ands On With the New Motorola Droids

　　Motorola announced three new exclusive phones for Verizon Wireless today. The Droid Ultra, Droid Mini, and Droid Maxx wrap the current version of Android in slim Kevlar, adding a mix of Verizon and Motorola features to ice the cake.
　　The three phones have a lot in common: they're all unibody, made of very smooth Kevlar with shiny, visually textured backs that tend to get fingerprinty, and ridged power and volume buttons on the side. (The SIM card slot is actually in the volume rocker.) They all have 10-megapixel cameras on the back and 2-megapixel shooters on the front. The batteries are sealed in, and there are no memory card slots. They'll all come in black and a deep Verizon red, and they all have 720p displays; the Ultra and Maxx have 5-inch Super AMOLED HD displays, while the Mini has a 4.3-inch TFT LCD.
　　The Mini is a tight little device. If I was personally with Verizon, I'd definitely consider it as my actual phone. All three phones are very well-built, with an elegant, solid look to them.
　　What Is The X8 Chipset?
　　The phones run on Motorola's "X8" chipset, which is mostly a rebranded dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro running at 1.73-GHz with Adreno 320 graphics. Motorola's secret sauce may be the two additional chips the company has been promoting, which handle "contextual computing" and voice processing. I ran the Antutu benchmark and got 18573, if you're curious.
　　"It's really a system architecture rather than developing the ASIC," Motorola product manager Jeff Snow said.
　　According to Snow, the voice processing DSP allows the phone to recognize voices even when apparently turned off; you can wake up Google Now by hollering at it without waking up the phone by hand first. The contextual computing chip, meanwhile, seems to function as a very low-power, off-duty CPU, doing things like maintaining time and status information on the screen without involving the more power-hungry main processors.
　　This isn't "stock Android." There are tiers of Motorola and Verizon features here. Motorola adds an ability to launch the camera from standby mode by wobbling the phone in midair, something it calls Quick Capture. There's also an always-listening Google Now mode, where Now can respond even if the phone is apparently asleep, and something Motorola calls "Active Display," which wakes up only a small part of an AMOLED screen to show status information, to save battery.
　　Motorola Assist, meanwhile, is Motorola's new version of Smart Actions, which sets your phone into various modes when you're driving, in a meeting or asleep, for instance. The most intriguing thing about Assist, actually, is that it uses the same fonts and visual design as Google Now, making it look like a core Android feature.
　　Exclusive to Verizon are Droid Zap and Droid Command Center. Droid Zap is a slightly oddball photo-sharing app which lets you toss photos up into a geotagged, temporary cloud, which other people with the Droid Zap app within 300 feet will be able to download. It isn't peer-to-peer, but it kind of makes you think it is. Droid Command Center is a bubbly little home-screen weather, time and battery widget.
　　The new Droids also come with the Ingress augmented-reality game preloaded, and each Droid buyer gets five Ingress invites to distribute to friends.
　　Oh, and by the way: the phones don't default to screaming "DROID" at you as the notification sound. The default ringtone does say "Droid," but at the end of the ring.
　　Droids vs. Droids vs. Moto X
　　The big difference between these phones is in size, battery life and price. The $99 Droid Mini fits very securely into even the smallest hands. It's a little bit thicker than the Ultra 8.9mm, and has the lowest-capacity battery at 2000mAh, but I think that will balance out with the lower power draw of a 4.3-inch as opposed to a 5-inch screen.
　　The $199 Droid Ultra and the $299 Droid Maxx are the same phone with different batteries and memory capacities. The Ultra uses a 2130mAh battery to keep its 7.2mm slimness and packs 16GB of storage, while the Maxx packs in a huge 3500mAh battery, which Motorola says will run the phone for a full 48 hours, and 32GB. At 8.5mm, it still feels extremely slim.
　　The Droid launch is just the beginning of Motorola's summer assault. Tomorrow, we'll hear from Motorola's parent company Google about Android 4.3, and on August 1, we'll see Motorola's flagship Moto X phone. When I asked Motorola reps about whether these Droids meant the X wouldn't be coming to Verizon, they demurred.
　　We did get a few hints about the X, though. It's likely to use this X8 chipset, and it'll probably have the Motorola features which we heard about here: touchless control, active display, quick camera launch, the new camera app and probably Motorola Assist. We'll have to wait for next week to learn more.
　　The three new Droids are available for pre-order now, and they'll hit shelves on August 20.

Where it made use of to be far more common

　　The iPad garnered the reputation as a brand new variety of device designed for doing entertaining items at household. People had been promptly taken with all the fact that the iPad could do a great deal of enjoyable points, endearing it towards the masses. Then developers started writing thousands of apps for the iPad that started to bridge entertaining stuff with activities usually done on a Computer, even Windows PCs. Customers noticed that the Windows Pc (desktop or laptop) that they kept at residence was becoming employed less and significantly less. Ultimately they were only working with Windows at operate.
　　A familiar sight in public is a person with an iPad in hand, or one becoming employed using a keyboard case. Where it made use of to be far more common to see persons employing Windows laptops of varying sizes in public venues lots of of them happen to be replaced with the iPad. Much more considerably, iPad users usually are not just performing exciting stuff that tablets are believed to be created for, they are doing almost everything they used to windows 7 professional retail box perform with the forgotten Windows laptop back at household.
　　Microsoft saw this coming and radically changed the design and style of Windows to perform on tablets, desktops, and laptops. The people in Redmond saw the writing on the wall and knew they had to alter the OS into a tablet OS to keep Windows within the household. They currently had the enterprise locked up so bringing Windows towards the tablet was an work to help keep people employing the OS at home.
　　Make no error, the Surface RT was firmly aimed at obtaining shoppers to think about Windows on house tablets, and that work has failed. These wanting to use a straightforward tablet at house have pretty significantly currently adopted the iPad. It sports a mobile type element that runs a straightforward OS made specifically for the tablet. Confident iOS can also be a phone platform but Apple has adapted it to deal with the iPad nicely. It was also in a position to acquire app developers to adapt or make iPad-specific versions of apps to operate effectively on the slate.

　　I like my ThinkPad Tablet 2, a nice Windows tablet. It requires benefit of Windows eight, in particular all the tablet functions Microsoft implemented for that objective. But when I show it (or any Windows tablet) to folks I get quite considerably the identical reaction.
　　The discussion proceeds with me explaining how it is possible to run Windows apps and how new apps are becoming written for the Windows 8 app shop. That is followed by a conversation that tends to make it clear the other party not simply has no desire to run Windows and its apps on a tablet, they genuinely cannot see why any one would choose to do that. The iPad does anything they want a tablet to perform and much more so why would they want to use a tablet with Windows?
　　For a lot of shoppers Windows represents perform. It really is around the personal computer within the office and they "have" to utilize it there. They try to remember all the times they had to acquire the IT folks to come repair the Pc that stopped performing something. They feel of how they can not visit all the cool websites since they're blocked at function, which they come to assume of as a Windows thing. They believe of how trouble-free their household computing has turn into because they just naturally began performing it all on the iPad at home.
　　Most of the people I interact with about Windows on tablets who like it, and are excited about Windows 8, are those who either make a living within the Windows ecosystem or have a specific require for making use of Windows outside the scope of standard property computing. Possessing complete Windows within a tablet kind is just what they must do what they want each for work and at dwelling.
　　Regrettably for Microsoft, there aren't adequate of those enthusiasts to produce a difference, as proven by each the Surface RT debacle, and low Surface Pro sales (compared to the iPad). The vast majority have currently been shown that their beloved iPad is all they will need outdoors of function. The iPad has completely replaced Computer usage in the residence for a lot of owners and kicked Windows back towards the office.

Microsoft Cuts Price of Surface RT Tablet by Up to 30%

　　Microsoft MSFT -0.04% has cut the price of its Surface RT tablet by $150, or as much as 30%, as even some Microsoft partners have called the device a sales laggard.
　　The software company's websites on Sunday began showing a price of $349 for the least-expensive model of the tablet, without a cover that doubles as a keyboard for the device. That model, which launched last fall, previously cost $499 without the cover-keyboard combination.
　　Microsoft also cut the price on the Surface RT model with twice as much memory to $449 from $599. That version, with a type of cover-keyboard combination, now costs $549, down from $699.
　　Websites of Best Buy Co. BBY +1.19% and Staples Inc. SPLS +0.36% also list the discounted prices for the Surface RT.
　　"We've been seeing great success with pricing and cover promotions over the past several months on Surface RT in the U.S. and other markets," a Microsoft spokesman said. "People who buy Surface love Surface, and we're excited about all those additional people out sharing their excitement for Surface with other people."
　　Technology-news website the Verge earlier reported Microsoft was likely to start reducing prices on the Surface RT.
　　The Surface RT has been a disappointment to some people at companies involved with the device. Those people have said sales of the Surface RT haven't lived up to hopes, and that Microsoft didn't do enough to clarify the reasons people should choose the RT version of Windows, which doesn't run older Windows-compatible software programs, such as iTunes or Quicken financial software.
　　The chief executive of Nvidia Corp., NVDA +0.07% which makes the computer chips that power the Surface RT, said in March that sales of Windows RT devices have been "disappointing" so far. Windows RT devices are powered by the same type of battery-conserving computer chip that is in the guts of smartphones and devices like the Apple iPad.
　　Microsoft has tried discounts on Surface RT before. More than a month ago, Microsoft started offering people who bought a Surface RT a free cover that doubles as the device's keyboard. The covers typically cost $119 or $129 each.
　　It isn't uncommon for companies to offer discounts on consumer-electronic devices, particularly to clear out inventory before new models go on sale. Microsoft hasn't announced new versions of the Surface.
　　At a conference last week, company executives showed a slide that indicated updates were coming to Surface RT and to the more powerful version, Surface Pro.
　　The Wall Street Journal also reported in April that Microsoft is working on a smaller version of the Surface, on the heels of popular 7-inch to 8-inch tablet computers like Apple's iPad Mini and the Nexus 7 from Google Inc.

Sense app that is not exclusive to particular

　　Microsoft published facts of its upcoming Windows Phone eight update on Thursday, revealing the minor modifications which might be as a result of roll out shortly. Recognized as General Distribution Release 2 (GDR2), the update consists of fixes to Xbox Music to provide accurate metadata, the restoration on the FM radio feature, a Information Sense app that is not exclusive to particular carriers, along with a new alternative to set a Lens app as the default camera. You will discover some HTML5 updates in Net Explorer, enhanced Skype and Lync stability, and Gmail CardDAV / CalDAV assistance, but general the alterations are extremely minor for an update eight months after the original Windows Telephone 8 release.
　　As outlined by sources familiar with Microsoft's Windows Phone plans, the enterprise is within a "shut up and ship" mode. We're told that the lack of significant alterations is resulting from the focus on Windows Phone's "Blue" update. The future update, anticipated in early 2014, looks set to consist of a notification center, improved multitasking, and modifications to built-in apps. We understand that Microsoft is taking into consideration back porting a few of the "Blue" characteristics, like a rotation lock solution, to a GDR3 update due later this year. Any ported capabilities are stated to help future hardware arriving later this year, and sometimes at the request of precise phone makers like Nokia. In comparison, Windows 8.1 includes a complete host of adjustments and function additions created for tablets and PCs that is anticipated to be delivered in late August ?a just 10 months following the original Windows 8 release.
　　We've discovered that Microsoft had planned to roll out a number of Windows Telephone updates additional often, but delays in testing new chipsets and bugs in a few of the GDR updates have slowed down feature additions. 1 certain bug with unbranded devices not sold by carriers is stated to possess affected the way a handset is identified on a network. We're told that Microsoft had a really hard time fixing this unique challenge, resulting in delays to other planned function.
　　We're told that most of the focus for Windows Telephone software program improvements is related to hardware release and refreshes. The future GDR3 update will include things like support for 5- and 6-inch Windows Phones with 1080p resolutions, and quad-core chipsets. These devices will autocad architecture 2013 debut later this year, and Microsoft has been working closely with OEMs to make sure Windows Telephone includes the hardware assistance required. Microsoft revealed on Thursday that together with Nokia it "shared early builds of computer software and hardware" to prepared the Lumia 1020. "I wrote more than 10 pages of feedback myself on the Nokia Pro Camera app as it was being developed," says Microsoft's Joe Belfiore.
　　The message from Microsoft on Windows Telephone updates is mixed. Although the enterprise promised a year ago that it was creating an enthusiasts plan to provide early access to updates, Microsoft has but to detail when it plans to provide it. The program was stated to "keep your telephone fresher than ever prior to." For now although, all update signs point to early 2014. Microsoft confirmed it really is planning a "feature pack" update inside the very first half of next year that will involve some enterprise improvements and VPN help. Regrettably, it isn't sharing further facts about any other additions. It leaves Nokia as well as other telephone makers having to depend on hardware promoting points, recognizing full effectively that the Windows Phone computer software and ecosystem nevertheless lags the competition.