Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro – Design, Keyboard base and Connectivity

You might remember the Samsung ATIV Smart PC we looked at a little while ago. That’s the ‘budget’ X86 convertible tablet/laptop in Samsung’s Windows 8 range. The next model up is the 11.6-inch Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro (or 700T1C in model-numer-speak), which replaces the Atom processor with a full-blown Core i5 or i7, and swaps the 1,366 x 768 screen resolution for a lovely Full HD PLS panel. It’s essentially the sequel to the Samsung Series 7 Slate 700T.

Read the full Windows 8 review here

In case this is the first time you’ve come across the ATIV Smart PC range, it’s Samsung’s full Windows 8 version of the Asus Transformer form factor which combines a tablet with a keyboard base to make a laptop. All the ATIV Smart PCs support touch and Wacom stylus goodness.


Where the Atom-based Smart PC is comparable to the Vivo Tab, the Smart PC Pro takes on the Asus Taichi and Microsoft Surface Pro, amongst others.

Wondering which Windows 8 device to get? Have a read of our Best Windows 8 Laptops Tablets Convertibles and PCs roundup

Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro Design and Build

Though the Smart PC Pro is definitely at the premium end of the market, the tablet itself is constructed using plastic, albeit with a nice brushed metal-effect finish. This is to keep its weight down, as because of the power it packs in the tab alone weighs 884g, considerably heavier than inevitable comparisons to the iPad.

Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro Keyboard Base and Cover

However, the keyboard base is made of metal. This lends it a very premium feel at odds with the tablet part, yet again there’s logic behind the difference: this was done to increase the keyboard base’s weight (bringing the entire package to 1.6kg), so that it balances the tablet part and avoids the falling-over-backwards flaw that plagued the Asus Transformer.

Mind you, the dock does not contain an extra battery as does the more budget-oriented Samsung Smart PC’s one, though it does give you extra connectivity. This is a real shame, as the powerful Pro tablet inevitably already offers shorter battery life than its Atom sibling.

The tablet itself is a very svelte 12mm thick, and with keyboard attached matches many Ultrabooks at 22mm. However, if you’d rather have a thinner tablet without losing the physical keyboard, there will be a Microsoft Surface-like keyboard cover that’s a mere 4mm thin.

Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro Connectivity

The Smart PC Pro tablet is well-endowed in the connectivity department. The tablet itself sports a headphone jack, full-size USB 3.0 port and microSD card slot for expanding its storage along its top, plus a microHDMI for video output along with the volume rocker on its left.

A physical rotation lock is a welcome touch too. Wireless is particularly comprehensive thanks to Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 4.0 and 3G/4G wireless broadband with accompanying SIM slot.

The keyboard dock adds a further two USB 2.0 ports (the data interconnect between tablet and keyboard can’t cope with USB 3.0) to the equation, though alas no full-size SD card reader. This is annoying for photographers, and we can only hope Samsung will bring out another dock down the line with a battery and full SD card slot built in.

[ Technology ] Smart and Hello

CORRECTED-UPDATE 2-Toyota to recall 1 mln vehicles for airbag, wiper glitches

Jan 30 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp will recall nearly 1.3 million cars globally for two separate defects, including 752,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles in the United States to fix airbags that could be deployed inadvertently, the automaker said on Wednesday.
It is the third Toyota recall since October to involve more than a million cars, and it comes as the company tries to recover from a damaged reputation following a series of recalls between 2009 and 2011 that were related to unintended acceleration problems.
An IC chip in the airbag control unit can malfunction when it receives electrical interference from other parts in the car, causing the airbags to deploy when it is not necessary, Toyota spokesman Naoto Fuse said.
Toyota is also recalling certain Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles in Japan, Canada, and Mexico.
The problem has caused minor injuries such as abrasions in 18 cases that have been reported, he said. Two accidents have been reported by customers outside Japan, although Toyota has not been able to confirm them, he said.
Toyota will add an electrical signal filter to the airbag control module to the recalled vehicles -- repairs expected to take an hour to hour-and-a-half, he said.
The spokesman declined to disclose the costs involved.
LIMITED FINANCIAL IMPACT
TRW Automotive Holding Corp has manufactured the airbag control unit in the vehicles, although the problematic chip is supplied by another company, an employee at TRW's Toyota office told Reuters.
He declined to say where TRW buys the chips from.
The financial impact from the airbag recall is likely to be limited, possibly costing Toyota about 5 billion yen ($55 million), said Koichi Sugimoto, a senior analyst at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.
Toyota may ask suppliers to compensate, he added.
"While this cannot be ignored, this amount is not going to dent Toyota's operations and share prices are unlikely to be impacted much," he said.
Separately, Toyota will also recall 385,000 Lexus IS and its series, including 270,000 Lexus IS vehicles in the United States over wiper problems, Toyota spokesman Fuse said.
The wiper arm nut of the front wiper in these vehicles may not be tight enough and the wiper may not work under certain weather occasions, including in snow.
Toyota will exchange the nut in repairs that will take about 30 minutes, Fuse said.
Toyota has been showing signs of recovery from the recall crisis and won back the crown as the world's top selling automaker in 2012 from General Motors.
In an effort to move past its safety crisis, Toyota proposed last month and got approval from a judge to spend $1.1 billion to settle one of the biggest U.S. auto class-action lawsuits over claims that millions of its vehicles accelerated unintentionally.
Toyota has not admitted fault in proposing the settlement.
As automakers including Toyota increasingly use shared parts for various models, the number of recalled vehicles have tended to balloon.
In October, the automaker also recalled 7.4 million vehicles globally to fix malfunctioning power window switches, and in November it recalled 2.8 million vehicles for a steering glitch.
Toyota is set to announce its October-December earnings results on Feb. 5. ($1 = 90.6500 Japanese yen) (Additional reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Ken Wills)

ZTE bringing 5.7-inch Grand Memo and a Firefox OS phone to MWC 2013

What will China’s ZTE be bringing to Mobile World Congress 2013? So far the company has teased the 5.7-inch Grand Memo and an unnamed device running Mozilla’s Firefox OS. In the case of the Grand Memo, ZTE is so excited about the upcoming launch that it couldn’t even wait for the Barcelona expo to show it off to members of the tech press.
The Grand Memo (that’s it above next to the Grand S) is part of a new push for ZTE. With a solid presence already established in lower-end devices, the company now wants to move in on the high-end device market. The Grand Memo looks like a good way to kickstart the effort. It’s got a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor to go along with that 5.7-inch display. There’s also a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera, and ZTE has included a micro SD expansion slot.
Full specs won’t be revealed until MWC, but there are two more details worth knowing. First, that mammoth display is a 720p number. ZTE has decided not to match its competitors with a 1080p panel, and it’s likely a cost-cutting decision. Shaving a few bucks by going with a lower-resolution display will allow ZTE to price its high-end phablet aggressively, and that won’t go unnoticed by consumers. And since you won’t have to hold the 5.7-inch screen right up next to your face to see things, chances are the drop in PPI won’t make a huge difference.
Second, the Grand Memo measures just 8mm thick. That’s hard enough to do with a device this size when you don’t offer any expandability, and ZTE has still managed to squeeze in that micro SD slot.
As for its first phone running Firefox OS, everything’s a mystery at this point. ZTE has been working with Mozilla for quite some time, and it’s had a couple codenamed devices circulating among the Foundation’s developers. The only thing that’s certain so far is that this device will sit at the opposite end of the price spectrum when it launches. Firefox OS phones — at least the initial round — are headed for emerging markets and will sport entry-level price tags.

[ Technology-News] FacebookFacebook Now Has More Than 1.06 Billion Monthly Active Users, 618 Million Daily, 680 Million On Mobile

Facebook Now Has More Than 1.06 Billion Monthly Active Users, 618 Million Daily, 680 Million On Mobile Facebook has today shared its financial stats for the fourth quarter of last year, and in doing so, has dropped yet another installment of its ever-impressive user statistics. As has been the case consistently over the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has exceeded quite a few milestones, and the world’s most popular social network of all time has has now passed the 1.06 billion monthly active user (MAU) mark.
The social company had long been expected to pass the monumental billion mark before eventually doing so in October of last year, but the growth since then – some 60 million active users – is pretty startling in itself. As well as that, the number of daily active users (DAUs) averaged at more than 618 million through December 2012, with the number of monthly active mobile users hitting more than two-thirds of a billion, at 680 million.

Signups on a social network like Facebook are one thing, but keeping a user base interested enough to remain active month-in, month-out is something Zuck and his development team seem to have mastered down to a fine art. The 1.06 billion MAUs as of December 31st, 2012, was an increase of 25% year-on-year, while the number of DAUs equated to a 28% year-on-year surge.
But the real juice arrives in the progress of mobile. It is certainly a field Facebook had initial teething issues with, but since releasing version 5 for both iOS and Android, things have continued to progress. The number of daily active users on mobile devices such as the Nexus 7, iPad, iPhone and Galaxy S III exceeded the number of web daily active users for the first time in Q4 2012, and given the way the market is continuing to lean on mobile devices – particularly with social apps and services – the swing is certain to stay in favor of mobile indefinitely from here on in.

The portion of Facebook users logging in on mobile devices stood at around 40 per cent in 2011, and passed the 50 percent mark in 2012. Some commentators suspect that figure could rise to as much as 70 per cent by the end of this year, as users look to their smartphones and tablets for their fix of the world’s most populous social hunt.
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Google updates image search to be faster, more reliable

Google Images enhances its search function.

(Credit: Google)

Google announced today that it is revamping its image search
to make it speedier and more reliable. Soon, people will be able to simultaneously see images and image information while searching for photos, illustrations, and graphics.

"Based on feedback from both users and webmasters, we redesigned Google Images to provide a better search experience," Google Images Associate Product Manager Hongyi Li wrote in a blog post today. "In the next few days, you'll see image results displayed in an inline panel so it's faster, more beautiful, and more reliable." When users look up images currently, they see large thumbnail images for whatever they are searching. For example, the "Pacific Ocean" brings up images of maps, photos of sandy islands covered in palm trees, and pictures of waves crashing on rocks. If the user wants to know more about the image, they have to hover their mouse over it and then click to get more.
With Google's enhanced image search, people will be able to see a display of smaller images with one central image enlarged and accompanied by image information. This should significantly cut down on the hovering and clicking.

Here are some of the changes explained by Li:

• We now display detailed information about the image (the metadata) right underneath the image in the search results, instead of redirecting users to a separate landing page.
• We're featuring some key information much more prominently next to the image: the title of the page hosting the image, the domain name it comes from, and the image size.
• The domain name is now clickable, and we also added a new button to visit the page the image is hosted on.
• The source page will no longer load up in an iframe in the background of the image detail view. This speeds up the experience for users, reduces the load on the source website's servers, and improves the accuracy of webmaster metrics such as pageviews.

"You will be able to quickly flip through a set of images by using the keyboard," Li wrote. "If you want to go back to browsing other search results, just scroll down and pick up right where you left off."

Topic Khmer

Taiwan firm to launch transparent cellphone

Serena Chen, Deputy Manager of Polytron technologies, Inc. displays the prototype of a transparent cellphone in Taoyuan City, northern Taiwan, on Jan 21, 2013. Polytron is reportedly hoping that the phone will be on the market by the end of 2013. [Photo/CFP]

Topic Khmer

Japan launching spy satellite to monitor North Korea

TOKYO: Japan is to launch a new spy satellite on Sunday to strengthen its
monitoring capabilities amid concern that North Korea may carry out more missile and nuclear tests.

A rocket carrying a radar-equipped satellite is scheduled to blast off from a space centre at Tanegashima in the southwest, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has announced.

The space agency said the satellite would be used for information-gathering, including data following Japan's 2011 quake and tsunami, but did not mention North Korea by name.

The launch, planned for Sunday between 1:00 and 3:00 pm (0400-0600 GMT) comes after Pyongyang rejected dialogue on its atomic programme following tightened UN sanctions for a banned rocket launch.


The North's foreign ministry responded angrily to the UN Security Council action, saying there would be "no dialogue to discuss denuclearisation" and hinting that a new atomic test could be planned.

Japan hopes the satellite launch will enable it to complete a system first devised in the early 1990s as a response to fears about North Korea.


From an altitude of several hundred kilometres, the satellite will be able to detect objects on the ground as small as a square metre, including at night and through cloud cover, thanks to its radar.

Tokyo has four operational satellites in space, of which just one is equipped with radar. It has used satellites for monitoring and information-gathering since the late 1990s.
Last year Pyongyang launched two long-range rockets. The first failed but the second in December flew over the southern Okinawa island chain, jangling nerves in Japan.
 
North Korea insists its December 12 rocket launch was a peaceful, scientific mission aimed at putting a satellite in space. The UN condemned it as a disguised ballistic missile test.

Topic Khmer

Scottsdale car auctions fetch $223.8 million

Several classic-car segments are expected to climb in value; even a 1969 Ford Bronco hits half a million.

Last weekend's classic-car auctions in Scottsdale, Ariz., totaled a blistering $223.8 million, yet another reminder that no price is too high for an old Ferrari.

In fact, three Ferrari 250 GTs were among the 10 highest-grossing sales from all six auction companies, according to Hagerty, an insurer of collector cars. A 1958 California Spider, similar to the replica model seen in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," sold for $8.25 million, while a 1960 Competizione Berlinetta went for $8.14 million.

Oddly enough, the original 1966 Batmobile seen in the TV series ranked third and swept $4.62 million, more than any other Porsche, Maserati or Mercedes. The only other American car to break the top 10 was a 1933 Duesenberg Model J Disappearing-Top Convertible at $2.69 million.

Alt-fuel vehicles electrify Detroit

By Clifford Atiyeh of MSN Autos

Hybrid and electric cars should climb to 5 percent of U.S. market
share this year, an increase from 3.3 percent in 2012, according to WardsAuto, an industry news, research and data company. That's not a runaway success by any means, but it's a sure signal that automakers will be dreaming up more ideas to compete in this growing segment. Here are six plug-in models and one wild hybrid to watch — all were on display at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Via Motors Presidential

General Motors sells a small number of hybrid SUVs, but none as large as this Suburban modified by Detroit startup Via Motors. Via says this is the first plug-in hybrid SUV on sale in the United States; it has a 300-kilowatt electric motor and a 150-kilowatt generator that powers high-voltage plugs mounted on the truck's side. Pacific Gas & Electric and Verizon will be testing several Via products, including a plug-in van estimated to travel 35 miles before its engine switches on.

Tesla Model X

Tesla's long-awaited SUV debuted in Detroit with "falcon wings" for rear doors, and they're just as imposing as the bird itself. The 7-passenger Model X is a taller Model S but with available all-wheel drive. Even with its added weight, Tesla says the top Model X will hit 60 mph in five seconds, square in Porsche Cayenne territory. It's still more than a year away from production.

smart forstars

Nothing is what it seems on this smart electric concept. The hood scoop is actually a built-in video projector. The seats aren't really seats, but cloth straps stretched across open frames. Behind the taillights are two charging ports. It's no secret the current smart fortwo is aging — the basic style hasn't changed since 1998 — so this zany red coupe could spell out the future, if that future includes showing movies in your garage.

Cadillac ELR

The ELR isn't simply a new Cadillac, it's the world's first plug-in hybrid coupe. To that end, it shares the capable powertrain from the Chevrolet Volt, while incorporating a richer cockpit dressed in leather, Alcantara and Cadillac's new Cue infotainment system (plus the center cubby space has a power-assisted cover). It looks nothing like the Volt and more like the CTS coupe.

Volkswagen CrossBlue

Volkswagen makes a Touareg Hybrid and a diesel-powered Touareg TDI, but wouldn't it be ideal to combine them into one model? That's the idea behind the CrossBlue concept, which packs a diesel engine, all-wheel drive, dual-clutch transmission and up to 14 miles of all-electric driving. Mitsubishi is now selling a plug-in version of its new Outlander in Japan, with Europe and possibly the U.S. to follow later this year. Expect Volkswagen to act fast.

Nissan Resonance

Heralding a potential for electrified SUVs, Nissan unveiled its Resonance gas-electric hybrid, a concept strewn with lines pointing in every direction, including some of the most geometrically complicated wheels we've seen in a long time. Nissan didn't say much about the concept's hybrid powertrain, only that it included the company's latest continuously variable transmission. Given the size of the Resonance and Nissan's plan to introduce 15 new hybrids by 2015, we wouldn't be surprised if Nissan added a hybrid Pathfinder to the lineup.

Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive

Many fuels, including natural gas and hydrogen, have powered various models of the Mercedes-Benz B-Class, but we've only seen this subcompact car on U.S. roads near the Canadian border. By this year or next, we'll have this all-electric B-Class to compete against the similar C-Max Energi, a plug-in hybrid that's already on sale. Will anyone pay a premium for an electric Mercedes, especially with a body style (R-Class) that Mercedes buyers have rejected? We're wagering the market will be slim.
Clifford Atiyeh has spent his entire life driving cars he doesn't own. Based in Boston, he is the senior news editorfor MSN Autos and contributes to The Boston Globe, Car and Driver and other publications.
 
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