When you put the iPad on the Just Mobile UpStand, it just looks so cute. Like a child-sized version of the iMac.
Just Mobile's UpStand is actually rather simple, it's a basic aluminum stand with supporting grips that are finished in rubber. The stand supports landscape and portrait modes (and most cases) and can be adjusted to the desired height. It's currently available in Europe but you can pre-order it in the US for $45. [Just Mobile]
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2010.08.02 11:24:34 AM
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Re: iPad帶領平板電腦產業走向泡沫？
Ballmer: Microsoft feels tablet 'urgency'
REDMOND, Wash. (CNNMoney.com) -- Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday that the software giant is urgently working with its partners to unveil a host of tablet computers running Windows 7, to compete with Apple's fast-selling iPad.
At a meeting with financial analysts on Thursday, Ballmer outlined the company's strategy to catch up to Apple and Google in the consumer space. He said Apple is doing an "interesting" job with the iPad and has "sold certainly more than I'd like them to sell." As a result, Ballmer said his company's "job one urgency" is bringing Windows-based tablet computers to the market.
"No one is sleeping at the switch here," Ballmer said. "We have got to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates. We're in the process of doing that as we speak. As focused as we are on this, our partners are also focused on this to deliver systems and chips to make this happen."
But Ballmer declined to give an exact timeline, saying only that the tablets will be ready "as soon as they're ready" and "it ain't a long time from now."
The CEO claimed that Microsoft needs to take its time to get its products just right to compete in the intensely scrutinized tablet space. He said that chipmaker Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) will be coming out next year with a tablet-specific processor called "Oak Trail" that will help manufacturers make better tablets that run Windows 7.
Ballmer famously canned a turmoil-fraught Microsoft tablet project that had been in the works for almost a decade before the iPad came to market. With the early success of Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPad, many analysts are predicting that the tablet space will be one of the fastest-growing tech segments this decade, alongside smartphones. That makes Microsoft's urgency all the more palpable.
Ever confident, Ballmer exclaimed, "We're gonna sell like crazy!" Still, after the CEO outlined Microsoft's tablet plans, an analyst told Ballmer that it appeared that Microsoft had "no clear strategy."
Ballmer disagreed, saying Microsoft's tablets will run Windows 7, they'll run Intel processors, they'll be available in a wide array of shapes and sizes across many manufacturers, and they'll likely be cheaper than the iPad.
Some analysts remained skeptical.
"Microsoft will have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to compete with Apple," said Al Hilwa, applications development software program director at IDC. "Apple has a less-is-more strategy to broaden its consumer approach with the iPad. Microsoft is committed to running Windows 7 on tablets, which is a concern."
0:00 /1:22Ballmer: Doing 'very well in mobile'
Microsoft's CEO focused his entire presentation on the company's consumer businesses, which are almost all trailing their competitors.
Bing continues to lose money. "I can't say there's a point on the horizon where the business results will flip," Ballmer admitted.
After demonstrating Windows Phone 7, which is set to go on sale in the fall, Ballmer said the company still had a lot of work to do to compete with Apple and Google. Microsoft intends to throw enormous marketing muscle behind the new smartphone operating system, riding the success of its "I'm a PC" campaign with an "I'm a phone too!" campaign.
Xbox is the exception. It's a consumer product that is finally making money for Microsoft, Ballmer said. The controllerless Kinect accessory will be closely watched when it goes on sale for the holiday season, targeting the Xbox's 42 million users.
The cloud around businesses
Other top Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) executives mapped out the company's plans for maintaining its leadership in the corporate market, which makes up three quarters of Microsoft's business. Microsoft's lack of success in the consumer world tends to overshadow how well it is doing in the enterprise space.
It also doesn't help that Microsoft's primary strategy is relatively unexciting for the majority of non-geeks: The company aims to leverage its broad array of business products, massive data centers and experience in services to take a leadership position in cloud computing.
Still, Microsoft is confident that its success in the future will depend heavily on how well it carries out its cloud strategy with businesses. Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said the company's cloud offerings will help fuel physical product sales and noted that 70% of Windows cloud customers are new customers.
Turner lashed out at Microsoft's competitors like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Salesforce.com (CRM), Amazon.com (AMZN, Fortune 500), and VMWare for only offering only partial cloud services and solutions that he described as less than adequate for business customers.
The harshest criticism was reserved for Google's Web Apps, which compete with Microsoft Office. Turner said Office's Web Apps are far more powerful than Google's, calling to attention to small things like Google's lack of a ruler function on its Docs app -- "things that we put in market almost 13, 14 years ago."
He also shared several customers' complaints about Google's services and said a handful of companies that left Microsoft for Google are now coming back.
Unlike its competitors, Microsoft can offer companies a full set of cloud-based services, including managed data centers and business software tools in one package, Turner said.
Microsoft's cash cows also have room to grow. Windows 7 is selling faster than any other Windows version in history, but the vast majority of the company's customers are still using older versions of Microsoft software. Eighty-four percent of Windows users are running XP and Vista, 52% are using Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7, and 63% are using Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier.
Now that businesses are beginning to refresh their hardware again, Microsoft believes there will be a tremendous upgrade opportunity to Windows 7 and Office 2010.
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2010.08.02 11:29:45 AM
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Re: iPad帶領平板電腦產業走向泡沫？
Future tech: Your gadget life in the next 20 years
Posted by T3 Magazine on Fri 30 Jul 2010
T3 brings you the gadgets of the future, from this year's must-haves and our wish-list for iPad 2.0 to the design concepts That will shape your life in the coming decades...
If there’s one thing gadget fans love, it’s predicting the future, and one of the great things about working at T3 is that we get to hear about future tech developments early. Not being the types to keep anything under our hats, we’re always keen to pass the latest on to you so this month we’ve teamed up with the Alloy Design agency to look at the next evolutions in our Pulse, Play, Work and Home lives.
It’s all based on research currently being undertaken in the world’s labs and design studios, so click the links below to see what the future holds for the next 20 years of your gadget life.
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iPad 2.0: Features we hope to see
The most anticipated gadget of 2010, with a million US sales in its first month, has already begun flying off UK’s Apple Stores shelves. We’ve had an iPad at T3 towers For nigh-on two months already, and as a result, we’re already thinking about the next iPad and how it could be improved.
Now, we know many of the things we’d like to see In iPad 2.0 would be dismissed out of hand by Apple, but there’s nothing to stop them all appearing in rival devices instead.
See below for the features we'd like to see in the next Apple iPad
1. Slimmer, lighter
In our experience, 99% of people that pick up the ipad immediately say, “it’s heavier than i thought it was going to be.” However, apple tends to have a very firm idea of The point where form and function meet, so we don’t expect anything more than a very slight slimming in future iPads.
Likelihood: 3/10
2. Front camera
Why can’t you use video iChat and Skype on the iPad? It’s a mystery to match the location of all those socks that go missing in laundrettes.
Likelihood: 9/10
3. Rear camera
With AR technology picking up pace thanks to apps like Layar, and the boom in location-based selling – including via Apple’s iAds – this seems a distinct possibility.
Likelihood: 6/10
4. Transflective pixelqi screen
This hybrid screen tech has a colour mode that does justice to video indoors, but also an e-ink-like reflective mode that allows text to be read in direct sunlight.
Likelihood: 4/10
5. Multi-tasking
It’s in the iPhone 4.0 OS, so it seems like a given for iPad. The question is, will the iPad 2.0 let you run multiple apps in windows on a single screen, or will you have to flick between them one at a time, phone style?
Likelihood: 10/10
6. Easier typing
You pretty much have to put the iPad down to type. But what if there were rear touchpads at the left and right edges? That would allow you to hold the iPad two-handed and still rifle off emails…
Likelihood: 3/10
7. 4G networking
It’s not a case of if this will happen, but when. It’s unlikely for iPad 2.0 but the prospect of a super-fast, always-on connection that even works underground is too good to turn down…
Likelihood: 2/10
8. Flash support
Well, we can dream. Apple’s living in cloud cuckoo land if it thinks html 5 is going to make flash an irrelevance in the near future, though.
Likelihood: 0/10
9. More storage
We expect a base amount of 32GB, heading up to a 128GB range-topper.
Likelihood: 8/10
10. Touchscreen advances
Gaming would benefit From 3D touchscreen tech, which can tell how hard you’re pushing. Screen wipe manufacturers would be distraught, meanwhile, were Apple to consider “air gesture” tech, which detects movements above the screen.
Likelihood: 2/10
11. SD card slot
You know: for SD cards. There’s one on the MacBook Pro these days.
Likelihood: 5/10
12. USB slot
We think the lack of a single USB may in future be remembered as the same kind of “genius” that led early iMacs to have No CD-R drive built in.
Likelihood: 8/10
13. Calendar swipe
It’s funny how the Smallest things annoy you the most. Why can’t you swipe to the next month in the calendar app? Sort it, Apple…
Likelihood: 9/10
14. Sync via Wi-Fi
If Apple hates USB so much, why do we still have to sync using it? Let’s do It over the air, and keep the cable for charging only (until wireless electricity takes off…)
Sure, you could try affixing some magnets to the back of your iPad, and get the same iPad-as-fridge-magnet effect for far less, but then what'd happen if the iPad dropped and shattered? You wouldn't have anyone to sue but yourself.
Not that I'm suggesting you sue Woodford Design if that does indeed happen, but I do appreciate that £49 / $76 is pretty steep for a couple of magnets. It can obviously be used in either landscape or portrait angles, and comes with replaceable corner clips for next year's iPad model. On sale later this year. [Woodford Design via TechRadar]
Sure, we've heard Verizon discuss Android tablets once or twice, but it's just now that we're getting our first real juice about Motorola's companion device. The Financial Times reports that Verizon and Motorola are teaming up on an Android tablet with dual cameras, Adobe Flash support and a ten-inch screen, plus mobile hotspot functionality (which implies Verizon cellular data) and -- get this -- access to pay TV. As it so happens, Moto makes a Verizon FiOS set-top box, and sources tell the Times that the television tablet may get grandfathered in to the very same technology. No word on processing power or price, but the rumor mill says we could see it as early as fall of this year. And given the timing, here's hoping the Android inside will have some Google TV mojo, too.
The nerds at Yelp who revolutionized the way 20-something girls could give their opinions on stuff and actually have it matter in the slightest, have turned their attention to beer. Namely, making an iPad and a keg work together.
The shouting Yelper explains now the iPad/Kegbot contraption works. The iPad displays beer information—live, while it's flowing—and even tracks who's drinking from the keg, plus how much they've taken. You can rate the beer and even see a leaderboard.
And if you want to do it yourself, you can grab the source code here. [Yelp via Lifehacker]
Designed for children ages 2 and up, Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy is an illustrated, narrated storybook that reads to children on its own. Even better is that deaf children won't be left out, thanks to built-in sign language video.
As kids turn the pages at their own pace, an accompanying interpreter will provide visual narration. Touch devices like the iPad hold the potential to do great things for young readers, and we're happy to see publishers ensure that those with disabilities are included. [iTunes]
