Software / Web Services

If you haven’t heard of Tegra yet, you will. This system on a chip, which packs in powerful graphics and video capabilities, is the guts inside the upcoming Zune HD from Microsoft and a host of mobile Internet devices, like the Mobinova elan we played with at Computex. And now MobileCrunch and others are reporting that we will see a phone from a top-five manufacturer by the fourth quarter of this year powered by Tegra for $199.

So why all the hype around Tegra? The technology promises a first-class Flash experience, console-quality gaming, and up to 1080p video playback (depending on the device). Plus, Nvidia boasts that Tegra offers five times the battery life of current netbooks.

We sat down with Michael Rayfield, general manager of mobile business at Nvidia, to find out more about Tegra’s potential and how it compares with competing technologies vying for a bigger slice of the smartbook/smart phone market.
Here are the quick highlights:

• Nvidia claims that Tegra is superior to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Freescale’s technology because it’s working with Adobe to accelerate Flash using the GPU.
• Tegra will initially support only Windows CE smartbooks, but the company is already working on bringing Tegra to Android phones and will embrace the platform for larger screen devices once it’s mature enough.
• Nvidia believes that Tegra is superior to the latest iPhone 3GS when it comes to gaming. “Tegra has more graphics and 3D capability than any device that’s shipping in a mobile handset today.” Whether or not this capability will be leveraged on the Zune HD or later devices remains to be seen.

Read on for the full interview and all the juicy Tegra details.

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As a major print and online publication, we get a lot of PR pitches every day, which range from the highly relevant (mobile tech) to the mostly relevant (technology in general, new Web sites) to the completely off-topic. For some reason, I’m the one on staff who keeps getting the most strange stuff. A few weeks ago it was “interview opportunity: man drinks snake venom to experience the hereafter” and, on a regular basis, it’s country music pitches like “Oak Ridge Boys Announce New Tour Dates” or “Ronnie Milsap Reveals Personal Journey.”

Today, I got a pitch that was relevant, but strange. PayPal, everyone’s favorite way of making payments online, has launched a new site called Do Stuff for Money.  The site lets users send their friends e-mail or Facebook requests to “do stuff” in exchange for cash. If your friend accepts a request, you get e-mailed back a link to pay her directly via PayPal.

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This is the day for which we’ve been waiting. Microsoft has finally lifted the curtain on the price schemes for Windows 7, both for those upgrading from Vista and those that look to purchase the full, standalone OS.

The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program begins tomorrow, June 26th. Anyone who  buys a new PC  between June 26, 2009 and January 31st, 2010 from a participating OEM or retailer will receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows “at little or no cost to customers” according to the Windows Team Blog. For all others looking to upgrade from  Vista, the prices breakdown like this:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (upgrade): $119

• Windows 7 Professional (upgrade): $199

• Windows 7 Ultimate (upgrade): $219

The full retail versions of Windows 7 are priced as follows:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (full): $199

• Windows 7 Professional (full): $299

• Windows 7 Ultimate (full): $319

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Today, Time Warner announced that it has partnered with Comcast to develop a “TV Everywhere” model, which will  bring “their best and highest-rated programming” online, which  would be viewable for viewing on the Web - - but only for cable subscribers.

Comcast announced that it will begin national trials of its “On Demand Online” service next month, which will deliver TBS and TNT programming (such as The Closer and My Boys) to Comcast.net, Fancast.com, and of course, TBS.com and TNT.tv. This initial trial will serve as test-run for the “TV Everywhere” authentication technology, and an opportunity to gather feedback from approximately 5,000 customers .

Could this be tied into the  recent rumblings about Hulu adding a subscription service? After all, one can find cable content there, such as The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show. We’ll be delving into this mystery for additional information.

AT&T just launched the Telenav powered AT&T Navigator software to the Apple App store.

The application will bring voice-guided turn-by-turn directions to the iPhone, as well as traffic alerts, 3D maps, in-route customization, trip planning, and more.

AT&T Navigator has 10 million points of interest for finding destinations like local restaurants, ATMs, or gas stations. It’s available for $9.99 per month now, and the app will automatically apply the charge to your monthly AT&T bill.

Telenav’s press release states that it’s available for the iPod Touch, too, but we assume you’ll need to be an AT&T subscriber for it to work.

Stay tuned for hands-on impressions.

If Vista’s lengthy boot times have got ya down, DeviceVM may have the cure for your load time blues. This morning, DeviceVM announced that it’s bringing its Splashtop “instant-on” solution (which  lets users access media and the Web without booting into Windows), to two new platforms: the Acer Aspire Revo nettop and the Sony VAIO NW notebook line.

The partnership with Acer marks the beginning of a collaboration between the two companies that will see “RevoBoot” (the branded name for this implementation of Splashtop) paired with Nvidia’s Ion platform for enhanced multimedia capability. The Splashtop-powered version of nettop will be initially introduced in Europe, but there isn’t any word on a U.S. release.

Splashtop is also making its way into the Sony VAIO NW family of notebooks. The systems in the line will feature a dedicated Web button entitled “Quick Web Access” that will launch Splashtop with the push of a button.

Although the “instant-on” name doesn’t quite live up to the hype (it took us approximately 30 seconds between booting Splashtop and connecting to the Web in tests with other PCs), it can be a welcome relief from severely long loads.

According to Apple, Snow Leopard is about three things: refinements, new technologies, and Exchange. Here’s a quick overview of what’s new. The best part may be the price; it will be available this Sept for only $29

Apple has rewritten Finder to be more efficient. New installation now leaves 6GB more disk space. Snow Leopard preview performance is also much faster. Now supports ability to draw Chinese characters. Mail performance is faster.

The latest version of Safari is 4. It has new features like Top Sites that shows you your favorites. It’s shipping today for Leopard, Tiger, and Windows. Apple claims unsurpassed speeds of 7.8X the performance of IE8. Safari 4 will be embedded in Snow Leopard. If your plug-in crashes in Snow Leopard more of your windows will remain intact. Read the rest of this entry »

Although Microsoft hopes you’ll warm up to its new search engine Bing so much that you’ll ditch Google entirely, it wants you to start out using Bing to help you shop. Leveraging its acquisition of FareCast, Bing distinguishes itself from its rivals by, among other things, predicting airfares.

Dubbed a Decision Engine, Bing was designed to be streamlined enough for everyday searches (precisely the kind you’re used to doing through Google or Yahoo), but smart enough to provide additional information, such as reviews and flight stats, that will help users make informed decisions while shopping online.

Although Bing was announced last week, today is the first day it’s fully available. Read on for our first impressions.

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Just when you thought it was safe to use the word netbook, Microsoft is looking to move away from the term. And there is plenty of speculation as to why.

According to Digitimes, the software giant wants to replace the term “netbook” with “low cost small notebook PC. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

So why is Microsoft doing this? Read the rest of this entry »

Today, Opera released the first beta of Opera 10, the latest version of  Opera’s Web browser. It includes a number of features that should appeal to long-time Opera users and those that have yet to give it a go.

• Opera Turbo: Uses compression technology to give dial-up connections broadband-like speed.
• Increased Performance: Opera states that the revamped browser is over 40% faster than Opera 9.6. In our brief tests, the content-heavy Foxnews loaded in 8.1 seconds (compared to 7.8 within Google Chrome). Previously versions of Opera lagged a bit when opening Gmail, but Opera 10 loaded the popular e-mail service in a swift 2.8 seconds.

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