Toshiba Unleashes Its WT310 Windows 8 Pro Tablet

Nothings should go behind when everyone else run towards victory. Just recently, Toshiba officially unveiled its new baby as it announced the release of its latest tablet. This slate from Toshiba is set to be running the Windows Pro 8 operating system. The device is named the WT310. Feature wise, it has a large 11.6-inch HD resolution screen.

Accordingly, Toshiba executives have it that their new tablet is equipped and especially made for business magnates with a variety of features purposely intended to help portable workers.

Going over the tablet's specifications, the 11.6-HD display is intended to be a touch sensitive supporting gestures including swipe, scroll, and allows users which is to commence programs or open documents by just tapping. Moreover, it is comes with a DigitizerPen that works in conjunction with software on the tablet to convert handwritten notes and text into documents for editing sharing with colleagues.

Tablet case is plastic made. As a promise, Toshiba reiterates that the case is strong enough to protect the internal components of the tablet from damage in the event of a sudden dropping, bumping or some other pressuring access in the device. An internal SSD comes in as the storage of the slate.

Furthermore, what it brags about is its Trusted Platform Module. Connectivity wise, several options are available making it now easier for the user to connect the item to an external display or television including a micro HDMI support for Intel Wireless Display Technology.

It has a full-size USB 3.0 port and an SD card slot for storage expansion, an integrated Wi-Fi, support for HSPA+/LTE for mobile broadband and Bluetooth 4.0, an anti-glare coating and the tablet uses the latest Intel processors designed specifically for ultrabooks as well. Processor to be used for the device has not yet been confirmed along with its storage capacity.

The Toshiba WT310 could be ready for purchase in the United Kingdom. As to how much, we still need to wait for further announcements.

via via

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Acer unveils Aspire R7 notebook, desktop convertible

Plenty of PC makers have blurred the lines between notebooks and tablets this year by offering Windows computers that can function as either. Acer's going another way with the Aspire R7. It's a notebook that you can use as a tablet, or a desktop PC.

At first glance the Acer Aspire R7 looks like a typical notebook. You can close the lid and carry it around with you. But when you open the lid you're greeted with an "Ezel" style display.

You can use the computer like a laptop, with the screen facing the keyboard. But you can also flip the screen over the unusual hinge so that the display is facing the back of the computer, allowing you to use the machine as a sort of all-in-one desktop.

Or you can flip the screen so it faces outward and then close the lid so the screen is facing up — which makes it work like a tablet.

Acer calls the four different modes "notebook mode," "pad mod," "display mode," and "ezel mode," with the last mode offering a sort of hybrid approach with a touchscreen resting partially over the keyboard.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the design is the touchpad which rests above the keyboard, and which isn't accessible at all in notebook mode.

The computer runs Windows 8 software, has a full HD display, Dolby Home Theater audio, and support for 3D gesture-based controls that let you interact with the PC without even touching it.

It packs a 15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, an Intel Core i5 processor, 6GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a 24GB solid state disk.

The computer has a backlit keyboard, three USB ports, VGA, HDMI, and Ethernet jacks, and WiFi and Bluetooth.

Weighing about 5.5 pounds, it's a bit heavy for a notebook, but awfully light for a desktop.

The Acer Aspire R7 will ship May 17th for $1000 and up, and it should be available for pre-order from Best Buy shortly.

Update: As tsog points out in the comments, the Acer Aspire R7 may not be the first notebook with this unusual hinge style. Flybook launched a similar device half a decade ago, although that model has an 11.5 inch display, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and Windows Vista.

via NewGadgets.de 

Acer unveils Aspire R7 notebook, desktop convertible is a post from: Liliputing

BeagleBone Black is a $45 Android, Linux computer and hardware prototyping board

There's a new player in the low-cost, ARM-based, mini-computer space. The BeagleBone Black is a $45 device which can run Linux or Android software and which can be used as a barebones computer or as the brains of a hardware project such as a robot, a home automation system, or more.

It's sort of what you'd get if you crossed a Raspberry Pi with an Arduino board, although neither comparison is quite perfect.

The BeagleBone Black has a more powerful processor than the Raspberry Pi, for instance, but it doesn't have quite as much graphics performance.

And while it has microcontrollers similar to what you'd get with an Arduino board and supports "capes" that can add functionality to the basic device, the BeagleBone Black isn't compatible with the many existing Arduino shields.

But the BeagleBone Black is still an interesting low-cost tool for DIY or educational projects.

It features a TI Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 single core processor, PowerVR SGX530 graphics, 512MB of RAM, and 2GB of built-in storage, as well as a microSD card slot for extra storage. It supports 10/100 Ethernet connections, has a USB host port and a USB client port, and a micro HDMI port (which only supports resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 pixels).

The board also features 2 PRU 32-bit microcontrollers, has 2 46 pin headers, and many more I/O options.

You can run Ubuntu Linux, Angstrom Linux, or Google Android 4.0.3 on the BeagleBone Black.

As CNX Software points out, the Raspberry Pi mini-computer has a slower ARM11 processor, that device supports 1080p output and has a more powerful graphics core which could make it a better option if you're planning to build a cheap home theater PC running XBMC or similar software. There's also already a large community of developers working on projects for the Raspberry Pi.

Yet the BeagleBone Black might make a better starting point for building hardware devices ranging from simple robots to garage door openers. It also has better support for Android if you want to build your own tablet or Android-based PC.

BeagleBone Black is a $45 Android, Linux computer and hardware prototyping board is a post from: Liliputing

B&N adds Google Play store to NOOK HD, NOOK HD+

Barnes & Noble is stepping up its competition with Amazon in the digital tablet space by adding support for hundreds of thousands of Android apps to its latest tablets. The somewhat surprising thing is that B&N is doing that by adding support for the Google Play Store to the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+.

While B&N has been releasing Android-based tablets since 2010, up until now all of the company's NOOK hardware has run a modified version of Android with a custom user interface and access to the B&N Shop for digital books and apps.

Up until recently, you've had to root NOOK devices or install a custom ROM if you wanted access to the Google Play Store.

Giving up a little control over where customers are able to purchase their content could be a smart move. The NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are 7 and 9 inch tablets with pretty great hardware and pretty great prices (starting at $199 and $269, respectively). But since the selection of apps available in the B&N Shop have paled in comparison to the number of apps available in the Amazon Appstore or Google Play Store, there hasn't been a lot of reason to choose a B&N tablet over a competitor's. Even if you're a loyal B&N customer, you can always just install the NOOK app on a Nexus 7.

On the other hand, not only will users be able to download free and paid apps from the Play Store, but they'll also be able to buy eBooks, rent or purchase videos, and buy music from Google Play. That means B&N will basically be installing a competitor's book store side-by-side with its own book store app, making comparison shopping a little bit easier.

The move also means customers won't be quite as tied into the B&N ecosystem. When it comes time to buy a new tablet in a few years, all of the apps you've purchased from the Play Store will be available on nearly any Android device you move to — and they're already available on any Android phone. So you'll be able to easily decide whether you want to buy hardware from B&N or another company.

That might actually be fine with the company — as long as you continue buying books from the NOOK store. After all, B&N doesn't make a lot of profit by selling cheap eReaders and tablets. The goal is to convert those sales into customers for its digital media store.

On the other hand, now that the Play Store is available, there's nothing stopping customers from installing the Amazon Kindle app and buying Kindle books on their NOOK.

Barnes & Noble will continue to offer its own app store, but any apps downloaded from that store will have a small n on their logo to make it clear which store they came from. This can come in handy if you're trying to keep your apps up to date, since you won't have to drive yourself crazy trying to figure out which store they're associated with — this is something that periodically happens to me with apps I've downloaded from the Amazon Appstore on my non-Amazon phone.

A software update bringing the Play Store to the NOOK HD and HD+ should roll out to existing users soon. Folks who pick up a new tablet should have the latest software already installed. The update will also bring a few other Google apps and services including Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Chrome.

The $199 NOOK HD features a 7 inch, 1440 x 900 pixel display and 8GB or more of storage. The $269 NOOK HD+ has a larger 9 inch, 1920 x 1280 pixel display and 16GB of storage or more.

Interestingly, it looks like B&N may have also given the 7 inch model a spec bump. It used to ship with a 1.2 GHz TI OMAP 4460 dual-core processor, but the product page now says it has a faster 1.3 GHz TI OMAP 4470 dual-core chip.

The NOOK HD+ has a 1.5 GHz TI OMAP 4470 processor.

Unfortunately there are no plans to bring Google Play to the older NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color. You'll have to do that yourself.

B&N adds Google Play store to NOOK HD, NOOK HD+ is a post from: Liliputing

This is what Paranoid Android's Halo notification/multitasking looks like (video)

The Paranoid Android development team is working on a new tool called Halo which completely rethinks the way Android handles notifications and multitasking. Halo is inspired by Facebook's "chat heads" feature which lets you see and respond to incoming Facebook chat messages from any app without closing the window.

But Halo works with every app that supports notifications. So you can respond to email messages, instant messages, alarms, image upload notices, or just about anything else. And you can do it without pulling down the notification tray or leaving the app you're using. Everything happens in a small pop-up menu.

While Halo isn't ready for the general public yet, Chris Nacca has posted a preview video on YouTube.

Halo is still a work in progress. Eventually you'll be able to view multiple notifications and choose which app you want to open. But as the demo video shows, it already works pretty much as intended.

When Halo is activated, any time a notification appears an image and brief message will pop up on your screen. You can drag the notification circle anywhere on the screen so it's not in your way.

If you're surfing the web, watching a video, playing a game, or doing just about anything else, tapping on the notification will pause the app you're using. Then you can open a not-quite-full screen version of the app that sent the notification, respond to a text, compose an email response, or do whatever else you want to do.

Since you're looking at a pop-up instead of a full-screen app, it's easy to remember what you were doing before the notification appeared. To get back to that activity, just tap the original app and the pop-up will go away.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of having a tiny circle cover part of my screen always dedicated to incoming messages. But I do like the idea of a system that lets you respond to alerts more quickly and then get back to what you were doing before the message came in.

The first builds of Paranoid Android featuring Halo should be available soon. You'll need a phone with an unlocked bootloader and the guts to replace the firmware that came with your phone with a custom operating system to use Halo. It's a system-wide tool that probably won't be available as a simple app you can install on other phones anytime soon.

This is what Paranoid Android's Halo notification/multitasking looks like (video) is a post from: Liliputing

iMito QX1 quad-core Android TV stick with external antenna coming soon for $90

Chinese device maker iMito's latest Android TV stick is a tiny box with a quad-core processor that lets you run Android apps on your TV. The iMito QX1 has a Rockchip RK3188 ARM Cortex-A9 processor, which is one of the zippiest chips in its class, and runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean software.

The TV stick also features an external antenna which should help boost WiFi performance — a problem spot on many other Android TV sticks.

The iMito stick has 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot. It supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 and features a mini HDMI plug which you can use to connect the device to your TV.

On one end of the QX1 you'll find a full-sized USB port which you can use to hook up a mouse, keyboard, game controller, or remote control. There's also an antenna port which you can use to plug in the external antenna. You may not need it, but it's a nice option to have if the built-in antenna isn't strong enough.

Geekbuying is taking pre-orders for the iMito QX1 for $90.

iMito QX1 quad-core Android TV stick with external antenna coming soon for $90 is a post from: Liliputing

Deals of the Day (5-03-2013)

The Asus 1015E is a mini-laptop with a 10 inch display and a 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron 847 dual-core processor. It's not exactly a powerhouse, but it's a portable notebook that weighs less than 3 pounds and which should offer significantly better performance than an Intel Atom-powered netbook.

Asus started offering the 1015E last month for $299. But now it's available for $50 less, making it not only one of the smallest notebooks around, but also one of the cheapest.

Here are some of the day's best deals on notebooks, tablets, and accessories.

• Asus 1015E 10″ Windows 8 notebook w/Celeron 847 for $249 – B&H
• Lenovo IdeaPad U310 13″ ultrabook w/1.7 GHz Core i5 for $500 – Newegg
• Lenovo IdeaPad U310 13″ ultrabook w/1.8 GHz Core i5 for $550 – Newegg
• Toshiba Satellite U945 14″ ultrabook w/Core i3 for $480 – Newegg
• Toshiba Excite 7.7 tablet w/Tegra 3, 16GB for $200 – Toshiba (via eBay)
• Toshiba Excite 7.7 tablet w/Tegra 3, 32GB for $250 – Toshiba (via eBay)
• Open Box Apple iPad mini w/16GB for $280 – Rakuten
• Asus USB 2.0 external DVD writer for $20 after rebate – Newegg (coupon: EMCXRXT46)
• Patriot 64GB USB 2.0 flash drive for $30 after rebate – Newegg (coupon: EMCXRXT74)

You can find more bargains in our daily deals section.

Deals of the Day (5-03-2013) is a post from: Liliputing

Lilbits (5-03-2013): Sony Xperia Z, XBMC 12.2, and Google Glass... oh my!

Acer sort of dominated tech news headlines today, with some crazy new laptop designs, and some not-so-crazy tablets, as well as hints of things to come.

But Acer isn't the only company making waves. Here's a roundup of some of the day's other news from around the web, including an update on Sony's new ultra-thin tablet, a surprise featuring hiding in the first Google TV box from Asus, and more.

You can keep up on the latest news by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

• Sony Xperia Tablet Z at the FCC
  The Sony Xperia Tablet Z is a 10 inch, $500 tablet with a full HD display, a quad-core processor, and one of the thinnest cases you'll find on a tablet. It's already up for pre-order in the US, and now it showed up at the FCC website as Sony seeks regulatory approval. [FCC]
• XBMC 12.2 Frodo released
  The latest version of the popular media software adds fixes for UPnP, Apple AirPlay, and a memory leak, among other things. [XBMC]
• A look at the distribution of mobile device screen sizes over the past few years
  When you look at trends in screen sizes over the past few years, it becomes clear that mobile devices with 7 inch screens are on the rise, while the declining popularity of netbooks means that 10 inch screens aren't as popular as they once were. [UMPC Portal]
• Asus CUBE Google TV box offers limited support for Apple's AirPlay
  Asus doesn't advertise this, and I didn't notice it when I reviewed the Asus CUBE. But apparently it lets you stream video from a mobile device using Apple's AirPlay standard. [GTV Source]
• Yet another Motorola X Fon leak
  Another day, another leak. Google and Motorola haven't confirmed a thing, but the latest rumor paints a picture of a phone with a 4.7 inch display, Android 4.2, 2GB of RAM, and a wide range of color options. It's expected to be available for every major wireless carrier in the US. [9to5Google]
• Dissecting the software that makes Google Glass tick
  The folks at Android Police do a great job of analyzing the contents of Android APK files to see what's on the inside. The same tricks work for Google Glass, but there aren't a lot of surprises at the moment… other than the fact that Google apparently feels the need to show you how to wink in two different demonstrations. [Android Police]

Lilbits (5-03-2013): Sony Xperia Z, XBMC 12.2, and Google Glass… oh my! is a post from: Liliputing

Lilbits (5-02-2013): Is this the Motorola X Phone?

Ever since Google acquired Motorola, there have been rumors about the cool new phones we should expect. While the last few devices from Motorola have had their charms (such as extraordinary battery life or super-thin bezels), they were all in development before Google bought the company.

But now the Google-owned Motorola is working next-gen hardware, and serial leaker @evleaks may have found a few shots of the so-called "X Phone." Don't get too excited though — the pictures show a prototype with boxy plastic case. But the screen and software look awfully nice.

Here are some of the day's top stories from around the web.

• Is this the Motorola X Phone?
  Motorola's working on… something. There have been rumors since Google bougth the company about a so-called "X Phone" for a while, but the company's been pretty quiet. But here are a few leaked pictures showing what appears to be a Motorola phone in a black box running stock Android software. [@evleaks]
• Lenovo K900 Android smartphone hits the FCC
  Last I'd heard, Motorola had no plans to launch its 5.5 inch smartphone with an Intel Atom processor in the US. So what's it doing on the FCC website? [FCC]
• Gumstix offers updated gumstic-sized mini PCs with ARM Cortex-A8, Cortex-A9 chips
  Gumstix makes these cute little mini PC boards that are the size of… a stick of gum. They're Linux-friendly and not particularly cheap, with prices starting at $169. [CNX Software]
• FitScales lets you pair an Android phone with a Wii Fit balance board, use it as a scale
  Haven't bothered to get on your Wii balance board since you gave up on Wii Fit a few years ago? Now you can pair it with your phone and use it as a scale. You can even share the data with other fitness apps. I wonder how long it'll take for Wii balance games to hit Android. [MoDaCo]
• When @wilw needs help rooting his HTC One, @koush introduces Wil Wheaton Recovery
  The developer of ClockworkMod Recovery has a new limited edition recovery. It's called Wil Whaton Recovery, it features a picture of Wesley Crusher, and it was designed to solve a very specific problem Wil Wheaton encountered while trying to root his HTC One smartphone. [Koush on Google+]
• MediaTek launches MT6572 ARM Cortex-A7 dual-core, HSPA+ chip for entry-level smartphones
  Another day, another mobile chip for smartphones. [MediaTek]
• Reddit Timeline app for Google Glass
  I feel like there are some smartphone apps that don't need to be on Google Glass… others see things differently. Now you can view pictures of cute cats and upvote them without using your hands. [Glass Apps]

You can keep up on the latest mobile tech news by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Lilbits (5-02-2013): Is this the Motorola X Phone? is a post from: Liliputing

Deals of the Day (5-02-2013)

The Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet may be approaching its second birthday, but the 7 inch tablet is still a pretty good device with a decent display, a reasonably fast processor, and the ability to work as a full-fledged Android tablet if you install CyanogenMod or another custom ROM.

B&N doesn't sell the tablet directly to shoppers anymore. But you can pick up a refurbished model for just $80 today. Personally, I think it's probably the best tablet you can buy for under $100.

Here are some of the day's best deals on mobile devices and accessories.

• Refurb B&N NOOK Tablet w/8GB for $80 – 1SaleADay (via eBay)
• Asus MeMO Pad ME301T 10″ Android tablet for $250 – Adorama
• Refurb Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) tablet for $250 – Rakuten
• Pre-owned Acer Iconia A100 7″ Android tablet for $90 – CowBoom
• Refurb Dell Latitude ST 10″ Windows 7 Pro tablet for $299 – Woot
• ADATA 32GB Class 4 SDHC card for $12.59 after rebate – Newegg (coupon: EMCXRXV45)
• Asus USB mini Bluetooth dongle for $4 – Newegg (coupon: EMCXRXV33)
• MK802 Android mini PC for $33 – Amazon
• Jump Desktop remote desktop app for Android for free (normally $10) – Amazon Appstore

You can find more bargains in our daily deals section.

Deals of the Day (5-02-2013) is a post from: Liliputing