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News & Opinion
Rumor Roundup
Tech Trends
Products & Services
News & Opinion
Which Do You Use More, Your Mac or Your iPad?
Mac 360's Alexis Kayhill
says she fears the Mac may go the way of the dodo bird, noting that she
uses her iPhone and iPad more than her Mac these days.
Kayhill notes that for a few years her Mac and iPhone peacefully
coexisted - the latter offering mobility and convenience; the
former for heavy lifting - but then came the iPad, and over the
past year her Mac's usage has dropped considerably. Web page browsing
and RSS feed reading has shifted from Mac to iPad, and the Mac now only
gets used for heavy typing and serious graphics work. Everything else
that the Mac once handled for her has been offloaded to iPhone and
iPad.
So if mobility is the future, whither the Mac? Kayhill notes that
schools are dumping PC and Mac purchases and switching to iPads, and
Mac sales growth has slowed considerably.
So which gets used most at your house: Mac or iPad?
Link: Which Gets Used
Most? Your Mac or Your iPad?
Rumor Roundup
DigiTimes: 13" Retina MacBook Pro and Next iMac
Already in Apple's Supply Chain
DigiTimes' Aaron Lee and Joseph Tsai say that Apple's upstream
supply chain reportedly started mass shipping new iMac all-in-ones and
Retina Display 13.3" MacBook Pros this month according to insider
sources.
Lee and Tsai's sources also project that official launch of the
Retina Display 13.3" MacBook Pro should be in either September or
October to target back-to-school demand and the year-end holidays.
With regard to the the iMac, they report that Apple had originally
planned to release three new models with upgraded panels and CPUs, but
poor yields of the panels has resulted in postponing mass production of
the high-end model, with no word on a revised launch schedule. The new
midrange and entry-level iMac models are reportedly in the distribution
channels.
Lee and Tsai also note that having shipped 1.01 million iMacs in the
second quarter, accounting for 2.8% of global desktop shipments, and
bringing the company's total iMac shipments in the first half to 2.23
million units has made Apple fifth-largest desktop vendor worldwide and
largest in the all-in-one PC segment.
Link: New 13.3-inch
MacBook Pro and iMac Already Mass Shipping in Apple's Supply Chain
(subscription required)
Tech Trends
Low-Power Haswell Processors to Fuel Future Mobile
Computing Innovation
PR: Intel says that in 2013, its 4th generation Intel Core
processor family based on "Haswell" microarchitecture will bring
faster, thinner, lighter, cooler, more secure systems with built-in
graphics to mainstream.
At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, on Tuesday, Intel's
chief product officer described how its low-power processors, starting
with the company's 4th generation Intel Core processor family available
next year, will set a new standard for mobile computing experiences and
innovative Ultrabook, convertible and tablet designs.
David (Dadi) Perlmutter said Intel has reduced the platform idle
power of its 4th generation Intel Core processor family based on the
next-generation "Haswell" microarchitecture by more than 20 times over
2nd generation Core processors, while delivering outstanding
performance and responsiveness. He also said Intel will add a new line
of even lower-power processors based on the same microarchitecture to
its roadmap starting in 2013, underscoring the company's determination
to aggressively drive power consumption down, enabling longer battery
life and a wave of new, more mobile designs, while delivering
ever-increasing processor, graphics and media performance.
"The 4th generation Intel Core processor family and our new line of
low-power processors will usher in an era of unprecedented innovation
in mobile computing," Perlmutter said. "Our focus to deliver even lower
power with the great performance that our processors are known for is
as fundamentally significant as when we shifted our development focus
beyond sheer processor speed in 2001. As a result, you'll see our
customers delivering sleek and cool convertible designs, as well as
radical breakthrough experiences across a growing spectrum of mobile
devices."
Convertible Designs
Intel says that since it created and invested in the ecosystem for
the new category of Ultrabook systems last year, more than 140
different Ultrabook designs are in development, a number of which are
convertibles, with more than 70 powered by 3rd generation (Ivy Bridge)
Intel Core processors available today.
However, when the company's 22nm 4th generation Intel Core processor
family comes to the Ultrabook and other PCs in 2013, it will bring
Intel HD graphics support, new instructions for faster encryption and
performance, new hardware-based security features and low-power
processor sub-states to enable longer battery life.
Intel says its new low-power chips based on "Haswell"
microarchitecture will broaden the company's mobile roadmap, initially
operating at about 10 watts to enable thinner, lighter Ultrabook,
convertible and tablet designs with better performance and battery
life.
Turning his attention to the full mobility spectrum, Perlmutter
contended that Intel delivers the best choices for every mobile
experience. Coming soon, the next-generation Intel Atom processor
(codenamed "Clover Trail") is a new system-on-chip (SoC) architected
specifically for Windows 8. Based on Intel's 32nm process technology,
it powers lightweight tablets and convertibles, and includes
outstanding battery life and always-on technology in sleek designs.
Perlmutter also articulated the advantages of Intel-based Windows 8
devices, noting that Intel Atom- and Intel Core-based tablets and
convertibles will deliver a range of new features from enhanced media
capabilities, security built for enterprise vertical market solutions,
and support for the breadth of applications written for Intel
processors, thus retaining the software investment of IT and
consumers.
"We believe Windows 8 on Intel architecture will deliver the best
experience, performance and compatibility across computing platforms,"
he said.
The Rise of Natural, Intuitive Computing Experiences
The personal computing experience is shifting to one based on
perceptual computing where devices will take on human-like senses to
perceive the user's intentions, according to Perlmutter, adding that
Intel is driving these capabilities across Intel platforms both now and
into the future.
Perlmutter invited the developer community to work with Intel to
bring the next wave of perceptual computing capability to Intel
Core-based platforms with the release of the company's first Intel
Perceptual Computing Software Development Kit (SDK) beta. The SDK,
targeted for release early next quarter, will enable hardware and
software developers to bring gesture interaction, facial and voice
recognition, and augmented reality to life on existing and future Intel
Core processor-based Ultrabook systems and PCs.
Perlmutter also talked about progress made to bring voice
recognition to the Ultrabook while showing a system running the Nuance
Dragon Assistant Beta optimized for Intel Core processors. Dell plans
to make the Dragon Assistant Beta available in the United States next
quarter in its Dell XPS13 Ultrabook.
Products & Services
Sonnet 10GbE and 6Gb eSATA Thunderbolt Adapters and
Echo Express SE Thunderbolt Adapter Value Bundles
PR: Sonnet Technologies has announced the Echo Express SE 10
Gigabit Ethernet Thunderbolt Adapter and the Echo Express SE eSATA Pro
4-Port Thunderbolt Adapter. These new adapters pair Sonnets
just-released Echo Express SE Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCI
Express (PCIe) cards with either a Sonnet Pro one-port 10 Gigabit
Ethernet (10GbE) adapter card or four-port 6Gb eSATA adapter card,
respectively, in value-priced bundles that provide high-speed data and
storage interfaces to iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro
computers with a Thunderbolt port. The adapters ship with the interface
cards preinstalled.
The Echo Express SE 10GbE is a
Thunderbolt-to-10GbE adapter that bundles Sonnet's Echo Express SE
Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCIe cards and the Presto 10GbE PCIe
Card with Fibre SFP+, providing a near plug-and-play solution for
adding 10GbE connectivity to any computer with a Thunderbolt port. This
adapter enables users to connect their computers to high-speed
infrastructure and storage without stepping down in speed. Data centers
are adopting the 10GbE standard increasingly for wired networking and
specialized applications such as HD video editing using
high-performance shared storage systems yet no Mac computer offers this
interface option. Sonnets solution provides users with a powerfully
simple way to add 10GbE connectivity to any computer with a Thunderbolt
port.
The Echo Express SE eSATA Pro 4-Port is a Thunderbolt-to-eSATA
adapter that bundles Sonnets Echo Express SE Thunderbolt Expansion
Chassis for PCIe cards and the Tempo SATA Pro 6Gb 4-Port eSATA host
controller, providing a plug-and-play solution for adding four
high-performance eSATA ports to any computer with a Thunderbolt port.
This adapter enables users to connect single- and multi-drive storage
systems to any computer with a Thunderbolt port so that they can take
advantage of the 6 Gb/s eSATA interfaces superior throughput compared
to all FireWire and USB interfaces. The Tempo SATA Pro 6Gb 4-Port card
was designed for optimum performance over Thunderbolt, and its ability
to support aggregate transfer speeds of up to 760 MB/s reflects its
optimized design.
Each Echo Express SE value bundle comes with its adapter card
preinstalled, so physical setup is as simple as connecting the external
power supply plus necessary interface cables among the Echo Express SE
chassis, computer, and data or storage devices. Measuring only 5.7
inches wide by 8.8 inches long by 2.9 inches tall and weighing less
than three pounds, each chassis takes up very little space wherever its
used. Dual Thunderbolt ports support daisy-chaining of devices, and an
automatic temperature-controlled fan quietly cools the installed card.
Each Echo adapter conserves energy by powering on/off when the computer
to which it is connected powers on/off or wakes/sleeps.
Echo Express SE 10GbE and Echo Express SE eSATA Pro 4-Port adapters
provide users with a simply fast way to add the latest high-performance
ports to their computers, said Robert Farnsworth, CEO of Sonnet
Technologies. On its own, each adapter delivers a significant savings
over purchasing the Echo Express SE and adapter card separately, but
with the inclusion of a five-year warranty, these Sonnet solutions are
just great values.
The Echo Express SE 10GbE (part number ECHO-EXP-SE10G) and the Echo
Express SE eSATA Pro 4-Port (part number ECHO-EXP-SE4S) are now
available for $999 and $599, respectively.
Link: Thunderbolt
Expansion Chassis & Rackmount Enclosures
Bargain 'Books
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