Microsoft Surface Losses, Chromebook Gains (video)

Hands-on: The Tegra K1-powered Acer Chromebook 13 -
Hands-on: The Tegra K1-powered Acer Chromebook 13  ($279.99 - $379.99)
"Take a look at the first ever Chromebook powered by the impossibly advanced Tegra K1 quad-core processor and its 192 GPU cores -- the Acer Chromebook 13. With up to 13 hours battery life, full 1080p display and multi-tasking capabilities that leave other Chromebooks in the dust, the Acer Chromebook 13 packs a high-end punch into a slick, modern design. Find out more on the NVIDIA Blog: http://nvda.ly/AcMHL Uploaded on Aug 11, 2014" (more info below*)

Crunch time for lost Microsoft Surface: "... news services report the company [Microsoft] may pull the plug on its tablet. Gregg Keizer at Computerworld says Microsoft’s Surface has lost money every quarter since first appearing in 2012. To date, the total loss is close to US$2 billion. Keizer quotes Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson, who says: “Continued losses will make it harder and harder for Microsoft to keep the Surface project going, so a good performance in the next quarter or two will be critical to justifying its continued existence”. Comments from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella hint at his impatience with Surface. In July he said: “We are not in the hardware for hardware sake and the first-party device portfolio will be aligned to our strategic direction as the productivity and platform company”...."

Google Chromebooks eating into US education market, says Gartner | Technology | theguardian.com: "Chromebook sales will hit 5.2m units this year, according to research company Gartner, as American schools in particular begin adopting them for their simple functionality and remote administration. Though the figure is small in the context of the overall PC market – which rival research firm IDC reckons will exceed 316m worldwide for 2014 – it illustrates the way in which traditional views of “computing” tasks are being carved up into separate ones that can be carried out better by dedicated devices, says Horace Dediu, who runs the independent Asymco consultancy."

*Acer's new Chromebook 13 offers a high-resolution screen and all-day battery life | The Verge: "The new Acer Chromebook 13 is the first Chromebook to use Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor, a mobile chip that's already been employed in tablets and other portable devices. Its big selling point? Longer battery life than any other Chromebook on the market while still providing class-leading performance. The Chromebook 13 is available in two screen configurations..."

School system CIOs are sold on Chromebooks - Computerworld: "Gartner on Monday said that sales of Chromebooks will reach 5.2 million units worldwide this year, with more than 80% of the demand in the U.S. That's an 80% increase in sales from 2013. But this demand was driven almost entirely by education last year, which accounted for nearly 85% of Chromebook sales, according to Gartner."

Gartner: PC Is Dying, So Chromebook Sales Will Shoot Up - Business Insider: "Research firm Gartner says Chromebook sales will reach 14.4 million units by 2017, nearly tripling the current market size. And part of the reason for that growth is the slowing PC market. "Competition in the Chromebook market is intensifying as more vendors launch Chromebooks, with eight models in the market in 2014," Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner, wrote in a new report published Monday.... "

An App Like Yo Could Turn Out to Be Bigger Than Twitter - WSJ: "... Yo isn't what it has been widely misconstrued to be. It isn't a messaging app, and it definitely isn't a social network—on this point, Mr. Arbel is emphatic. It isn't even really a place to "Yo" your friends, though early adopters say they use it to let others know they are thinking of them. Yo, says Mr. Arbel, is a communications protocol. Other communications protocols you may have heard of are text messages, email and Twitter. At the risk of convincing the tech cognoscenti that I've lost my mind, I'm here to tell you that Yo—or a Yo-like service—is the next Twitter. It might even be bigger...."

Exclusive: Apple prepares Healthkit rollout amid tangled regulatory web | Reuters: " "Apple is going into this space with a data play," said Forrester Research's health care analyst Skip Snow. "They want to be a hub of health data.""

How Attackers Could Gain Remote Control over Most Smartphones | MIT Technology Review: "A powerful remote-control system installed on most smartphones could be used by hackers to secretly take control of many devices, allowing theft of data or eavesdropping on communications. Wireless carriers install the mechanism, known as ODM, in phones, tablets, and even cars as a way to distribute software updates and make configuration changes. Researchers with the computer security company Accuvant uncovered a series of flaws with ODM that could be exploited to gain the same remote-control powers."

Hackers Unveil Their Plan To Change Email Forever | TIME: ".... Dime’s creators hope that enough people will begin using the service on their own that a major email service provider, like Google, Yahoo or Microsoft–all of whom are already exploring ways to better encrypt users’ messages–adopts it and it snowballs from there. Ultimately, what the Dark Mail project is aiming for is nothing less than a complete transformation of the way email works on planet Earth. “It all has to be rebuilt,” Callas said."

Why BuzzFeed Is Launching Its Own Hollywood Studio | Variety: "“We’re in the midst of a historic shift in the media industry where news is increasingly being distributed on social networks and consumed on mobile devices,” said Andreessen Horowitz general partner Chris Dixon, who led the investment in BuzzFeed and is joining the board. “We believe BuzzFeed can emerge from this shift as a preeminent media company.”"

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