Google Introduces Chrome-based Touch Screen Laptop

Google's Chrome OS is still a small player in the PC market, unlike Android's dominance of mobile. However, the search giant is making moves to improve its position. This month it has revealed the first touch screen Chromebook, but is it any good?

Touches Of Chrome
More and more modern laptops are taking advantage of touchscreen technology in order to help this traditional portable PC form factor take the fight to the booming tablet market.

Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system (OS) is explicitly designed to work well in a touch-based technological environment, although even this latest offering from one of the world's largest companies is having a tough time holding onto the market share established by its forebears.

Google has the smartphone and tablet industries wrapped up with the finger-friendly Android, but it remains a very minor player when it comes to the laptop market.

Here its Chrome OS is facing an uphill struggle to convince consumers that it is worth picking over Windows or Apple's OS X, largely because it is based almost entirely in web connectivity and the cloud, which renders it almost useless if you happen to lack broadband at home.

Google is hoping to convince people that Chrome OS is still a viable alternative with the introduction of a new Chromebook device that is already being compared with Apple's MacBook Air.

The new laptop is known as the Pixel, which is a reference to the fact that its touchscreen display has allegedly been endowed with the highest pixel density of any portable PC currently on the market.

Google's Linus Upson helped to reveal the Pixel and said that it has a ppi rating of 239. That is not quite as impressive as the iPhone 5's 326ppi, but of course users will not be holding the Pixel quite so close to their faces.

The screen is also of course touch sensitive, which is why Upson went all out in promoting the tactile intuitiveness of the Chrome OS when interacted with via fingers rather than a keyboard and mouse.

Users can swipe between open applications, change tabs on the browser and generally engage with most aspects of the OS without having to use anything else other than their digits.

The screen measures 12.85 inches across the diagonal and has a native resolution of 2560x1700, whilst its Gorilla Glass surface gives its a premium glossy finish and should also make it durable, which is important for something that is going to constantly come into contact with a user's hands.

The Pixel is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor and uses solid state storage to keep everything running quickly, as well as minimising boot times.

Connectivity is also impressive, with both Wi-Fi and 4G LTE antennas housed within its slender chassis.

Laptops with touch screens still have a long way to go if they are going to fight back against tablet rivals, so this Chromebook still has a lot to prove.

AUTHOR BIO
Maria is a blogger and tech specialist who reports for a number of outlets both online and off. She has used touch screens for PC interaction for many years and is pleased to see OS platforms finally adapting to fit in with tactile advances made by hardware manufacturers.

Presented Prototype Flexible Tablet PC

Relatively recent experience after reading any of the material on the flexible screens and batteries can be expressed brief phrase.

Believe that flexible mobile devices will become a reality is still very difficult. Yet the foundation for the next global change in the mobile market are available.

It is a prototype flexible Tablet PC, created by Intel and Plastic Logic . Flexible "pill" is made ​​on the basis of processor Intel Core i5 and completed a 10.7-inch touch screen.

The prototype is equipped with a highly unusual user interface for controlling the gadgets of this type. User can view the web-page, or read the text by bending the plate. To scale the image to fold one corner of the device, the data exchange is carried out usually by touching or dragging with the stylus.

All of this can be seen in the accompanying video:

Reinforced notebook Algiz XRW

Pro notebooks in enhanced body know all, but about the same netbooks ever heard? But they also exist, and a very long time - in 2010, the company Handheld Group introduced a new product called the Algiz XRW . It quickly became popular with buyers interested in purchasing a durable mobile PC, but just as quickly obsolete. Two years later, the netbook was updated hardware filling, as reported by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

FCC, appears to be involved in testing the netbook Algiz XRW , which means that he will soon go on sale. Manufacturer replacing the most important - the motherboard and processor. Now, according to MobileDevice , This computer motherboard with NM10 chipset and CPU Intel Atom Z600 with two cores and 1.6 GHz. They replaced the Atom Z550 and US15W respectively. Other specifications of high-netbook Handheld Algiz XRW features 2 GB of RAM, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi latest revisions, GPS-receiver, two-port USB 2.0, network card, COM-port and VGA output for an external monitor.

The main screen mini-laptop has received a diagonal of 10.1 inches and a resolution of 1366x768 pixels. As for the disk subsystem, there is a 64-gigabyte SSD-drive on the controller Sandforce SF-2141. With the cost of an updated version of Algiz XRW manufacturer has not yet determined, but it will clearly be higher than the price of conventional netbooks. The current modification Algiz XRW on some Web sites is estimated at $ 3,100.

Mac mini computers will also be produced in the U.S.

Apple is currently conducting covert campaign to transfer the production of some of its products to the United States. American brand in talks with multiple partners, and suppliers from Asia, the issue of the launch of "home" production should seriously as ever. Moreover, Apple is investing in this project some serious money.

The head of Apple Tim Cook said in an earlier interview that the company is ready to invest $ 100 million in the production of computers Mac return to America, and representatives of Foxconn recently confirmed that they are going to expand their production, new capacity will be launched in North America. According to DigiTimes, the company will maintain production lines Apple in the U.S..

By the way, now the company produces Samsung mobile platforms at its facilities in the U.S., in addition, the country has moved to build special versions of your iMac. These have now been joined by a mini-desktop Mac Mini . However, the most relevant for Apple is now the problem of the continuous increase in production volumes, as demand for the product is high as ever. With such a volume of orders only home production company Apple is not enough in any case.

New device Lenovo Pocket Yoga for Windows 8/RT

Representation of Lenovo published on the page of the company's Facebook picture concept Pocket Yoga . The gadget is positioned as a miniature version of a corporate laptop IdeaPad Yoga . In the illustration, we see a small wide-screen display, which leans on the base unit with a QWERTY-keyboard.

On the case of Lenovo Pocket Yoga has two full-size port USB, the similarities with laptops and desktop computers to an end. Mobile computer is equipped with a small screen diagonal of about 7 inches, Pocket Yoga can work on the basis of processor Intel Atom series and managed a full version of Windows 8.

If Lenovo will continue to work on the project Pocket Yoga and actually release something like this on the market, the success of a computer will be provided, because the alternatives to this ultra compact computer yet. Who in his time almost cult mobile phone Nokia Communicator under the present power of the processor would have been a really interesting proposal. But we can just say that the battery life Lenovo Pocket Yoga is unlikely to be impressive, no more than four to six hours, I suppose.