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Windows 8 Hybrid Laptops all about the Trackpad

Windows 8 Hybrid Laptops all about the Trackpad

CloudTags: Windows 8 , Laptops , Trackpad , Dell inspiron 1545 batteries , Hp probook 4310s , thinkpad t61 battery

Laptop tablet concept 1 Windows 8 Hybrid Laptops all about the TrackpadWith Windows 8 coming later this year, Ultrabook makers are reportedly scratching their heads over how to integrate touchscreens with thin-and-light laptops.

Existing Ultrabook designs are inadequate, DigiTimes reports, because when you tap the touchscreen, you might end up pushing the top panel downward. Strengthening the hinge is an option, but then the entire laptop could topple back if you push too hard.

So now, instead of forcing touch on traditional clamshell setups, laptop makers are looking into other options, such as rotating or sliding screens that turn the devices into tablets. Lenovo solution, for example, is the Yoga, a laptop that folds all the way around into a tablet, with its keyboard disabled on the reverse side.

Sounds good to me. The idea of reaching out to a touchscreen on a traditional laptop always seemed awkward, because you have to reach over the keyboard and subject yourself to gorilla arm.

But as long as we’re brainstorming, I have one appeal to Windows 8 laptop makers as they try to combine laptops and tablets into a single device: Please, please, do not neglect the trackpad.

The trackpad is not only more comfortable than touchscreens in a laptop setting, it’s more accurate, and it allows the user to execute shortcuts through right clicks. Selecting text is also easier with a pointing device, because you can simply click and drag. For a tablet to double as a laptop, I’d argue that a trackpad is just as important as a physical keyboard. Fortunately, Windows 8 will support pointing devices throughout the OS.

But I’m not sure whether this is sinking in. At Intel’s CES press conference, for example, the chip maker showed off a concept tablet whose screen slid back into laptop position, kind of like Asus’ Eee Pad Slider. It did not include a trackpad. The Developer Preview tablet Microsoft handed out at its BUILD conference included a docking station that paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, but that keyboard did not include a trackpad. And despite all the Android tablets that have flooded the market, with their accompanying keyboard accessories, Asus’ Eee Pad Transformer is the only one I’ve seen with a trackpad built in.

I, for one, have no interest in Windows 8 tablet-laptop hybrids that do not include a trackpad. Reaching over to a touchscreen is too difficult, and too imprecise, and I’m too reliant on clicking and dragging, and using right clicks for productivity. So as device makers rethink the design of Windows 8 PCs, I hope the trackpad gets the attention it deserves.

Online discount Battery store : batteryfast.co.uk 

7 things I learned at CES 2012 by batteryfast.co.uk

7 things I learned at CES 2012 by batteryfast.co.uk

CloudTags: CES , 2012 , OLED , TV , Dell inspiron 1545 batteries , Hp probook 4310s battery life , Lenovo thinkpad t61 battery pack

At many major tech conferences, one big story–a product, technology, or trend–dominates the entire show.

CES 2012 was not one of those events. Intel’s Ultrabook was closest thing there was to a show-dominating topic, but in the end, what I was struck by was the diversity of stuff on display at the Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding venues. And in some cases, the no-shows were as interesting as the products that were there.

Herewith, a few of the lessons I took home with me after four jam-packed days in Vegas:

ces 7 things I learned at CES 2012 by batteryfast.co.uk

Giant OLED TVs aren’t inherently amazing.It’s a long-standing CES tradition for TV makers to try and out-do each other with demos of high-end big screens that won’t wind up in many living rooms anytime soon. This year, the makers in question were LG and Samsung, which had 55-inch OLED TVs at their booths. I checked out both sets–and didn’t come away lusting after either one. The LG, at least when I saw it, was displaying gimmicky 3D videos, which made it hard to judge how good it would be for anything else. And the video clips I saw on the Samsung were way over-saturated, giving everything an artificial, candy-colored effect that reminded me of some OLED smartphones.

Windows Phone was the mobile platform of the year. At CES 2011, Android devices such as Motorola’s Xoom tablet and Atrix phone generated a huge amount of buzz. This year, however, I heard more chatter about Windows Phone–especially Nokia’s promising Lumia 900. For awhile now, folks who have tried Windows Phone have been impressed by it; now even industry types who haven’t used it seem to have a favorable impression. It’ll be fascinating to see if Microsoft can translate all that goodwill into the one thing Windows Phone doesn’t have: meaningful market share.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich still isn’t the current version of Android. At least if “current” means that you can safely assume it will come preinstalled on brand-new devices. Upcoming phones such as Droid Razr Maxx will ship with 2010′s Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with the promise of an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade at a future date.

Once again, it isn’t the year of the tablet. At CES 2011, Motorola’s Xoom and RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook got so much attention that it would have been rational to expect that non-iPad tablets were about to chip away meaningfully at Apple’s head start. A year later, though, the market has changed surprisingly little. And while there were plenty of new tablets at CES 2012, most of them didn’t make much of a splash. The most newsworthy one was probably Samsung’s Galaxy Note–a pocket-size device that’s either a tablet-esque phone or a phone-like tablet.

3D TV is no longer cool. I’m not saying that it’s a failure, but for the most part, TV companies weren’t pushing it as the future of home entertainment. (LG’s extremely 3D-centric booth was an exception.) As Samsung’s press conference, for instance, Boo-Keun Yoon, president of the company’s consumer electronics division, said that Samsung is “continuing to invest heavily” in 3D TV. But the press conference emphasized Internet connectivity, not 3D.

Thunderbolt is making progress. The connectivity standard, invented by Intel, is pretty darn neat. Until now, however, it’s only shown up on new Macs and a handful of peripherals. That’s why I was happy to see it figure in several announcements at CES. Acer’s Aspire S5 Ultrabook, for instance, is one of the first Windows computers with a Thunderbolt port. Seagate showed offadapters, due in January, that turn its external drives into Thunderbolt drives. And Western Digital gave a sneak peek of Thunderbolt disks it plans to ship by mid-2012.

Gesture and voice input could be CES 2013′s biggest story. Using body motion and voice to control consumer-electronics devices was a mini-trend at this year’s show, thanks to debutantes such as Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows and Samsung’s TV with gesture and voice control. I’m betting that both types of input will get lots more attention at next year’s conference–especially if the conventional wisdom that Apple is working on a TV with Siri voice control turns out to be true.

I came back from CES 2012 feeling smarter about the consumer-electronics industry, and better prepared for the year to come. That’s all you can ask of an event like this. It’s more than enough to keep the show valuable even in an era when giant trade shows are an endangered species.

 

Carrier IQ: What it is, How To Deal With It, and Everything You Need to Know

Carrier IQ: What it is, How To Deal With It, and Everything You Need to Know

 

CloudTags: Carrier IQ , smartphone , Dell inspiron 1525 battery life , Dell inspiron 1545 batteries , Motorola CP040 two way radios battery

carrier iq spyware Carrier IQ: What it is, How To Deal With It, and Everything You Need to KnowThere’s a storm of controversy flaring up over Carrier IQ, cellphone software that logs user activity and relays at least some of that information to wireless carriers. The carriers say they’ll use that data to improve their networks. But anything that’s peeking in on what you’re doing on a phone raises a host of privacy concerns, and many users are suspicious.

By now, you’ve probably heard all about Carrier IQ, the mobile logging software that an intrepid researcher named Trevor Eckhart found lurking on a number smartphones from multiple manufacturers and carriers.

Carrier IQ maintains they summarize performance information to help improve the quality of a carrier’s customer experiences, but what if you don’t want anyone else to have access to the sort of fine-grained data that Carrier IQ is capable of accessing? Here’s how you can figure out if your phone is affected, and how to go about fixing things if it is.

What is Carrier IQ?

Carrier IQ, made by a Mountain View-based company of the same name, is software that runs in the background of your cellphone or mobile device. It’s there to examine how your information travels over your wireless provider’s network. Basically, it looks at how well your texts are going through, how fast your emails are getting delivered, and how much you’re clogging up things by watching Netflix all the time — with the intention of relaying that information to carriers so they can find ways to optimize their networks.

Does your phone have Carrier IQ?

Eckhart’s original report has shown that Carrier IQ has been discovered on HTC and Samsung devices, and that CarrierIQ counts Sprint among their domestic carrier clients. AT&T also appears to use Carrier IQ on their devices: a member of the XDA-dev forums called AT&T and was told that Carrier IQ is indeed preloaded on the HTC Vivid. Other carriers, including Verizon, Vodafone, and O2 have all denied that they use Carrier IQ on their devices.

Nokia and RIM were also among the companies that Eckhart claimed CarrierIQ provided their “mobile intelligence” services to, but they have vociferously denied the connection. The Verge also reports that the three devices in Google’s Nexus line are free of the logging service, so Nexus devotees can rest easy.

Fortunately, you don’t have to take their word for it, as it’s fairly simple to find out if your device has the tracking service running on it. If you’ve got a rooted device, all it takes is a quick download of Eckhart’s free Logging Test app (currently in its 7th revision). Once installed, hit ‘CIQ Checks,’ and you’ll know almost immediately whether or not your device is affected.

Rooting your device will also be required if you want to get rid of Carrier IQ on an affected device, so do look into it. The ease of the process will depend on your phone — for some its a total breeze while for others (usually newer devices) it can be a bit hairier. A quick Google search for “your device name + root” should get you pointed in the right direction.

See Also: Now More Free Apps For Android Than For The iPhone: Distimo

What about iPhones?

Most of the original furor around Carrier IQ stemmed from its appearance on Android devices, but recent findings from iOS hacker chpwn has revealed that CarrierIQ exists in one form or another in versions of iOS as early as 3.1.3. For what it’s worth, it seems much less nosy than its Android cousin: chpwn seems fairly convinced that the iPhone variant isn’t able to access “typed text, web history, passwords, browsing history, or text messages,” and therefore isn’t able to send that data along.

While the iOS 5 version seems pretty toothless, chpwn admits that earlier versions of iOS “may send back information in more cases,” so the truly worried should make sure they’re diligent about updates.

What do I do about it?

Well, you could just live with it, but I’ll admit that it’s not a terribly appealing option. iOS users who want to disable logging have it pretty easy here: chpwn believes that in iOS 5, CarrierIQ is enabled during the initial setup process if you opt-in to sending log back to Apple. Since that’s the case, all it takes to disable Carrier IQ is to jump into Settings/About/Diagnostics & Usage, and change the setting to “Don’t send.”

If you’re an Android user and the thought of CarrierIQ unnerves you to no end, you have two options to rid yourself of it.

logging test app 1201 Carrier IQ: What it is, How To Deal With It, and Everything You Need to KnowUninstall Carrier IQ with the Logging Test app

This is about as straightforward as the process gets: once you’ve installed the aforementioned app, pay the $1 for the Pro key in the Android Market. Once you’ve done that, the option to remove Carrier IQ will be unlocked in the app, although ExtremeTech notes that the process may not always be successful.

Flash a custom ROM

This is a bit more extreme a solution than simply uninstalling the service, but it has its benefits: since many custom ROMs are based of the of the open-source Android code provided by Google, carrier-mandated services like Carrier IQ aren’t an issue. On top of that, a good custom ROM can also help give your aging hardware a shot in the arm thanks to software tweaks and features it may not get otherwise.

This process also requires you to root your device, and can be very tricky for first-time modders. If you decide to go this route, check out the XDA-developer forums for more information on what it takes for your specific device. CyanogenMod is a great first ROM for beginners, and they have a pretty extensive list of supported devices along with tutorials on getting it running. 

How likely is it that data collected by Carrier IQ could be accessed by a third party?

Considering there are no reports of this ever happening, you might conclude that it’s extremely unlikely. In its statement, Carrier IQ says the data it gathers is encrypted in its own network, or the carriers’ networks. 

It’s unclear how secure the data stored on the phone itself is, however. Eckhart managed to access it, albeit on his own phone. It’s all hypothetical, but if you take into account the recent emergence of Android malwarethat’s able to “root” a phone, it’s impossible to rule out the idea that someone could design a piece of malware that could root the phone and access the data. In theory, it’s possible, but again, there are no reports that anyone’s done it.