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Netbooks causing employee lay-off at Microsoft

Microsoft is planning to lay off around 1800 employees in the coming 18 months. And guess what, they are blamming Netbooks for this. The Microsoft has suffered a painful $465 million hit when it comes to licencing OS to the OEMs.

From Microsoft’s 10-Q filing on January 22:

“The decline in OEM revenue reflects an 11 percentage point decrease in the OEM premium mix to 64%, primarily driven by growth of licenses related to sales of netbook PCs

Who is to blame? I would say that the main candidate is Vista. Vista was slapped onto the netbooks and UMPCs, which actually turned the users off as Vista was not even usable on those devices. That is when the Windows XP came into the game and the users became happy again. The reason was simple: Windows XP could run way better on a then weak hardware.

Hopefully Windows 7 will make things better for the Microsoft. We have already seen many reports of how nice the Windows 7 runs on the low-cost netbooks and notebooks. Now, only if the Microsoft does not charge a bomb to the OEMs for Windows 7, the whole scene can see a positive change in coming months.

[zdnet]

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HTC updates Touch Cruise [Windows Mobile]

Previously codenamed as HTC Lolite has now been formally announced as HTC TOUCH CRUISE. The Touch Cruise has been given an updated look. Other than different looks, HTC has bought numerous software enhancements on the Touch Cruise.

The new HTC Touch Cruise is the first mobile phone to offer HTC Footprints, an application experience that enables people to permanently chronicle their special moments by capturing a digital postcard on their phone. Once captured, Footprints provides the ability to take notes and an audio clip of that favourite restaurant or special place while identifying its specific geographical location. In addition to identifying each postcard with its specific GPS co-ordinates, Footprints also auto-names each postcard with its general location or area.

When placed into its accompanying car cradle, the HTC Touch Cruise automatically transforms its user interface into an easy-to-use, one-touch interface.

HTC Touch Cruise Specifications

  • Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm
  • Weight: 103 grams
  • Connectivity: WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
  • Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
  • Display: 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution
  • Control panel: HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons
  • Camera: 3.2 MP, with fixed focus
  • Internal memory: 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
  • Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
  • Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
  • Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
  • GPS: GPS/A-GPS
  • Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
  • Battery: 1100 mAh
  • Talk time: GSM: up to 400 minutes
  • Standby time: GSM: up to two weeks
  • Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7225™, 528 MHz

Both RAM and ROM have been doubled from the older Touch Cruise. Battery capacity has been reduced to 1100mAh from 1350mAh though.

[HTC TOUCH CRUISE]

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HP to come up with bigger MiniNotes [Netbook]


There is a rumor that the HP is planning to expand it’s mininote series. Rumor has it that 13.3-inch and a 11.6 mininote is in the works. Both are expected to use the Intel Atom processor.

With the MSI, ASUS and Dell, HP too would be coming out with bigger ‘netbooks’, which means that the competition will get tougher. The year 2009 is surely going to be very exciting.

[engadget]

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Intel Atom's successor = Intel Pineview CPU [Netbook]

Intel is planning to launch Intel Pineview in the second half of 2009 to replace the Intel Atom in netbooks and nettops. Intel still do not plan to introduce dual-core processors in Netbooks in near future. On the other hand, dual-core Pineview processor is in the tunnel.

The main advantage that the Intel Pineview processor brings over the Intel Atom CPU is the possibility to use higher clock frequencies. This means that we can now expect to see Netbooks and NetTops with more than 1.6GHz clock speed in 2009. Other advancements include:

  • reduced motherboard realeastate: 2174mm(Atom)->773mm(Pineview).
  • Better memory support from N270’s DDR2 533 to DDR2 667
  • GPU core frequencies increased from 133MHz to 200MHz
  • PCB design now uses only 4 layers compared to 6 layers, which was previously used by Intel Atom
  • TDP dropped from 8W to 7W

[digitimes]

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Windows Mobile 6.5 is for real – (unofficially) already running on HTC Blue Angel [Windows Mobile]

This is for the those who said that Windows Mobile 6.5 would not fill the space between Windows Mobile 6.1 and Windows Mobile 7. Microsoft is in fact in the works of releasing Windows Mobile 6.5 to the OEMs and manufactures. Few enhancements that the Windows Mobile 6.5 brings over the previous versions of Windows Mobile includes:

Windows Mobile 6.5 is for real - (unofficially) already running on HTC Blue Angel [Windows Mobile]

  • IE MOBILE 6 (remember “6 on 6“?)
  • Sliding Panel home screen (just like WM Smartphone devices aka non-touchscreen Windows Mobile devices)
  • New Lockscreen
  • MSTOUCH

It has been released for the now dated HTC Blue Angel, popularly known as O2 XDA IIs and Imate PDA2K. I’m pretty sure, it would not take much time for it to be released for other devices as well.

Windows Mobile 6.5 is for real

Here are some (leaked) screenshots of the Windows Mobile 6.5 running on Blue Angel. It seems like that the Windows Mobile Professional (touchscreen devices) are going to get the same treatment as the Windows Mobile Smartphone devices got in Windows Mobile 6.1. Yes, we are talking about the sliding panel concept now being implemented in the Windows Mobile 6.5 for Windows Mobile Professional devices.

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HP mini 2140 can now be ordered – No SSD option, No Linux option [Netbook]

The HP Mini 2140 is now available for order on HP’s website. There are 7 different variations to choose from with the minimum starting at $499 and going up to $779 for the top-end model. Interestingly, HP is no more offering an SSD version for the HP mini 2140. There is no linux option too.

All the models are being offered with either Windows XP or Windows Vista Home Basic/Business. Vista models are coming with 2GB RAM as standard, while XP models have 1GB RAM as standard. All the models are powered by 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor.

Visit HP mini 2140 webpage

Thanks to Jimmy for the tip

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Toshiba NB10 updated [Netbook]

Toshiba has increased the storage capacity in their only netbook, the Toshiba NB10. Now, the buyers have the choice of getting either the one with the 160GB HDD or 64GB SSD. You also have two color choices: “Champagne Gold” (shown above in picture) and “Galaxy Black”. Specifications-wise, there is nothing revolutionary, just plain-Jane netbook specs.

Specifications

  • 8.9-inch WSVGA screen
  • 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU
  • Intel 945 GSE Express Chipset
  • 0.3 MegaPixel webcamera
  • 1GB RAM
  • LED Backlight
  • Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
  • Windows Vista/Windows XP

So far, this model has been made available only in Japan. No word on when it will be made available in rest of the countries.

[akihabaranews]

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FingerMenu – make all menus finger friendly! [Windows Mobile]

The FingerMenu is a great application developed by Francesco, which aims to make the Windows Mobile menus more finger friendly than ever. The menus look a lot like the ones found on HTC DIAMOND’s TouchFlo 3D interface and work similarly too. The only difference being is the availbility of FingerMenu in every application unlike TouchFlo3D menu, which is only available in TouchFlo 3D.

The FingerMenu is very easy to use. Just install it and it will automatically make every single menu finger friendly.

If the menu does not fit in the FingerMenu’s window, a simple swipe in the upward direction shows the rest of the contents. To see how it works, see the following video:

You can also configure it to ignore a certain list of applications where you do not want FingerMenu to be active.


FingerMenu for Windows Mobile from Taran DS on Vimeo.

Download FingerMenu now!

Click here to donate the developer to show your appreciation

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ZumoDrive – Take the data with you Everywhere!

Cloud computing and Cloud storage are becoming extremely important these days. It is very common nowadays that we have to access data on a variety of devices. But, myriad of hurdles come our way like different operating system, devices and platform which make often cause redundancy of data and lot of confusion. We also come across other problems like difficulty in making the data available across the different devices on which we wish to carry the data.

With ZumoDrive, netbook users can forget about the storage constraints of their devices.  ZumoDrive does this by delivering unlimited cloud storage transparently over the Internet so that it feels just like local storage.

On various mobile devices like Netbooks, UMPCs and iPhones, the internal storage may not be adequate. On such devices, Zumodrive can give you huge virtual drive to store all your data including music and movies! Some of the features that I personally like about Zumodrive are:

  • automatic backup of your files: it supports storing of previous versions of your files
  • optional local storage on a device: if you would like to make some of files or folders locally available on your device, you can do so/
  • virtually unlimited bandwidth
  • recovering deleted files is easy as it also has a ‘virtual’ recycle bin!
  • supports Windows XP, Vista and for OS X Tiger and Leopard with iPhone client currently in the works

The little video given below explains it all

And hey, Zumodrive has been kind enough to give the ApoTheTech users free codes to try out the Zumodrive. Just go to following URL and give a try to the Zumodrive:

http://www.zumodrive.com/invite/Apothetech

Sadly, there is no Windows Mobile client although Google Android client is being developed.

Visit Zumodrive.com