Intel-Based Ultrabooks Help Flagging Windows Notebook Sales

Despite the high prices, Ultrabooks are seeing rapid adoption among consumers and helping prop up a Windows notebook market that is seeing sales fall, the NPD Group says. - Ultrabooks, the very light and thin notebooks that Intel championed as alternatives to Apples MacBook, are giving a boost to a struggling Windows laptop market, particularly in the high end, according to market research firm NPD Group.
Ultrabooks now account for 11 percent of sales of Windows noteb...

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Microsoft's Ballmer Swipes at Google

We can learn at least one thing from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco: When it comes to smartphone competition, Microsoft sees Android as a bigger threat than Apple.

I'm basing that solely on the vitriol that Ballmer leveled at Android (and Google in general) while leaving Apple relatively unscathed. Indeed, he offered faint praise for the iPhone, grouping it along with Windows Phone as a device that feels "good in your hand." His most damning criticism was that the iPhone offers "seas of icons," versus Windows Phone's goal of placing "information front and center."

But he launched an attack on Android. First he said, "You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone," as if you somehow need a Ph.D to use an Android-based device. Then he added, "It is very hard to be excited, for me, about the Android phones," which, well, is exactly what you'd expect the CEO of Microsoft to say under such circumstances.

It makes sense that Ballmer would reserve the bulk of his fire for Android, considering that both Microsoft and Google are following roughly the same strategy in smartphones: Persuade hardware manufacturers to load your software onto as many devices as possible, in a bid to saturate the market. But Android's a dominating platform while Windows Phone, roughly a year after its release, is still struggling for adoption.

At the same time, though, maybe Ballmer should curb some of that ire: The more Android devices sold, the more Microsoft gets paid, thanks to a series of patent-licensing agreements with Android manufacturers.

That Android strategy (Microsoft's alternative for Android manufacturers who refuse to enter into a licensing agreement: an intellectual property lawsuit) is just one piece of Microsoft's larger competitive thrust against Google. During his talk, Ballmer also insisted that, with the release of Office 365 and other cloud-productivity platforms, Microsoft was making more progress against Google in the cloud. "Our ramp rate of sold seats, it's got a nice trajectory," he said, "We've got a highly functional product that's highly available."

He also painted Microsoft as gaining search-engine traction with users despite Google's dominance of the search space. Bing's progress was good "not just for share but for having enough data to continue to improve the product," he said, according to a video of the talk posted on YouTube, "to make search more than just 10 blue links." He sidestepped a moderator question about whether Microsoft would create its own social platform along the lines of Google Plus, suggesting instead that "we're adding what we would call connectivity to our products."

In other words, don't expect this battle to end any time soon.

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ATandT Beefs Up 3G Net to Get Ready for new iPhone

AT T is said to be making software enhancements to its 3G network to get a bit more juice from it before a planned migration to 4G and before millions of new Apple iPhone users come on board....

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ASUS' Cedar Trail-loaded EeeBox EB1030 nettop keeps your desk clean, thumbs green

We've seen a fair share of space-saving nettops pass through our very own crowded halls, so what's one more to add to the list? Especially when it's one being flaunted as the most eco-friendly, energy-efficient PC. That's exactly what ASUS thinks of its EeeBox EB1030, which aside from sporting a relatively minimalist design (as is usually the case with nettops), it's also boasting Intel's latest batch of Cedar Trail CPUs. To go along with those Atom processors (1.86GHz), ASUS is making this mini machine as configurable as it could get, giving users the option to load it with up to 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive combined with 32GB of SSD goodness. Ports-wise the unit's pretty standard, offering options such as an HDMI, VGA, microphone, audio jack, card reader and four USB two-dot-ohs. Of course, the amount of cash you'll have to shell out will depend on the setup of choice, with pricing set to start at €296, or around $370 in American dollars.

Gallery: ASUS EeeBox PC EB1030

ASUS' Cedar Trail-loaded EeeBox EB1030 nettop keeps your desk clean, thumbs green originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Polycom Brings Video Streaming to Apple, Google Devices

Enhancements to its RealPresence video content management platform enable Polycom users to bring live-stream and recorded video to smartphones and tablets. - Polycom is updating its RealPresence video content management technology to enable the streaming of live and recorded video to Google Android and Apple iOS mobile devices, the latest efforts by the unified communications vendor to deliver video to any device at any time.
The updates, announced May ...

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