AMD Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) both anticipate and enable the outstanding high-definition experience desired and expected by tech enthusiasts and everyday consumers alike. With the ability to handle the demanding workloads in our visually rich lives, APUs are redefining the computing landscape. And, as the software industry embraces APUs with a growing number of applications – like MotionDSP vReveal – you are even more empowered to achieve a phenomenal experience and virtually endless possibilities. As applications continue to be optimized for APUs, users can potentially see increased performance for certain applications through monthly updates to our AMD VISION Engine.

If you are looking for a new notebook or desktop, an APU-powered system is the way to go and we’ve “pinned” nine of the coolest systems on the market in our new AMD APU-powered Laptops & Desktops Pinterest board. Each laptop and desktop links back to one of our technology partner sites to make it easy for you to find more information on (and buy) the product. Here’s a list of products you’ll find on our Pinterest page:

• Gateway NV55SO5u Laptop powered by AMD A8 APU
• Acer AS5560 Laptop powered by AMD A8 APU
• iBUYPower Gamer Mage Desktop powered by AMD FX 8-core processor
• Lenovo ThinkPad X130e powered by AMD E-300 APU
• Lenovo C325 Touchscreen powered by AMD E-450 APU
• HP Pavilion g6 in Dandelion Breeze powered by AMD A-Series APU
• HP TouchSmart 320-1050 Touchscreen All-in-One with AMD A-Series APU
• HP Pavilion dm1z Laptop with AMD E-450 APU
• HP Pavilion dv6 Laptop with AMD A-Series APU

We first launched our AMD Pinterest page in November 2011. Along with our top APU-powered products on Pinterest, you’ll also find some of our favorite tech accessories, including headphones, laptop bags and cases, random gadgets and more. We’d love to hear what (p)inspires you!

Leslie Sobon is the Corporate Vice President, Desktop Product Line Management. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

In the past, there’s always been a big performance difference between the “desktop” experience and the “browser” experience. Those lines are beginning to blur, thanks in large part to new standards like WebGL that provide web developers more direct access to the amazing graphics capabilities in modern PCs, like those powered by AMD Radeon™ HD discrete and APU graphics.

That’s why I’m excited about the Google MapsGL announcement. Google MapsGL brings the power of hardware accelerated 3D graphics to Google Maps, providing a better maps experience with smoother transitions, 3D building and ability to “swoop” into Street View without a plug-in.

Here’s a screenshot from my HP Pavilion dm1z powered by the AMD E-350 APU, which has fantastic graphics for such a thin and light notebook…perfect for the new hardware acceleration in Google MapsGL.

Also, check out the MapsGL video posted by Google.

One thing is clear — hardware acceleration is no longer for niche applications. It is used by so many of today’s most popular applications. It can help improve the speed and experience of your favorite software, from browsers to video editing to productivity apps.

I look forward to spending countless more hours roaming the Earth…just a little faster now.

And with plenty of legroom.

Where would you like to see hardware acceleration applied next?

Gabe Gravning is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

New Desktop-Like Features in iOS 5:

• Tabbed Browsing: I remember some apologists explaining away the lack of tabbed browsing with the iPad 1. Now Safari has tabs…. on its 9.7″ display.
• Basic Photo Editing: No longer an add-on app like my favorite, Photogene, photo enhancements are available right inside the Photos app. Users can use auto-enhance, remove red eye and even crop photos.
• Reading List: Previously available on the Mac, the iOS Safari browser has the Reading list, a place to save articles you wish to read later.
• Mail Features: Now users can edit email text, add or delete email folders, and even search all the email text, not just the subject line for topics. All of this in the new Mail.
• Calendar Features: Like on Lion, users can drag time bars to set meeting time, can view attachments inside the calendar app and even share calendars.
• Mirroring: Via a cable to wirelessly through an Apple TV 2, see on a monitor or TV exactly what is on the iPad 2 or iPhone 4s.

• Improved Task Switching: With new “multitasking” gestures, users no longer need to click the home button to return to the home screen or switch between apps. They use a four-finger left-to-right gesture to switch tasks and what I call the “claw” to go to the home screen.

New iOS-Like Features in Lion:

• New Gestures: Every iOS user is familiar with finger scrolling, tap to zoom, pinch to zoom and swipe to navigate. Now this is available on a Lion Mac.
• Full Screen Apps: By design, every iOS is full screen. Now Lion has this capability.

• App Store: Required since the first iPhone; now ships with Lion.
• Launchpad: This is Lion’s fancy name for iOSs Home Screen.  This is where users can view their app icons.
• Mail Improvements: Yes, even desktop Mail is getting more like iOS. In this case, adding full height message panes.

So What? Why Should We Care?

So what does this mean, if anything? It is too early to tell, but it could signal a few alternative scenarios:

• Unity of UI? By uniting many of the UI elements across phone, tablet and computer, quite possibly it could make switching between iPhone, iPad and Mac easier. Also, as advanced HCI techniques like voice and air gesture emerge, do input techniques get even closer? Can one metaphor work across three different sized devices?
• Easier Switch to Mac from Windows? The logic here says, even if you were brought up on a Windows PC, if you can use an iPhone or iPad, you can use a Mac.
• Modularity? I’ve always believed that a modular approach could work well in certain regions and consumer segments, but only if the OS and apps morphed with it. For example, a tablet with a desktop metaphor makes no more sense that a desktop with a tablet metaphor. What if they could morph based on the state but keep some unifying elements? For instance, my tablet is a tablet when it’s not docked. When docked it acts more like you would expect with keyboard and mouse. They two experiences would be unified visually and with gestures so that they didn’t look like two different planets, but two different neighborhoods in the same city.
• Desktop OS Dead or Changing Dramatically? What is a desktop OS now? If a desktop OS is a slow-booting, energy-consuming, keyboard-mouse only, complex system, then Microsoft is killing it with Windows 8 next year anyways, so no impact.
• Simplicity Dead? If phone and tablet OSs are becoming more like desktop OSs, is that good for simplicity? Or are desktop operating systems getting more like phone and tablet operating systems? How do you mask the complexity and still be able to do a lot?

Where We Go From Here

We will all get a front row seat next year to see how users react to one interface on three platforms. Windows 8 will test this next year and Metro UI will be on phones, tablets and PCs. The only caveat here is the Windows 8 desktop app for traditional desktop which will server as a release valve for angst and a bridge to the future. Whatever the future holds, it will be interesting.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/home/2011/10/13/ios-5-trying-hard-to-be-a-desktop-os/feed/ 0 http://blogs.amd.com/home/2011/10/12/icloud-is-awesome-yet-incomplete/ http://blogs.amd.com/home/2011/10/12/icloud-is-awesome-yet-incomplete/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:26:08 +0000 Pat Moorhead http://blogs.amd.com/home/?p=5165 Continue reading]]> After release to developers at Apple’s WWDC, the Apple iCloud is available to all consumers today with access to iOS 5 and updated iTunes.  In many ways, it is incredible that millions will have access to the consumer power of the cloud.  It’s very integrated into the experience, but then again, it’s incomplete when compared to the best-in-breed cloud apps and services available today.  Will that make a difference in consumer acceptance?  Let’s see.

What Makes a Great Cloud Experience?

A few applications define by example what a great cloud app or service can provide.  These are Evernote, Amazon Kindle, and Netflix.  What makes these great examples of consumer cloud offer?   While very different in terms of usage, they share similar variables that in aggregate make them awesome:

• Cross Platform: Windows, OSX, iOS, Android and the web.  Kindle and Netlix are even available on special-purpose devices like the Kindle and Roku.  Consumers can buy into the service and not worry about the platform going away.
• Continuous Computing: Continuous computing means a few different things. On content consumption, the next device picks up exactly where the last device left off. On Netflix, if I am halfway through a movie on my iPad I can pickup at the same spot on my Roku. When I pick up another Kindle device, it asks me whether I want to go to the latest bookmark.
• Sync: While a step back from continuous computing, it does assure that the same files are on the same system. On Evernote, every change I make is in synch when I open up the next device.
• Continuous Improvement: Monthly and even weekly updates to add features and functionality.
• Compatible and Data Integrity: Even with all these updates, the data keeps its integrity.  If the service has a question about which version is the master, it asks me.  Evernote will tell me that I have a duplicate entry and lets me pick the version or content I want.

iCloud: Cross Platform

As we all know, Apple by design works in its own walled garden but that doesn’t mean its completely closed off.  You cannot get iCloud enabled apps like Pages, Numbers, Keynote or iBooks for Windows or Android.   Even worse, you cannot get to your photos and PhotoStream on any mobile device other than iOS.  To be fair, users can get access to Photo Stream on a Windows PC via iTunes, but users should at least be allowed access to their own photos over the web if they want. Users can access iWork compatible documents on all “modern” browsers by going to iCloud.com and downloading files.  Windows users then need to drag and drop the updated file inside the web-based iCloud.com. - Grade D

iCloud: Sync

iCloud will automatically  ”sync” photos (Photo Stream), purchased music and TV shows (iTunes), apps, letters (Pages), spreadsheets (Numbers), and presentations (Keynote), reminders, calendar, email, notes, and contacts.

There are some major exceptions.  iWork documents will not auto sync with the Windows “Documents” folder, as I think users would expect.  Sugarsync, am iCloud and Drobbox will automatically sync documents with Windows.  Also, personal videos and commercial movies do not sync on any platform which I don’t fully understand.  Maybe its a concern with storage on iOS devices or storage and throughput  in the iCloud. - Grade B

iCloud: Continuous Computing

Within iOS phones and tablets, users can start right where they left off for TV shows, games (Games Center) and book bookmarks (iBooks).

iCloud will not save the “state” for playing music (Music), playing movies (Videos), or web pages (Safari).  Add the PC and Mac into the continuous computing arena and iCloud experience starts to degrade for most all use cases for a variety of reasons.  iOS games don’t run or sync on a Mac or PC and on Windows  platforms iWork isn’t available.  Consumers over time will expect continuous computing on every usage model on every platform, the way Evernote does it today. - Grade C

iCloud: Continuous Improvement

I cannot definitively answer this question as it will emerge over time, but I must extrapolate from what I have seen from previous drops of Apple software. Apple software drops, iOS in particular, have been consistent, often, and very solid code. – Grade A

iCloud: Compatible and Data Integrity

So far so good, even on difficult to manage applications like word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.  I make a one line change to a document without going back to “Documents” inside Pages, the one line changed on every other system. – Grade A

What, not Straight A’s?

Apple has never needed to achieve a 4.0 in everything to be successful.  Getting all A’s in the core segment of users and building useful solutions that just work has been the hallmark.  The first iPhone proved this and the iPhone 4s will prove this again as everyone else offers 4G but Apple doesn’t have to. A good fallback to Continuous Computing in good Sync, and I believe that as long as Apple still allows other services with better capabilities into their walled garden, it won’t be an issue now. Over time, I believe Apple will fill in the gaps in iCloud and that have fully thought through where they could add the most value and that’s what they hit first.  Your move, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

Technology allows me to document the moments that mean the most to me: time spent with my family; the day-to-day events which are forever in danger of being taken for granted. Were it not, that is, for home movie making. For whilst this is no doubt a thorn in my wife’s side, it allows me to capture moments to be looked back on fondly in years to come.

It has to be said that it’s with great joy that I weave these clips together into something a whole lot more presentable and tangible than my unsteady hand and chuckling narration can testify to.

Now to the technological details which allow this to happen: there’s this fantastic MotionDSP software called vReveal which is accelerated by the AMD A-Series APU, making the video editing process that much more rewarding. The MotionDSP software specializes in cutting-edge video image processing, providing fantastic performance in terms of quality, speed, and ease of use. Essentially, it makes it a whole lot clearer when once it was a blurry undeterminable image.

With this software you’re able to do great things with both video and smartphone footage you may otherwise lose heart on. There’s a One-Click-Fix function, which allows you close to real time clean-up of videos. It enables you to use things like color correction, brightness and contrast adjustments, sharpening, and even flipping of images should you so wish. This is all done super simply too – the fact that my kids often join in to help is a testament to this.

With vReveal and AMD’s innovative technology, those shaky handheld videos can be restored to a smooth, enjoyable format you can then mold and play with to create your presentable home movie. Trust me, when you’re bringing your family and friends round to watch something you’ve slaved over for the past number of nights, you need the highest quality to truly astound them!

Take a look at this video which showcases MotionDSP’s vReveal software accelerated by the AMD A-Series APU, and see for yourself the benefits it brings to consumers when they are video editing: “AMD A-series APUs power vReveal’s panoramas from video”

Michal Lisiecki is Product Marketing Manager EMEA at AMD and has worked for ATI/ AMD since 2005. He is our photo and video expert. Being a family man with three kids, Michal spends a lot of time videotaping them and capturing the memories and experiences using new software to make video filming easier for everyday use. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Delivered Responsiveness

Amazon had a great showing at their launch event, but attendees weren’t able to freely touch the tablet themselves.  Demos were carefully scripted that showed how good the responsiveness was.  I remember how amazingly responsive the TouchPad tablet demos were, only to be disappointed at launch with the lags.  The lags were quickly fixed with a patch a few weeks later, but the damage was done.  Basic pinch, zoom, page turn, app load and app close must be responsive or it will just feel cheap.  Buying a tablet with bad touch is buying a car with a loose steering wheel and a missing tire.

Display Quality on Videos and Photos

At 7”, to effectively see video content at the same size versus a 10” tablet, users must hold it closer to their face.  Will we be able to see pixels?  Hold the original iPhone close to your face, play a video, and you can see the pixels.  That for me could be a deal breaker, but hey, that’s me.  At $199, the Kindle Fire is a less considered purchase, but still considered.  Heck, consumers return $5 food items because they didn’t like it, so don’t think they wouldn’t return a $199 Kindle Fire if it didn’t do what they expected.

Video Content Quality

I am one of the few people who own a Google TV.  While I like the Amazon streaming service, it can get quite pixelated at times.  It happens a lot more than it happens on Netflix, too, which leads me to surmise that it’s an Amazon issue. Bandwidth won’t be an issue on the downloaded content, but, again, what about the quality?  I have downloaded movies from Amazon Unbox on my laptop and sometimes they are pixelated in spots.  My laptop is 1366×768 on a large display and the Kindle Fire has 1024X600 resolutions at 7”, so probability will hopefully be small. The final question is how 16:9 content looks on a 16:10 display.  Will there be black blocks on the top or bottom of the display or will the content be zoomed in and possibly blurry?

Software Storage Footprint

With 8GB of storage, users will need to be very choosy with what movies, TV shows, music, games, apps and app content they store on the tablet. So the software storage footprint gets important.  For example, if it takes 2GB, that leaves 6GB left for apps and content. The Amazon Cloud storage is great, but who wants to be deleting and re-downloading songs and apps to make room for a downloaded movie or a game that requires a huge, secondary download after install?

Let’s take a look on iTunes at the popular movie “X-Men: First Class”. It packs a 1.79 GB download. While I don’t think the Amazon “portable” version will weigh in at this size, users will still need to think about their storage, and that’s never good.

Silk Web Acceleration

Silk promises many things, and to the user it promises faster web page downloads for a more enjoyable browsing experience.  It could, potentially, eliminate any browser compatibility issues with the device and a web page. For example, even if the Silk browser didn’t support [?] the latest or oldest web standards, by pre-rendering certain elements of the page, the user wouldn’t detect a thing, only that they can interact with the web page.

This begs about 100 questions, but I’ll leave that for another analysis.  I do have a few I will highlight.

• Privacy: Amazon knows everywhere I’ve been.  Is there a way to opt out?  How will it protect my personal information?
• Standards: Which will it support, which won’t it?
• Security: Will it capture my passwords?
• Control: Will user have any kind of control over which sites get “silked” and which ones don’t?  I can’t expect Amazon to pre-render every site correctly, particularly the smaller ones.

Conclusion

On paper, the Amazon Kindle Fire appears to provide an exceptional value proposition for the consumer who is on a budget and cannot afford the iPad 2.  There are, however, many unknowns that have yet to be determined that could impact the user’s experience.  My experience with Amazon is that they under-promise and over-deliver.   It’s been that way since their existence.  I don’t think they are going to stop that given the importance of Kindle Fire to Amazon.  I ordered mine within 5 minutes of the “doors” open up and I’ll hopefully have the answers to these questions above.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied

Tablets are a Risky and “Considered” Consumer Purchase

Consumers, regardless of demographics and psychographics, share some common behaviors. When they are posed with a risky, considered purchase, they are looking for reasons to reject products and not look past their warts. And tablets are a risky, considered purchase. For a time, tablets started at $499, well above the starting prices of a notebook, desktop, or smartphone. Tablets don’t run programs or content like the PC that consumers are familiar with. And they are very fragile when compared to other devices.

Consumers Research to Mitigate Risk

As I said above, when posed with an expensive, risky purchase, it is “considered”, meaning they will research it or find a brand which “buffers” the risk. By researching it, I don’t mean doing a master’s thesis. I mean doing a few web searches, going to a recommended tech site, asking a few “geek” friends and tossing a few questions out on Twitter or Facebook. What consumers heard back were some positive and some negative things about non-iPads. Even more importantly though, is that very few if any negatives ever came back from their iPad research. Worst thing you might hear back about the iPad is that it doesn’t run Flash, it doesn’t have SD memory upgrade, and it’s expensive.

So was it some conspiracy that the negative things were being said or were they just the facts of what actually shipped at launch? The fact is, the clear majority of non-iPad tablets at their launch suffered from many issues as it related to the iPad, which established the bar of a successful tablet.

Tablets Lacked Convenient, Paid Content at Launch

Many media tablets launched without a whole lot of media:

• Lack of video services like Netflix, Hulu, movie rental, or movie purchase capabilities
• Lack of music services like Pandora, Spotify, or music purchase capabilities
• Lack of book services like Kindle or BN Reader

This issue is being slowly solved, but the damage had been done at launch.

Tablets Lacked Stability and Responsiveness at Launch

Many tablets launched with multiple application crashes, hangs and were intermittently unresponsive. When apps would become unresponsive, the users would get a message asking them what they want to do, similar to the way Windows alerts the user. The iPad 2 launch experience was responsive and stable. Yes, the iPad 2 does still experience some app crashes, but it’s less frequent and when it does, it just closes the app.

This issue has been solved for all non-iPad tablets with OS updates, but again, the damage was done at launch.

Tablets Lacked Premier Applications at Launch

I don’t believe consumers are fanatical about the 100’s of thousands of apps that should be on a tablet. I do believe that they want to have the most popular applications that they care about, though. Most non-iPad tablets launched without premier apps, like premier news, sports, and social media apps. One tablet even shipped without a built-in email and calendar client and research shows that email is the #1 tablet application. Android tablets shipped at launch without a Twitter app.

Only Android 3.2 tablets have addressed this issue so far, but again, the perceptual damage was done.

Tablets Shipped at Launch with Hardware Challenges

Not only were there software issues at launch, but hardware as well. Tablets shipped with inoperable SD card slots and USB ports that didn’t work properly. Even competing with the physical iPad 2 design was a challenge. Some tablets were nearly twice as thick as the iPad, used plastic design versus aluminum, and one tablet even shipped with a case that blocked major ports like power, USB and HDMI.

Some of these issues have been addressed, but the damage was done.

Should Everyone Else Just Quit?

With all of these issues at launch and challenging sales so far, should everyone except Apple just quit and concede to Apple? Absolutely not! This is the first inning in a nine inning game, and the game hasn’t been lost. In short order, every tablet will be thin and light enough and power efficient enough until it’s inconsequential. Most apps will move to web apps virtually eliminating the app barrier, and everyone will have the right paid content. Apple obviously won’t stand still and I agree with Ben Bajarin when he says, “success will only come to those who want to compete with the iPad by thinking fresh and taking bold and innovative risks.” I have had the honor to work for companies who slayed goliath and I have been slayed myself, so I have seen both sides. It takes courage and conviction and I believe the tech industry can and will do that.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.

Background

Android 3.X is Google’s operating system for tablets. It was first shown at CES 2011 and the first product it rolled out on was the Motorola Xoom. After its launch, the firestorm ensued and Honeycomb was viewed as having significant issues:

• Sluggish performance even while having superior hardware specs.
• Lack of stability and reliability as evidenced through repeated application crashes.
• Lack of apps. Even as of July 1, 2011, NY Times David Pogue reported that at the most, 232 apps were optimized for Honeycomb. The iPad had 90,000 optimized apps. To make matters worse, Android phone apps ran in a tiny window.
• Lack of external SD card support. Just do a few Google searches on “SD card” and “Xoom” and you will know what I am talking about.
• Limited USB connectivity. Keyboards, mice, digital cameras, card readers either didn’t work at all or were very inconsistent.

Needless to say, this didn’t exactly equate to a very good experience, as I have personally experienced on three separate 10” Android Honeycomb tablets.

Improved Performance, Stability and Reliability

Between Android 3.1 and 3.2, my Honeycomb experience is like night and day. Single-tasking responsiveness is close to the iPad 2, although the iPad 2 is still faster. Honeycomb does outperform iPad 2 on multitasking though.

When I use a tablet, I use it as a primary device. I load around 20-30 apps, and I do set up the background tasks and widgets as they are differentiated features versus the iPad. Where I used to experience between 10-20 application crashes a day, with Android 3.2, I may get one a day. This is a huge breakthrough. And yes, I do get application crashes on the iPad 2. iPad 2 crashes are less pronounced and “hidden” as the app just dies and you are taken to the home screen. In Android, a dialogue box pops up on the screen and you are given the choice to wait, kill, or report the crash.

Improved Application Support

Android 3.2 added the capability for users to better tap into the library of approximately 300-400K applications. Applications come in three forms that are somewhat transparent to the user:

1. Tablet optimized apps: Resolution, layout, fonts, content are optimized for the tablet.
2. Stretched apps: Phone applications are stretched to tablet dimensions keeping phone layout, fonts, and content. In some apps this is automatic; in others it requires the user to toggle a menu icon in the apps bar.
3. Zoomed apps: Fixed-size phone applications are zoomed in like the iPad phone apps. In some apps this is automatic; in others it requires the user to toggle a menu icon in the apps bar.

If a user runs across a a manually scaled-app, they are given the option to stretch or zoom. Many of the apps, though, were automatic and stretched into place.

Here is how some of the top Android phone apps look on Android Honeycomb 3.2.

As you can see, some of the phone apps look really good and others could be improved. The net-net is that Android Honeycomb tablet buyers just got 300K-400K more apps to run on their tablets.

Conclusion

Like the first Android phone OS, the Android tablet OS has quickly undergone a massive overhaul and improvement in a mere 6 months. The most recent improvements in Android Honeycomb 3.2 were virtually unnoticed by many in the press, but ironically, the update improved the experience to the point that Android is finally ready for prime-time.

So does a massively improved experience guarantee success? Of course not. Android still has to deal with its IP challenges, fragmentation, and some “me-too” hardware designs, BUT, if you don’t first have a responsive, reliable experience with lots of apps, you have nothing. And Android finally has that for tablets.

Have your say in the comments section below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google Plus.

Device Modularity

Device modularity is essentially when one device, when docked or connected to another one, becomes something even better or more functional. It’s a world where a phone becomes a tablet; a tablet becomes a notebook and even a phone or tablet becomes a desktop. I’ve touched upon modularity with a few previous blogs covering the Motorola Atrix Lapdock and Multimedia Dock, the BlackBerry PlayBook and even the Motorola Xoom.

One of the inhibitors to good modularity is modality in UI. Or in other words, the smartphone, tablet, desktop, and laptop act like you would expect in the context you want. When you plug the phone into the dock to make it a laptop, it acts like a laptop, not a phone.

Lion has unified many of the UI elements and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) between the iPhone, iPad, MacBook and the iMac:

• Gestures: Lion unifies gestures, or begins to, between the four platforms. Familiar gestures from iOS like pinch to zoom, tap to zoom, and swipe to navigate are just a few of the multi-platform gestures that are shared between phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop.

• Launchpad: Does this look familiar? This isn’t an iPad or iPhone; it’s Launchpad in Lion on a Mac Air laptop. Launchpad is a place for apps and folders of apps just like you see on the iPhone and iPad.

Launchpad on a MacBook

Launchpad on an iPad

Launchpad on an iPhone

• Full screen apps: This isn’t exactly revolutionary if you’ve used Windows 7, but full screen apps does just that; allows apps to be maximized to the whole screen, just like iOS apps look with no windows. Then, a user can even “three finger swipe” between apps, similar to iOS 5.

So by unifying user interface and basic HCI, Lion has removed a major hurdle for the future, modular designs.

Air Gestures

We’ve all seen Microsoft Kinect in action in the living room and some of us have even seen “home-brew” tests using the Kinect SDK for the PC. Imagine more advanced, future computer “vision” on a much closer scale, or “near-field” basis, removing some of the actual physical peripherals. This could use very common and inexpensive cameras, possibly stereoscopic, with interconnects like CSI-3 and a heavy compute engine building a 3D model of the hand.

• “Magic Hand”: Consider removing the mouse and trackpad and replacing with a camera to use your own hand to do the gestures. Maybe even remove the keyboard and replace it with a projected virtual keyboard. The camera, like Kinect, tracks exactly what your hand is doing.

• Consistent Gestures: As described above, by having consistent gestures between all devices, the computer would be very focused on a specific set of near-field air gestures, not different ones by platform, increasing the chance of success.

With Lion unifying gestures today tied with future improvements with compute power and lower power with architectures like the AMD Fusion System Architecture, higher speed camera interconnects like CSI-3, a future without the physical mouse and trackpad becomes a distinct reality. Removing the physical keyboard is more of a stretch, but with pico projection a robust investment area, who knows? Also, with the success of keyboards on iOS and Android tablets, users are becoming conditioned to be satisfied with virtual, non-haptic keyboards.

Peer-to-Peer Communication

Peer-to-peer communications occur when one device directly interacts with another without the need for a LAN or WAN. The trend with services and the internet has led to the belief that peer-to-peer was dead. Not so with Lion, as it actually dialed it up a notch.

• Airdrop: Airdrop enables two Lion-based Macs to safely send files directly between each other without the need for an intermediate LAN or WAN. It automatically creates an ad-hoc WiFi-WiFi connection.

I find this very interesting given Apple’s forecast of a “post-PC” world. With very innovative features like HP’s “touch-to-share” and enabling communications like WiFi Direct and BlueTooth 4/5, peer-to-peer comms could be making a comeback. I’d guess that we will be seeing even more of this in CE devices. Who would have thought in this “everything in the cloud” world?

Conclusion

OS X Lion is a really good operating system for users today and also gives us some indications of interesting things to come in the computing future. I believe that Lion tells us a lot about the future of device modularity, our ability to ditch the mouse, trackpad, and maybe even the keyboard. Lion also guides to a world that increases the likelihood of even more devices talking directly to each other without the cloud middleman. It’s a future I can get excited about. How about you?

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.

My favorite part of Comic-Con is the attendees. It’s one of the few shows where the people who go are as varied and interesting as what’s being exhibited. Where else can you see a Stormtrooper eating lunch with Chopper and The Joker? Okay, New York City on any given day; but other than that city and San Diego during Comic-Con, pretty much nowhere.

Leslie Sobon is Ready For Comicon 2011!

Think about it. Do we ever talk about folks who go to CES or Computex or IFA? And – outside of the booth swag – the exhibits are almost an afterthought from the panels, parties, and patrons. Comic-Con visitors are a fantastic mixture of comic book aficionados, enthusiast gamers, and movie buffs. They are at least as interesting as the event itself – some more so.

If you happen to be one of the lucky 100,000+ attending Comic-Con this year – with or without a cape – there are tons of things to do. Here are a few cool choices, some courtesy of AMD:

1. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. This year, the “Oscars” for the comic book industry is being sponsored by AMD, and we’re giving away a cool notebook based on VISION Technology from AMD to a lucky winner. Maybe it will be your lucky night Friday at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.
2. VirtuSpheres. If you’re in the media and need a break, come visit AMD’s media lounge at the Omni Hotel. Recharge, power down, or just have some virtual reality fun playing Fallout New Vegas on a VirtuSphere.
3. Panels. There’s a gazillion panels at this Show. How do you choose? Well, if you like Robert Rodriguez movies, make sure to check out his panel on Thursday at 4:45pm in Hall H of the Convention Center. Robert will be discussing all the cool new flicks (including sequels!) produced by his QuickDraw Productions, using AMD technology.
4. Parties. In addition to the panel, AMD will be the technology provider for QuickDraw Productions’ evening event Thursday night at the Omni Hotel. We will help celebrate the new media projects and films from Robert Rodriquez’ QuickDraw Productions. We’re also sponsoring IGN’s party the same night at the Omni. So, if you’re looking for parties, I’m thinking Thursday night at the Omni is a good shot.
5. Ghost Rider 2. Last – but not least – on Saturday night there will be a panel for the movie “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” the sequel (sequel!) to “Ghost Rider”, one of my favorite movies. Yep, I said favorite. Why anyone wouldn’t love Nicolas Cage with a flaming skull riding a motorcycle is beyond me.

This is the first time AMD has been at Comic-Con in a big way – speaking on panels plus sponsoring parties and awards. Hopefully we will see you around. Maybe we can even catch lunch during the show – Stormtroopers and Jokers welcomed. Also, while at Comic-Con, if you Tweet a pic with the hashtags #AMD and #SDCC you will be entered in our contest with a chance to win a new VISION technology notebook!

Leslie Sobon is the corporate vice president, product and outbound marketing at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Cycle of Mainstream Pen-Computing

Over the last 20 years, the industry expectations of mainstream pen-computing have risen and fallen like a scary roller coaster at Six Flags Texas. Don’t confuse this with successful vertical pen-computing in medical, transportation, construction, military, and retail industries.

The mainstream pen cycle has historically gone like this:

1. Pen-computing is knighted the “next big thing”
2. The entire high-tech value chain including semi’s, ISVs, ODM, OEM, and distribution invests heavily
3. Products get shown at CES, PC Expo, and Comdex
4. Products emerge with very few pen-centric applications
5. Product sales-in to channels meet minimum expectations
6. Product sales-out of channels fail to meet expectations and get blown-out at rock bottom prices
7. The industry retreats, folds its tents, and chases another shiny new thing
8. In five years, go to step 1 and repeat.

This cycle has repeated itself many times, over and over again.

HTC Flyer Overview

The HTC Flyer, even without its pen capability, is the best 7” tablet I have used and that says a lot, given my affection for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.

It’s very peppy and I attribute a lot to HTC’s decision to go with a single core 1.5 GHz CPU versus a lower frequency dual core CPU. That makes sense now because of the infancy of the OS and its application multithreading. Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) is VERY stable, light-years more stable than Android 3.X (Honeycomb). The 5MP camera is the best I have used with the exception of the iPhone 4.

HTC Flyer Pen Features

The HTC Flyer is impressive even without pen input, but what about the specific pen features? Essentially, if you see anything on the screen, you can annotate on it. Also, HTC pre-installs a multimedia notes program as well.

• Annotations: If you are viewing anything on the HTC Flyer, click the pen to the screen and it takes a screen shot. This included web sites, applications, and even photos.

• Notes Program: HTC preinstalls the “Notes” app, a program that can take notes with the pen, text, voice, videos, and even attach files. I believe this is a re-skinned Evernote app with the added pen-inputs as it syncs with Evernote. As you can see on the far-right, it doesn’t improve my handwriting at all.

• Multiple Pen Types: I could choose from multiple pen types, colors, and sizes, all by tapping the pen to an icon in the lower right hand corner of the Flyer. As you can see on the far-right, it doesn’t improve my handwriting either.

User Interface Modality

With pen-computing, the user has three modes: pen, touch, and virtual keyboard to do most of their input. I found it difficult to go back and forth between pen and finger, but found a way to do both without having to place the pen down.

Future of Mainstream Pen Input

The pen capabilities of the HTC Flyer are the best I have ever experienced on any mainstream computing device BUT I do not see pen input using a specific pen getting popular outside specific vertical industries. Why? The modality between switching between finger and pen will be an issue for many people. There are solutions, though.

The Problem

If a pen is an impediment to pen computing, what would allow for precise input without the pen? The iPhone only partially solved it with the “finger”. Finger input has two major problems:

• The palm: No other body parts can touch the display, like a palm. Try drawing on any iOS device with your palm resting on the display. Come on… try it.
• Fat finger: On a 7” display, unless you have fingers as skinny as a pencil, they are too imprecise.

Technologies That Can Solve This

• Object recognition: If the tablet can recognize that an object that it “sees” as a pointing device is getting closer and touches the tablet, any object, finger, feather, or ball point pen cap could be the “pen.” Object recognition combines an input sensor and software that identifies what the object is. PixelSense^TM from Microsoft is just one example. Objects could also theoretically be captured and recognized accurately with stereoscopic cameras. Below is a picture I took at CES 2011 of PixelSense object capture in action. This is an image of what the pixels in Microsoft Surface^® 2 are seeing.

• Improved touch algorithms: Object recognition is a difficult task but doesn’t solve everything. You identify what something is, but you then need a decision engine that triggers a response. Improved touch algorithms can determine what to do with the finger and ignore the palm of your hand. Or, if it’s a larger display and a painting program, it knows what to do with the palm and the finger simultaneously.

Conclusion

Pen-computing has undergone a roller coaster of ups and downs and has only been successful in vertical industries and specific usage models. Could the HTC Flyer usher in a new revolution of mainstream, pen-based computing devices and consumer usage models? Well, I don’t believe so, and not because the HTC Flyer isn’t an awesome tablet, as it’s the best 7” tablet available right now. The biggest impediment to pen computing is the pen itself, and until the right technologies enable any finger or object to “be the pen”, the usage models won’t take off. The good news is that technologies like object recognition, improved flat panel sensors and algorithms are on their way.

Have thoughts? Share them below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.

Opposing Logic

First, I’d like to share with you the reasons people have told me convertible PCs won’t be successful.

• “Never worked before”: Convertible PCs have been around for a while now and have sold into targeted vertical markets like healthcare, education and sales, but haven’t sold to wide-spread audiences in mass volumes.
• “Can’t be all things to all people”: This line of logic says that a device cannot be a good tablet and a good clamshell notebook. This makes sense at face value, especially when you look at examples like Heelys. They don’t make great shoes or a decent pair of roller skates you would take to the roller skating rink. Other examples are why all cars aren’t convertibles and all jackets don’t have zip-off sleeves.
• “Too chunky and heavy”: People point to designs with non-detachable displays that are, in fact, thick compared to a thin a light notebook.
• “Too expensive”: This line of logic says that you will need to pay a major premium to have this functionality.

So those are the reason people have given me for why convertible tablets won’t be successful. Now let’s turn to why I think they will.

Purchase Justification

Everyone who buys something that’s a considered purchase has some justification, emotional or data-driven. Sometimes reality equals testing, sometimes it doesn’t. When I researched consumer PCs in the mid-90’s, consumers said they bought them for “children’s education” but the PCs were used for that only in single digit percentages.

I believe consumers and IT will justify convertibles for similar reasons. They will say:

• “I/my company’s users want a tablet because they are cool, but I need a notebook, but I don’t want both.”
• “I/my company’s users want a tablet and need a notebook, but I/we cannot afford both.”

Buyers will justify the purpose in this way and buy a convertible.

Future Mechanical Designs

How thick and bulky does a convertible PC in the future really need to be? Consider the thickness of a few modern devices:

• Mac Air:                       17 mm at its thickest point on an 11.6” design
• iPad 1: 13.4 mm
• Asus Transformer: 12.98 mm thick, without keyboard
• IPad 2: 8.8 mm at its thickest point
• Apple Keyboard:          ~5 mm thick

I am not a mechanical designer, but it certainly seems possible to have:

• tablet (10mm) +
• keyboard (5mm) +
• torsion control and connector adder (3mm)

~18mm total thickness

So conceivably someone could design a convertible that mechanically makes a nice tablet and notebook when connected to the keyboard.

Future Operating Systems, Applications and Multi-Modality

Over the next few years, operating systems and application environments will undergo dramatic changes and will most likely impact the uptake of convertibles. Let’s take a look at a few signposts:

• Windows 8: At D9, I personally witnessed the new OS incorporating elements of tablet and notebook in the same platform. Yes, the multi-modality created some discussion and controversy, but it is coming.
• Android: My Asus Transformer, albeit having Honeycomb challenges, delivers a decent tablet and clamshell experience today. It can only get better from there, right? Judging from some of the news to come out at Google I/O in May, Ice Cream Sandwich will incorporate elements of tablets and clamshells. Imagine a single .apk for phone, tablet, and clamshell device.
• Apple: If OS/X and iOS share a common kernel, is it impossible to imagine unification on a convertible device? I certainly noticed many common UI elements between Lion and iOS 5, did you?

Improved GPU Capability

Today on my Asus Transformer, when I toggle between tablet mode and clamshell mode, I get the same exact UI. But I could do a lot more, especially if I had a mouse attached. The mouse is a precision HCI device providing the ability to control more data and information.

Here is the interaction I really want:

• Clamshell mode (tablet + keyboard): Fonts, bars, and buttons get smaller and more appropriate for a precision UI environment.
• Tablet mode: Fonts, bars, scale larger for an imprecise, finger-driven UI environment

This would not only take awesome programming, but improved GPUs for tablets, which we know is on its way from AMD and others.

Additionally, we cannot forget about the emerging OpenCL standard supported by AMD, ARM and Nvidia which will leverage the GPU to drive compute cycles which are today executed on the CPU. With future GPUs better leveraging OpenCL and their corresponding apps, this will enable a much better experience on convertibles.

Conclusion

Convertible PCs have been around for years, but never took off in big volumes across mass markets because they didn’t deliver on the promise of making a good tablet and a good clamshell. Between now and 2013, enhancements in design, operating environments, improvement in GPU capability combined with buyer’s purchase justification will make convertibles extremely popular.

Let me know your thoughts below. Do you see a convertible in your future?

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.

HP TouchPad Advantages

• Setup: I have an HP Veer phone that I had previously setup and the HP TouchPad automatically imported ALL of my accounts. That included Exchange, Box, Dropbox, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, Skype, Yahoo, and even MobileMe. I entered their passwords, and I was connected to everything. This is superior to Android in that it connects non-Google accounts and superior to iOS in that it automatically connects non-Apple accounts. THIS is the way every tablet should be.

• Real Multitasking: This has been an advantage with Palm products since the inception of the Pre with “cards”. When I mean real multitasking, I mean a way to see what is actually running simultaneously and the ability to quickly switch and/or kill apps and functions. The only thing even close is the BlackBerry PlayBook.

• Synergy: Managing all of the different best-in-breed services is typically very difficult with a tech device. Synergy gathers all of those services and contacts in one place to present an integrated view of an app or a contact. My contact in the HP TouchPad, for example, has 10 linked profiles, consistent with my services. One contact, not ten. Here are some specifics on accounts supported by HP Synergy.

• Notifications: There are two types of notifications, lock-screen and in the activity center in the upper right hand corner of the screen. These are superior to the iOS 4.x notifications in every way and really pull on Palm’s experience and legacy.

• Exhibition Mode: This mode adds utility to the HP TouchPad when it’s charging and/or sleeping. Instead of seeing a blank screen or some silly screensaver, you see a clock, your calendar, key photos and even a very-well designed Facebook page.

• HP Touchstone Inductive Charging: This is a feature I am surprised others haven’t tried to replicate because it’s just so awesome. The inductive charging feature allowed me to charge my HP TouchPad by setting it on the charger, without having to plug anything in. On other tablets, I continually plug in the unit incorrectly (iPad) or it’s hard to plug in (HTC Flyer).

• Printing: I have personally used over 15 tablets with all the add-ons for printing and the HP TouchPad was the first one that “just worked”. I have yet to print correctly or easily from any iOS 4.X or Honeycomb device.

• Connecting to Corporate IT: This was the easiest tablets I have connected to my corporate Exchange and wireless LAN. Literally, all I needed was to enter my email address and password and I was connected to Exchange. Its ActiveSync support is superior in every way. On the corporate LAN, all I needed was to email my security token to myself, import it, log-in, and I was on the corporate wireless LAN. The HP TouchPad was the first browser to actually work correctly with our web front-end for SAP.

What I’d Like to See in Future HP TouchPads or Software Releases

• More Apps: Some of my favorite apps are missing that I literally cannot be without. I need apps like EverNote, SugarSync, Kindle (coming), Google+, and HootSuite.
• More Pep: Even though the HP TouchPad has some of the highest-specification components like a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU, it didn’t feel like it. It lagged in many areas compared to the iPad 2 and even the BlackBerry PlayBook.
• Browser File Access: Without a specific app, I’d like to be able to upload files through the browser. For example, even if I didn’t have a Google+ app, I’d like to upload photos via the browser. This requires file system access to do. The BlackBerry PlayBook did this very well and in many ways, compensated for the lack of apps.
• Video Services: There is a placeholder app for the HP MovieStore, but I’d also like to see Netflix and Hulu. Hulu runs in the browser, but it’s also very laggy. If Hulu ran more quickly in the browser, I wouldn’t need an app.
• Video Out: I like to display videos and photos on my HDTV. I cannot do this with the HP TouchPad, but I can with the iPad, PlayBook, and virtually every Android Honeycomb tablet.
• Video Chat: I tried to use the Skype-based video conferencing but I got no video and crackly audio. The BlackBerry PlayBook and the iPad 2 do video conferencing near flawlessly.
• Synced Bookmarks: I spend, like many, a lot of time on the web, and not just on a tablet. I access the web from multiple phones, tablets, and PCs. I’d like, at a minimum, an Xmarks app.
• Mouse: The HP Wireless Keyboard is great, but only solves half the productivity interface challenge. Reaching across the keyboard or doing “fine-grain” editing is just sub-optimal without a mouse. Android Honeycomb has the best mouse support today, closely followed by the PlayBook.

Conclusion

There is a lot to love about the HP TouchPad and it offers many things that make it stand out amongst the iPad, BlackBerry PlayBook, and Android tablets. Unfortunately, one of those attributes is a low number of applications and some lagginess in certain usage models. HP is a company I have had the fortunate honor to work for (Compaq) and with for almost 20 years and when they commit to do something, they do it. I expect the issues to be cleared up and when they are, I believe more people will be focusing on its great attributes.

Feel free to give me a piece of your mind. Comments section is below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.

Acer Iconia W500, Tablet and Clamshell PC

The first tablet I used was in 1991. It was the NCR 3125, was pen-based, and ran Go operating system and Windows for Pen Computing. Yes, Microsoft was in tablets almost 20 years ago.

The W500 thankfully has evolved a little over this period. The W500 is Windows 7-based and comes with a dual core AMD APU with discrete-level AMD Radeon™ graphics. Leveraging the strength of Windows, it also ships with a dock with a full size keyboard, USB ports and wired Ethernet. This lets you use the W500 as a full clamshell PC, as well as a tablet.

Touch, Windows, and the W500

One of the most notably things I experienced was the touch experience. I have used many Windows-based tablets, UMPCs  and MIDs previously, but never stuck with them for more than week. The pen just didn’t match my personal workstyle and finger-stylus didn’t work well on any unit I used. The Acer W500 was different, though, very different. When I used Microsoft applications, it worked pretty well and was responsive enough. And yes, there is a little auto orientation and pinch and zoom lag. I’m not saying it trounces the touch experience of the iPad, but is light years beyond anything I have previously experienced on Windows. It’s apparent Acer and Microsoft did a lot of work here.

Top Things I Really Liked About the W500 Tablet

The fact is, every piece of electronics has pros and cons. That’s true for the W500. What I’d like to focus on are the things I really liked about the experience. There is enough Windows bashing out there that I don’t need to spend the time on that.

• Video Content: With the W500, you don’t have to worry or face the complexity of which paid video service will play back. Whether you prefer videos available from Apple, Amazon, Vudu (WalMart), Blockbuster, or the full library of YouTube, the W500 can play it. This is a big issue with today’s tablets. Today, iOS and Android are limited in paid content playback. There’s no Amazon Video, Blockbuster or YouTube LeanBack for iOS. Android tablets cannot playback Hulu, Blockbuster, Amazon Video, or Netflix. YouTube is interesting, too. Ever click on a YouTube and it says, “cannot play on this type of device”? That says the content provider doesn’t allow it to be played on mobile devices, namely iOS and Android.

The other area is video format. Most tablets only support a small band of video formats. Consider that very few, if any, of your home videos would ever natively run on the iPad. The W500 can play virtually any file format on the planet today.

• Video quality: The W500 can take advantage of what could be considered the world’s most sophisticated tablet GPU, the AMD Radeon™ HD 6250. It has the AMD Vision Engine, the fancy name for the hardware and software that make videos look better. Take a video that’s “jerky”, one of millions that get taken with smartphones every single day. The AMD Vision Engine includes features to help reduce “jerkiness” and helps make the video more enjoyable to watch. Also, video can be upscaled when taken at a lower resolution than the display, which when using a phone, is mostly the case. The W500 upscales the video and applies filters that help make it look smoother and better.

• Home Content Access: One of tablet theories is that the user doesn’t need as much storage as a PC so they will get the high density somewhere else, like the cloud. The other place is content on other devices inside the home. The W500 has what I consider the best DLNA client, Windows Media Player (WMP) . I could access almost every picture, song and video off of my other PCs in the house. In fact, even if I am away from the house I could get access to my content at home via the “Stream” function in WMC. In contrast, I have used virtually every other DLNA client out there and have had minimal success at best. The one exception is Air Video for iOS that will actually transcode on the fly.

• Multi-Monitor: With the W500, I can connect to a larger display and run two sets of content. I found this most valuable when using this is a productivity environment. For instance, I am typing this blog on the W500 connected to a 22” Samsung SyncMaster at 1080P while having my calendar and message window on the tablet Window. I’ll have to experiment more on the home entertainment side and report back on my experiences. The first one that comes to mind is displaying Amazon VOD on the 60” HDTV via HDMI while surfing the web on the tablet’s display. I simply cannot do this with any other media tablet available today.

• Peripheral Connectivity: I can connect digital cameras, video cameras, scanners, printers, USB flash drives, keyboards, mice, and even more storage, directly to the W500. Yes, I can print too, and without being connected to the internet or have a special monitor. I know, duh, it’s Windows. Some iOS and Android tablets can do some of these things, but only the W500 can do them all, and do it consistently.

• Full Web with Real Browsers: I know, I am getting into fighting words here. But, surprising to me, I liked my interaction on the full and complete web with full tabbed browsers like Internet Explorer 9. Sites with Flash-based interfaces and even passwords were all supported. Flash-based content, too, all there. Sites like Twitter, with the full Twitter capabilities. The speed of moving through all the features of ESPN.com. Quickly going through Facebook photos and Picasa Web photos.

• Photo Management: I really appreciated the ability to take the SD card from my digital camera, import, quickly triage, tag faces, and upload to Picasa web. I am able to do this with other tablets, but it takes special peripherals like the iPad Photo Kit and triaging the pictures just takes so long, not to mention the inability to tag people on the device. I shouldn’t have to have two devices to do this, should I? While I give kudos to the folks who developed “Web Albums” for iOS, I experience perpetual stalls as I am uploading. Anyone who uses Web Albums knows what I am talking about.

• Productivity: Let’s admit it, a keyboard, mouse and multitasking just make many people more productive, whether it’s a Mac or a PC. Now of course it depends on the type of productivity and work environment. Because the W500 comes with an attachable keyboard and is Windows, I am infinitely more productive doing what I do, which is communicating, researching, and producing content, normally involving PowerPoint, Excel, Email, and a Browser. I constantly tab back and forth, back and forth. The alt-enter key and task bar are my secret work weapon. I have tried and tried many times with my previous media tablets to do this and just haven’t been successful. I do love doing email triage with my iOS and Android tablets.

• MS Office: The W500 enables 100% compatibility with MS Office and office documents like Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook. Duh….its Windows. I have used virtually every iOS and Android-based office productivity suite out there, all of their updates, and it just isn’t the same. If just one slide that has been created in PowerPoint and translated to Docs To Go presentation gets messed up, it could blow an entire presentation. Can you imagine presenting to your CEO, hitting that key slide and it’s garbled? It’s not just me as no one I know who presents with PowerPoint or does Excel will only travel on a business trip with their tablet.

Conclusion

After going deep with no less than 10 non-Windows tablets and just as many MIDs, I had some very positive experiences with the Acer Iconia W500. Again, I’m not saying it’s perfect for everyone, cannot be improved, and everyone must buy one now or they’re dumb, but I found many elements I could get very excited about, particularly after my prior experiences with Windows touch display devices. AND, my expectation is that with the next version of Windows, I could consider ditching my iPad, but that’s a long way away and many things can and will change along the way.

Have a flame, comment or question? Let me know below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party sites, products and trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Introduction

I can envision a future where we carry around a personal module and when we get close to any display, we can easily interact with our content and communicate with our loved ones. We are a ways off from that future. It will be driven by powerful CPUs, GPUs, APUs, wireless, HCI and software. There will be interim steps, of course, and I like to stay close to the bleeding edge as it is one of many indicators of where we are on the evolution. In this modular and extensible context, I’ve looked at the Motorola LapDock, the Motorola HD Multimedia Dock, and the Motorola Xoom as a notebook replacement.

The Modular Desktop Workspace Setup

Here is what I assembled (hastily) for my desktop workspace:

• BlackBerry PlayBook 32GB with HDMI out
• Samsung 21.5″ LED Display (SyncMaster BX2250)
• Apple Wireless Keyboard (Model A1314)
• Acer Ferrari Bluetooth Wireless Mouse (N551)
• HDMI cable (Motorola Micro HDMI to HDMI)

As you can see by the mishmash of components, I just used what I had on hand.

I primarily used the following software:

• Slideshow To Go: presentation program that ships with the BlackBerry PlayBook

• Word To Go: word processor program that ships with the BlackBerry PlayBook
• Sheet To Go: spreadsheet program that ships with the BlackBerry PlayBook

• Web Outlook: Our corporate web mail. I used this as the BlackBerry PlayBook does not currently have an integrated email application and I have had some issues with the Bridge functionality.
• Browser: This is the BlackBerry PlayBook’s integrated web browser, and a good one at that.

Experiential Plusses

• MS Office Documents: Of all the tablets I have used, including iPad 1, iPad 2, Xoom, Galaxy Tab, Archos 5 IT, the BlackBerry PlayBook most properly read MS Office documents. It wasn’t perfect, but it was closer to the “real deal” than any other device. For instance, there was no way to insert hyperlinks that was intuitive to me, and oddly enough, I didn’t see a way to add bullet points.
• Web Browsing: As I discussed in a previous blog, the BlackBerry PlayBook has the best native web experience in a tablet. This translates well to a larger monitor because you aren’t stretching the sites as much as you would an “app”. So if they look too small on the 7″ tablet, they looked pretty good on the 22″ monitor.
• Content Storage: The documents on my desktop workspace are the same as the tablet, which by the way, through Bridge, could all be on the phone.
• One Setup: I only had to setup one device, not two if I had a desktop and a tablet.
• Bluetooth: Adding a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse was relatively straightforward and painless. And reliable too. Not all Bluetooth keyboards worked (ie the Xoom‘s), but most I tried did.
• Connectivity: As I covered previously, I was able to connect on my first try to the corporate network, unlike any tablet I have used.
• Resolution Support: Unlike any of the other tablets, I was able to change resolutions and refresh rates, allowing me to fine-tune my visual experience. Resolution was up to 1920×1080 @60Hz., refresh rates up to 75 Hz and resolutions as low as 640×480 for all those old monitors in the enterprise I suppose.

• YouTube: I educate myself a lot through videos. The BlackBerry PlayBook appears to be able to playback 1080p videos and it looked very good with decent responsiveness.

Experiential Improvements I’d Like To See

• Mouse: The mouse interaction worked, but it wasn’t consistent. In some programs the scroll button worked, sometimes it didn’t. I was forced to touch the tablet display with my left hand for instance, to scroll down the page on web Evernote. Sometimes I had to press left and right mouse buttons to scroll up or down. Copy/paste isn’t as simple as the PC or Mac. I needed to long-click, select text by setting the book ends appropriately, select copy, find the place I want to paste, long click, then select paste.
• Mail/Calendar/Contacts: These really need to be integrated and it is reported that they should be here by the “summer”. Web Outlook Mail works, but it isn’t very productive as I could not read in thread mode as MS Web mail doesn’t support threading on the BlackBerry Browser. Opening attachments was a pain, too. Like the old Windows days…. File….Save…Open program….Open file. Sending web links was tedious, too. On a PC, it’s one, maybe two clicks to share something. On the BlackBerry PlayBook, it’s a 5-6 click process. Very frustrating coming from a PC.
• Dictionary: This needs a lot of improvement. It didn’t even have an entry for “PlayBook”. And there was no way to add to the dictionary, so even with a correctly spelled word, those annoying red underlines just sat there….throbbing.

• Multitasking: While the BlackBerry PlayBook currently has the best multitasking for a tablet, I really needed to see a visible taskbar to more quickly swap between tasks. Maybe even Flip 3D-like. I am constantly swapping between web sites and there’s no easy way to do this on the BlackBerry PlayBook. Even the “alt-tab” would suffice.
• Visual scalability: PCs and Macs can scale to the second monitor but the BlackBerry PlayBook blows up the text and images so they are not as crisp. There is a lot of wasted space, too. Also, there isn’t an ability to change the text size, so this compounds the wasted space and blurriness issue. All of this stems from the primary user interface being touch, not keyboard and mouse.
• Responsiveness: Even though the BlackBerry PlayBook has the best tablet web experience, that doesn’t mean it’s better than a notebook or desktop. I could feel the lack of “snap” and responsiveness and waiting on the CPU and GPU to render a complex web page. I didn’t think it would bother me but it did. If the IE9 “fish test” is any indication, I got 1 fps with 20 fish and can only imagine how that translates to the future of web pages for PCs.  I am getting 60fps on this PC right now.
• Printing: I am digital and don’t even carry a pen, but that doesn’t mean everyone I communicate with is, so yes, I still need to print. Printing wasn’t even supported wirelessly or through an app.
• VGA Adapter: I know, VGA is an older technology. Problem is that in many conference rooms they have VGA connections from the center of the conference room tables to projectors and flat panels. I would need an active converter from digital to analog to make that work. Or alternatively, I could ask facilities to please add HDMI or even DVI to each of the 200 displays on campus.  And wait a decade.
• Video Editing: OK, I’m not talking about mastering 40 mbps VC-1 HD content here, but for my job, I do snip and stitch some videos together or shrink them to email. There’s no way to do this. Sure, I could upload to YouTube then edit, but I find that’s not a solution I’m happy with.
• Dock: There isn’t any stylish way to charge and have HDMI-out. The current fast-charger has no HDMI out and the current case when open, blocks the HDMI port. So that means I resorted to an ugly pile of wires.
• USB: I get USB sticks from companies. I get USB sticks from co-workers with 10GB videos and files just too huge and time dependent to upload to the SharePoint site. I need USB, at least something for backup.
• Remote Access: While I could get LogMeIn for the web to work, it’s just not as good as a native remote access application. Sometimes I did need to do PowerPoint or Excel on my desktop via the BlackBerry PlayBook and would have liked a native app.
• Multiple Monitors: I prefer to have at least two monitors with different content. That is not possible with the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Conclusion

I set out to test the BlackBerry PlayBook in my personal work environment as my primary deskside compute device, or what I am calling my “Desktop Workspace”. To be fair, this isn’t what RIM is intending for the product, but when you enable a mouse, you are asking for users to try it out. And with so many people pontificating about the value of PC versus the tablet it’s an interesting test.

It had a full size keyboard, mouse, 22″ display, and office productivity software. Net-net, I was not nearly as productive as I could have been on my notebook or desktop computer. Not even close. The biggest productivity sucker for me was the difficulty in tabbing back and forth between web tabs followed by the lack of responsiveness on web sites followed by the waste of white space on the large display followed by the lack of an integrated mail and calendar solution. If I compare this experience with the other modularity experiments I have done, the Atrix Lapdock still comes out on top and that wasn’t even very productive. I am not going to ditch my laptop or desktop any time soon.

Have any thoughts? Let me know below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

What Is Bridging?

Simply put, bridging is peer-to-peer communication between electronic devices. Devices can connect today, but require networking protocols and hardware that add complexity and latency. If you haven’t read my blog on the PlayBook Bridge, this shows a bridging implementation today between the PlayBook tablet and a BlackBerry smartphone. In the future, data sets will be larger, but so will the wireless pipes that connect the data. New generations peer to peer or PAN technologies of WiFi, WiGig, and Bluetooth will make the fast, wireless transfer of data even quicker and with less latency versus a LAN or WAN.

Below are a few useful “bridging” functions that I can see adding benefit for the consumer:

Sharing Peripherals

If I am bridged to another device, I would like to share the peripherals it is connected to and vice versa. Specifically, I would like to more easily connect to the other device’s display, storage, network, and printers. The benefits are ease of use in that I only need to connect to the host device and not duplicate or triplicate a complex setup.

When I walk into my home office in the future, I’d like to press one button on my smartphone and display what’s on its multiple screens on my multiple large monitors. Imagine five Honeycomb screens lighting up my five 17″ monitors. I’d also like to bridge to my large workstation to leverage its terabytes of storage and printers without having to go through the router or be mired in network, WAN, DLNA or PnP hell. I understand that it is possible to connect many of these peripherals today, but setup and reliability is lacking.

Application Sharing

With operating systems and application environments splintering at a fast rate, the odds are high that a consumer could have four devices that don’t run any of the same code. That person could have an Android smartphone, an iPad, a set top box and a Windows PC. Sure, many ISVs recode for different OSes and application environments, but can they afford to do this in the future and what about the Tier 2 applications or even the long tail?

So if I have multiple CPUs and GPUs on each device with multiple operating systems, why can’t I dedicate a few of those cores and SIMDs to emulate or virtualize different operating systems and application environments? This way, if I have a smartphone, media tablet, convertible tablet, set top box, notebook and desktop with different operating systems, they could run each other’s applications. For example, if my son was playing Angry Birds on my iOS-based tablet but I wanted to access iMovie, I’d like to use my six core, AMD Phenom^TM II X6 based desktop and emulate iOS in Windows.

Sound far-fetched? Well, I see some emerging implementations of it today. Do you see how the Atrix Lapdock displays an Android phone window in the Motorola WebTop environment? That’s a decent representation of what could be architected. Also, have you ever heard of a company named BlueStacks? It is reported that it will allow Android apps to run on Windows. It is also being reported that HP will preinstall webOS on all its PCs.

There is a very understandable counter to this proposal. It says that apps will continue to be optimized for a form factor. The ability to timeshare those devices and still live within their power budget will be impossible.

Time will tell and it comes down to a tradeoff between two different types of complexity and investments.

Application Mirroring

I like to describe this as “RDP + Microsoft Remote FX on steroids” where it appears both bridged devices can “run” each application but in fact it is a highly compressed and reformatted presentation optimized for the receiving device.

For instance, let’s say I’d like to “run” Office Mail from my iPad when I am at work. I already have Office on my desktop at work, so I’d like to remote desktop to my system, have it super compress and only display specific visual parts of my inbox so it’s appropriate for my iPad. I am actually doing most of the processing at my powerful desktop but it appears it is happening on my iPad. For that matter, my “desktop” could be hosted at a data center in a different state.

Content Sharing

I would describe this bridging as DLNA that works reliably and without the network middleman. The concept is simple: I directly bridge to a device and get access to all its music, movies, videos, documents and games with the appropriate DRM handshaking for paid content. Content is transcoded back and forth in the appropriate bit rate and format. There is some debate whether there would even need to be a DRM handshake as long as the device truly playing the content were authorized and just mirroring that content.

Yes, there are aspects of content sharing that can be done today but it requires special client software, DLNA, LAN, WAN, and service providers which combine for complexity soup.

Similar to the application sharing scenario, I have multiple compute cores and SIMDs to accomplish this feat, and of course some amazing software development.

Conclusion

In the future, bridging could bring an immense benefit to the consumer. The vision is a consumer more seamlessly interacting with devices and content they already own without the overhead and complexity of networks. Software advances are already underway and certainly there will be enough compute power to enable this.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on device bridging.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

What Is the Bridge?

The PlayBook Bridge serves a few purposes and enables the PlayBook user to access and use some of the resources of the BlackBerry smartphone with OS 5 or 6. The user can leverage the phone’s WiFi, 3G, mail, contacts, calendar, browser, and even its SD card files. There are different reasons a user would want to do this and I’ll discuss this in each section.

Bridge Setup

The PlayBook Bridge is relatively simple to setup: enable the PlayBook capability, download the bridge software from App World (if using AT&T, you’ll need to download directly) to the phone, and go through the menu driven exercise. The PlayBook will display a QR code and then you scan it with your phone. My QR code didn’t work so then I went through a manual setup where it scans for devices, you select and are instructed to enter a secret code on both devices.

Once it is setup, new icons magically appear at the bottom of the PlayBook; Messages, Contacts, Calendar, Memopad, Tasks, Bridge Browser, and Bridge Files.

Bridge Messages

Open “Messages” on the PlayBook and you see the phone’s messages in a format similar to the iPad and Xoom media tablets. Do an action on the PlayBook and it is actually happening on the phone, whether you are reading, composing, deleting, editing, or saving. New message notifications will appear in the upper left-hand of the PlayBook screen as if it were on the PlayBook.

Bridge Calendar

Open “Calendar” on the PlayBook and you see the phone’s messages in a format similar to the iPad and Xoom. Do an action on the PlayBook and it is actually happening on the phone, whether you are creating an event, accepting one, or deleting one. Calendar notifications will appear in the upper left-hand of the PlayBook screen as if it were on the PlayBook.

Bridge Contacts, Tasks, and Memopad

Open “Contacts”, “Tasks”, or “Memopad” on the PlayBook and you see it in a larger, size appropriate presentation. Do an action on the PlayBook and it is actually happening on the phone, whether you are viewing, editing, adding, or deleting.

Bridge Browser

This is where it gets interesting…. Click on the Bridge Browser and you are essentially browsing through your phone’s browser connection, but more importantly, sharing its wireless connection; WiFi or 3G.

One benefit here is that you don’t need a tethering contract from your telco to leverage 3G nor did you have to pay the extra $129 to pay for the 3G hardware on the tablet. Second benefit is that if you’ve already satisfactorily setup all your WiFi connections on your phone, you don’t have to do this again on the tablet.

There are incremental enterprise benefits as well. The enterprise gets the same high level of security on the tablet that they architected with the phone maybe a few years back. Anyone familiar with PEAP/LEAP security, GeoTrust Primary CA certification, or EAP-CHAP v2 “inner link security” knows what I am talking about here. This isn’t like connecting to the Internet at a cafe, it’s the corporate enterprise and the IT guy’s butt is on the line to guard the storehouses. Get a major security breach and the company issues a release on how they disclosed credit card numbers and personal medical information. And that’s not fun. So, the enterprise systems see the pre-approved BlackBerry “phone” coming in, not the BlackBerry tablet.

Bridge Files

This feature allowed me to access the files on the phone’s SD card. So if I had downloaded a document on the phone which I often do, I could open it up and review it on the larger 7″ screen when it was most appropriate. I could see this as very beneficial when on an airplane and you get that document just as the flight attendants are commanding that all devices need to be turned off. If you had a traditional media tablet, you would be out of luck, but with the PlayBook when you are allowed to get out of your seat or turn on your tablet, you just bridge to it and review it.

One perceived disadvantage that could actually be a designed security feature is that I cannot actually edit the document or transfer the file I received from the phone to the PlayBook. Interestingly, I can save a file I am editing onto the phone.

Bridge Plusses

- Same level of security and authentication on hardened BlackBerry phone now available to tablet in web, email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes

- Save money, potentially lots on 3G/4G hardware and wireless broadband service contracts

- Not reliant on a WiFi or wireless connection to see same email, contacts, tasks, calendar, files between devices

Bridge Minuses

- Sometimes flaky with dropped connections. [UPDATE: I loaned the unit to some colleagues who had no connection issues.  They all had later model, OS 6 devices.]

- Cannot access files on PlayBook from phone

- Cannot actually transfer file from phone to PlayBook

Conclusion

While many have missed this, I think the PlayBook Bridge feature is much more than a stopgap for not delivering an integrated email, calendar, and contacts application. I see it as part of a strategy. This has more to do with an understanding of what enterprise IT really wants from tablet computing. They want security, lowest possible cost of ownership (cradle to grave), protection of infrastructure investment, and productive and happy “users” who don’t cry foul to the VPs and the CEO. The PlayBook Bridge assists with many IT desires, albeit a bit complex for the end user.

Have a comment or question, please let me know. Next, I will be writing on what I would like to see with bridge functionality in the future.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

In 48 hours, there is no way to test everything a user would ever do, so I focused on my personal usage models or those that I think are common to most users.

Physical Design

The PlayBook feels very durable and dense, like my iPhone 4. It has a rubberized backing that feels very solid to the touch. There are 4 buttons at the top of the unit; power, play/pause, volume up and volume down. It just feels premium. The frame of the display is touch sensitive which becomes beneficial when I talk about gestures below. Two stereo speakers are integrated into the right and left of the unit when in horizontal mode.

Display

The 7″ display seemed very bright. In fact, it’s one of the brightest I have ever used on a tablet. It worked quite well, even in sunlight. The 1024×600 resolution isn’t impressive on its own, but I didn’t have any issues with it on a 7″ screen. If you normalize the resolution against the 7″ screen, it’s pushing more pixels/mm2 than either the iPad or the Xoom. I didn’t notice any bleeding or smudging either.

Setup

The setup was the most painful so far I have ever experienced on a tablet or with any CE devices for the last few years. It sounds simple; connect to WiFi, pick time zone, create a BlackBerry ID, then use it.  Mine didn’t work out like that.  First, I set mine up near a public WiFi, so I needed to connect to a guest WiFi where you agree to terms, etc. Just like a coffee shop, airport, hotel, or public WiFi. Unlike the iPad, there isn’t a browser in Setup to “agree to the terms.” So I turned to my Atrix 4G/HPSA+ Hotspot. OK, we’re in.

Next step was to download a 270MB update file….. Remember this is over the Atrix hot spot with AT&T and one of their plans is capped at 250MB per month. I had a choice…go home or to work or use my hot spot now. I picked now, downloaded it over 4G/HSPA+ and ate someone’s complete month of data. I waited for it to download then waited for it to install, then rebooted. It must be done, right? I was now prompted to go through a tutorial, a forced one, no opting out, on the gestures. I passed that test and was now ready to jam on the PlayBook and download some apps. Not so fast.

I was continually experiencing error messages in App World. I couldn’t download or install any apps. I placed a post on the BlackBerry Support Community to see if I could get some help there. A few hours later a kind person replied but none of the solutions applied to my situation. I completely erased the PlayBook to see if that would help. I went through the exact same procedure as above… WiFi, date/time, update, reboot, tutorial. That didn’t work and I logged an official question into BlackBerry Customer Support. No response.

At 9:30 AM the next day I got what was closer to a solution and was asked to look at this link. Basically it says that I had an App World account plus a PayPal account previously and the accounts weren’t linked. I did have a BlackBerry Bold back in 2009 and made purchases through PayPal. The solution was to go to a website, download an applet, and connect the PlayBook to my PC then link the PayPal account. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, my computer running the Windows 7 operating system didn’t recognize the PlayBook connected over the USB cable. There were issues described here on USB, but I had enough. I wiped the PlayBook for the second time and created a new BlackBerry ID, connected to WiFi, downloaded the patch, reboot, went through gesture class again, and tried the App World again. Success…. two days later. I can now download and install apps on the PlayBook.  It shouldn’t be this difficult.

Gestures

The PlayBook sports the classic pinch and zoom, but it also has a very useful up-swipe and down-swipe that really helps with multitasking. Because the frame is touch-enabled, you swipe up on the frame to minimize and swipe down on the frame to see more options or content in the specific application. I REALLY liked this.

Virtual Keyboard

I was pleasantly surprised how responsive the keyboard was and how natural it was. I could successfully “thumb-type” as well and it was apparent they designed it to do this. The handling of numbers was brilliant. Instead of them shoved on the top bar which is hard to hit, they are assembled like a phone, making it easy to hit with my left thumb.

Web Browsing

This is one of the strongest points for the PlayBook. It has the closest experience to a low end PC of any tablet I have ever used. I say that because of the high degree of compatibility. It took on full Flash UI sites and it even successfully maneuvered some of the most difficult websites like LogMeIn.com remote access. That isn’t easy for a tablet. It even allowed for attachments to be uploaded and downloaded. So basically, most any  site you would want to connect to, the PlayBook has you covered. I would like some kind of bookmark syncing like Google Sync, XMarks, or Firefox Sync and folders. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to easily email a link of the web page, something I do often.

Wireless

The PlayBook supports WiFi 802.11b/g/n. As you have probably read, the PlayBook relies on a phone to get 3G/4G access. I say “phone” and not BlackBerry because anyone can use a phone that has a WiFi HotSpot and connect to it.  I hear that misperception often.   I did with my Atrix and connected over 4G/HSPA+. It felt slow transferring files over WiFi “n” but I didn’t do any speed tests.

Security

My experience with security was positive as it relates to getting onto the corporate LAN. The PlayBook is the FIRST tablet that I have used that successfully connected to the corporate LAN on the first try. It even did a proper security certificate handshake. You would expect this from BlackBerry, right? I am sure there are 1,000s of security details you can look up on your own such as the 256-bit AES protection and ties to BES, but I am evaluating it from a user standpoint, not IT.

Mail, Calendar, Contacts

The PlayBook does not ship with an integrated mail, calendar, or contacts application but are promising to do so in the future. I know, sounds unusual coming from the same folks who brought us BlackBerry, the first mobile mail, contacts and calendar that were truly portable. That forced me to use webmail to do this. Surprisingly, the PlayBook delivered the best tablet web-mail experience I have ever used. I used Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Outlook Web mail and even the Office 365 Beta. It worked well, even using attachments.

Video

Hands down the PlayBook delivered the best non-PC, local video experience of any tab I have used. For the web, the Flash video was so good I couldn’t even tell the difference between the YouTube app and the YouTube website. Until Hulu shut me down, I was actually watching some video and it looked good. The PlayBook supports many containers; avi, mp4, m4v, and will support up to 1080P at 30fps on H.264 HP format. That’s a plus. One huge downside for me was the lack of Amazon VOD or Netflix support.

The HDMI video out at 1080 is the best I have seen so far in a tablet, and I could mirror or go into presenter mode in certain applications.

Pictures

Pictures in the PlayBook are very spartan.  No folders, no geolocation, and no editing.  Dump files into the picture folder, and you get pictures.  I could do slide shows, but without folders and a lot of pictures, its tough.

Games

Games looked surprisingly good on the PlayBook. I was very impressed with the EA NFS Undercover. It looked good and played well, better than anything I’ve seen from the Tegra 2 camp.

Music

The music player is robust, straightforward and easy to use. Just dump your music into the music folder and it pulls in the art, track and album information, etc. BlackBerry has arranged with “7 Digital” music store to purchase albums and singles.

The stereo speakers were exceptional for a device this size.

Multitasking

The QNX OS appears built from the ground up to do multitasking. Users can task switch two ways; when an app is in focus, up-swipe and you will then see all the open apps, or simply side-swipe a full screen and you will switch to the next task. I could even see the video running while minimized and see a web site working… at the same time… very cool. That is more sophisticated and easier than iPad, Xoom, or Galaxy Tab.

App World

App World is the store to buy applications for the PlayBook. Once I got it working, it operated like you would expect an app store to. Find what you want, download it and it installs.  No frills, and straight forward, unlike the feature-rich, “amazing” Android Market. I didn’t see many apps that I love from the Android or iOS camps there. In fact I saw only one, MediaFly, that I recognized. I couldn’t even find a single Twitter client, and I can find 10 on iOS and Android. It was barren from my personal usage POV. Of course that will change over time, particularly with future support for Android phone apps, but this blog is about the here and now.

Other notables:

-          Responsiveness: The UI is very “smooth”, and only the iOS is close to it. I didn’t experience many hiccups or pauses.

-          Maps: Preinstalled is Bing Maps. It was hard to grow accustomed to and for me wouldn’t geo-locate me over WiFi.

-          Podcasts: This program works really well but lacked a lot of my favorite content like WSJ Tech Reports.

-          YouTube: Cannot be signed into like on iOS and Android. So no favorite lists or easy access to “Your Videos”. The YouTube web site worked really well though.

-          USB Connection: I had major connection issues and had to download USB drivers to connect. So year 2000….

-          Ports: headphone, quick charge, microHDMI, microUSB.

Conclusion

Like every product I use or have produced, the PlayBook has plusses and minuses. There are no perfect products.  What’s unique to the PlayBook is I get the feeling it could have been great. To date, it has the best web, video, multitasking, and one of the best looking games I have used on a tablet. On the other hand, setup was grueling, USB was intermittent, and there is no application for mail, calendar, or address book. To boot, only one of my favorite 50 applications was available and that didn’t work well. Of course, this will improve every day, and this blog is about the first 48 hours.

I will be using the PlayBook over the next few months, so let me know if you’d like me to try out something for you. I may even do a follow up in a few months.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

A Little History

The Android market has been available to end users since October 2008 and I got my first taste of it when I looked at the T-Mobile G1. Back then I was questioning the trade-offs between the degree of openness and the benefits and issues it could pose for consumers.  Funny that that debate is still going on today.  Back then there were only a few applications available and now there are reportedly over 200,000.

The Web Site

I know, strange to be writing about the web site portion of an app store, but that’s where Android Market is differentiated.  Go to https://market.android.com and you can see every Android App you have ever downloaded or purchased on every Android Device you have in use.  You can also buy and remote install and see all of your Android devices.

“My Devices”

This section shows every Android Device currently registered with the Android Market, the telco carrier, when it was registered, and when it was last used.  This is very helpful especially to those with multiple Android Devices and those who may be concerned about the security of their devices or accounts.  I was glad to see that my older devices I had reset or returned weren’t on the list.   I’d like to be able to delete devices, though.

“My Orders”

This section of the site shows every application I have ever downloaded or purchased, its category, price, date, and status of the application.  The status shows whether there is an update not yet downloaded.  It’s nice when I get a new Android device to be able to go and see exactly what I had purchased previously.

Buy Once, Install On Many

Click on the name of the app and it goes to the full-function app page.  Once you click to purchase any of the apps you can choose to install them on ANY of your Android Devices.  That’s right, from the web page, you can send the application to any of the mobile devices to be downloaded and installed.  I don’t even have to be on the remote devices like a phone or tablet or click anything.  It just works, and works in about 3-5 seconds. Also, mobile devices that are already installed with the app are greyed out so you don’t reinstall.

In the future, I would like to see an “Install On All” toggle button so I could install the app on all my Android devices with a single click.

Who Cares?

First of all, I don’t have any proprietary information into what the next generation Android market holds. The benefits Google’s approach brings today are only the tip of the iceberg for what it could do in the future with their raw infrastructure building blocks:

• Extend to other Google platforms: If you are into all things Google, you could buy an application once and then simply have your apps installed on any Android device.  Think the future of Android in phones, tablets, PCs, TVs, DMAs, smart displays, cars, AV receiver, refrigerators, medical devices anything that runs Android.
• Business app install: If you run client applications in the enterprise or are the guy who runs IT at the local real estate agency, press one button and your business app is installed on your “users” client devices.
• Fragmentation user backstop: We have all heard of the “Android fragmentation” discussion.  It centers on ISVs and the end consumers.  For the end consumer, they get shielded from fragmentation or incompatibilities because the Android Market could have enough logic in it to know if the app is compatible.
• Hassle free install on new devices: One of the biggest pains if you are forced to reset any device or even buy a new one is that you spend hours reinstalling applications.  Android already has a few features which help with that, and features like Motorola MotoBlur take it a step further, but it could be even easier.  I’d like to see the option that if you need to reset the device, you could install every application back onto your device in every folder and in the same position.  I stress “option” because if you reset due to a bad application, then you don’t want to reinstall it.
• Today apps, tomorrow all content: Today the Android market enables apps and books.  Why not music and video tomorrow?
• Kid management: As a parent I too pretend that I won’t get sucked into managing the kid’s devices.  Fact is, even as easy as an iPhone or Android phone is, I’m still the IT guy.  If all my family’s gadgets were on this service, I could not only manage what is downloaded and even send them apps, but also see what my kids have downloaded and monitor appropriateness ad-hoc.

Conclusion

The Android Market, by giving end users control of their apps and devices, provides huge benefits to Android-based devices today.  This is especially true with the remote install feature.  From a web browser, install an app on a device that’s not even near you, with one click I may add. I think the biggest benefits will come in the future to help enable Google’s bigger aspirations.

Have thoughts?  Let me know below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

HD Multimedia Dock

Atrix HD Multimedia Dock Specifications:

• Display Support: 720p over HDMI
• External ports: 3 USB ports, 1 micro HDMI, speaker
• Keyboard Support: USB, USB RF, Bluetooth
• Mouse support: USB, USB RF, Bluetooth
• In the package: Dock, keyboard, mouse remote, HDMI cable, charger
• Apps: Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13 supporting HTML5 and Flash; Entertainment Center

HD Multimedia Dock Introduction

The HD Multimedia dock is “dual mode”, designed to operate as a desktop replacement and as a living room DMA.  The user starts by plugging the phone into the  HD Multimedia Dock and choosing between “Webtop” and “Entertainment Center”.  The system will then “boot” into one of those environments.  In both “modes” the dock is connected to a display or TV via HDMI and uses the keyboard to do text entry.

Desktop Replacement

As a desktop replacement, the user would use the mouse and keyboard, but not the remote.  They could use Webtop mode or Entertainment Center mode.

As a living room DMA they would probably use the keyboard and remote control, but may use the mouse. They could use Webtop mode or Entertainment Center mode.

Webtop Mode

In Webtop mode the user can choose between a full-fledged Firefox browser and a blown up version of the phone screen.  They can use both the browser and the phone screen simultaneously.

Webtop

Like the Lapdock, the lower icons at the bottom of Webtop are Mobile View, Dialer, Contacts, Messaging, Entertainment Center, File Manager, Webtop Zone, Mozilla Firefox and Facebook. The user can choose to either click on of the icons or use the phone applications in the open phone window.  Phone applications can be expanded to take the entire 11.6″ screen.

Phone messages appear in the upper left hand corner of the Webtop screen.  It shows indicators for new emails, Tweets, Facebook messages, WeatherBug messages, etc.  In Webtop mode, a small message flashes for a few seconds.

The upper right corner has icons to show settings, Wi-Fi, GPS, signal type, signal strength, battery, speaker volume, and time.

Webtop Mode Experience Plusses

• Display: On a 30” Dell display at 1280x720P@60Hz, using Firefox environment looked pretty good.
• Keyboard, mouse, remote: I used a full size Microsoft 3000 keyboard and mouse and I experienced no lag at all. The stock Bluetooth keyboard was the size of a large notebook keyboard, or full size.  The stock mouse felt cheap, but worked fine.  I was happy I could use the remote in Webtop mode at all and used it for rudimentary actions like scrolling.

• Robust browser: The HD Multimedia Dock has the same  functionality as the Lapdock with Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu, the “continuous computing” browser handoff and speedy simple sites.
• Productivity App Compatibility: I successfully used Touchdown Exchange, Microsoft Web Office, Google Docs, Documents to Go, QuickOffice, andOutlook Web Access.  I didn’t even need to be connected to the cloud to use QuickOffice or Documents.  I even connected through LogMeIn Ignition access MS Office productivity apps.  Not ideal speed, but it still worked.
• Shared storage: Since there is only one set of storage on the phone, you will always have one set of local information. One place for documents, content, address book, etc.

Webtop Mode Experience Challenges

• Two environments confusing: I found the dual modes as unappealing with Webtop as it was on the Lapdock. They were two completely different worlds with very little sinew between them.
• Sluggish: Webtop with Firefox many times felt “sluggish”.  It was slow particularly when hitting a complex site like ESPN or CNN or when browsing in multiple tabs.  Hulu was very sluggish, even at full screen SD.  Even Twitter.com (new) was slow.
• Task switching: As with the Lapdock, this was slow to pop up which makes multitasking very difficult.

Task Switching

• Expanded Phone Apps: The problems of stretching 4” apps to the 11.6” screen of the Lapdock are only compounded when going to a 30” display.  Everything gets big and blurry.  Imagine taking a 320×240 video and expanding it to 1024×768.  You get the point.
• Not as Productive: Apps like Docs To Go and QuickOffice and browser-based productivity sites worked but I felt myself working in slow motion.  I am used to working with many windows and tasking back and forth and I really had to stretch to get things done at the pace I expect.
• Games: Android games suffered from the “stretch effect” of stretching the 4” 960×540 screen to 30” 1280x720P display. Games like NFS Shift looked pixelated and blocky beyond belief.  Web games were slow also but seemed better than the Android games.  I had a few Flash crashes too and I had to restart the web game.  Gaming was not an enjoyable experience on a large display.

HD Entertainment Center Mode

When the user inserts the phone into the dock and chooses “Entertainment Center”, they “boot” into a menu-driven entertainment mode.  The environment is really straight forward and simple.  They can watch videos and photos and play their music on the SD card.

HD Entertainment Center Mode Experience Plusses

• Remote: The remote was very compact and straightforward with all the controls you would expect in a media-centric device.
• Music: The phone correctly pulled screen art and was arranged into the all very familiar “Now Playing”, “Songs”, Artists”, and “Albums.”  When songs played a very enjoyable living background started moving to the beat of the music.

• Pictures: Pictures were arranged in folders and interaction was snappy.

• Videos: Those videos that could play loaded very quickly and appeared to play at 30 FPS.   1080p videos down-sampled to play on the 720p display.  For the most part, videos that wouldn’t play or were incompatible with the player didn’t show up in the play menu.
• Content Location Simplicity: All of your content is in one place, one device, not two.

Entertainment Center Mode Experience Minuses

• Playlists: There is no way to program or import a playlist.
• Video Bitmaps: The dock didn’t display the bitmap images of the videos.  It is difficult at times to find the video you want based on the filename and not the picture.
• Limited Video Formats: The Atrix HD dock in Entertainment Center mode appears to play even fewer video formats than the phone itself.  The only thing I can think of why this would be is that the Entertainment Center is a Linux application, not an Android application, and the designers have opted not to support the formats.
• Lack of Services: Anything called an HD Entertainment Center should have some video services like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora and Amazon on Demand.
• Image Improvement: There was no evidence of image or video improvement.  I didn’t experience any image stabilization, noise reduction, or sharpening.
• Games: Gaming is entertainment, right?  The Entertainment Center has no games, not even Angry Birds, and that’s on everything. J

A Better Future HD Multimedia Dock

As with the Lapdock, most of the issues could be overcome with software and hardware technology and design, many of which either exist today or are in development.

Here are a few things I would consider in designing a better HD Multimedia Dock for the future:

• More powerful processing: Like the Lapdock, adding dual or quad core processing, and better graphics could solve many if not all of the performance challenges. This could all be done with a single APU.  If power management and cooling issues arise, develop a way to turn off and turn on functionality depending on its docking state.  Maybe add some cooling functionality to the dock.  That adds cost, yes, but if it could replace a device then it would be a net savings.  In Webtop mode in a desktop environment, this would surely assist in true multitasking, not the fake task switching.
• Bimodal apps: A single user interface would greatly improve the experience. Google appears to be on this track with their multimode APKs.
• Decent Games: I don’t know completely why the game experience was so lousy.  What NVIDIA showed at CES 2011 seems different than what I experienced on a larger screen.  I think what is required is a native Android output at 1080p plus heavier duty 3D graphics. The lack of any games in the Entertainment Center is more a marketing than technical choice.
• Improved Content: To be a credible living room DMA it needs to have services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon VOD.  Music services like Pandora and Amazon Cloud Music need to be available in the Entertainment Center.  Photo services like Picasa Web and Flickr need to look good at 10’ as a living room DMA.
• Hardwire Network: I see no reason not to have 1Gb wired Ethernet as the HD Multimedia Dock is always at home in the study, kitchen or living room.
• QWERTY Remote: For the living room DMA mode, the best remote for 10’ Webtop mode would be like today’s current Boxee Box remote.  It’s the size of the Apple TV remote and has three simple buttons on the front, but flip it over and it has a QWERTY keyboard.

• 1080p Video Out: This is on everyone’s smartphone graphics roadmap, so it will be there, but I need to mention this.

HD Multimedia Conclusion

The Atrix HD Multimedia Dock extends the Atrix phone into two environments that were once reserved for the PC and the DMA: the desk “workspace” and the living room “play space”. The basic concept is to have only one device with content and apps, and extend the experience to different places where you would normally need multiple devices. It could also be a lot lower cost as well. With some improvements on the hardware and software side, this experience shows some promise, particularly if the rich client experience evolution slows.

Motorola Atrix 4G Dock Lapdock and HD Multimedia Dock Conclusion

While the promise of a single device for all my storage, applications, and wireless appeals to me, I didn’t find that either of the docking solutions for the Motorola Atrix 4G provided the experience I want. With the price of the Motorola Lapdock at $499 and the inability to do many usages, I would opt for the better experience of a phone with a more powerful notebook like the HP DM1z starting at $449. The Motorola HD Multimedia Dock for $99 is much more appealing, and if it meets your requirements, is a much better value. It doesn’t replace my DMA or desktop today, but at the low price, it’s nice to know I have it if I need it.  Then there’s the future.  With a few of the enhancements I have suggested, I definitely see an opportunity for this usage. I believe that a powerful and energy efficient product like the AMD Fusion APU could truly shine in this environment.

Feel free to leave your thoughts below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Two Atrix Docks

Motorola has developed two docks for the Atrix, the Lapdock and the HD Multimedia Dock. The HD Multimedia Dock is for a stationary usage model with variable inputs and display outputs and comes with a wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, the dock and an HDMI cable. The Lapdock, which I’ll look at here, is intended for a mobile usage model with a fixed screen size and keyboard.

Atrix Lapdock Specifications:

• Display: 11.6”
• Weight: 2.4lb
• Construction: Magnesium alloy
• External ports: 2 USB ports, power
• Battery: 36Wh 3 cell
• Battery life: 8 hours (advertised)
• Keyboard: QWERTY
• Speakers: Stereo
• Apps: Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13 supporting HTML5 and Flash; Entertainment Center

Lapdock Introduction

The Lapdock is intended to extend the capability from the smartphone to a laptop form factor with a full-sized keyboard, display, and trackpad, mouse and speakers.

The usage model is simple; when the user wants to extend the use to the Lapdock, they plug the phone into the back of the Lapdock. The Lapdock then displays a Motorola splash-screen and “boots” into the “Webtop” environment. The user then sees an array of icons along the bottom of the 11.6″ display and a screen of exactly what is on the phone.

Webtop

The lower icons are:

• “Mobile View”: Pulls up a small window showing exactly what is showing on the phone. This can be “maximized” to a full size window. Everything becomes larger, including icons, images, GUI, and text.
• “Dialer”: Opens the phone dialer in a small window.
• “Contacts”: Opens the phone contacts in a small window.
• “Messaging”: Opens the phone messaging app for texts, voice messages, and emails.
• “Entertainment Center”: Launches a full screen application to play music, photos, and videos.
• “File Manager”: Launches a full screen application to manage files on the internal memory and SD card.
• “Webtop Zone”: Opens a Firefox browser window to Motorola.com.
• “Mozilla Firefox”: Opens a Firefox browser window.
• “Facebook”: Opens a Firefox browser window to Facebook.com.

The user can then choose to either click one of the icons or use the phone applications in the open phone window. Phone applications can be expanded to take the entire 11.6″ screen.

Entertainment Center

Firefox

Phone messages appear in the upper left hand corner of the Webtop screen. It shows indicators for new emails, Tweets, Facebook messages, WeatherBug messages, etc. In Webtop mode, a small message flashes for a few seconds.

Users can change settings in the Webtop environment. Icons are in the upper left corner. The icons show a link to settings, Wi-Fi, GPS, signal type, signal strength, battery, speaker volume, and time.

Lapdock Experience Plusses

• Display: The 11.6″ display at 1366×768 @ 60Hz looked good with the browser content.
• Keyboard and trackpad: The keyboard is full QWERTY with full number keys on the top row. They keys are comparable to a netbook keyboard and I would have preferred larger keys. The trackpad was huge, ironically near exact dimensions of the Atrix phone display.

• Mouse: A Bluetooth mouse or standard USB mouse worked perfectly and was very, very quick with no lags.
• Design: The magnesium alloy construction reminded me of a Mac Air, but it did pick up a lot of fingerprints. The unit was noticeably thin and was silent as it has no fans.
• Browser handoff: When the user goes from phone to Lapdock or Lapdock to phone, the system asks the user if they want to pick up where they left off, “continuous computing” for the browser.
• Robust browser: The Lapdock ships with Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu. It runs Flash and will even install many Firefox add-ons like plug-ins, themes, and extensions. I successfully used X-Marks, Pixl Grabbr, Evernote Clipper, and WeatherBug. I have read that some add-ons do not work, but didn’t experience that.
• Speedy phone apps: When running phone apps in full screen or in a window, they are very speedy.
• Speedy simple sites: When running Firefox on simple, primarily text-based sites, I experienced good responsiveness. Google.com is a good example.
• Battery life: I got at least 8 hours of operation. The Lapdock also charges the phone first before the Lapdock, a real plus.
• Shared storage: Since there is only one set of storage on the phone, you will always have one set of local information. One place for documents, content, address book, etc.
• Shared wireless: I only have one wireless provider and contract for the phone and Lapdock.

Laptop Dock Experience Challenges

• Slow time to browser: It takes what feels like a long time to “boot” into Webtop after inserting the phone. There also seems to be an initial lag after boot until everything is working properly, like wireless.
• Two environments confusing: Continually swapping between phone and Webtop environments became tiresome after a while. I found myself wanting to stick with only one environment but was forced to switch back and forth. The web sites in most cases look nothing like their Android Apps. The reason why I didn’t want to just stick with the Android phone environment was increasing the size of an app optimized for a 4″ vertical display to an 11.6” horizontal screen, it is flat out unappealing.

• Browsing Sluggishness: The Webtop browser many times felt “sluggish”. It was slow particularly when hitting a complex site like ESPN or CNN or when browsing in multiple tabs. Hulu was very sluggish, even at full screen SD. Even the new Twitter.com was slow.
• Display Tilt: The tilt of the display wasn’t high enough for me. I had to lean back to get a proper 90 degree look at the display.
• Task switching: Users can press “alt-tab” and images of all open windows pop up. This is painfully slow to pop up, but then speedy when open and selecting.
• Expanded Phone apps: Phone apps on the 11.6″ display are awkward, particularly videos, photos, and text. The reason is simple; the phone apps are optimized for 960×540 (518,400 pixels) and finger precision. The Lapdock resolution is 1366×768 (1,049,088 pixels) and optimized for the precision of a mouse. Finger optimized apps are optimized for the inaccuracy of the finger so you see things like large icon size and larger space between icons. One good way to illustrate this is the number of icons between the phone and a Windows 7 PC at 1377×768. The PC has 126 icons and the phone has 24 icons, a 5X difference.
• Limited video formats: The Atrix multimedia dock wouldn’t play many of the file formats my PC can. I experienced issues with .MOV and .MTS file formats, among others.
• Games: Games like the ones you can find on FaceBook were playable but not great and even games like Angry Birds left a lot to be desired. I could really tell the system wasn’t designed for this. You cannot download games onto the Webtop environment so you are limited to those in the Firefox browser or via the expanded phone window.

A Better Future Lapdock

Many of the issues outlined above can be overcome with software and hardware technology and design that aren’t beyond any realm of possibility. In fact, many of them exist today or are in development.

Here is how I would design a better Lapdock for the future:

• More powerful processing: Adding dual or quad core processing, and better graphics could solve many if not all of the performance challenges. This could all be done with a single APU.
• Bimodal apps: Two different experiences may be tolerated by technology geeks, but won’t be tolerated by the typical user. The way to bridge the 4″ finger and 11″ keyboard-mouse environments is to have “bi-modal” applications. When the user is using the phone, they use the 4″ finger apps. When they connect the phone to the Lapdock, 11″ pointer apps are used. Apps share the same storage, data, and settings. This is almost a reality today with iOS, Android and hopefully with future Windows. The best example is in Android. In a single app, two different environments can be delivered, for example, one for Froyo (phone) and one for Gingerbread (tablet). The “Touchdown” Exchange app is a recent example.
• Extend a Tablet OS: Android for Tablet is for a finger-driven tablet. Google could extend what are finger coordinates to precision coordinates. This is actually easier than translating the other way around because finger coordinates use predictive technology to determine what the user was trying to do.
• Phone as touchpad: The phone could be snapped into the same place as the trackpad is today. Challenging industrial design, yes, but a much more elegant and useful design. The phone display could be used as a multitouch trackpad with all the multitouch and gestures. It could also act as a multi-mode interface for web, media, and text. So depending on what kind of info the user works with the touchpad adds extra functions like stop, start, fast-forward, page up, page down, etc.
• Hardwire Network: While I cannot say for a fact, WiFi seemed slow. If there wasn’t too much of a performance and cost penalty, I would like 1Gb wired Ethernet to plug in when I leave the Lapdock at home, let’s say in a study or a kitchen.

Conclusion:

The current Motorola Atrix Lapdock experience has issues today that would keep it from replacing my laptop. The modular concept could be very promising for the future with some major technological improvements. Given that smartphones are moving to dual and quad-core with better graphics, and OS and app providers are moving to multimode applications, we could very well see a good implementation in a few years. That is, of course, if the rich client experience doesn’t grow as fast as the technological capability.

I will next check out the HD Multimedia Dock for the Atrix 4G.

Feel free to leave questions and comments below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Because just saying you’re offering the full visual experience, doesn’t make it so.

I’ve been traipsing around Europe these last few weeks as part of my “I Heart APU” Road Trip 2011. During this time, I’ve heard a lot about how you can ditch your discrete and still experience a visual life. Let’s take a quick look at what that really means.

Check out this comparison between a pre-production notebook with an A-Series APU from AMD against a shipping notebook with an Intel Core i7-2630QM. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdPi4GPEI74

See the jitters when that Core i7 PC tries to render a game or an image? Not so stunning or seamless. See how much more the power draw is compared to AMD’s APU or how when that Intel CPU tries to render something it drops frames?

Why is this Intel visual engine not so perfect? Certainly Intel makes a great CPU. Problem is it’s not 1995 anymore, and no consumer is walking into Best Buy, Dixons or some other retailer asking for a new PC because they need to open their Microsoft Excel spreadsheet faster.

Just a great CPU doesn’t cut it for modern workloads. Consumers game, edit video, transcode, surf the web like mad, and upload a ton of digital stuff to YouTube and Facebook. For all of that, you need both a great CPU and a great GPU.  AMD’s APU has both a CPU and a discrete-class GPU.  Intel only has one of those. Ahh…not so visual that life is.

 So, if a visual life to you means oil paintings, enjoy CPU technology that rocked the 90’s. But the rest of us want a real-world experience: be it an ocean or a PC. That’s the Visual Real Life

Leslie Sobon is the corporate vice president, product marketing at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

XOOM with Wireless Keyboard

Motorola sells two docks, one with charging capability called the “Standard Dock” and one with speakers and HDMI-out called the “Speaker HD Dock”. They can both be connected to the wireless keyboard and it will even physically connect to the mouse.

• Wireless keyboard at 10’: In the 10’, lean-back environment in front of the TV, I had to use the arrow keys to “point”.   I really needed some sort of real pointer, even given some of the quick shortcut functions on the keyboard. The mouse would physically connect, but not control anything.
• Wireless Keyboard 2’: In the 2’ lean forward environment, the wireless keyboard was very usable. It is as large as a desktop keyboard without the number pad, so typing was quite enjoyable. Shortcuts include media, volume, music, web, chat, contacts, Gmail, and home. It operates similarly to the iPad keyboard in that pointing is still done with the finger.  I don’t feel comfortable reaching over the keyboard and touching the display, but that’s just me.

If I Wanted To Replace a Netbook or Notebook with XOOM

I often get asked the question,”so can this replace your notebook”? I have tried this on every tablet since I used my first tablet 20 years ago, so of course I would try it on the XOOM.  While the XOOM with keyboard and no mouse isn’t even close to optimal today, there is NOTHING technically keeping Google and OEMs from making this more elegant. Here is what I would do which could make me use my XOOM more instead of my notebook:

1. Add mouse HID support to Honeycomb. This isn’t difficult as the mouse, like a finger, uses coordinates to map the screen. In fact, the mouse is easier to map coordinates.
2. Substitute long-click with right click for the mouse on Honeycomb.
3. Design a sexy case like the ZAGGmate which won Macworld CES 2011 Best of Show.
4. Add some cheap flash storage memory to the dock for those who need more storage.
5. Differentiate by adding an advanced natural user interface.  Add a fisheye lens, and using AMD Fusion to accelerate a virtual “hand-mouse” and near-field air gesturing. This is in addition to the inherent heterogeneous computing and graphical advantages AMD Fusion brings to the table.  I personally need more compute and graphical performance than tablets bring today.

Conclusion

The Motorola XOOM is a giant leap forward for Android tablets, delivered by the Honeycomb operating system and Tegra 2 hardware. It’s important to be precise in how the XOOM is evaluated, primarily looking at today, the next few months, then a few years off. Honeycomb isn’t perfect today, but if one uses Android 1.X as I did with the G1 for smartphones as historical precedent, it will be great.

Honeycomb shows an immense future capability to deliver an intuitive, useful and sexy interface. The look and feel could even rival Windows in many ways if Windows didn’t evolve past today’s Windows 7. Google will also be aggressively ramping their video, books and music services which really aren’t evident yet in today’s Honeycomb. The Android Market’s integration between PC, smartphone, tablet, and Chrome OS devices is unparalleled. The web browsing is the best I have ever experienced on a tablet and certainly better than the first-generation netbooks. BUT, right now, the XOOM isn’t as stable as it needs to be for widespread adoption today and it also shipped without important features operational, like SD memory, Flash video, 4G, Netflix, or Hulu.

Anyone like me who tried out the G1 smartphone on launch day knows what I am talking about here. Neither the G1 nor Android 1.0 was ready for prime time, yet a few years later they are poised to dominate smartphone OS market share. At launch, the G1 only had a handful of applications while the iPhone marketplace had 100′s of thousands. Since both the Android Market and Apple App Store are in the 100’s of thousands now, you’ll likely be able to find an app you’ll like on either platform.

Docking the XOOM and using the wireless keyboard is interesting. If Google and OEMs decided to enable some key features in software and hardware, it could give low end netbooks an experiential  run for their money and possibly provide the justification for users to buy a tablet first that could meet their clamshell needs by buying a cheap stand, keyboard, and mouse.  Price and complexity could still be the issue then because even cheap-add ons add up financially and add to the difficulty scale. Also, touch-enabled applications don’t work as well in a precision mouse environment, and vice-versa, so usability could still be an issue.

Have you tried the XOOM? Let me know your thoughts below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Basic Specifications:

• Price: $799 unsubsidized, $599 with two year commitment with Verizon
• Processor: Tegra 2, 1GHz Dual Core
• OS: Android™ 3.0 Honeycomb
• Memory: up to 32 GB storage on board; 1GB real memory
• Wireless: CDMA 800 /1900 LTE 700; Free 4G upgrade when available
• Sensors: Proximity, ambient light, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer
• Display: 10.1-in.; WXGA (1280x 800 pixels; 150 pixels / inch; 16:10), HD 720p
• Weight: 1.6 lbs.
• Size: 9.8 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches (H x W x D)
• Bluetooth: stereo 2.1+EDR+HID
• WIFI: 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Ports: Micro USB2, HDMI^TM out, power on bottom, mic on top
• Rear camera: 5 MP, 720p video
• Front camera: 2 MP, VGA video with digital zoom, Dual-LED flash, auto focus

Advertised Battery Life:

• 3G web browsing: up to approx. 9 hrs.
• WiFi web browsing: up to approx. 10 hrs.
• MP3 music playback: up to approx. 3.3 days
• Video playback: up to approx. 10 hrs.
• Standby: up to approx. 14 days

Experiential Plusses:

• Android Honeycomb 3.0 “Feel”: This is hard to describe, but basic functions like switching tasks, going to the home screen, going back to what you were doing before, and alerts are very easy. It feels intuitive, modernistic and fresh. The “touch” and gesturing was very responsive.
• Google Integration: Input your Google ID and you are now connected and synced with settings and content for Gmail, Calendar, Latitude, Picasa via Gallery, YouTube, GTalk, Google Maps, Google Books and Chrome Bookmarks.
• Browser: Plain and simple, the browser is a full-fledged “near” PC-level browser optimized for tablets. Address bars disappear when they need to, it has very snappy performance, syncs with Google Chrome bookmarks, and is very compatible. The 1280×800 resolution on the 10.1″ display shows a lot of content. It even ran many of the tests from the IE9 test drive site, albeit much slower than AMD Fusion based designs. It doesn’t appear to be accelerated as it showed about 5 FPS on the 20 “fish” test.

• Google Maps: Google has taken tablet maps to the next level. As you zoom in on cities you can actually see buildings in 3D. It took me a while to figure out how to change the aspect, but I finally did after doing what I never do- click “help”.

• Google Video Chat: The video chat was surprisingly easy to use. Every Google Mail client on the PC has the capability for Google Chat and XOOM users can video chat with all those users. This was the most intuituve and simplest video chat I have used on a tablet or smartphone and has millions of end points.  I thought it was easier than FaceTime.

• Android Market App Sync: Apps purchased on all of your other Android devices auto install on your device after you log-in for the first time. In fact, just go to the PC web version of Android Market, buy the app, and send it directly to the unit. It’s kind of like buying a Kindle book from their website then directing it to the primary “device”. This is immensely helpful given that researching apps is so much easier on a PC.

• Horizontal Orientation: iPad is oriented vertically, XOOM is oriented horizontally. This makes three column web sites, movies, and email much more enjoyable.
• Activity and Messaging Icons: The lower right corner has all messages, displayed subtly. It’s not an assault on the senses, but gentle reminders. Very nice.

• Multitasking Management: Press an icon in the lower left hand tray and you see screen shots of the actual apps that are open or last used. Nice.

• Live Screens: In iOS, users must open an app to get to information or data. In Honeycomb, information can be displayed in “Widgets” that display live information. Some examples: last 5 emails, latest NY Times story, CNN Top Story video screenshot, latest Tweet or Facebook post, real-time stock and weather.

• Screen management: Honeycomb has five screens, with “home” in the middle. Want to add a widget, app, or wallpaper or reconfigure the whole page? Just long-click on the screen and everything else will be self-evident. Just drag everything where you want it on the page.

• Flip 3D and Wrapping: Many apps get the “flip 3D” and wrapping treatment, from YouTube, pictures, CNN, album covers all with the goal of easily identifying information more quickly on the screen.

• HDMI^TM mirroring: XOOM will project everything on its screen to a display with HDMI, plain and simple. This includes screens and content. One simple issue that needs to be fixed is that it will only project when in native orientation, so the HDMI cable points down, so holding the device is awkward. I had some stability issues outlined below.
• Adding Content: If you want to add music, movies or pictures from a PC you don’t have to use a program like iTunes. You just need a USB cable and you drag and drop what you want from the PC to the XOOM. Alternatively, you can even use Windows Media Player and sync with the XOOM.

• Android Phone Similarity: If you own an Android phone, you will know how to use a Honeycomb tablet, and vice-versa.
• Rubberized Top: There is a rubberized “top” on the back of the XOOM that occupies 25% of the back cover. I wish it were on the entire extent of the rear of the unit. The rubber top provides a good grip when holding the unit without a cover.

Experiential Things I’d Like To See Changed:

• Stability: At times, apps crashed and screens would hang for a few seconds with no movement. I experienced this with Android Phone 1.X on the G1 and Google wrung that out just fine. I had some particularly nasty lockups and reboots when using the HDMI cable and mirroring.
• Shiny display: Compared to the iPad and Samsung Galaxy, the XOOM display is shinier, making it difficult to use in day time and even bright office lights. I wouldn’t want to use the XOOM outside. The iPad is even pushing it, but I can use the Galaxy Tab outside as it has the best display.

• No Netflix or Hulu: This issue isn’t limited to XOOM, but rather Android in general.
• Rear power button: Very annoying especially when power management shuts off the screen after a minute. Need to reach around and power the unit back on.

• Supported Video Formats: One of the big Android benefits has been the variety of CODECs and bit rates supported. This is very impressive on HTC phones.  The XOOM supports only three video flavors in narrow bands; H.263, H.264, and MPEG4. I suppose the broad array of CODECs and specs just aren’t ready yet for Gingerbread.
• Web Documents: Via the browser, I could not effectively edit documents in Google Docs or Windows Live Office. This was surprising given the robustness of the browser.
• Volume buttons: These were hard to find and toggle.

• Proprietary power cord: There is no USB charging which requires a special power adapter to be carried around.

• Exchange Support: Active Sync for Exchange is not supported. This was an early issue with Android and iOS but later fixed. I had to use “Touchdown” to get access to corporate email and calendar.
• Flash: Flash 10.X hasn’t shipped yet but is promised as a download in the future.
• DLNA: I could not get any DLNA media renderer or server to work correctly. This is bizarre and I haven’t had this issue on any modern phone or tablet.

Experiential Unknowns:

• Battery Life: I didn’t personally do a formal battery life test. Anandtech shows a mixed result on battery life between XOOM and iPad 1. Anand shows that XOOM wins handily on 3G and basically ties with WiFi.
• 3D graphics capability: Few programs exist yet to tax the Tegra 2 graphics and none that show a demonstrable difference in experiential capability versus iPad. Nvidia has launched “Tegra Zone” an Android app to highlight games that are “optimized for Tegra”. The app can be downloaded here. When I look at the Tegra Zone games, I see nothing yet that is better than the iPad’s Iron Wars, Call of Duty Zombies, Rage, or Infinity Blade.

In my next entry, I’ll have a short look at some things I see as competitive advantages and disadvantages of the XOOM against products available today. I’ll also take a look at what it would require for me to consider replacing my notebook with a XOOM.

Let me know your thoughts and feel free to ask any questions below.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

DMA Devices

I looked at seven DMAs in total, with varying ranges of feature sets, capabilities, content types, and prices. The devices I analyzed were:

• Apple TV: $99 with remote
• Roku XD S: $99 with remote and composite cable
• Boxee Box: $199 with HDMI cable and QWERTY remote
• Western Digital TV Live Hub: $199 with 1TB hard drive
• Google TV by Logitech: $299 with full-sized keyboard with trackpad, HDMI cable, and IR blaster
• Xbox 360 “S”: $299 with 250GB hard drive, controller, composite video cable, and two games
• AMD Fusion Theater PC, aka AMD “FTPC”: $399 with 160GB hard drive, wireless keyboard with trackpad and remote

Top to bottom: Roku XD S - $99, Boxee Box - $199 and Apple TV - $99

DMA Content

I ran them through multiple usage models with different content while gauging simplicity from start to end on:

• Video: commercial and personal, web, remote, local device and local network.
• Music: commercial and personal, web, remote, local device and local network.
• Photos: personal, web, remote, local device, and local network.
• Games: local device, web, and app.
• Social Media: web, app, and overall integration.
• Web: Anything one can do with a browser and the web.

Western Digital TV Live Hub - $199

DMA Capabilities

To get to the major “capability clusters,” I have categorized the DMA’s capabilities and segmented them into 12 variables. This is way too complex but gets us on a path to segment into something simpler. Here are the main capabilities:

• Play from Cloud Service: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from a cloud service like Netflix, Flickr, Pandora, etc.
• Play from DMAs Main Storage: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from the DMA main storage. Content initially downloaded or synced from peripheral. DMA does not need broadband to playback content.
• Play from DMAs External Storage: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from storage connected externally. This is storage like a USB stick or USB hard drive. DMA does not need to be connected to broadband to playback content.
• Play from Network Device: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from a networked device. These devices could be iPads, PCs, NAS, other DMAs, etc.
• Play to Network Device: DMA plays video, audio or photos to a networked device via DLNA. The device could be a PC, another DMA, an iPad, iPhone, etc.
• Sync from Cloud Service: DMA syncs content from a cloud service and can operate without broadband. These can be services like Picasa Web, Amazon VOD, and MP3Tunes.
• Sync from External Device: DMA syncs content from an external device which can be networked. The DMA “imports” the content into its file system. DMA can operate without broadband. External devices could be a digital camera, smartphone, PC, USB stick, NAS, etc.
• Local Games: DMA plays games that have been stored on the DMAs primary mass storage. DMA does not need to be connected to broadband to play game. Examples include PC games and Xbox games.
• Full Browser: DMA has full browser and can play video, audio, and photos and play games and interact on social media.
• Video Chat: Users interact using video. Examples include Skype, Google Chat, Kinect Video, etc.
• Social Media: User can interact via Twitter, Facebook, or proprietary social network.
• Complexity: DMA’s difficulty to setup and use.
• HW Upgradability: Hardware can be upgraded to provide greater capabilities.

My customized AMD FTPC desktop

Here is how the different devices look side by side.

Browsing Videos on the Xbox 360

Four DMA Categories

As you can see, most of the variability in DMA capabilities has to do with storage, games, browsing and complexity. From this, four categories emerge:

1. Streamers: Apple TV and Roku XD S fit into this category. They are less expensive, have no storage, are simplest to setup and primarily stream content from the cloud. They cannot operate productively at any time without the cloud.

2. Surfers: Boxee Box and Google TV fall into this category. They are more expensive than streamers, offer full streamer capability and add full web and multiple “channel” capabilities. They are more aware of the household network and can share their content and offer full social media capabilities. They cannot operate productively at any time without the cloud.

3. Storers: The Western Digital TV Live Hub fits into this category. It takes all the capability of the Streamers and adds local storage, providing the ability to buy, download, play, and store paid and personal content. The devices are more complex in than Streamers and Surfers in that the user has to choose where they want content stored or synched. They can play content without a cloud connection once it has been downloaded.

4. Sinks (as in kitchen): As in “everything but the kitchen sink,” the Xbox 360 “S” and the AMD FTPC fit into this category. The kitchen sink variety have every feature of the Streamers, Surfers, Storers and pile on even more features, including complex games, video chat, offer the most peripheral options and are even hardware upgradable in many cases. They are the most complex and the most expensive to fit with more features.

Xbox 360 "S" - $299

My Thoughts on the Future of the DMA

The future of the living room DMA is bright and there will be many changes along the way in form factors, capabilities, services, and prices. As I outline below, some of the capability will be sucked into Smart TVs and set top boxes. Some of it will be sucked into smartphones and tablets but many higher end features and usage models will keep them as a stand-alone category.

• Low-End DMAs Integrate into Smart TV: Lower capability, lower cost DMA’s will be integrated into HDTVs. This one is easy to call. Some call this “Smart TVs”. At the recent 2011 CES, every major TV manufacturer announced TV lines with integrated DMAs. Some were based on the Google TV platform, a few were Yahoo-based, and some were proprietary. Streamers will get sucked into Smart TVs as quickly as it takes to roll them out into medium range price points. Some Surfers will as well, but only when dual core designs are affordable and can deliver an enjoyable internet experience.
• More DMA Features in STB: Set top box vendors along with the service providers are busy integrating more and more DMA features into their set top boxes. This is part of the war between the OTT (Over The Top) ecosystem versus the cable and satellite ecosystem. The traditional STB and service providers wouldn’t “cross the streams” of personal content but will be forced to integrate this to not get squeezed out.
• Mobile Devices Don’t Kill DMA: I have been connecting mobile devices to my TV for about 10 years now and am very familiar with the plusses and minuses. Recently, I have watched movies and TV shows off of my iPad and videos off of an Atrix phone with the HD Multimedia Dock. They both provide really good quality experiences but have one major flaw unrelated to the technology: when you have them plugged into the TV, you don’t have access to the device. When a phone call or text comes in, what do you do? When that important email, Tweet or Facebook message or status update comes in, what do you do? Stop the movie, undock the device, take care of the alert, then re-dock and reinitiate what you were doing? I don’t think so.
• More Local Storage: I believe more local storage will find its way into devices. Home broadband is increasing at a much slower rate than the increase in data density. It was recently reported that Netflix consumed 20% of prime-time bandwidth in North America. Imagine what happens as Smart TV’s get connected. Higher levels of caching will be required to maintain QOS. More storage will drive some of the Storer capability away from the TV given the immense cost adder. Outside the U.S. it isn’t all about paid services, so Storers which allow for Torrent and DivX capabilities will just grow.
• Over The Air TV: Call me crazy, but I think you will see DMAs emerge with over the air HD tuners in North America. Why? Over time, consumers will get smart and realize that you can essentially “cut the cord” and go with a DMA plus OTA HD tuner and get the best of both worlds. You get pay as you go for the shows you love PLUS the live broadcasts of sports, news and reality shows.
• Prices Rise Short Term: With home broadband bandwidth becoming saturated, prices for streaming content will rise. Cable companies and telcos will start charging content distributors for priority bandwidth, who will in-turn charge users. This is the classic net-neutrality debate.
• New Business Models: The DMA wheel continues to turn due to content and advertising profits. The all you can eat content models will drive toward package deals, value menus and pay as you go. As Google and Microsoft fine-tune their video, music, and game service franchises, there will be many more opportunities to subsidize DMAs and make them even less expensive. It will be less about acquisition as services mature and more about consumption. Advertising will undergo the most changes and even enable 100% subsidized DMAs. Product placement overlays in the videos, finite targeting of standard advertising and fast ad-to-purchase techniques at much higher CPMs and CPCs will enable this subsidy.
• New Categories Created: Mashups will occur that either haven’t been productized yet or haven’t been successful up to this point. Intelligent routers with DMA capabilities will emerge, as well, DMA media servers that sync with the cloud will store the family’s content and distribute it out to the home. Home AV receivers will combine with DMA technologies to enhance their utility. Blu-ray players have adopted low-end Streamer functionality already and they will start adopting higher-order features like Surfers.
• Advanced Capabilities: Advanced capabilities desired by consumers will keep the entire category from getting sucked into Smart TVs. This is in addition to the new categories described above. The stereoscopic 3D (S3D) wave will permeate its way into DMAs. Content will go to S3D and DMAs will follow. Advanced HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and NUI (Natural User Interface) capabilities will permeate into DMAs and become differentiators between vendors. The physical remotes will be augmented with computer listening and computer vision to enable easier content research and management. Do a gesture and change the “channel”. Ask to see “The Bachelor” and it finds the Bachelor and can distinguish between dogs, cats, people stretching their arms and different people in the living room. This will enable easier search, and with the amount of DMA content becoming unmanageable with menus, will drive toward precise voice search and more sophisticated “suggestion engines”. It goes without saying that the thirst for realism in today’s game consoles won’t subside and will require some serious capabilities to take the levels of realism and gameplay to the next level.

An assortment of controllers I’ve used on this journey.

Conclusion

Four classes of living-room DMAs exist today to serve a very wide variety of capabilities, content, user sophistication levels with prices ranging from $99 to $399. DMAs fit into Streamers, Surfers, Storers, or Sink classes. Streamers stream content from the cloud, Storers can actually download and store content; Surfers add web capabilities and Sinks have all those features and many more, basically the “everything but the kitchen sink” class.

AMD Fusion Theater PC, aka AMD "FTPC" - $399

In the future, Smart TVs will gobble up today’s basic Streamer and some Surfer capabilities. With an intelligently programmed user interface, Smart TVs will also offer convenient Storer capabilities as many attempt to do already with USB storage device support… but the standalone DMA still has a future. Set top boxes will adopt today’s Streamer and Storer capabilities. Mobile devices won’t steal a lot of the DMA thunder given multi-use usability issues. The future is driven by new product categories, new business models, and advanced capabilities like advanced HCI, personal cloud sync, improved suggestion engines, and more realistic gaming.

So which DMA is the best today? Well, I will let you read my experiences and make your own choice.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.