Sometime on the morning of July 3rd, Google Realtime Search mysteriously went offline and, assuming it was just another example of things breaking on a holiday weekend, most tech publications ignored it. Well as it turns out the reason behind its disappearance was not so mysterious, on July 2nd Google's access to Twitter's special firehose expired and it pulled the feature in order to rethink its strategy. Bing, which had a similar deal with Twitter still has access to the firehose.
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Take your business on the move
Want an ultraportable notebook that concentrates on features rather than style? Optical drive, full speed processor, wireless display, USB 3.0, light weight, long battery: Toshiba delivers again with the Sandy Bridge update to the Portege range - mostly.
Ultraportables tend to be pricey and to favour sleek design, battery life and light weight rather than performance. The R830 isn't cheap, and it's both light and long lasting but the design is understated - and the performance is unusually good. That’s because instead of a low-voltage processor, you get a full Sandy Bridge Core i5-2520M - and no, it doesn't scorch your lap.
That's because unlike most notebooks that let the components heat up and then use a fan to push hot air out of the case, Toshiba designed the case so that fan pulls cool air in and passes it over the motherboard to keep things fairly cool in the first place. That's the principle and it seems to work; even on a hot day it's not uncomfortable to use the R830 in shorts for general tasks - we had to run four GPU-accelerated web apps and stream a video before we noticed any increase in temperature and it was never hot enough to be a problem. We also appreciated the 7200rpm speed of the 500GB hard drive; the new Core i5 processors are strong performers and it's nice when the drive speed keeps up. That helps with the 20 second boot time (from powering on to being logged in to Windows); we also like the option to have the R830 turn on automatically when you open the lid (tucked away in the BIOS).
The design is all about practicality; the matte black case is magnesium alloy and the chassis is particularly sturdy without being heavy or looking clunky. The chunky silver dropped hinges are robust as well, but the thin screen will flex if you deliberately try to twist it - although as with the previous generation, it also stands up well to the punishment of being thrown into your carryon and dragged around the world. Don't let the slimness and light weight fool you; the build quality is excellent.
Unlike some current 13-inch ultraportables, it has a removable battery; you probably won't need to carry a second battery though, as we got over 6 and a half hours of battery life for a mix of editing documents, heavy web browsing, streaming music and video with a high screen brightness (so turning off Wi-Fi and turning the screen down should actually get you the promised 9 hours). Playing a DVD continuously, the battery lasted over 5 hours. The only drawback is that charging time is quite slow; after a couple of hours, we still had only 33% charge.
At 1.5kg the Portege R830 isn't as ultra-ultra-light as the upcoming Sony Vaio Z which weighs just under 1.2kg, but then it also packs a DVD drive which is rare in any ultraportable, let alone one this lightweight (Toshiba claims the double-sided motherboard is a quarter the size of the competition, which would explain why there's room for the optical drive). It has a good selection of ports for something this small; VGA, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, an SD Card slot cleverly tucked into the end of the palm rest, separate headphone and microphone sockets and one port each of USB 2, USB 3 and combined USB and eSATA (a port that can also charge devices while the Portege is switched off, if you choose). As well as the usual Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the R830 also has built-in mobile broadband (14.4Mbps HSUPA) and Intel's new wireless display - if you have the right TV or Netgear adapter that lets you play HD video from the laptop on your TV screen.
With this thin a system it's not surprising that the keyboard doesn't have as much travel as some notebooks and the keys have a distinct click as you type, but they're comfortable to type on for a long time and the isolated key tops are both large enough and well enough spaced that typing is accurate as well. The secondary keys are all a good size and they're laid out well - although the strip of Home/End, PageUp/PageDown navigation keys along the right-hand side of the keyboard takes a little getting used to if you're used to a different layout.
There are no dedicated media keys, not even volume, so everything is a secondary function on the function and number keys - apart from the two buttons at the top of the keyboard that turn on the ultra-low power eco mode and the wireless display, and the handy button above the touchpad that turns it on and off. There's no backlight on the keyboard, but the fact that it's spill resistant could come in handy on the road.
The touchpad is offset slightly to the left, which puts it comfortably beneath your fingers when you're typing. The 4-inch size (diagonally) is large for a 13-inch notebook, with two distinct physical buttons separated by the fingerprint reader; all the system indicators are neatly lined up here - not the first place you'd look, but not distracting either. The buttons have a positive action - again you'll notice the click - and the matte touchpad surface is responsive (without only the slightest of textures to keep your fingers from sliding around). Pinch-zoom, edge and two-finger scrolling are all fluid and responsive; the three-finger gestures for launching a favourite app or flicking through slideshows work better than on many systems but we often found both gestures were detected when we only meant to use one of them.
When the Sandy Bridge Core i5 isn't paired with a discrete GPU and relies only on the integrated Intel graphics, you don't get the same graphics performance. Streaming 1080p video from the Internet showed crisp details and good, vibrant colours (although the contrast on dark images was fairly poor); but the video was noticeably jumpy rather than playing smoothly. 720p played over the local network has the same excellent detail and natural, accurate colours but without the jumpy playback. The 1366 x 768-pixel resolution of the 13.3-inch screen is typical for notebooks of this size; the extra-bright LED backlighting isn't and the viewing angle is very wide horizontally and only slightly less vertically (although the matte finish means you don't have to angle it to avoid reflections).
The sound is fair; there's little bass and the treble sounds somewhat tinny, but the midrange is strong and there's little distortion until you turn the volume all the way up. The volume level is fine for watching a video or listening to music if you're on your own; it wouldn't fill the room for watching with friends (and the screen size is a little small for that).
Like most laptops the Portege comes with a selection of pre-installed software, including Nero 10 for burning optical discs as well as the usual Office Starter, Windows Live Essentials and MacAfee. BBC iPlayer links and Skype are useful as well, but the business user this machine is aimed at may not be interested in the Wild Tangent games portal and Toshiba's own Photo Service for printing photo books and 7Digital-powered Music Store have a lot of competition. And while Toshiba's own utilities are certainly useful (especially the ReelTime tool that shows your document history by type), rather too many of them are running in the background by default to get the performance you'd expect from this spec.
Verdict:
At this price, you might expect the Portege R830 to have more premium features - a backlit keyboard, an ambient light sensor, discrete graphics or a better quality screen - but then you remember it has mobile broadband, wireless display, an optical drive and a full-power Core i5 and the price seems more reasonable. For the business user - or anyone who needs a lightweight workhorse - the balance of features make sense, and the battery life is welcome (and even switchable graphics would have a significant impact on that). You could quibble about some of the choices, but the R830 has distinct advantages over its flashier competition.?
Tags: Laptops Hardware Toshiba Toshiba Port?g? R830-138
Toshiba Portégé R830-138 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:10:55 +0100
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June was another good month for Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7. IE9 has now become the most popular modern browser on Windows 7 in the US. IE9 is now just second overall in the US behind IE8 with 21.8% usage share as of the last day of June. Worldwide, IE9 usage share on Windows 7 is exiting the month with 17.0% usage share for June.
Better, together. We designed IE9 to make your favorite sites better. A key piece of that is getting sites out of the browser box and letting them integrate right into your Windows 7 taskbar just like any of your favorite apps. WordPress, which has over 20 million sites, recently took advantage of some of these unique capabilities to enable any of these millions of sites to be pinned right to your Windows 7 taskbar and instantly have a Jump List for all recent posts. One of the blogs that caught our eye was Crazy4ComicCon, an enthusiastic ode to Comic-Con maintained by Tony Kim.
Pinning C4CC to your Windows 7 taskbar gives you instant access to the site, and a right-click will bring up the five most recent posts.
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As you can see Tony is incredibly passionate about comic books, Comic-Con, his blog and ?the tribe.? He launched his blog about a year ago as a means to ?make the world a little smaller.? If you?re a fan of comics and want to learn more about the ins-and-outs of Comic-Con, definitely check-out Tony?s blog by pinning it to your Windows 7 taskbar. And if you are a reader any of any of the 20 million blogs or news sites from WordPress, like TechCrunch ? start pinning!
Go Scandinavia! The positive momentum in moving the world to a modern browser continues this month with IE6 and IE7 dropping a combined 0.8% share worldwide for the month of June. Our website ie6countdown.com continues to get great traffic, and this month we launched our Champions page to celebrate those major countries that have dropped below 1% usage share of IE6. The most recent country to join the ranks of these Champions is Sweden, where the Stockholm Webmonkeys got together on June 21st and celebrated IE6 dropping below 1% in Sweden.
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We also have expanded our IE6 Countdown efforts with two more global sites going live this month. China which represents the largest portion of IE6 share worldwide has launched a local site, and our team in Latin America has also released a local version of IE6 Countdown to help get people there to move to a modern browser.
If you haven?t already made the move to Internet Explorer 9, try it by visiting www.beautyoftheweb.com.
Roger Capriotti
Director, Internet Explorer Product Marketing
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Clearly the Android Market is growing rapidly, and there?s no reason to even mention the Apple App Store, which just breezed by the 100,000 iPad app marker. But we can?t leave the little guys out, especially when their growth is also relatively impressive. Specifically, Microsoft?s Windows Phone Marketplace is reported to have passed 25,000 applications by a site that tracks the app store?s activity.Jessica Cauffiel Emmanuelle Vaugier Sarah Silverman Larissa Meek Gina Carano
Corrected version
Steve Ballmer publicly addressed critics who say he should step down as Microsoft chief executive.
"You tell me if I lack the energy, conviction ... or drive," Ballmer said to an audience member who asked what he thought of people who say it's time for him to go.
Ballmer spoke at a lunch for the Seattle Rotary Club at the Westin Hotel on Wednesday. It was the first time Ballmer spoke to the group in 15 years.
Ballmer pre-announced what sounded like Microsoft's earnings for the 2011 fiscal year, which the company is scheduled to report on July 21.
"There's a reason why we'll do almost $70 billion in revenue this year and we'll make over, 20, whatever, $26, $27 billion in profits," Ballmer said.
Bringing the NBA back to Seattle
An audience member asked him about bringing an NBA franchise to Seattle. Here is Ballmer's response.
"The challenge there is a real estate challenge. Honestly, the building that is Key Arena would not be able to have an NBA team that would be competitive," he said, adding it's a nice building to look at. "If you don't have a certain kind of arena, you can't sell tickets at a certain price ... you can't pay players to be a competitive team."
He said it takes $300 million, $400 million, $500 million to build a competitive arena, and that either needs to come from real estate investment or the city, county and state, which was not interested before in making the investment.
"If somebody could solve the real estate problem, someone could solve the NBA problem," he said, and he added it's up to the real estate industry to solve it. "If you find an answer to that problem, I'll buy the first season ticket."
Three most important areas of innovation
Ballmer summed up the future of technology for Rotarians and what they should watch for.
"I come to you with a message of optimism of how how much more is coming and how much opportunity remains," Ballmer said.
He identified the three most important areas of technology innovation as: the ability for computers to recognize you, the ability of computers to understand what you want and cloud computing.
"No. 1, your computer will learn to recognize you, your voice, your fingers," he said. The ability to use our fingers on touchscreens was the start he said. "Oooh, I can touch it now too," he said. "When I say it it sounds small but we all know how profound that is." Microsoft built Kinect, a camera that senses motion and sound, for the Xbox video game console, and will be bringing it to Windows for use with computers.
"The second biggest thing I think is my computer will learn to understand me," Ballmer said. "If I say to my administrative assistant, 'Get me ready for my trip down to Rotary,' she's brilliant" and she knows to get him directions, notes and a biography of who he will be meeting with, he said. "If I go to my computer and say, 'Get me ready for Rotary,' it has no idea where to look. ... That's why people fall in love with search engines. It's why we're investing so much in Bing. You can type in what you want in your own language. ...
"The cloud is the buzz word that connects you to the Internet," Ballmer said. "That back end phenomena will be the source of so many new companies ... that it will be quite an exciting time for the next five years."
Here is our earlier story on investor David Einhorn saying Ballmer needs to go. (It's also been suggested by multiple anonymous readers who comment here at seattletimes.com.)
I will add more highlights from Ballmer's speech Wednesday afternoon, so come back here for more.
Update 3:43 p.m.:
SEATTLE TIMES
Assunta Ng, publisher of Northwest Asian Weekly
The person in the audience who asked Ballmer his reaction on critics who say he needs to go was Assunta Ng, publisher of the Northwest Asian Weekly. "I was hoping mine was not the first question," Ng said after the lunch, but the microphone referee shoved it to her first.
"What do you expect him to say? He knows that the criticism is that while he was there he hasn?t really helped the stock price of Microsoft, right? It was just not good. Sometimes it?s even horrible. ... He has done great things at Microsoft but a lot of people are trying to compare him with Bill Gates, that he is not as tech savvy as Bill."
Here are more highlights from Ballmer's speech.
How Washington state needs to step up for businesses like Microsoft
Ballmer called Seattle the most important technology hub after the Bay Area and talked about what he thinks the state needs to invest in.
"After Silicon Valley it's hard to cite any place more important to technology," he said. "We need to make key investments in transportation infrastructure." Ballmer said he lives close to the 520 and is happy to see the changes going on with the bridge over Lake Washington.
"We're all going to have to step up to do more for K-12," he said.
Microsoft recently gave $25 million to build a college scholarship endowment for students in Washington State. Microsoft attorney Brad Smith chaired a task force for the governor that led to both the endowment and legislation giving colleges the ability to set their own tuition. Regents at the University of Washington are considering a large hike to tuition. Here is our story by Katherine Long on UW tuition.
On the investment Microsoft is making in Windows
Ballmer declined to put a number on how much Microsoft is investing in Windows 8, the code name for the next version of Windows. "If you cut me open and see what's inside, it's Windows," he said. "Windows, Windows, Windows."
"How important is Windows? Very. 'Very' would be a very fair answer," he said.
On Microsoft's commitment to search
Google dominates search, but Ballmer said Microsoft is not backing off of its commitment to build a competitor in Bing, even though Microsoft is losing money on Bing.
"While we may lose a few million this year in Bing we are irrepressible in our commitment to that," he said.
Information in this article, originally published June 29, 2011 at 2:01 p.m., was corrected June 29, 2011 at 5:22 p.m. A previous version of this story incorrectly quoted Steve Ballmer saying, "They're the reason we will make more than $70 billion this year and, give or take, $26 billlion to $27 billion in profits." The correct quote is: "There's a reason why we'll do almost $70 billion in revenue this year and we'll make over, 20, whatever, $26, $27 billion in profits."
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"We basically increasingly only are working on things that are actually very important. The day and age of idle, smaller things is a little bit behind us. ... We're putting bigger and more energy behind fewer things than we have historically," Ballmer said Wednesday at a speech to the Rotary Club in Seattle.
He made the comment in response to an attendee question about what Microsoft is focused on.
While the comment was small, it does indicate a change in how Microsoft operates. The company has historically incubated lots of small projects whether or not they ever turned into billion-dollar products.
It also may reflect cost-cutting Microsoft did during the recession in 2009. In 2009, Microsoft had its first major layoffs that eliminated 5,800 jobs. While the company said it will invest a significant amount in pay raises this year to stay competitive, the company has not hired back to previous staff levels. Microsoft had 89,403 employees at the end of March, compared to 92,736 in June 2009.
In the rest of his speech, Ballmer responded to critics who say he should step down, talked why it does not make sense for him to bring an NBA team back to Seattle now and pre-announced 2011 earnings for Microsoft. Here is our full story on Ballmer's speech.
(Photo of Steve Ballmer speaking in New York on June 28, 2011: Getty Images)
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