games include Raiding Company, Draw Race 2 and King of the Opera from Ubisoft, as well as Monopoly from Electronic Arts.

I played a quick game of air hockey on the device back in January, and I’ll admit that it was pretty fun. And it’s easy to see why some families might like a tabletop PC for game playing and picture browsing.

But this is a behemoth of a device, and it’s not alone in the big-screen market. There’s also the Sony Vaio Tap 20 and the Toshiba Excite 13 — a much smaller tablet, but one that is, again, meant for the home.

And as we know, PCs are hurting a bit these days. It’s likely going to take more than giant screens to fill the giant gap in the market.

A Universal Remote That’s a Touch Too Much

Bonnie Cha — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:00:19 +0000

You’ve worked hard to build your home entertainment system, and you’re proud of it. But if it takes you more than 10 minutes to watch a DVD because you’re fiddling with various remote controls, there’s one more piece of equipment you should get: A universal remote.

A universal remote saves times and eliminates clutter by allowing you to control your home theater equipment — TV, cable box, audio, gaming console — from a single source. There are numerous models out there, but the Logitech Harmony Touch stands out with its built-in touchscreen. (Philips also offers one with a touchscreen, called the Prestigo SRT8215, for $130.)

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been using the Harmony Touch for the past week, and there’s a lot to like about the remote. Setup is easy. The touchscreen provides one-touch access to 50 of your favorite channels, and you can use gestures to perform various tasks. That said, it also poses some problems.

Due to the location of the remote’s 2.4-inch display, some key buttons are placed out of easy reach. Those who like physical buttons might also take issue with the remote’s reliance on the touchscreen for things like entering channel numbers.

But the biggest hurdle may be its expensive $250 price tag. At this point, the touchscreen is a nice-to-have feature, not a must-have, so it’s not worth the extra cost. Logitech’s non-touch universal remotes, such as the Harmony 650 and Harmony 900, can do many of the same things for at least $100 less.

Still, the Harmony Touch is a nice-looking remote. In addition to the touchscreen, it offers 27 physical buttons. All the keys are backlit, and the display is clear and easy to read. It comes to life as soon as you touch it.

The Harmony Touch can connect with up to 15 devices, and Logitech says it supports more than 225,000 products from 5,000 different companies. I set up the remote to work with my Samsung TV, Motorola cable box/DVR, Roku XD and Panasonic DVD player. The entire process was a breeze.

Initial setup requires that you connect the remote to a computer with the included USB cable, and create an account (or sign into an existing one) on the MyHarmony website. (One thing to note for Mac users is that the website only works on the Firefox or Safari browser, and not Chrome. Windows owners can use Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer.)

The online guide then walks you through the steps of adding your devices, and assigning them to various activities, such as “Watch TV” or “Watch Movie.” You can also choose your favorite channels during this time, but I encountered a hiccup during this process.

After entering my ZIP code and cable provider, the software provided a list of all my channels, or so I thought. As I started selecting my favorites, I noticed that the NBC HD channel was missing. Entering the number manually didn’t surface it either, and it was only after I tabbed over to the Most Popular Channels section that I found it. I didn’t have any other problems, though.

Once you’ve finished setting everything up, all of your data syncs with the remote so you can unplug and begin using it.

Since the Harmony Touch is built around using the touchscreen, everything begins there. Swiping left to right allows you to view your various options, and tapping on the screen selects an activity.

I set up three different activities for the remote: Watch TV, Watch Movies (for access to Netflix and Amazon via Roku) and Watch DVDs (for my DVD player). The Harmony Touch turned on the appropriate equipment for each task I selected, and also displayed a second menu of options that allowed me to control the devices.

For example, after tapping Watch TV, it turned on my TV and cable box, and then presented me with one-touch buttons for my DVR recordings, and a 123 key that brings up a numerical keypad for manually entering channel numbers.

There isn’t a physical number pad on the Harmony Touch, which might bother some. But its omission is made a little better by the Favorites function. Though not immediately apparent, touching the star icon just above the display brings up your favorite channels, presented in a neat grid view. I really liked this feature, and you can edit your list right on the display itself.

Another way to maneuver through channels is with touch gestures. Selecting the Gestures option from the menu allows you to use a series of swipes and taps to control your TV. For example, swiping right or left lets you channel up or down, and tapping the screen pauses a program.

Gesture support is available for all activities, and though it worked fine in my testing, I still preferred using the physical buttons. It’s quicker and easier, while you have to go through a couple of steps to activate gestures. This is true of the touchscreen functions in general.

With the touchscreen placed in the middle of the remote, the video controls (play/pause, forward, back, record) are relegated to the top, where they’re hard to reach with one hand. I use these buttons a lot when watching my DVR recordings, especially to fast-forward through commercials, so it was frustrating to have to constantly move my hand. (I know: First-world problems.)

The Harmony Touch remote operates on a rechargeable battery, and comes with a charging cradle. Logitech estimates battery life at a couple of days when watching TV for a few hours a day. I averaged around four to five hours of TV watching a day, and the remote lasted three days before I needed to recharge.

The Logitech Harmony Touch performs its main duties well, and the addition of a touchscreen is a welcome idea. But its lacking design and ergonomics make this remote’s high price hard to justify.

Yahoo's New "Homerun" Homepage Is Rolling Out More Widely Across Several Browsers

Kara Swisher — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 07:41:33 +0000

Yahoo appears to be rolling out the newest version of the redesign of its homepage even more extensively across several major browsers, including Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.

As AllThingsD has previously reported several times, the Silicon Valley Internet giant has been working on a new homepage look, designed to improve its declining consumer usage.

The latest look has been present on all my browsers all day, rather than cycling off to the old version as before. The design is cleaner, with a more touchscreen tablet approach, new icons, and a scrolling news feature. With a more mobile feel, it’s slightly different than previous new versions that Yahoo has been testing over the last few months.

After redoing its Yahoo Mail and Flickr photo-sharing service, sources inside the company said that Yahoo is now close to launching the new homepage. It’s part of an effort called Project Homerun and also a larger effort called Project Zed, which will also include more personalization and a focus on bringing in a range of third-party content.

After Initial Delay, Hulu Plus Now Operational on Nintendo Wii U

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:37:49 +0000

The Nintendo Wii U launched on Sunday, despite missing a few promised features, like YouTube and Amazon Instant Video. Today, one of those apps, Hulu Plus, is going live on the device. Hulu Plus will allow Wii U owners to simultaneously watch TV on their big screen while looking up more information about the TV shows on the console’s tablet controller. The app also will allow shows to be watched on the controller while the TV is being used for something else. In her review of the console, AllThingsD’s Katie Boehret ran into some frustrations.

Gaming Proves Touchy With the New Wii U

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:46:43 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

From crockpots to thermostats, it seems like everything now has a touchscreen instead of physical buttons. This week, Nintendo joined the club with a new videogame console, the Wii U, which uses a 6.2-inch touchscreen controller.

This remote control, called the GamePad, upgrades the overall gaming experience with features commonly found on smartphones like touch gestures, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a stylus for handwriting and a front-facing camera. Instead of using antiquated directional buttons to navigate the system, a tap on the screen can send a character into a game. A touchscreen keyboard simplifies writing messages and setting up accounts.

Activity on the GamePad’s screen is reflected on the TV, which means that more people can watch what players are doing in a game. Or you can play only on the GamePad, which frees up the big screen for people who want to watch TV, though the controller can’t be used on its own far away from the console.

Yet despite the Wii U’s refreshing features, its sluggish behavior makes it a product I can’t fully recommend. And some promised programs couldn’t be tested because they don’t function yet — a delay that could frustrate some people.

The GamePad weighs just over a pound and has a 6.2-inch touchscreen.

Starting the system up for the first time took well over two hours because Wii U was downloading updates. In my four timed tests, the GamePad only held its charge for three hours and 30 minutes of use, and then needed about 2½ hours to recharge. (It also works when plugged in, but isn’t as fun to use.) Opening each new program took close to 15 seconds. And I was constantly plagued by alerts that my GamePad had disconnected from the Wii console, even when I was four or six feet away from it in my small, city townhouse.

If you already own a Wii, its games and accessories — like the Wii Balance Board — are compatible with the new Wii U. Some programs that come loaded on the Wii U GamePad don’t work yet, including apps for YouTube, Amazon Instant Video and TVii, a tool that will let people use the GamePad to control their set-top boxes, TVs and DVRs (including TiVo). Nintendo says these are expected to work next month.

I spent hours playing with Wii U, specifically testing how the GamePad worked with various games, and my husband joined me for some of the testing. We tried New Super Mario Bros. U, (our favorite thanks to nostalgic memories of the original Nintendo), Nintendo Land, Sing Party and Just Dance 4.

There are currently over 30 games available for Wii U, and 20 more are expected by March.

In New Super Mario Brothers, I controlled my character (Luigi), while also tapping the GamePad’s touchscreen to add helpful climbing blocks in midair throughout the game. It was a little distracting to control my character with one remote while also tapping the GamePad screen, but I only did this when we really needed help in a level.

I was able to keep playing on the GamePad while my husband watched “Monday Night Football” on the TV, though the sound of these games can still be heard through the GamePad speakers if they aren’t turned down, which may irk TV watchers. According to Nintendo, the GamePad won’t work if it’s more than 25 feet from the Wii U console, but, again, that distance was much shorter in my experience. Nintendo customer support hadn’t heard of the issue.

Of the games I tested, that which best illustrates the GamePad’s unique capabilities is Nintendo Land. Its 12 games range from Donkey Kong’s Crash Course, where a cart is moved through obstacles according to how you tilt the GamePad, and Takamaru’s Ninja Castle, which involves throwing ninja stars at enemies by sliding a finger across the GamePad’s touchscreen toward the TV.

Nintendo Land integrates with Miiverse, Nintendo’s Web-based social networking system, and I saw updates from lots of other users as the virtual character representing me (called a Mii) wandered around. I posted a few updates, writing in cursive with the GamePad stylus. One time when I tried to post an update, I got an error message saying servers were busy. Nintendo chalked this up to an “overwhelming response” of people using Miiverse, and it worked again later.

The Deluxe version of Wii U, which costs $350, comes with Nintendo Land as well as some other extras, such as 32 gigabytes of internal memory versus 8GB in the $300 Basic Wii U. Both versions come with the GamePad.

The GamePad itself weighs just over a pound. A built-in camera is mounted just over its 6.2-inch touchscreen. I used the built-in microphone below the screen while playing a game in Nintendo Land: I blew air onto the mike to move a cart in a game. In addition to its touchscreen, the GamePad also has traditional controls, like a cross-shaped control pad and two mini joysticks. A Power button on the GamePad powers the Wii U console, too, while a TV button let me switch TV inputs without my TV remote.

Nintendo deserves credit for creativity. But like a player who can’t seem to get through a difficult level in a videogame, the Wii U’s faults hold it back from success.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

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.

Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me: Yahoo's Latest New Homepage Redesign Tries Dramatic Interactive Tile Look

Kara Swisher — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:01:33 +0000

Another week and yet another new design for the Yahoo homepage is being tested out on users — this time, it appears to be one (which you can see below) that looks a lot like Microsoft Windows 8’s touchscreen tiled approach (which is here).

After already putting out tests in the field with infinite scrolling, a simplified logo and giving search more prominence, the Silicon Valley Internet giant is apparently testing an even more drastically different redesign of its key landing page — one that seems to be aimed at being consumed on touch-responsive, non-PC devices.

As you can see from the screenshots below — which a user sent me, and which look exactly like what many Yahoo sources have described to me recently — the design uses big photos tiled across the top of the page. It suggests an ethos that is reminiscent of the new approach by Microsoft, as well as many others, such as Flipboard and Pinterest.

All of these encourage users to reach out and touch, scroll and swoosh. In fact, there are side-swiping arrows on the new Yahoo design.

Also part of the look, which is still being tweaked: More simplified icons for various Yahoo properties, fewer text links, additional social and personalization aspects and — perhaps most importantly — no advertising module at the very top.

That’s interesting, since Yahoo’s homepage is a big moneymaker for the company, because of its huge daily traffic. Thus, any new homepage design will have both massive consumer and financial impact on the company.

Sources said that one possible plan is to move from several 300 by 250-sized ad units to a single 300 by 600, which other sites like AOL have shifted toward. Such a change will not be without controversy for marketers.

It will also present a fresh selling challenge for new COO Henrique De Castro, who arrives at Yahoo from Google next week, and who will be helming sales efforts. (Hey, Henrique — get ready for my upcoming 360-degree profile of you!)

The latest redo is now being iterated under the regime of new CEO Marissa Mayer, under an awfully confident codename, Project Homerun. We’ll see if it is San Francisco Giant’s Panda-worthy, but sources said it is set to be released widely within the next two months.

But, while some new designs that have surfaced have been closer to the current version of Yahoo, the latest design is a more significant shift that would clearly lend itself well to mobile touchscreens, especially on increasingly popular tablets.

Along with Pinterest, Flipboard and Windows 8, other sites have done this, of course, most particularly pioneering content design done several years ago by BermanBraun’s Wonderwall for Microsoft’s MSN portal.

That’s no surprise, since Mayer declared in a recent earnings call — articulating what many desktop-trapped Silicon Valley Internet giants have also done recently — that Yahoo was going to also veer toward a “mobile first” sensibility.

“Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company,” she said in the third-quarter earnings call.

Here’s what that seems to mean for Yahoo, with the new homepage images, as well as one of the current one to compare:

A Genius Prank? (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:11:53 +0000

Hinges Key to Windows 8 Computer Redesign

Ben Worthen — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:40:06 +0000

The success of Microsoft Corp.’s new operating system may hinge … on hinges.

Hardware companies are grappling with the fact that the Windows 8 software has a touch-oriented user interface. That means not simply adding touch screens to computers but redesigning the hinges that connect screens and keyboards to withstand new twisting, turning and poking.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Hardworking Tablet With PC Chops

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 01:02:54 +0000

I am writing this paragraph on a tablet in a coffee shop. That’s no big deal. As I look around, I see several people working on Apple iPads. But the tablet I’m using is very different — historic, actually. It’s the first personal computer made by Microsoft, a company determined for decades to make only the software driving others’ computers.

[ See post to watch video ]

With this device, called Surface, Microsoft is adopting the model of its longtime rival, Apple, which has always believed that the better way to deliver digital products is to build them end-to-end, including hardware, operating system and core apps, and an ecosystem of downloadable apps and content. That is what Microsoft is doing now with the Surface tablet, two and a half years after the iPad was born.

I have been testing the Surface almost daily for three weeks and I like it. It’s beautifully and solidly built and it’s the purest expression of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 touchscreen operating system which, like the Surface, goes on sale on Friday. The new operating system also works on laptops and desktops. It can be operated with a mouse or touch pad, but its dramatically different, touch-optimized user interface begs to be used on a touchscreen tablet.

This isn’t a cheap iPad knockoff. It’s a unique tablet, made of a type of magnesium with a feeling of quality and care. The Surface starts at the same $499 base price as the large iPad, albeit with 32 gigabytes of storage, twice Apple’s entry offering. Other versions cost $599 and $699. Unlike the iPad, the Surface is Wi-Fi only. It lacks a cellular-data option.

The Surface tablet with the Touch Cover — which uses molded keys, comes in bright colors and costs $120 — has a sturdy kickstand for typing on a desk.

Office and Keyboards

As fluid as the Surface is with touch and the tablet-like touch apps Windows 8 supports, Microsoft has given the tablet the ability to behave like a familiar Windows PC, at least in some scenarios. It comes with full versions of standard Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The three programs worked fine, in creating documents and in editing ones from older versions of the software.

Microsoft has designed two clever, very thin, optional keyboards that snap on magnetically and double as covers. These are better than any of the add-on keyboards I’ve seen for the iPad. And Microsoft has built in a standard USB port and a sturdy kickstand for typing on a desk. One keyboard, the Touch Cover, uses molded keys, comes in bright colors and costs $120. It’s bundled with the costlier models. The second, a rigid, black version with movable keys called the Type Cover, costs $130.

There is a downside to these keyboards: They are almost useless on your lap. There is no hinge to keep the screen upright and the kickstand works poorly on your legs. Despite that, these features make the Surface better for traditional productivity tasks than any tablet I’ve tested.

A Paucity of Apps

Still, there are rough edges to the Surface. The biggest is a paucity of apps for the new touch interface. At launch, Microsoft estimates there will be only about 10,000 third-party such apps available globally, of which about 5,000 will be available in the U.S. More important, many popular titles, like Facebook, will be missing. That’s a tiny number of apps compared with the 700,000 touch-operated apps that run on the iPad.

And there is more bad news about apps. This first edition of Surface uses a variant of Windows 8, called RT, that can’t run the vast array of traditional programs many Windows users rely upon daily, like Google Chrome, Adobe Photoshop, Apple iTunes or even Microsoft’s own Outlook. A second edition of the Surface, due in January, will run the full version of Windows 8, and most of these standard Windows programs. But it will be heavier.

Mediocre Battery Life

Surface, which is about as thin, but a bit heavier, than the full-size iPad, displayed much weaker battery life in my tests — about seven hours versus 10 for the iPad. That’s better than many Android tablets, but not what you’d expect from Microsoft’s pride and joy.

I tested the battery life using the same test I use on all tablets. I set the screen to 75 percent brightness, leave on the Wi-Fi to collect email in the background, and play videos back to back until the battery dies.

Screen and Cameras

The screen on the Surface is 10.6 inches, larger and skinnier than the big iPad’s. It was sharp and vivid in my tests, but inferior to the Retina display on the third-generation Apple tablet, which has much higher resolution. The cameras were a disappointment. They took only fair pictures. The rear camera has a mere 1 megapixel in resolution. Microsoft says it tuned the camera more for video, but in my tests videos were only okay.

Touch Keyboard

The touch keyboard is fast and easy to use. It can be switched among several styles — a standard configuration, a more cramped one with an added top row of number keys, and a split style, as on the iPad, for thumb typing. You can also summon a panel for handwriting input, though Microsoft doesn’t include a stylus.

Built-in Apps

Surface has the same built-in new-style apps as every Windows 8 PC, and the same app store. Like other Windows 8 machines, the Surface starts up in the new, radically different, tile-based Start screen.

The built-in apps include a touch version of Internet Explorer, an email program, and programs for social networking, instant messaging, photos, maps, videos, music and more. In addition, while Surface doesn’t run most old-style Windows apps, it includes some standard old Windows programs like the calculator, notepad and file explorer.

All of the built-in apps worked fine for me, except Mail, which lacks common features like a unified inbox, and an unread-mail folder. It also doesn’t support one of the two common types of consumer email systems, called POP. Microsoft concedes the Mail app needs to be improved.

On the other hand, the Music app, called Xbox Music, holds great promise. It lets users download songs like iTunes, organize them into “stations” like Pandora does, and stream them free like Spotify.

Third-party apps sometimes showed problems. Evernote took a long time to synchronize my account, and the Kindle app had to stop every few pages to fetch the next section of a book, even if the book had been downloaded. It also messed up some pages.

Bugs

I ran into a number of bugs while testing, some serious. All but one notable one were resolved by the time I wrote this review. It involves the inability of the Surface to authenticate with Microsoft services, like the app store, with some kinds of broadband modems and routers. Microsoft concedes this bug is known, but is still investigating. In my tests, this bug affected me in only one of my several test locations, but one is too many.

Bottom Line

Microsoft’s Surface is a tablet with some pluses: The major Office apps and nice optional keyboards. If you can live with its tiny number of third-party apps and somewhat disappointing battery life, it may give you the productivity some miss in other tablets.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com.

Flip, Slide and Touch: New Machines for a New OS

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:03:40 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

To take full advantage of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system, which integrates touchscreen functionality, a variety of PC manufacturers are offering new touch-enabled devices that are designed to run it.

I broke the machines down into four categories: Traditional laptops with touch screens; laptops that convert into tablets by repositioning their screens; laptops that convert into tablets by detaching their screens; and slate-like tablets, including Microsoft’s much-anticipated Surface, which will challenge Apple’s iPad.

Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook has a screen that flips around, converting it from a laptop to a tablet.

You’ll still be able to use Windows 8 without a touch-enabled device. Touch-pad gestures and the traditional cursor will work, though not as easily across the entire operating system. The new environment of Windows 8’s Start-screen tiles are especially designed for touch. People can do things like swipe left from the right edge of a screen to display function icons, or swipe up from the bottom of a screen to display navigation icons.

The Touchscreens

If you aren’t quite ready to make a dramatic change in your PC hardware, buying a laptop or desktop that has a touchscreen is a more conservative solution than a convertible laptop-tablet device or a slate. Though reaching across the keyboard to tap on a screen may feel unnatural after a lifetime of using a mouse and keyboard, people who use touchscreen smartphones and tablets may already be touching their computer screens out of habit.

The keyboard of the Asus’ VivoTab RT detaches, turning the screen into a tablet.

Acer will sell three categories of touch-capable laptops: the S7 starts at $1,200 and weighs as little as 2.29 pounds; the M5 series is exclusive to Best Buy and starts at $800; and the V5 series laptops start at $750 ($700 in Microsoft stores). Samsung will offer the Notebook Series 5 Ultra Touch line, which starts at $810.

Asus’ VivoBook S400 line will cost $700 for a 14.1-inch screen, and Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart Ultrabook series will include the Spectre XT, a $1,400 device with a 15.6-inch screen. Pricing for Dell’s Inspiron 15z Ultrabook is still to be determined, while Toshiba’s Satellite P845t will start at $796 with a 14-inch screen. Sony will extend touch displays to its T and E Series Vaio models, which will start at $670 and $450, respectively.

The Screen Shifters

Can’t decide between the familiarity of a laptop and the flashy new feel of a Windows tablet? Instead of buying two devices or just settling for one, several manufacturers offer in-between options by way of hybrids, or convertibles. Each computer has its own way of transforming from laptop to tablet without disconnecting — though they all usually become relatively thick tablets compared with Apple’s iPad.

Toshiba’s Satellite U925t Ultrabook Convertible flips all the way back, so the screen can slide over the keyboard.

Take Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook, which starts at $1,200. This looks like a regular laptop, but from its opened clamshell position the touchscreen pops out of the screen frame, flipping around to act as the tablet’s touchscreen when the laptop is closed. The screen of Toshiba’s $1,150 Satellite U925t Ultrabook Convertible opens in a clamshell position and flips all the way back, so the keyboard and screen are both parallel. Then the screen slides over the top of the keyboard.

Lenovo’s Yoga 13 and Yoga 11 models, $1,100 and $800, respectively, might scare people the first time they see them because their screens open, bend all the way back and keep going until the laptop lid is touching the bottom of the keyboard.

Asus avoids flipping and sliding by offering two 11.6-inch touchscreens on its Taichi 21 (starting at $1,300): One screen where you expect to see a screen and the other on the laptop lid, activated when the laptop closes.

The Detachables

People who don’t like the thick tablets that come from transformed convertible laptops may want to pull their laptop screens off altogether.

Many models offer touchscreens that completely detach for ultimate tablet portability. Samsung’s $1,200 ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T has optional mobile broadband. The tablet half of H-P’s Envy x2 (pricing not yet available) offers an 11.6-inch display while the 10.1-inch Iconia W510 sells as a standalone tablet for $500 or with a keyboard dock and extra battery for $750.

The Slates

Ready to toss out the laptop keyboard altogether? Asus’s $600 VivoTab RT, Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet 2 ($649) and Dell’s XPS 10 (pricing to be determined) offer some keyboardless options.

But of course, Microsoft’s own Surface RT tablet, which will start at $499 for a 32 gigabyte version, is sure to get a lot of attention because it’s made by the company.

Some of these devices are radical new designs, made to match Microsoft’s dramatic new Windows 8 operating system.

Consumers have a lot of choices to make about how they use Windows in this new era of computing.

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

Kindle Fire HD Is Better but It Isn't the Best Color Tablet

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:02:23 +0000

Amazon is upping its game in the color tablet market. Last year, it launched the 7-inch Kindle Fire, a pretty good, but limited, device mostly distinguished by its low price of $199 and its seamless access to Amazon’s massive ecosystem of e-books, music, videos and periodicals.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Amazon has come up with a successor, the Kindle Fire HD, which comes in two screen sizes, 7 inches and 8.9 inches (the iPad’s screen is 9.7 inches, by comparison). Again, I see the key advantages of these new Fires as low base prices and easy access to Amazon’s content offerings. The 7-inch model, while beefed up, still starts at $199 and the larger version at $299. By contrast, the latest iPad starts at $499, though the older iPad 2 is still available at $399.

But this time, Amazon is facing a well-received, 7-inch, $199 competitor: Google’s Nexus 7, which also is positioned as primarily a front end to an online content store. So, while Amazon is still stressing that these new Fires are best seen as front doors to its online stores, it is now claiming the Fire HD is also “the best tablet at any price.”

The new 7-inch Kindle, which ships on Friday, is much improved from the original Fire and has new features. For starters, its base model has 16 gigabytes of storage, double that of the original Fire or the base Nexus 7, and equal to the base iPad. It is slimmer, lighter and more stylish than its predecessor. It now boasts a high-definition screen, dual speakers, a faster processor and far better battery life.

The Kindle Fire HD has a carousel displaying recently used apps and contents and a horizontal menu of categories across the top.

However, after testing the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, I can’t agree with the sweeping claim that it is “the best tablet at any price.”

The Fire HD isn’t as polished, fluid or versatile as the iPad. It offers only a fraction of the third-party apps available on either the iPad or the Nexus 7 (and other standard Android tablets). I found that after prolonged use, the Fire HD showed signs of latency—apps and content displayed delays in launching. This latency disappeared after a reboot.

The Fire HD also assaults users with ads occupying the entire screen every time they start or resume using it. You have to pay Amazon another $15, using an obscure setting on a Web page, to escape these ads. And there are pitches to buy more content on many other screens, even those displaying your already-purchased content.

I didn’t test the 8.9-inch version, costing up to $599 with fast cellular-data connectivity and maximum memory. It won’t be available until Nov. 20. Like the Nexus, but unlike the iPad, the 7-inch model can’t operate on a cellular-data network and relies on Wi-Fi only.

The main user interface has changed. Instead of a series of faux shelves displaying recently used apps and content, there is now a carousel, a scrolling horizontal array of these items. Across the top is a horizontal menu of categories, like Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos and so forth.

Like all 7-inch tablets, the new Fire has less than half the screen real estate of an iPad, but is easier to hold in one hand, or to tuck into a purse or large pocket.

I found the screen to be crisp, clear and vivid, though inferior to the superb Retina display on the current iPad. Its resolution is the same as that of the Nexus 7. It also is about the same thickness as the Nexus, though a bit heavier. It is much lighter than the larger iPad, but about 10% thicker.

I found its speakers far better than those on the iPad and Nexus.

Like the original Fire, the Fire HD is technically an Android tablet. It uses last year’s version of Android, Google’s mobile operating system, while the Nexus uses a newer, more polished version. But, like its predecessor, the new Fire buries Android, demoting it to mere plumbing. It doesn’t use Google’s user interface, or the standard Google apps, like Google Maps or a special Gmail app, found on other Android devices. Instead of the standard Google Play store for apps and content, it has its own. Most Android apps aren’t available there.

The Fire is really a hardware entry point to Amazon’s massive, unmatched selection of books and other content. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the Fire HD saying it shouldn’t be thought of as a gadget. “The Kindle Fire is a service,” he said.

That may sound strange because Amazon makes apps for its competitors that can access the content it offers. For instance, iPad owners can get free apps from Amazon for Kindle books, Amazon video and music. But this content, and especially the ability to quickly buy it, is much better integrated into the Fire.

The Fire has some content capabilities that aren’t present in Amazon’s iPad apps. Among these are the ability to lend certain books; a feature called “Immersion Reading,” which lets you listen to a professional audio narration of a book (for an added price) as you read along; and a feature called “X-Ray,” which quickly displays all the characters in a book or all the actors in a movie.

Amazon claims the new Fire has advanced Wi-Fi technology that is faster than the Wi-Fi on the iPad. But in my tests, I couldn’t replicate that. Most Web pages I tried loaded slightly faster on the iPad. And, using two different speed test utilities on two different networks, I found the iPad was a bit faster in almost every instance, occasionally much faster.

The Fire HD lacks some features the costlier iPad offers. Among these are a rear camera, and built-in dictation, instant messaging and maps, and the ability to beam video or music to a TV using a device like the Apple TV. It lacks artificial-intelligence features like Apple’s Siri, or Google Now, a feature of the Nexus 7.

Amazon’s app store has about 30,000 apps, versus more than 500,000 for the iPad or Nexus.

In my harsh battery test, where I set the screen at 75% brightness, leave on the Wi-Fi to collect email in the background, and play videos back to back, the Fire HD was respectable, if not up to its claim of 11 hours, or as good as its competitors. It lasted nine hours and 28 minutes, compared with just five hours and 47 minutes for the original Fire. That was about half an hour less than the iPad, but over an hour less than the Nexus.

Overall, I see the 7-inch Fire HD as a good value for those primarily interested in easily tapping Amazon’s large collection of content.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Juror Recounts Deliberations That Brought Big Apple Win

Jessica Vasecellaro — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 07:34:45 +0000

Just minutes after the nine jurors in the Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. patent trial began deliberating last week, they were stuck. It was seven “yes” votes to two “no” votes on the first question they faced: Whether Samsung violated an Apple patent related to the bounceback action a touchscreen makes.

With the votes tallied on a white board, they decided to review the evidence, recounted juror Manuel Ilagan in an interview. They powered up a video of a computerized touchscreen tablet that had been developed by Mitsubishi that Samsung asserted proved Apple didn’t come up with the idea first and that its patent should be invalidated.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

A Peek at the Parts -- And Profits -- Inside Samsung's Galaxy Note Tablet

Arik Hesseldahl — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 14:27:40 +0000

One of the most revealing facts to emerge from the continuing trial between Samsung and Apple in a California federal courtroom is how thoroughly the iPad has dominated the emerging tablet market in the U.S. Court documents showed that from the end of 2010 to the middle of 2012, for every one of any of the three models of Samsung tablet sold, Apple sold 21 iPads.

Samsung’s latest attempt to tilt at Apple’s windmill is the Galaxy Note 10.1. Released in the U.S. on Aug. 16, at a high-profile event in New York, it sells for a starting price of $499.99 for a 16 gigabyte version. Like other tablets from Samsung, it runs Google’s Android operating system, specifically the version from last year known as Ice Cream Sandwich, though an upgrade to the newer Jelly Bean is coming eventually. It has also been reviewed favorably, including last week by AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg.

Now, the gearheads at IHS iSuppli — the folks who last month dismembered Google’s Nexus 7, and before that Apple’s latest iPad — have taken the Galaxy Note 10.1 apart to see what makes it tick. More importantly, they’ve also estimated how much Samsung spends on the components used to assemble it; from that, it’s pretty easy to guess at Samsung’s profit margin.

Rassweiler says the firm tore down a version of the tablet that includes the ability to connect to 4G wireless networks (it is not yet available in the U.S.), and which sells at retail for about $640. As yet, the only model available in the U.S. is a Wi-Fi-compatible model. All told, the cost of the components — “bill of materials,” or BOM in industry lingo — for that model adds up to $283. Take out the 4G wireless components and leave the Wi-Fi-only, and the BOM estimate comes down to about $270, he says.

Technically speaking, says analyst Andrew Rassweiler, who supervised the teardown, the Note 10.1 doesn’t break any new ground. “As is usually the case, each hardware release offers an incremental set of improvements over the last generation,” he says. The tablet’s main microprocessor chip is the quad-core Samsung Exynos processor, made by its own chip division, and based in part on a design licensed from ARM. The chip has already been seen in the Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, and costs Samsung about $18.

Also seen in the torndown unit, and spotted before in other Samsung devices, is a wireless chipset from Intel’s recently acquired Infineon division. “By reusing components, Samsung can negotiate better pricing with suppliers, and it shrinks the incremental cost of developing other devices like this tablet,” Rassweiler says. Combined, all the wireless components add about $15 to cost, and a little less in the Wi-Fi-only version.

The Galaxy Note’s main differentiating feature is the digital pen, or stylus, that lets users write and sketch on the screen. The main part that allows that is a hybrid capacitive touchscreen that also allows the conventional touch interface that tablet users are accustomed to. Samsung’s combined cost of the display and touchscreen components adds up to $100. The pen comes from Wacom, the same company known for its graphical tablets favored by digital artists.

Also spotted inside the Note: A gyroscope chip from STMicroelectronics, a power-management chip from Maxim, a touchscreen-controller chip from Atmel, and an audio chip from Wolfson Micro. Some of those companies are also regular Apple suppliers.

Which brings us to another important point: Samsung gets most of the parts from itself. It is the world’s biggest manufacturer of memory chips, and one of the biggest manufacturers of LCD screens. It also ranks at or near the top of the world’s suppliers for chips to smartphones and tablets generally, and even manufactures, under contract, Apple’s own A5 chips used in the iPhone and iPad. “Samsung’s competitive strength is in controlling a large percentage of the parts that go into their final product,” Rassweiler says. Most of the key components — the display, the memory, the main processor and the battery — were all made by different branches of the far-flung Samsung empire.

By comparison, the total cost of all the components on the latest iPad, as estimated by IHS iSuppli at the time of its release in March, was $316. Oddly enough, Samsung made the so-called Retina display that Apple touts as that device’s main differentiating feature. The cost to build the Nexus 7 was estimated at $152.

And while a cost of about $270 might lead you to the conclusion that Samsung is taking a fat $230 on each unit sold, Rassweiler says there are more costs to consider that a teardown can’t account for — software and development costs, for starters.

In the end, Samsung may not be coming even close to denting Apple’s commanding market share, but it may be making a slightly better profit. One fact that emerged from the epic patent lawsuit between Apple and Samsung is that Apple’s iPad gross margin runs between 23 percent and 32 percent. Rassweiler says that even after accounting for software and other non-material costs, Samsung probably makes a slightly larger margin. There is that.

myTouch and myTouch Q: T-Mobile's “Genius” Phones With Old Software

Lauren Goode — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:00:31 +0000

Inexpensive “budget” phones are getting sexier. These days, $50 will get you much more than a flip phone with a low-quality camera and a slow mobile Web browser hidden behind a globe icon.

T-Mobile’s new myTouch and myTouch Q are a testament to that. These two smartphones hit the market last week, aimed at users looking for a simpler — or maybe a first — smartphone. Each phone costs $50 with a two-year contract and runs exclusively on T-Mobile’s network.

Guts-wise, the Huawei-made myTouch and myTouch Q are almost indistinguishable. Both run 1.4GHz single-core processors, have five-megapixel rear-facing cameras, offer good call quality, and are equipped with a Nuance-powered voice-command feature. Externally, the myTouch Q (the “Q” stands for Qwerty) is a thicker, heavier phone, due to its slide-out Qwerty keyboard.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing these phones for the past week, and found them to be quality budget options for new or first-time smartphone buyers. I especially liked the myTouch Q, mainly for that keyboard.

But smartphone users looking for the latest Google Android operating systems need not look here: The myTouch and myTouch Q both run an outdated operating system, Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread, and are not upgradable. That might be the biggest drawback of these devices. The Android Jelly Bean 4.1 OS boasts features like Google Now, enhanced notifications and smarter text and speech input, none of which are offered in this myTouch series.

The myTouch is 4.8 inches by 2.5 inches, and is less than half-an-inch thick, making for a slim, lightweight handset. The myTouch Q is .56 of an inch thick, due to the keyboard, and is 4.9 inches tall. The myTouch weighs 4.94 ounces, while the myTouch Q comes in at 6.52 ounces.

The models I tested were round-edged and black, but the myTouch is also offered in dark red, while the T-Mobile myTouch Q is available in white. Neither of these phones are super-sleek-looking, but they’re not bricks, either.

Both have a four-inch LCD touchscreen display. The color display isn’t nearly as bright and luminous as some newer, high-end Android smartphones, but it has a higher resolution than its predecessor (the LG-made myTouch) and its app icons, text and photos all looked pretty sharp.

Maybe I’m unnecessarily stubborn about touchscreen typing, but even with features like Swype built into Android touchscreen phones — Swype lets you drag your finger from letter to letter and smartly guesses the word you mean to type — I still preferred the velvety feel of the slide-out Qwerty keyboard that comes with the myTouch Q. My guess is that consumers coming to this smartphone from a flip phone or even a BlackBerry would appreciate this tactile option, too.

Battery life is another slight differentiator between the myTouch and myTouch Q. Both claim up to seven hours of continuous talk time, but the myTouch is supposed to last about a day longer on standby time.

In my experience, the myTouch Q lasted a full day, as I regularly checked email, scrolled through Twitter and Facebook feeds, made a few phone calls and Instagrammed a couple of photos. It still had just a little bit of life left the next day, too. The myTouch lasted longer, but I wasn’t using it as much.

One app, perhaps not surprisingly, proved to be a battery drainer: The T-Mobile TV app. This app, powered by MobiTV, comes preinstalled and offers live and on-demand TV. (T-Mobile warns that $80 data plans of 2GB a month or more are recommended if you plan to regularly use this application.) Unlike Mobile DTV, which pulls in streams of free local broadcasts, most of the channels I watched on T-Mobile TV, like ESPN and NBC Entertainment, cost $13 a month after a free trial.

T-Mobile TV isn’t the only app that comes preinstalled. Alongside a generic email app, there are apps for Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix. There’s also a lot of bloatware, such as other T-Mobile branded apps and promotions for add-ons like Caller ID, which gets annoying.

Then there’s the Genius button, which lives both in the app catalog and on the lower right-hand side of the phone’s face, just below the screen. This is the Nuance-powered voice-command button, and in my experience, it worked well. By pressing the Genius button, I could dictate that I wanted to call or text a friend, or to play music. But the Genius feature wouldn’t compose the actual text for me through voice dictation, and it defaulted to the Google Play Music app for music, which I hardly ever use.

While talking on the phone may seem passé these days, one of the features that struck me about the myTouch Q was call quality. Calls sounded clear and ungarbled, both with the phone pressed to my ear and when I was wearing headphones. Even my mom commented on how well she could hear me when I called her.

And unlike the T-Mobile Prism, another budget phone that I found to be sluggish, browsing on the myTouch Q was snappy. Web search results for things like “Magnolia Bakery,” “NYC rental cars” and “Mars Curiosity news” came up in a couple of seconds; maps and pages loaded quickly, as well.

The myTouch Q running on T-Mobile’s high-speed network nearly matched speeds of my iPhone 4 running on Verizon 3G, at least in my neighborhood. In New York City, my average download speed with the myTouch Q was .62 megabit per second, and my average upload speed was just under one megabit per second. For comparison, I got an average download speed of 1.2 megabits per second on the 3G Verizon iPhone, and upload speeds of around .6 megabits per second.

But it’s important to understand T-Mobile’s “4G” marketing, especially since a little 4G symbol appears on the myTouch and myTouch Q home screens. T-Mobile currently uses a type of technology called HSPA+ for its high-speed networks, which is slower than Verizon’s 4G LTE network. T-Mobile won’t roll out 4G LTE coverage until next year.

T-Mobile’s myTouch and myTouch Q are solid smartphone solutions for those looking to make the jump from feature phones to fancier phones, but the network exclusivity and outdated operating system will be drawbacks for choosier consumers.

Microsoft, PC Industry Will Need Windows Upgrade Offer More Than Ever

Ina Fried and Lauren Goode — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:20:54 +0000

As expected, Microsoft will offer those who buy a new PC in the coming months the ability to get a heavily discounted upgrade to Windows 8.

The news was reported by CNET earlier this month, with additional details, including the cost, trickling out in recent days. Our sources confirm that Microsoft will offer $15 Windows Pro 8 upgrades to those buying a new PC with Windows 7 Home Basic or higher.

Redmond has offered these kinds of coupons with the past several releases, so it is not a shocker.

But with Windows 8 coming this fall — possibly as late as November — and with current license sales slowing, and Microsoft losing share to both Macs and iPads, the upgrade program could be even more important this time around.

Redmond and the PC makers are hoping that the promise of a guaranteed and easy upgrade will convince back-to-school shoppers to stick with Windows, rather than head to the competition.

The upgrade program is important for another reason: Microsoft needs Windows 8 to get off to a fast start in order to convince developers to write new Metro-style apps that only run on Windows 8. Getting more Windows 7 users on the new operating system would help that cause.

A big change this time around is how the program will operate. In the past, Microsoft has been the driving force behind the cheap upgrades, but the company left it up to computer makers to handle the specific pricing, timing and fulfillment. With Windows 8, Microsoft will handle all of those items, sources say.

Microsoft declined to comment on its upgrade program plans.

The other piece of preparing for Windows 8 is what is taking place on the hardware side. Windows 8, with its Metro user interface, is tailor-made for touch devices, though it will also work with a keyboard and mouse.

So far, this summer’s laptop offerings are punched-up versions of the same PCs that have been on the market for months, with upgrades to Intel’s Ivy Bridge chip line, and PC makers all trying to put their stamp on the trend toward thinner, lighter laptops.

Lenovo has announced more consumer-friendly versions of its business-minded ThinkPad laptop. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, has expanded its Ultrabook line and has slapped the term “Sleekbooks” on another set of new laptops that fall into the ultra-thin-and-lightweight category but have innards that don’t meet Intel’s specifications for Ultrabooks. Sony’s new Ivy Bridge-equipped Vaio laptops will be made with lightweight materials, include larger displays, and offer optional accessories such as an extended battery.

But PC makers will clearly be gearing up for Windows 8 so that they can start pitching the new operating system as soon as it is ready.

This fall, some hardware makers will introduce convertible PCs that function as both tablets and laptops, as noted here, or will add things like touch sensors to existing displays, in order to bridge the two operating systems.

One company that has already announced a Windows 8 laptop is Lenovo. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January of this year, the China-based PC maker showed off the IdeaPad Yoga, a laptop with a 10-finger touchscreen and a full range of motion at the hinge so when fully folded it turns into a 13.3.-inch tablet.

Overall, one can expect a lot of Windows 8-ready machines to be part of the back-to-school lineups. But expect most PC makers to hold off on design overhauls for the Windows 8 launch.

EA Says Digital Will Offset New Console Investments for the First Time

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:45:24 +0000

Despite having to sink $80 million into new console game development this year, EA’s CEO John Riccitiello is upbeat, saying that “we are absolutely a different company in a different spot.”

Typically at this point in the hardware cycle, he said, the cost of developing new videogames would lead to a loss. But in a conference call with investors yesterday, Riccitiello said revenue from digital content will keep EA profitable.

“In the face of, unfortunately, somewhat of a headwind relative to console, we’re getting top line growth, robust digital growth, robust margin expansion, robust EPS growth, while affording the investment in the next-gen console. I don’t think, going back to our foundation in ’82, that’s ever happened before. So what we are guiding for is entirely unprecedented, and it’s a function of everything we’ve been saying on the call so far. … It’s our hope to be able to accelerate top line through a transition and accelerate bottom line growth through a transition because we won’t be facing sort of negative console compares.”

Nintendo expects to release the Wii U later this year, which will require new games that tap into both the TV and a touchscreen device. Neither Microsoft or Sony have unveiled plans for their respective next-generation hardware systems, the Xbox and PlayStation. Riccitiello did not mention the new consoles by name, and instead referred any direct questions about hardware to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

“We intend to invest $80 million in Gen4 console development in fiscal ’13. We are strong believers that console will return to strong growth, and represent a great opportunity — one that is in lockstep with our digital plans.”

In fiscal 2012, EA generated $1.2 billion in digital revenues, representing a 47 percent increase year over year. In the past six months alone, FIFA 12 — one of the company’s traditional packaged good titles — was able to break $100 million in digital revenues for the first time. This year, it’s predicting digital revenues of $1.7 billion, representing 40 percent of the company’s overall business.

Even though Riccitiello painted a positive outlook, he failed to turn to the tide.

Along with a broader market meltdown, the company’s stock fell 65 cents, or 4.3 percent, at $14.48 a share. At that price, the company’s stock is off more than 40 percent from its 52-week high of $26.13 a share.

During the call, Riccitiello also tried to stress that while Star Wars: The Old Republic is an important title for the company, it is getting an unfair amount of attention by analysts. In the quarter, he said the number of subscribers fell to 1.3 million from 1.7 million when the game launched.

“So while I understand there’s an enormous amount of interest, I don’t know that it warrants as much as what we’re seeing right now,” he said, according to a SeekingAlpha transcript.

The final highlight from the call was when Riccitiello questioned how much Zynga paid for OMGPOP and its hit title Draw Something, which was No. 1 for a short period of time. He didn’t actually name the two companies, but it was implied.

“Right now, what I’m starting to see is valuation expectations that assume that these things are all hockey stick moving up and to the right with no end in sight, and I think those are bad assumptions,” he said. “Some of them will work, some of them won’t, but they can’t all be worth the multiple that I’m seeing in the market right now.”

You vs. Cat: The First Interspecies iPad Game Debuts Today

Liz Gannes — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:04:25 +0000

One of my favorite memes of the past year has been videos of cats, monkeys, bullfrogs and even a bearded dragon lizard playing touchscreen games like Angry Birds and Ant Crusher.

Friskies has already capitalized on the trend by releasing cat-specific tablet games like JitterBug and Tasty Treasures Hunt.

But what’s even better than transcending species lines by watching animals interact with computers? Playing against them. At least that’s the gimmick behind You vs. Cat, the free Friskies game released today. I’m not even a cat person, and I love the idea.

Here’s a March Madness promotion for the game, which has the cat and human square up on opposite sides of an iPad, with the human flinging onscreen objects to try to get past the goal-tending cat:

Update: Here’s another interspecies iPad game from 2010, Cat Cat Revolution, but it seems to be more of a research paper and less of a publicly available game.

New iPad: A Million More Pixels Than HDTV

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:02:47 +0000

Apple’s iPad could be described as a personal display through which you see and manipulate text, graphics, photos and videos often delivered via the Internet. So, how has the company chosen to improve its wildly popular tablet? By making that display dramatically better and making the delivery of content dramatically faster.

[ See post to watch video ]

There are other changes in the new, third-generation iPad — called simply “iPad,” with no number, which goes on sale on Friday at the same base price as its predecessor, $499. But the key upgrades are to those core features — the 9.7-inch screen and the data speed over cellular networks. These upgrades are massive. Using the new display is like getting a new eyeglasses prescription — you suddenly realize what you thought looked sharp before wasn’t nearly as sharp as it could be.

Boosting those particular features — the screen and the cellular speed — usually has a negative impact on battery life in a digital device. But Apple has managed to crank them up them while maintaining the long battery life between charges that has helped give the iPad such an edge over other tablets.

Objects, like the trees in this photo of Glacier National Park in Montana that Walt made his screen wallpaper, look sharper on the new iPad.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t other trade-offs. Mostly to make room for a larger battery, the new iPad weighs about 8% more and is about 7% thicker than the prior model. That means the company can’t claim to have the thinnest and lightest tablet, as it boasted last year with the iPad 2. (It’s still thinner and lighter than the original iPad.)

I’ve been testing the new iPad, and despite these trade-offs, its key improvements strengthen its position as the best tablet on the market. Apple hasn’t totally revamped the iPad or added loads of new features. But it has improved it significantly, at the same price.

It has the most spectacular display I have ever seen in a mobile device. The company squeezed four times the pixels into the same physical space as on the iPad 2 and claims the new iPad’s screen has a million more pixels than an HDTV. All I know is that text is much sharper, and photos look richer.

If you already own an iPad 2, and like it, you shouldn’t feel like you have to rush out to buy the new one. However, for those who use their iPads as their main e-readers, and those who use it frequently while away from Wi-Fi coverage, this new model could make a big difference.

The optional, extra-cost, 4G LTE cellular-data capability made it feel like I was always on a fast Wi-Fi connection. I loved the photos and videos I took with the greatly improved rear camera. And the battery life degraded by just 11 minutes, a figure that is still much better than on any tablet I’ve tested.

Letters that seemed sharp on the iPad 2, far left, suddenly felt fuzzier when compared with the new iPad’s ‘retina’ display, left. (It’s hard to reproduce on a web page.)

Along with the unmatched collection of 200,000 third-party programs designed for its large screen, and the large catalogs of music, books, periodicals and video content available for it, I can recommend the new iPad to consumers as their best choice in a general-purpose tablet.

The exceptions would be people who prefer a smaller size for one-handed use, or those who find the weight a burden. While the weight gain was noticeable, I didn’t find it a problem even for long reading or video-watching sessions. The extra thickness was barely discernible.

For the weight conscious, and for those who can’t swing the $499 entry cost, there is an out. Apple for the first time is making and selling the prior iPad model at a reduced price. The iPad 2 will now be available starting at $399, with just one choice of storage capacity — 16 gigabytes. The new iPad can be bought in 16, 32 or 64 GB capacities, at prices up to $829. The optional cellular capability costs the same as the slower 3G capability, both up front and in monthly fees from Verizon and AT&T.

The Display

It’s not as if people are complaining about the screens on their iPads, a device so attractive and useful that Apple sold about 55 million of them in two years. But this display is a big leap forward.

It’s hard to illustrate on a Web page or in print how brilliant this new display is. You have to see it. Apple calls it a “retina” display because, at normal viewing distance, there are so many pixels per inch, the human eye can’t pick them out individually. This display packs 264 pixels into every inch, twice as many as on iPad 2. Overall, the resolution is 2048 x 1536, versus 1024 x 768 for the iPad 2.

My epiphany came when I placed my iPad 2 next to the new model, with the same text on the screen. Letters and words that had seemed sharp on the older model five minutes earlier suddenly looked fuzzier.

As I tested the new model over five days, I found I was able to use smaller font sizes to read books and email. The same photos I had enjoyed on the older model looked much better on the new one, not only because of the increased resolution, but because Apple claims it increased color saturation by 44%. One thing Apple hasn’t fixed: like all glossy, LCD color displays, this one still does poorly in direct sunlight.

The new iPad’s 4G LTE cellular speeds are faster than many home Internet connections, as seen in this speed test showing how fast it would take to download data.

The Speed

The new iPad is hardly the first device to use 4G LTE cellular technology, but it marks a huge difference from the iPad 2. On Verizon’s network in Washington and Austin, Texas, I averaged LTE download speeds of over 17 megabits per second, faster than most home wired networks. A colleague using a new iPad on AT&T’s LTE network averaged over 12 mbps. My iPad 2 running Verizon’s 3G network averaged just over 1 mbps. Of course, you can get a Wi-Fi only model, at $130 less. The base $499 model is Wi-Fi only.

There is another dimension to speed: the overall responsiveness of the device. The new iPad is just as buttery smooth to use as the iPad 2. Apple beefed up the processor, especially its graphics capabilities.

The Battery

Apple claims up to 10 hours of battery life between charges, and up to nine hours if you are relying strictly on cellular connectivity. In my standard battery test, where I play videos back to back with both cellular and Wi-Fi on, and the screen at 75% brightness, the new iPad logged 9 hours and 58 minutes, compared with 10 hours and 9 minutes for the iPad 2. Other tablets died hours sooner in the same test. In more normal use, the new iPad lasted more than a full day, though not as long as the iPad 2 did.

The Rear Camera

Like the iPad 2, the third-generation iPad has front and rear cameras. The front camera, meant mainly for video chats, hasn’t changed. But the rear camera, which was awful for photos on the iPad 2, and was estimated at less than a single megapixel of resolution, has greatly improved. It’s now a 5-megapixel shooter with improved optics. I loved the photos and videos it took, indoors and out.

Other features

The new iPad is the first that can be used, like many smartphones, as a personal hot spot — a base station to connect laptops and other devices to the Internet. In my tests, this worked fine.

It also allows you to dictate, rather than type, emails and other text. I found this surprisingly accurate. And Apple now has a brilliant new version of its iPhoto software that has been rewritten for the iPad, reviewed this week by Katie Boehret.

Bottom Line

Since it launched in 2010, the iPad has been the best tablet on the planet. With the new, third-generation model, it still holds that crown.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Windows 8 Hits the Really Big Screen (Video)

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:04:49 +0000

Microsoft showed Windows 8 running on lots of different hardware at its event in Barcelona, but the clear showstopper was seeing it in action on an 82-inch touchscreen.

The technology is from Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixel. Han is a pioneer in multitouch and is the guy behind the screen you see all the time on CNN.

After the Windows 8 event, AllThingsD got to get up close and personal with the giant screen. Here’s the screen in action, in a video interview with Microsoft VP Mike Angiulo:

[ See post to watch video ]

Update: Han points out that, in addition to its size, Perceptive Pixel’s technology has other benefits. First, it uses the same kind of technology as that in phones, meaning the device is much more responsive than the typical computer touch screen. Also, it can support dozens of touch points at once, unlike most technologies that can process a few fingers at most. Finally, like some laptops using technology from N-Trig, it works with pen and touch.

“Our Walls are the only large-scale touch displays that works via the same type of sensing technology (projected capacitive) as that which is used ubiquitously in phones and slates,” Han said in an e-mail interview.

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Touchscreen vs. Keyboard, the Sequel

Lauren Goode — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:34:46 +0000

Last week, I wrote about how touchscreens are forcing the reinvention of keyboards, looking into how touchscreen keypads are easily updateable, yet can be cumbersome to type on. The post also highlighted a few solutions that tech companies are working on in this area.

The piece elicited a variety of reactions — even Roger Ebert seems to think it might be too late to learn a new keyboard. I also received a fair number of follow-up emails pointing out some interesting technologies that I’d missed.

So here are some other options for the touchscreen-averse:

Talk Emo to Me

A company called Siine is trying make touchscreen typing even quicker by replacing words or entire phrases with emoticons.

The Siine Writer app is based on editable icons. Each icon, or “Siine,” is supposed to convey three different words or phrases, depending on how many times the user taps it.

So, instead of typing out a text-laden message, users tap a series of visual cues that send the message to the person on the receiving end.

Users make the Siines by downloading the app from the Android market, going to the emoticon screen, holding down an emoticon and selecting “create,” to assign a new picture, a name and the corresponding text for the emoticon. After that, the Siine emoticon will appear on the user’s keyboard.

It’s a pretty nifty idea, though there would likely still be a need to enter text for more random words, and words used less frequently.

Siine is based in London and Barcelona; the company launched in 2007, and received funding last February from Atomico, the VC firm of Niklas Zennstrom, best known for co-founding Skype.

The free app is available in both English and Spanish for devices running Android OS. There’s also a tablet version of the app, available exclusively from Samsung Apps; at the moment, there isn’t a Siine app available for iPhone or iPad.

The Next Productivity Killer at Work

Here’s a familiar sequence of events: You’re typing away at your desk, and your phone pings — loudly — alerting you and the rest of the office to the fact that you’ve got a message. You’re in the middle of doing work, so you ignore it. But you don’t, really: You glance at your phone’s interface, quickly, just to check. But, wait — it’s your friend, asking if you want in on tickets that are going to sell out in exactly 47 seconds. Or it’s your significant other, asking if you could meet the handyman at the apartment. Or it’s your mom. You simply have to respond.

What if you could just keep typing on your desktop keyboard — and still respond to your urgent calls?

That’s the kind of keyboard Matias has come up with.

The Canada-based company uses Bluetooth technology to wirelessly connect your phone to your keyboard and toggle between your desktop screen and phone — you’re still typing on your keyboard, but the text is appearing on the screen of your smartphone. (Here’s a video from CES that shows how this works, courtesy of Engadget.)

There are three Matias models — the $79 Slim One Keyboard, the $99 One Keyboard and the $199 Tactile One Keyboard — and all of them work on both PCs and Macs. The One and the Slim One are available now; the Tactile One will begin shipping in May.

The cheapest model, the Slim One, does not include a hub for your phone. The $99 One Keyboard includes a USB 2.0 hub and in-keyboard stand to hold your phone. The $199 Tactile One Keyboard has all of that, plus Alps mechanical key switches, which means there are real switches under each key.

And for those of you who wrote to me and suggested the Dvorak style of keyboard as an alternative to the traditional keyboard layout — Matias also makes a Dvorak keyboard for PCs and Mac computers.

Projecting Into the Future

We’ve seen at least one example of a laser-projection device that can create a keyboard out of any opaque surface. But what if you could make a keyboard out of any surface? What if you could make a keyboard … out of thin air?

MicroVision, a company specializing in laser-display technology, announced earlier this month the availability of its new laser-display engine, the PicoP Gen 2 HD laser display (the company’s patented display, PicoP, is actually the tech behind OmniTouch, mentioned in the previous article.)

The Gen 2 display takes it a step further: MicroVision’s PicoP Gen 2 can turn any projected image into a virtual touchscreen, regardless of the surface it’s being projected onto — or whether there’s even any surface at all. The PicoP Gen 2 HD laser display engine boasts 720p HD image projection and interactive displays up to 200 inches diagonal. MicroVision also announced technology for 3-D projectors, which could project 3-D images from a small display device.

While this kind of technology might have a more obvious place in the gaming market, it can also be used in conjunction with mobile devices to allow users to “step away from the screen.”

The company is emphasizing that this is still a prototype; MicroVision expects to begin sending samples to selected manufacturers for testing sometime early this year.

(There aren’t any images of this technology being deployed, so you’ll just have to imagine that keyboard in thin air for now.)

Forget the Keyboard — It’s All About Voice

Still other readers threw the four-letter word at me. Not that one. They were talking about Siri — and her competitors — saying they believe that touchscreen technologies, tactile or otherwise, are all moot because of the emergence of voice-command technology. Voice recognition is now in smartphones, gaming consoles and “smart” TV sets; is it only a matter of time before we’re dictating everything to our computer screens?

How Touchscreens Are Forcing the Reinvention of Keyboards

Lauren Goode — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:16:08 +0000

Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, an Israel-based company called Snapkeys invited showgoers into a booth to test its new keyboard technology. Within a few minutes of using it, the company said, people were already getting the hang of Snapkeys, which consolidates the letters of the alphabet into just four keys.

The idea behind Snapkeys isn’t new; the company says it has been working on it for more than 10 years.

A snapshot of Snapkeys' redesigned keyboard.

But the more recent emergence of touchscreen devices — and the complaints from even avid users about typing on them — means that Snapkeys’ research and development has been serendipitously well-timed.

“We think the end user is finally ready for an upgrade to the old Qwerty keyboard, after almost 150 years,” said Ryan Ghassabian, a Snapkeys business development manager. “Today, there are just too many new devices — phones, tablets — that are changing everything.”

“And Qwerty is just not meant to be on touchscreen devices,” he added.

Snapkeys is just one of a growing number of devices and applications that aim to change the way users interact with the traditional keyboard.

That doesn’t necessarily mean altering the layout of the Qwerty keyboard. The popular keyboard add-on Swype, recently acquired by Nuance, uses a standard layout, but lets users trace a word with their fingers.

While many companies work on technology for onscreen keyboards, still others are trying to create smart, ultra-portable or “invisible” keyboards.

Celluon's Magic Cube laser-projected keyboard.

Korea-based Celluon, which works on portable input applications, has introduced a “Magic Cube” device that connects wirelessly to an iPad or iPhone and projects a laser keyboard image onto an opaque surface for users to “type” on. The idea is that the user would only have to tote the palm-sized, battery-operated cube around, instead of a full keyboard.

Mozilla Labs’s Seabird project uses two Pico projectors to spit out keyboard imagery on either side of a smartphone to establish a full keyboard for typing.

Others believe the answer to typing on touchscreens lies in somehow adding a tactile set of keys — ones that people can actually feel, as they’re accustomed to — to those sleek glass displays.

Part of this stems from the simple fact that many consumers find typing on raised keys easier than typing on touchscreens. A study conducted last year at the University of Washington’s Information School in conjunction with Microsoft Research found that when users typed on a flat surface lacking tactile feedback, they were subject to inadvertent touches, and typing speed was 31 percent slower than it was with a physical keyboard.

Five years ago, manufacturers like Nokia and Samsung were trying everything from vibrating screens to sensor pads underneath keys to create the sensation of keys you could feel on touchscreens.

And consumers seem to want options beyond just attaching a full keyboard to a mobile phone or tablet. Last fall, two Seattle-based designers received $201,400 dollars in pledges on crowdfunding site Kickstarter, after having set an initial goal of just $10,000. Their product: A thin, light keyboard overlay called the TouchFire that goes over the iPad’s touchscreen and creates a sense of keys.

But tactile touchscreen tech still hasn’t made its way into the mainstream.

While physical buttons certainly have their advantages, software keyboards, in the meantime, are showing a tremendous amount of potential. For example, keyboards can simply be reconfigured based on context. When in a browser, dedicated keys can be presented for “www” and “.com”. If the entry is for a ZIP code, a screen with only numbers can be offered.

Also, soft keyboards can do interesting things using prediction. Based on what the next character is likely to be, the software can actually assume which letter is likely to be pressed next, making those keys bigger, either physically or just by favoring those keys.

Above all, software keyboards, unlike physical ones, disappear entirely when they are not needed. The trend away from physical keyboards, which began with the iPhone, has continued unabated, with full touchscreen smartphones making up a steadily increasing portion of the market.

Chris Harrison, a Ph.D. candidate in Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute, says that while tactile feedback is “kind of the holy grail of input,” we’re still years away from tech that offers true tactility on touchscreens. “Right now, there are ways you can take really inaccurate input and make it usable — look at something like BlindType — so that’s what you’ll see getting pushed out in the next two or three years. Maybe in five years or more, we’ll see the technological breakthrough of ‘shape-shifting’ the keys on touch surfaces, so people can feel them.”

OmniTouch: A new kind of "Palm" phone?

Harrison has spent the past two and a half years working with Microsoft on skin-sensory computing technology, called Skinput. The technology includes specialized sensors that gauge vibrations happening inside of the human body and enable graphical multitouch. The idea, basically, is that by tapping a projected image on your forearm, you can tell your computer — or another electronic device, like your TV — what to do.

More recently, Harrison and Microsoft have retailored the tech, which is now called OmniTouch, to use it on variety of surfaces — not just the epidermis, but also walls, tables, and notepads.

And while Harrison is laser-focused on changing the way we input information, he expressed a different sentiment than Snapkeys does it when it comes to the keyboard.

“The physical keyboard is an amazing thing, and the fact that it hasn’t changed much in almost 150 years is a good thing,” he said. “If you brought back an old keyboard, people will still be able to type just as well, and there aren’t many technologies as durable as that.”

Readers, which do you prefer for typing: Touchscreens or tactile keys?

(Magic Cube photo courtesy of Flickr/AsiaClassified)

AllThingsD’s Ina Fried contributed to this report.

Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different

Lauren Goode — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:38:56 +0000

As we expected, Ultrabooks are everywhere this week. And despite will.i.am’s proclamation yesterday at Intel’s press event that they’re the new ghetto blaster, many of them seem indistinguishable from each other.

So HP and Lenovo have added some features to their Ultrabooks to set them apart from all the ultra-noise.

Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga

The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga is named as such because of its flexibility. The 10-finger touchscreen has a full range of motion at the hinge, so when fully folded, the laptop turns into a 13.3.-inch tablet. And it can be propped up in tent mode — or, in this case, downward dog. I could see this being useful for entertainment viewing at home, as well as in small spaces, such as on an airplane.

Other laptops have shown this range of motion before — remember the Dell Inspiron Duo? — but adding this feature to a super-slim, touchscreen Windows 8 laptop is a nice touch.

The Yoga’s cover is solid aluminium; it measures 16.9mm thick and weighs 3.1 pounds. It is, of course, powered by an Intel Core processor, with 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 256GB solid-state drive. Lenovo claims the battery lasts up to eight hours.

Since the IdeaPad Yoga runs the upcoming Windows 8 operating system, the laptop likely won’t be available until the second half of the year. A representative for Lenovo said the company hopes to price it around $1,300.

Gorilla Glass is what makes the HP Envy Spectre 14 stand out. The ultra-thin, chemically strengthened material is what coats the exterior and the wrist rest of this laptop, giving it a sleek, reflective look — albeit one that needs to be wiped with a cloth pretty frequently.

HP's Envy Spectre 14

Yesterday at CES, someone lamented to me, regarding the Envy Spectre 14, “But it’s so heavy.” Weighing in at almost four pounds, the Spectre is a bit heavier than other Ultrabooks, but for comparison’s sake, the 13-inch version of the “regular” HP Envy notebook is just about the same, at 3.68 pounds.

The Spectre is 20mm thin, has a 14-inch screen and Intel Core processors, and supports up to 256GB of storage. It also boasts nine hours of battery life, versus Lenovo’s eight. The Spectre also has a backlit keyboard and proximity sensors which detect when a user is approaching the laptop and light up the keys in advance. And it has HP’s Beats Audio built in.

Another interesting feature of the Spectre is that it’s NFC-enabled; theoretically, users can share data from an NFC smartphone by tapping the phone against the Spectre.

The HP Envy Spectre is expected to launch in early February, and will cost around $1,399.

Neither of these Ultrabooks have DVD slots, but the HP Envy Spectre 14 has an expandable Ethernet port, USB 3.0, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort, while the IdeaPad Yoga has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, an HDMI port and an SD card slot.

A fun side note about the HP Envy Spectre 14: A company representative says HP actually first displayed a prototype of this Ultrabook last fall, during New York Fashion Week. But it was a “bejeweled” version, with Swarovski crystal designs by Marchesa, and fashion-focused reporters barely batted an eye at the thing. Who knew they were missing one of this season’s biggest CES trends?

(Images courtesy of Blogeee/Flickr)

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At CES, Control Your Computer Screen With Your "Gaze"

Lauren Goode — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:15:06 +0000

At last year’s D9 conference, Sweden-based Tobii demonstrated cool eye-tracking technology that enables users to control a PC without hands.

At next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Tobii plans to show off how its interactive eye-tracking software, called Gaze, works with Microsoft’s Windows 8 Metro interface.

Gaze would go in a compact rectangular device — smaller than the current 8-inch Tobii IS-1 tracker — that sits below the laptop screen and tracks a user’s eye movement using sensors built into the bar. You activate Gaze by tapping the trackpad once, and Gaze takes a few seconds to find your pupil and calculate the point of gaze using mathematical algorithms. An imaginary “head movement box” is created to delineate a range of motion in which you can still move your head and have the device track you.

In terms of precision, Tobii says the sensors measure within a quarter-inch of the tile or icon you’re looking at. For smaller icons or small text, Gaze still allows a user to navigate the cursor using the laptop’s trackpad, by pressing their fingers down on the pad instead of tapping it once.

Here’s a video showing how it works on Windows 8:

Gaze could, theoretically, work on tablets, too. But Tobii business development manager Anders Olsson says that tablet interaction is so smooth to begin with — with capacitive touch within an arm’s length of the user — that tablets don’t need much improvement. It’s boring old laptops that could use a boost.

“Gaze takes away the whole intermediate step of having a mouse or even using touch technology,” Olsson said in an interview. “We see this as an important innovation because, compared to tablets, laptops feel very ancient right now, in terms of user experience.”

While eye-tracking tech like Gaze could make sense for TV viewing as well, given the growing interest in gesture technology, Olsson said Tobii’s technology isn’t quite up to speed for TV. In fact, it could be a couple more years before Gaze hits the mass market.

Tobii doesn’t plan to sell Gaze directly to consumers, but will work with electronics manufacturers to ship on laptops. While the company says it is in talks with computer makers and electronics manufacturers, it hasn’t officially partnered with anyone, including Microsoft, for the development of Tobii Gaze (although Microsoft is expected to show Tobii eye-tracking demos at its CES booth, as well).

Eye-tracking technology isn’t new, but until now it has been used primarily in niche markets, as a tool for people with severe physical disabilities, or for psychological researchers who monitor eye movement to determine cognitive abilities.

Tobii has been around since 2001, and currently holds 13 patents in the area of eye-tracking tech.

(Image credit: Flickr/Mike Garza)

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Loading Photos Into the Kindle Fire

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:38:34 +0000

How do I load family pictures into the Kindle Fire that I just bought for my 94-year-old mother?

One of the weaknesses of the Fire is that it is heavily tied into Amazon’s cloud services, and, unlike Google or Apple, Amazon doesn’t have a cloud-based photo service. There are a number of work-arounds for getting photos into the Fire. Here are two. In my tests of the Kindle Fire, I found that the simplest method was to plug it into a laptop using a special USB cable (not included) and drag photos onto the Fire from the laptop. You also can save photos to the Fire that are attached to emails received on the device, but I found this didn’t always work.

Do you have any guidance about all-in-one touch-screen desktop PCs for the holiday buying season?

I haven’t reviewed these in a long time, but take a look at Hewlett-Packard’s latest TouchSmart models, which seem well-equipped and start at $600, after various discounts. Note: I don’t know how well the touch screens on these PCs, or any others currently on the market, will work with the upcoming Windows 8, due out next year.

I have an Asus Transformer tablet and want to get Swype on it. How can I get it?

Swype, which is an alternate keyboard for Android devices that works by letting you swipe your fingers across letters, typically comes preloaded on devices, rather than being installed by users like a typical app. The product’s site, at swype.com, shows how you can tell if your device came with it. If not, you can try installing a beta version by going to beta.swype.com.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.