Archive for the ‘Products’ Category

In its first public presentation, AMD’s new leadership explained a new direction of the company to align itself with an evolving CPU and GPU market. In 2013, AMD will be releasing its first SoCs for desktop and tablet computers. Execution will be key for the company to succeed in a highly competitive market that is dominated by ARM vendors and challenged by Intel.

January 2012 has been a remarkable month for the web browser as we know it. Those who closely follow the popularity of web browsers already know that Chrome has, according to StatCounter, surpassed Firefox in market share in November 2011, thus rearranging the rules of the browser game and turning it, for now, into a two-horse race. Now, Chrome is beginning to approach IE in most regions around the globe and has reduced its distance to IE, on one day, to less than four percentage points. If the current trend, which has lasted for more than 3 years, continues, then Google will surpass IE within 3 months.

Chrome developer François Beaufort has posted a screenshot that apparently has been taken on Samsung’s upcoming Chrome OS desktop PC. The big news here is that the hardware-accelerated Aura UI that promises a much richer interface for the user while leveraging the horsepower of a graphics chip will be part of Stumpy. The Chromebox will also integrate more hardware horsepower with an Intel Sandy Bridge processor.

Intel unveiled at CES its much anticipated entry in the smartphone battle. Previously code-named Medfield, the Atom Z2460 lacks a snappy name, but it arrives with promising features. Intel has struck a partnership with Motorola as well as Lenovo to get the chip into a commercial devices as early as Q2, but only in China initially. There was also Clover Trail, Intel’s SoC for tablets and hybrids.

We are seeing plenty of new tablets emerge at the CES 2012, which opened earlier today with a record number of more than 3100 exhibitors that have prepared more than 25,000 product announcements that are available to about 150,000 visitors over the next few days. Among those tablets is a particularly noteworthy device that could have a huge impact on the tablet market, if it works as promised.

Earlier today, HP launched the HP Envy 14 Spectre and I was immediately reminded of the 2009 Dell Adamo, which was Dell’s halo product that year. Both are wrapped in glass, both look stunning in black and both would cause you to drool. But the Adamo was a bit ahead of its time, Intel hadn’t yet figured out how to package performance, we weren’t yet divorced from our optical drives (streaming was in its infancy), and Adamo had some nasty tradeoffs, not the least of which was a very high price.

Intel has created and “speced” a new form factor for notebooks it is calling ultrabooks. Many have speculated that this is a direct response to the popularity of the MacBook Air. But if this effort is only focused on that narrow vision, it will fail. Ultrabooks represent a much bigger strategic vision (and investment) that could revolutionize the notebook market, if Intel is successful.

Google is reworking the Options menu of its Chrome browser. The most recent nightly builds include an experimental menu that eliminates the “Basics”, “Personal Stuff” and “Under the Hood” clutter at the top level. There is also a new feature that visualizes the suggestions provided by the Omnibox.

Chrome ended 2011 with 42.50% market share gain for the year and the highest monthly market share growth in its history, according to data released by StatCounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the only browser to lose market share, but slightly slowed its losses over 2010. Firefox had a tough year with a loss that more than quadrupled over 2010.

The Kindle Fire has showcased that a product well differentiated with a strong user experience running Android has the potential to challenge the iPad’s shipment numbers. However, Amazon had to create a unique Amazon controlled version of Android to make the Fire approach its potential. Google may not do what is necessary to achieve a similar result.

Mozilla has released the final Firefox version today. Officially, it’s not Firefox 9, it’s just a new version of Firefox that delivers major JavaScript enhancements, But it is really Firefox 11 and 12 we are waiting for.

Mozilla can use all the support it can get at this point. Both Google and Microsoft are being focused on their future platforms, but there has been little reported news this week about the developer preview of Mozilla (Labs) Apps, which provides a first glimpse at Mozilla’s view of an open apps platform for the web. A detail of Mozilla Apps is an opportunity for Mozilla to follow Google into the entertainment and, specifically, in the game market.