With innovative new 3 touch screen.
Or are they just going to fit ctrl-alt-del buttons?
The long-rumored Nokia Windows 8 tablet is set to debut in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the Taiwanese market-watchers at DigiTimes. Citing "sources at upstream component suppliers," DigiTimes reported on Monday that Nokia's ARM-based Windows 8 tablet would be based on a dual-core Qualcomm platform, have a 10- …
As long as I can install android and get a refund on my window lic I'll bite. Will be fun. But seriously if windows 8 slips or the tablet version is as dumbed down as there mooting then haveing it able to dual boot an alternative OS would make sence if there in the business to sell hardware. That is what Nokia do right? Or they now the unofficial marketing company for microsoft!
Microsoft have guaranteed that neither of these will happen.
Secure Boot will ensure that no other OS could be loaded, either replacing or as dual boot. The MSApp store will guarantee that there will not be any co-existing Linux (ie running as an app) available.
It is likely that there will be no offer of a refund as it will be impossible to separate the hardware and software. As there will not be any retail versions of WOA there is no equivalence to PCs + Windows.
It is also likely that the target for the hardware is approximately iPad2 so it will be 3 quarters behind the market and priced somewhat more than the new iPad due to licence fees for Windows8 and Office (which is probably only a cut down version). Also there will not be the economy of scale that iPad and Android has.
There was a Windows 7 Intel tablet being offered here for only a hundred or two more than an iPad but the small print said that the software was only a trial licence. After a month or three the buyer would have to shell out another few hundred if they wanted it to keep working. I wonder how many did not notice the footnote. (it also would boot to Intel Android).
Why does it have to be dumbed down? I'm running the x86 version of Windows 8 right now on my Samsung Series 7 Slate (A rather classy bit of kit) and its the full consumer preview, no dumbing down here!
@Dotslash: from my week long experience, its excellent. Metro works perfectly on the tablet format. Even the on-screen keyboard is great! (If you've used Win 7 on tablet format, you'll know that was crap)
I honestly don't understand why the targets seem to be ARM based either. If I can build an i3 box at home with 8 gig of RAM and 100gb of disk for £200, why can't these OEM's with bulk buying power do this for far cheaper? Considering they also have manufacturing capabilities.... seems perfectly reasonable to me!
"If you wanted a tablet the size of a small suitcase then you could do that. If it is using an i3 then the battery and cooling fans alone would weigh more than an iPad."
I suggest you go look up a Samsung Series 7 Slate right now. Its VERY far from the size of a suitcase, runs an I5, has a VERY spanky screen and I have never heard a fan on it yet (although, i'm told there is ONE in it somewhere).
Granted, its not as light as an iPad but its perfectly comfy on my lap or craddled in my arm whilst I tap with the other hand.
This is the ARM version, from all accounts its dumbed down compared to the x86 version that your playing with now. Also comparing desktop compnents with mobile low-power components is wrong.
M$ are bringout out ARM based tablets as well as the usual x86 flavours for this new OS. Think of the ARM version being more akin to the current mobile operating system with regards to a comparision you might appreciete.
On a side note, I had a 100gb HD back in my old 8086 system.
> I had a 100gb HD back in my old 8086 system
I doubt that. It may have been 100_Mega_byte.
Early versions of MS-DOS only supported less than 32Mbyte. Later versions (4.0 and later) could support larger but the PC BIOS was limited to 528Mbyte (half a Gbyte). Later BIOS (and OS) could do more but by then the motherboard had moved on and no longer supported 8086 sockets.
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html
Potentially you could have used a 100Gbyte SCSI drive, but what would you be running? Xenix-8086 ?
"Also comparing desktop compnents with mobile low-power components is wrong."
I agree, in reality its not the best comparison but I was trying to make a point. My Sammy Series 7 Slate did cost nearly a grand and obviously, being an I5 will spank any Atom/ARM chip out there for shear grunt. My point was, if Samsung can do this at this price, its actually quite easy to do so, why can't WIntel Atom boxes cost £100 in slate format? MS would have to reconsider its licensing model though.
In non-tablet format you can already get them on Ebay for £100(ish) so ... with the much higher volumes tablets would shift, its perfectly do-able for a tablet to come down to this.
> I was trying to make a point.
Your point seemed to be that a Metro tablet would give more power, ports, etc than other OSes. Well, Linux could run on that machine, or on similar hardware, so that is a null example. The ports that you claimed are on the dock not on the tablet. It is a fact that Windows 7 _requires_ that much power, at the expense of battery life and/or mobility. Most W7 applications _require_ keyboard mouse so it will be docked most of the time.
While it is probable that W7 and W8 tablets will generally be more powerful than competing tablets, they will also be more expensive for equivalence in user experience.
> why can't WIntel Atom boxes cost £100 in slate format?
> In non-tablet format
I think that your ebay example does not have a tablet touch screen, or any screen or keyboard, nor does it have MS licence fees paid.
Your reading in and commenting on stuff I never said. I didn't say Metro would be more powerfull, I was contradicting the fact that a suitcase of a computer would be needed as the S7S clearly isn't a suitcase.
First off - the only port my dock has (which is the size of cigar box btw, hardly big!) that my tablet doesn't is an ethernet port. It also has full size hdmi vs mini hdmi on the tablet - an adapter is £3 on ebay.
Second - and this is something very few people have got their heads round, touch at the moment only compliments keyboard and mouse, it does NOT replace. That WILL change as MS are now telling everyone "Metro is the new standard".... so you will use a mouse less and less as MS push out Metro Office for example. (You still need a keyboard of course!)
Third - You can easily get cheap chinese tablets (with colour resistive touchscreens!) for £60 on Ebay, they are utter trash but they can do it. So if these guys can do it without quantities of scale, why can't MS/Dell/blah blah do it WITH quantities of scale. I already said MS would have to look at its licensing.
Fourth - power. On another popular AV Forum we have already proved that an I3 HTPC when setup as identical as possible will do the same job as an Atom and use LESS overall power to do it (Using watt meters at the plug). Disagree all you like, won't change my opinion or the results of our experiments. This I5 will happily run for over 6 hours, not the greatest of course but better than some Atom tablets!
Finaly, I don't actually need the dock at all, other than to use it to stand the screen up, I have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
> £60 on Ebay
Why do you assume that these £60 tablets don't have 'quantities of scale'. Many of the different brands are actually the same product, such as the case of the MID701R.
And these are ARM tablets. With 'WinTel' the Intel CPUs are _much_ more expensive. Did you know that at the very low end ARM processors sell in the tens of millions for 50 cents each. The complete Raspberry Pi sells for $25.
It would not surprise me to find MS requiring £60 for WOA + Office on ARM and 'standard' OEM pricing for Window 8 and Office on WinTel tables/netbooks/transformers, so that alone might be more than the £100 price that you seek.
You know what, I don't like W8 much but I see what they're getting at here. A reasonably large tablet that you can take anywhere with you, but when you get home it mounts onto a dock and turns into a real Windows desktop computer, with more power, ports, features and mouse/keyboard integration than you'd get from Android or iOS. You could sell a transformer-style dock for it as well so more money for the vendors. Storage would be difficult though: a 256GB SSD would be a killer on price grounds and a disk would wreck battery life. Maybe it should come with a Thunderbolt port?
The question is, can they get Office to work on low-power ARM chips to the point where people won't mind using it? Office probably is the killer app in terms of getting windows onto a tablet. Plug the tablet into a dock and all the storage shows up in MS's newfangled libraries. However, I'm not sure people care. Will the Windows Admin allow you to use a tablet for personal use and even if you could, would you want to use an office machine for your personal stuff?
I PXE boot the office laptops at home to turn them into home machines. It works well over 100mb ethernet, never mind gig ethernet. That makes sure home stuff never leaks into work.
I'm waiting for the PVR guys (Topfield?) to wake up and realise that they have an always-on device with lots of storage. Home server anyone? Android x86? LTSP with local apps?
> with more ... than you'd get from Android or iOS.
Certainly much more price, but why do you think that it would be more power, ports, features or mouse/keyboard ?
The Nokia device will be ARM so it will only do what WOA will support and that is not Intel applications. Due to WOA restrictions it will only use those ARM SOCs which have been identified as supported by MS (I think only 3 such). Apple and Android tablets could use any newer, more powerful SOCs that they want.
Ubuntu are already talking about dual Android/Linux systems on phones and tablets. Run the phone/tablet on Android UI and switch seamlessly (both run on the one kernel) to Linux when plugged into a dock or to a TV via HDMI.
This could be out 'real soon now' with proven software that has been around for some time rather than at the end of the year with stuff that is just out of beta (or not quite yet).
And most Linux software already runs on ARM, I had OpenOffice on my N800 ARM tablet some years ago. Ironically also a Nokia.
I love the elegance of ubuntu/android too! Trouble is, I think for now it's a pro-user niche product for geeks to fiddle with (but if google got behind something like it they really could give microsoft the vapours...). It needs a proper, consistent interface system for the docking and I'm not sure phone companies and phone manufacturers are going to get involved without a bigger backer than canonical. I'm eager to be wrong, but my fear is that what will result is a set of packages to hack your phone and some unreliable adapters no business would ever want to depend on.
Agreed on ARM/Metro, but I think they had to make a clean break if they wanted something that was touch-capable without a stylus. I don't like metro myself so I have no idea how well this will work when Metro apps come through. But I find the Tablet/PC convergence elegant, potentially amazing if they can make it fly.
"Certainly much more price, but why do you think that it would be more power, ports, features or mouse/keyboard ?"
Compal who will be making this thing have already made a 13.3" W7 slate concept product with a keyboard dock, proper ethernet port and a full-size HDMI socket.
> 13.3" W7 slate concept product with a keyboard dock, proper
> ethernet port and a full-size HDMI socket.
That would be x86 and/or AMD64. Android and/or Linux could run on that. In fact it may even be said that the dock is a _requirement_ for running W7 or W8 desktop because the UI and 'legacy' applications will only run sensibly with keyboard and mouse and the x86 and 13.3" screen will require being plugged into the mains most of the time.
My cheap Android 7" has HDMI and USB that a keyboard will just plug into (with a mini adaptor). I can hook it up to a TV (or monitor) and keyboard and use the touch screen as a touchpad. It has WiFi so it doesn't need Ethernet, and that wasn't even trying.
So how will Windows have 'more' when others can build or use the same hardware, or more ?
In fact with WOA this is locked into the decrees that MS has made about the hardware including only 3 SOCs that can be used. Android/Linux is free to use more powerful ones that come available.
> Due to WOA restrictions it will only use those ARM SOCs which have been identified as supported by MS (I think only 3 such)
I believe MS only supports those SoCs yet because they made the drivers for them, maybe in partnership with the SoC manufacturer. A bit like how Windows 2000/XP supported Intel's chipsets out of box.
It might work like that:
Chinese OEM wants to build cheap tablet, gets off-the-shelf hardware with builtin drivers for its SoC.
Finnish OEM wants to build expensive tablet, develops custom hardware and drivers for its board.
There are lots of software keyboards for smartphones and tablets alike, but one stands head and shoulders above the rest… However you can't have it.
Last year, Microsoft bought Nuance for just shy of $20 billion, mainly for its voice-to-text tools. Nuance also owned Swype, which it killed off in 2018. Microsoft, meanwhile, also owns Swiftkey, which it still offers.
The Reg liked both. We called Swype "The world's fastest text entry system", and said that Swiftkey's predictive engine was so good it was a "psychic keyboard."
Nokia’s "significant" contributions to Microsoft's open-source SONiC project and ongoing supply-chain challenges undoubtedly played a role in the Windows giant's decision to deploy the Finns' network switches, despite their relative inexperience in the arena, Dell'Oro analyst Sameh Boujelbene told The Register.
The deal, announced in mid-April, will see Microsoft use Nokia's 400Gbit/sec 7250 IXR appliances as spine switches, alongside the Finnish biz's fixed form factor equipment for top-of-rack (ToR) applications.
At the time, Nokia touted the deal as recognition of its ability to meet and exceed Redmond's evolving datacenter requirements.
Shipments from nearly all of the major tablet manufacturers are declining as consumers and educators find other things to do with their money.
Distribution data collated by tech analyst Canalys shows 38.59 million units were sent into retail and business channels in calendar Q1, down 3 percent year-on-year, albeit against a tough comparison period when sales in the same period of 2021 went through the roof.
"Despite the shipment decline in Q1, tablet's resurgence remains strong," said Himani Mukka, analyst at the research firm. "The market has now posted eight consecutive quarters of shipment numbers greater than in Q4 2019, before the pandemic."
Apple is warning that lockdowns of factories in Shanghai due to COVID-19 and industry-wide silicon shortages will hurt its sales by between $4 billion to $8 billion in the next quarter.
On an earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said the "constraints are primarily centered around the Shanghai corridor" but "on a positive front, almost all of the affected final assembly factories have now restarted."
Cook added: "So the the $4 billion to $8 billion range reflects various ramps of getting back up and running. We're also encouraged that the COVID case count that's been reported in Shanghai has decreased over the last few days."
Nokia is the second of the world's biggest telco network kit makers to turn its back on Russia in as many days due to the continuing invasion in Ukraine.
Yesterday, Ericsson "indefinitely" pulled out of the country.
"It has been clear for Nokia since the early days of the invasion of Ukraine that continuing our presence in Russia would not be possible," the Finnish organization said this morning in a statement.
This week Apple released software revisions for its desktop, mobile, watch, and TV operating systems, along with application updates and security patches.
MacOS Monterey got bumped to version 12.3, bringing with it 60 security fixes, eight of which involved potential arbitrary code execution.
The desktop OS update also includes some useful features like Universal Control, a way to use a single mouse and keyboard across multiple Apple devices such as a macOS computer and an iPad. If you've ever wanted to copy data from one bit of kit in order to paste it to another with a mere mouse movement, your ship has come in.
Another test build of Windows 11 has emerged, this time with improvements aimed at tablet users.
It's been a while since Microsoft (or its OEMs) had a crack at a dedicated tablet, and we doubt there are many Surface Pros out there without a keyboard either attached or within reaching distance. However, with build 22563, Microsoft said "we're introducing a new taskbar state that's specifically designed to make you feel more confident and comfortable using your device as a tablet."
It doesn't look like a return to touch-first world of Window 8. Instead the taskbar now has two states for those with the right hardware (laptops and desktops need not apply) – collapsed and expanded.
A leaked internal report details how Ericsson paid hundreds of millions of pounds to Islamic State terrorists in Iraq, substantiating earlier reports that the company was paying intermediaries to buy off ISIS on its behalf.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed over the weekend that the leaked report, which reviews the years 2011 to 2019, included names and precise details of how money from the company found its way to terrorists.
Rather than halting operations in Iraq as Islamic State ravaged the country, some personnel within Ericsson instead bribed "politically connected fixers and unvetted subcontractors", the ICIJ said, while the Swedish biz continued building potentially lucrative mobile networks.
With ever more compute power needed all over the world, Bell Labs has been tasked by the US Department of Energy (DoE) to develop ways of making data centres more energy efficient.
The firm, which will receive over $2m for its efforts, said it aims to deliver tech that will allow for "sustainable" growth while addressing data centre cooling energy efficiency and its related carbon footprint.
Now part of Nokia, Bell Labs was chosen by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) within the DoE to develop a more efficient thermal energy architecture for data centres. The idea is to deliver a significant reduction in the energy required to cool down the racks, as well as capturing the waste heat for heating and cooling applications.
Samsung sought to show off its eco credentials as it released the latest set of smartphones and tablets ahead of the Mobile World Congress.
Under the Galaxy for the Planet initiative, Samsung has vowed to incorporate recycled material in all new mobile products by 2025, but we can confirm the batteries powering its current phones remain non-removable unless one wants to get handy with the heat gun and suction pads.
The Register got its claws on the new devices at a recent London event and came away impressed with some and a little underwhelmed by others.
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