We hope you weren't quick to leap on the Surface Pro 2 update that popped up last week; if you were, you may be regretting it for a while. The company haspulled the upgrade following reports of both failed installations and battery problems, including a reduced capacity and incomplete charges. A fixed release is coming "after the holidays," but there's no word of an easy way to roll back. Short of resetting the system or a convenient restore point, you may have to live with a buggy tablet for the next few weeks.
Via: Engadget
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| Microsoft's Ballmer |
Many Microsoft customers, partners and competitors would no doubt agree with this statement. But many also might be surprised to hear this admission comes from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
When I interviewed Ballmer at the end of November, 2013, in his office in Redmond, a lot of our conversation focused aroundhis role in overseeing Microsoft's software and services, past and present.
But Microsoft is in the hardware business, too, with Xbox, Surface, Windows Phone and Perceptive Pixel (plus mice and keyboards). Its executives, from Ballmer on down, are increasingly playing up the reasons they believe Microsoft needs to stay in hardware to remain relevant -- in the face of calls by some company watchers for Microsoft to split off its Xbox and/or its consumer-hardware business.
"One of the things tech companies really do terribly is build new capability," Ballmer told me during our recent sit-down in Building 34. "Unfortunately, when the industry changes, if you haven't built any new capability, you can become less relevant because the thing you were good at becomes less relevant and you didn't built capability in a new area."
"We've had to do it a couple of times, in fact, from platforms to apps, from now software to services, from OS (operating system) royalties, to OS royalties and devices," he said.
Ballmer called Xbox -- in which he played an instrumental role in shepherding -- a "sort of a signature about building new capability in hardware and devices." Because of the Xbox, Microsoft had to build a custom-silicon team. Microsoft had to staff up a supply-chain team. And because of the existence of this body of knowledge, Microsoft was able to make the decision to get into device-manufacturing with its Surface tablet/PC line, Ballmer said.
Microsoft's first-generation Surface devices got mixed marks. The Redmondians ended up having to write down nearly $1 billion worth of Surface RT devices and component parts in 2013.
"We still need to upgrade and we still need to upgrade and improve, and that's part of the Nokia acquisition," Ballmer conceded.
Microsoft will be adding 30,000 or so Nokia employees, many of whom will bring with them hardware manufacturing and distribution know-how, as part of its $7.2 billion purchase of Nokia's mobile devices and services business. (Ballmer noted that he was unable to talk specifically about Nokia because Microsoft's purchase still has yet to close. That's expected to happen by early 2014.)
Ballmer: 'We had areas of vulnerability in competing with Apple'
Ballmer characterized Microsoft's initial decision to build first-party tablets as "in a way... a tougher bet" than the decision to build the Xbox.
Surface "was less different (than Xbox), you could say," Ballmer noted. "But, I also knew that it would not be the simplest discussion to have with our partners, who(m) I wanted to stay our partners."
As expected, Microsoft's OEMs, some of whom said publicly they felt blind-sided by Microsoft's decision to make its own devices, were none too happy about the move. But Ballmer insisted Microsoft had no choice.
"I was concerned that we had areas of vulnerability in competing with Apple and without any (first-party) capability, that we were not transacting that well just through our OEM partners."
Ballmer said management's area of concern was in the high end of the device market.
"High end was an issue. There were just a lot of reasons to think Apple was going to be a tough competitor to deal with, just with our OEM model. It was a higher-end brand," Ballmer acknowledged.
"Our OEMs were having a hard time investing in competing with the higher end brand. The (Microsoft retail) stores were (starting) to take off, but they hadn't taken off. It turns out that was also an issue, because now there's a different kind of a presence. And without a product to fit -- a product, a brand, a price point -- to really go head-to-head, it looked like an area of exposure," he continued.
"So I won't say we said 'Let's go do Apple compete.' We wanted to go do our own thing that was uniquely ours," he said.
Ballmer said Microsoft didn't set out to build a "classic 13-inch laptop or a $500 desktop." In those categories, "our OEMs do a great job," he maintained.
"On the other hand, there was an area of vulnerability," Ballmer said. "The vulnerability we have is not just on phones, where we're buying Nokia, but it's on tablets. And our OEMs do great work, but there are places their brands and investments don't travel. And so we wanted to supplement the work of our OEMs, hopefully make our OEMs stronger through the process, by making our overall competition with Apple" -- and more recently -- Samsung.
Ballmer portrayed Microsoft's differentiator with its tablets and phones as "tools," specifically "tools that make people more productive, IT people, developers, and end users." (Given Microsoft's heritage as a development-tool maker, "tools" is an interesting word choice.)
"Are we a productivity company or are we a software company? Well, what we are is a company that knows how to create great software for productivity and serious fun, but the expression will be through services, and through devices increasingly. And maybe it always has been. Nobody ever buys Windows. They buy Windows PCs," Ballmer reflected.
Via: ZDNet
With just a week and a half to go before Christmas, shoppers are in full-on spending mode, but those looking to score the new Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 may be disappointed. As of this writing, Microsoft’s online store shows both models and all configurations of the new tablet as “sold out.”
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| Microsoft Surface Pro 2 |
A check for either version of the device on Walmart’s online store also showed the device as “out of stock.” A number of customers are also reporting that the device is sold out at Best Buy. However, a quick check of the Best Buy website shows the device as available.
In order to untangle the conflicting stories between online commenters and Best Buy’s website, I conducted my own unscientific test to see what would happen if I called local stores looking for either the Surface Pro 2 or Surface 2 in any configuration. In a random sampling covering three Best Buy stores in New York City, Portland, Oregon and Austin, Texas each local salesperson told me that neither device, in any configuration, was in stock.
And, for the conspiracy theorists out there thinking that this might be some clever retail stunt to make the new Surface seem more popular than it really is, these didn’t appear to be prepared answers that I received as soon as I asked. Each Best Buy salesperson put me on hold (in one case, for 20 minutes) while they conducted a local fact finding mission, ultimately coming up with nothing available.
When I questioned the salesperson in New York City about the shortage, asking if the device was really that popular, she didn’t hesitate when she said the device is “extremely popular.”
Consumers around the country have begun to post their frustrations on Twitter, in some cases directly asking Microsoft when the tablets will be available again.
Source : Mashable
Compared to the new iPad Air or the Surface 2, the Surface Pro 2 feels thicker and heavier. The tablet itself weighs 907 grams and measures 1.3 cm in height. In comparison, the Surface 2 measures 0.94 cm and the iPad Air 0.75 cm. The Surface 2 weighs 680 grams and the iPad Air weighs about 470 grams.
The Pro 2 is really for consumers that want a real PC in tablet form, with the performance of a fast Ultrabook. So while it's bulkier than the products we just mentioned, for actual productivity with more demanding Windows applications, this is the better option. Unlike the Surface 2, the Surface Pro 2 comes with the full version of Windows 8.1 and is compatible with all standard Windows software.
Source & Image : Hardware.info
The Surface 2 is everything the original Surface should have been. It’s fast, versatile (it can finally sit on your lap!), and at $449, it’s priced to compete with other big tablets.
Perhaps most intriguing, it shows that Microsoft’s initial bet on hybrid computing devices, one that sits between a laptop and tablet, is beginning to pay off.
But even though the Surface 2 is a great piece of hardware, the lack of killer Windows 8 apps holds it back. Since it runs Windows RT 8.1, a special version of Windows 8 for mobile processors, the Surface 2 can’t run older Windows software like Lotus Notes or your favorite games — just the more modern, tablet-oriented Windows apps sold through the Windows App Store. That means the Surface’s prospects are entirely tied to the health of the Windows 8 ecosystem.
With over 120,000 apps, the Windows 8 ecosystem is certainly much healthier than it was last year, but it’s not out of the recovery room just yet. Until Microsoft brings it to full strength, with better quality apps and popular titles, the Surface 2 going to be an imperfect device.
That being said, I found the tablet to be a far better when it comes to pure productivity than anything from the Android and Apple camp thanks to the inclusion of full Office apps and decent multitasking. And as more Windows 8 apps appear, it will only get better.
Last year, Microsoft launched both Windows 8 and the first Surface around the same time. Bugs, annoyances, and glaring feature omissions were par for the course. Now, it’s clear that Microsoft has learned from most of its past mistakes.
Source : VentureBeat
f you want to take someone’s temperature to see if they have a fever, you know where to put the thermometer. (Sorry, infants.) But where do you take the temperature of Earth’s climate? Inconveniently, the answer is “everywhere”—you need measurements covering the planet to properly calculate the global average surface temperature. That’s no big deal for Europe, where a local weather station is never far away, but it's much more of a problem for the North and South Poles where records are hard-won. A new analysis shows that how you deal with this problem makes a difference in what temperature you end up reading.
Building a global temperature dataset is a huge undertaking, because that’s only the half of it. Lots of careful corrections need to be made to the raw measurements to account for things like instrument changes, weather station placement, and even the time of day the station is checked.
One of the most commonly used datasets, dubbed “HadCRUT4” in its current incarnation, is maintained by the UK Met Office and researchers at the University of East Anglia. That dataset lacks temperature records over 16 percent of the globe, mostly parts of the Arctic, Antarctic, and Africa. Each group that manages one of these datasets faces this problem but deals with it a little differently. In HadCRUT4, the gaps are simply dropped out of the calculated average; in NASA’s GISTEMP dataset, these holes are filled in by interpolating from the nearest measurements.
The new study by Kevin Cowtan of the University of York and Robert Way of the University of Ottawa evaluates a few different methods for dealing with these gaps and shows that HadCRUT4 has probably been off by an important amount over the last few years.
Cowtan and Way did what the people behind the big datasets do: left out the holes or filled them in using the nearest data. But they also developed a different technique that took advantage of satellite data. Satellites may seem like the obvious solution to the problem of maintaining thermometers in the middle of Antarctica, but they have their own problems. First, it’s tricky to measure the temperature of a specific, and very thin, layer of the atmosphere from orbit, since your instrument has to look through all of the rest of the atmosphere to do so. Second, the layer the satellites are monitoring extends much higher above the surface than our thermometers do.
Instead of merely copying satellite data and pasting it into the surface thermometer gaps, they used the satellite data to intelligently guide the filling of the holes with the closest surface measurements.
To test these three methods, the researchers artificially removed measurements across regions of the Earth and compared how close each method came to correctly calculating the global mean of the complete dataset. Just filling in with the nearest data (the NASA method) did a little better than leaving the gaps out (the HadCRUT4 method), but the method that used satellite data performed best.
Applying that method to the actual holes in the HadCRUT4 dataset yielded some interesting results, seen in the image below. Most notably, the abnormally warm El Niño year of 1998 becomes a little less extreme, and most of the last decade gets a little warmer. The difference in the last few years comes from the missing data in the Arctic, which is the fastest-warming region on Earth.
Together, those small changes (which are within the HadCRUT4 error bars) have a big impact on the calculated short-term warming trend. The trend for the period from around 1998 to present, which opponents of action on climate change frequently point to when arguing that climate scientists have got it all wrong, more than doubles to 0.12 °C per decade.
Source : Ars Technica
This time around (given the fact I was moved from the "banned" to the "approved" Surface tester list) I decided to wait to decide whether to buy the Surface 2 until I had a chance to test Microsoft's second version of its ARM tablet.
After using a Surface 2 tablet loaned to me by Microsoft for the past week, I've come to realize that many of the features I like about it have nothing to do with the new core device itself.
Yes, the new Tegra 4 ARM chip, a step up from the current Surface RT's Tegra 3 core, allows apps and Web sites to open more quickly. And the new higher-resolution screen makes colors really pop. I like the new dual-position kickstand better than the single-position one on the Surface RT. Like Peter Bright at Ars Technica, I still wouldn't call the new Surfaces truly "lapable," as they are still less stable on my lap than any laptop I've ever used.
The Surface 2's magnesium colored body shows fingerprints less than the original black. And the new "ring of light" power cord is easier to connect correctly than the original Surface power cord. (Microsoft is bundling this new cord with new Surface 2s, but not with Surface Pro 2s -- at least for now. So be warned.)
But, in the end, what I really like most about the Surface 2 is the new, backlit Type keyboard. In fact, I am pretty sure I am going to spring for a replacement for my existing Type Cover, at $129.99. The new Type 2 keyboard/cover makes typing on ARM-based Surfaces even nicer/easier than the original Type keyboard. Though I also received a Touch 2 keyboard for review, I didn't put it through its paces. I want and need something that allows me to type accurately and at full speed, and to me, the Touch covers are more novelty than useful peripherals. (Your mileage may vary.)
After a week with the Surface 2, I'll say I also like Windows RT 8.1. I'm reserving judgment about IE11.
I hesitate about the browser here because my experience with IE11 for the majority of the past week was non-optimal. And as ARM-based Surface users know, this is a problem, since our only browser choice on these devices, due to their locked-down nature, is IE.
Source : ZDNet
So, I’ve got some good news and some bad news for all of you out there who enjoy watching video content on your mobile devices. The good news is that Hulu is giving mobile users access to all sorts of free video content. The bad news is that you’re not getting full episodes of anything.
Instead, what the Hulu people are offering tablet and smartphone folks is access to clips of content and then you’ll need to go back to wherever you do your Hulu-ing to actually watch the full content. The clips are free, but that’s not the only bad news.
The other half of it is that the clips won’t play in the Hulu Plus mobile app, at least for now. Instead, if you want to watch these free Hulu clips, you’ll have to head on over to your mobile browser instead. From the Hulu mobile page, you’ll find content that has been “curated” by the Hulu editorial staff. This includes clips from Colbert, Jon Stewart, The View, Family Guy, SNL and so on. And then they give you the option to upgrade to Hulu Plus.
At least the mobile site is designed to look and work much like a native app.
Source : TechCrunch
Via : Mobilemag
Microsoft took a colossal $900 million inventory adjustment on Surface RT in July that left people questioning the very future of Microsoft-branded tablets.
Surface RT was the first personal computer that Microsoft produced itself and it ran the flavor of Windows designed mainly for the tablet user. Its pricier Surface Pro sibling ran a full version of Windows 8, and unlike RT, was compatible with older "legacy" Windows PC software making it more of the true laptop replacement Microsoft positions it to be.
Either way, Microsoft didn't exactly have a hit on its hands.
Microsoft isn't surrendering to the iPad (which is expected to be refreshed Tuesday) or for that matter the company's various hardware partners-turned-rivals that also have a stake in Windows 8. Nokia, which is soon to be under Microsoft, is also expected to unveil a new tablet this week.
I've had a chance to check out the two new machines Microsoft hopes will turn around its tablet business, ahead of their Tuesday launch. There's Surface 2 that runs Windows RT 8.1 and ranges from $449 to $549, and Surface Pro 2 that runs Windows 8.1 Pro and fetches between $899 and $1,799.
Make no mistake, Microsoft has made more than surface improvements to its tablets, and the move to Windows 8.1 software, which addresses prior shortcomings, is also significant. But challenges remain. As a tablet neither Surface can outduel the iPad. And I'm not fully sold on the Pro model as the ideal full-time laptop substitute.
I say that liking a lot of what Microsoft has done here. The latest hardware sports amped up processing power, longer battery life, improved cameras, and in the case of Surface 2 a step up in screen quality to a 10.6-inch Full HD 1080p multi-touch display. (Surface Pro was already delivering Full HD in a 10.6-inch screen.).
Surface 2 also gets a single USB 3.0 port — it was a 2.0 port last time. Both slates have memory card readers.
At 1.5 pounds, Surface 2 is a shade thinner and lighter than its predecessor. The biggest cosmetic change is Surface 2 now comes in an Apple-like magnesium silver color compared to the dark titanium hue of the original.
Meantime, the 2-pound Pro 2, pretty heavy and bulky for a tablet, weighs the same and is practically a dead ringer for the first Pro.
Changes from the original Surface
The original Surface models were noted for a kickstand attached to the back that propped it up on a tabletop as you took in a video. But some folks complained it was hard to use on your lap, so Microsoft added a second kickstand position that simplifies usability on your lap.
In its first iteration, Surface RT included Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote from the Microsoft Office suite. But Outlook was missing in action. That unfortunate oversight has been remedied with Surface 2. (You'll have to pay to use Office on the Pro model.)
Last time around, Microsoft did a lot right with clever keyboard covers that bring real Qwerty typing to these contraptions — these really were must-have accessories if you wanted to get productive work done. Microsoft has improved those optional accessories. So now, we have a back-lit thinner and lighter Touch Cover 2 (about $120) that Microsoft claims you can type up to two times faster than using an onscreen keyboard.
I actually prefer using the Type Cover 2 (about $130) because it provides some of the "travel" on the keys that I'm accustomed to on a regular laptop, though it still won't make you forget, say, a good ThinkPad keyboard. Type Cover 2 is backlit and available in different colors, with a touchpad you can use for gestures. As before, you hear a distinctive click sound when you magnetically snap these accessories onto the tablet.
Early next year, Microsoft is planning to bring out a $200 keyboard cover with a built in battery that it says will bolster battery life on the tablet up to 50%.
The battery life on the latest slates is improved but nothing to write home about. In my very harsh test in which I crank the brightness all the way up and stream video over Wi-Fi, Surface 2 approached seven hours of juice, while Pro exceeded five hours. That's better than the six hours and three-and-a-half hours of battery life I got with their predecessors on similar tests.
Surface 2 costs $449 for 32GB, $549 for 64GB. Surface Pro 2, which comes with a digitizer pen, costs $899, $999, $1,299 or $1,799, for 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB, respectively.
Buy either tablet, and Microsoft throws in a nice bonus: a year of free Skype calling to landlines in more than 60 countries, unlimited Skype Wi-Fi, 200GB of free storage on Microsoft's SkyDrive online locker for two years.
I mostly appreciate what Microsoft has done with the hardware but I'm not betting on a major surge in sales either. Consider the drawbacks: the Pro device is pricey (especially when you lop on the cost of the keyboard covers). Surface 2 still doesn't run your older software.
And then there's Windows 8 (now 8.1) itself. I happen to like the operating system more than some, but understand the confusion its bipolar characteristics brings to the table. Microsoft has been trying to have it all, an operating system that appeals equally well to tablet users who have come to rely on multi-touch screens, but also those who prefer a more traditional mouse/keyboard /PC approach.
So you have a Windows that in its touch environment is built around a fresh live-tile based interface yet one that doesn't totally abandon a desktop view more reminiscent of of Windows from yesteryear.
Microsoft took some heat for doing away with the Start button and menu inherent in the old Windows, and with Windows 8.1, the Start button has been restored. But it's only a half-step back. Tapping Start in the desktop environment only brings you back to the tile interface.
You do have the option to boot up into either environment, and the 8.1-update introduces more polish and customization overall. Bing Search is neatly integrated, I like how you can display (and resize) windows side by side, and even the app count is slowly but surely rising. It is up to 110,000 now, still far behind rivals.
By now the folks who jumped on the Windows 8 bus should be accustomed to the way things are done. But it seems just as many PC devotees stuck with Windows 7, because of how radically different Windows 8 proved to be.
If you are willing to consider Microsoft's latest tablets, you have some decisions to make: Go with an RT device that is far less expensive but that can't run older software. Or splurge on the pricier Pro model that can (keeping in mind you may have to connect an optical drive) handle older software but doesn't deliver as long a battery. And if you're going to go the latter route, then you're not only comparing Surface Pro to other tablets, but to a wide range of excellent laptops, a comparison Surface Pro is not always going to win.
Source : USA Today
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