Tag Heuer, Intel to launch Android smartwatch

BASEL, Switzerland - Tag Heuer, French luxury group LVMH's biggest watch maker, said it will launch a smartwatch later this year using Google Inc's Android operating system in a venture with Intel Corp to compete head-on with the Apple Watch.

Tag Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver declined to give any details about pricing, functionality or design, but said on Thursday that it aimed to launch what would be the first Android luxury smartwatch in the fourth quarter.

The Apple Watch is due to go on sale on April 24 and will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model. It is the company's first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors.

The device needs an Apple iPhone to work fully, and analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets.

"We believe wearable technology will take off," Michael Bell, vice president of Intel's New Devices unit, said at a news conference with Tag Heuer at the Baselworld watch and jewellery fair.

Intel struck partnerships with several consumer goods companies last year to develop smart wearable products, including eyewear brand Oakley, owned by Luxottica, watchmaker Fossil, and U.S. fashion brand Opening Ceremony.

"Tag Heuer’s decision to partner with technology companies to deliver a smartwatch ... will likely be the first of many similar deals," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, said.

"With Apple Watch hitting the market it's no longer viable for Swiss watchmakers to bury their heads in the sand. Now Tag Heuer has signalled its intention to enter the smartwatch market we are certain others will follow."

Gucci said on Thursday that it would develop a smartband with i.am+ whose functions would include phone calls, text messages, emails and music. The unit of French luxury group Kering PRTP.PA gave no details of pricing or launch timing.

Some luxury executives remained sceptical about smartwatches, however.

Marc Hayek, who heads Swatch Group watch brands Breguet, Jaquet Droz and Blancpain, joined the chorus of luxury executives alongside Hermes and Patek Philippe who said they had no plans to launch a smartwatch.

"The Apple Watch is not a real watch but a consumer electronic," he told Reuters in Basel on Thursday.

Hayek forecast his three brands would enjoy a similar year in terms of sales growth to 2014, although trading in Hong Kong, one of his biggest markets, remained difficult.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

UC Irvine anchors $12.5-million research center funded by Intel

UC Irvine is home to a new $12.5-million research center funded by chip maker Intel Corp., the company announced Tuesday.

The center, called the Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing, applies social science and humanities to the design and analysis of digital information. It opened June 1 but was announced Tuesday by Justin Rattner, Intel chief technology officer, in San Francisco.



"Technology is profoundly entangled with our everyday lives. As researchers, we can't get a handle on what's going on by looking at technical factors alone," said UC Irvine professor Paul Dourish, who will co-lead the center. "We have to study them in concert with human, social and cultural aspects."

UC Irvine is the research hub, with four other campuses participating. The university will receive $5 million over five years, with an additional $7.5 million being split among the other universities.

Experts from those schools, which include Cornell University, Indiana University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and New York University, specialize in anthropology, media studies, digital humanities, philosophy and computer science, among other disciplines.

Each year, the research center will explore a new defining theme, the first being restoring "materiality" to information. Researchers will explore the "connection of information to the physical world," Dourish said.

Intel researchers will work with dozens of faculty members and graduate and doctoral students in the campus labs. The research will not be owned by Intel but will instead be public, open intellectual property, the university said.

The grant is under the company's larger $100-million program to increase research at universities in the country and abroad.

source: latimes.com

Intel inspired by aerospace to make sturdier laptops

SAN FRANCISCO — Engineers at Intel Corp are applying lessons from aircraft design to create sturdier laptops in a bid to reduce the prices of the new ultra-thin computers the top chipmaker is promoting heavily.

Intel is counting on the super-thin laptops, a category it has dubbed ultrabooks, to add some pizzazz to a PC market languishing due to the growing popularity of Apple Inc’s iPad.

Models expected later this year will have large touch screens, “instant on” responsiveness and razor-thin dimensions – all expensive features that have left some on Wall Street wondering if they might be too expensive for average consumers.

Engineers at Intel’s Dupont, Washington R&D center, including former Boeing Co employees, have come up with a design method to make plastic laptop cases as strong as more-expensive metal ones typically used in ultrabooks, said Ben Broili, head of the team.

He said that may cut the cost of future ultrabooks by between $25 and $75 by letting manufactures use plastic cases instead of metal ones without sacrificing quality.

Their work is an example of the steps Intel is taking to find ways to make future ultrabooks more affordable – without cutting the prices of its processors.

At a meeting with analysts last month, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said upcoming ultrabooks would be available for as little as $699, but many are expected to be priced nearer to $1,000 or more.

Borrowing from product design methods used in the aerospace industry, the engineers have found that hard drives, motherboards and other components that make up the guts of a PC can be laid out in ways that make the laptops structure much stronger.

“We didn’t develop a new material. We are able to use an existing plastic with an existing manufacturing technology,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. “It just requires some more upfront thought initially about how you lay your system out and how you can bring these things together and tie them in.”

Different components in the laptop can be leveraged to support its chassis, or even dissipate heat from the processor, he said.

“There is no one size fits all,” Broili added. “We’re trying to enable the entire industry. You can make trades, move stuff around; and if you don’t want your hard drive here, then move it. You have a menu you can pick from and see what you win or lose from a cost and quality standpoint.”

Typically priced above $200 each, Intel’s processors are the costliest component in laptops. Smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices is selling its new Trinity chips for less in a bid to undercut Intel in thin laptops.

Less flex

Laptops with metal cases tend to be sturdier than laptops with plastic cases, but they cost more.

To get an idea of the structural quality of any laptop, Broili recommends lifting it up by a front corner while it is open and watching how much it flexes.

Intel has already held a seminar in Taiwan to demonstrate its new design technique to PC design engineers and it is promoting it with specific manufacturers.

At the Computex technology show in Taipei, Taiwan, next week, PC manufactures are set to unveil dozens of ultrabooks using Intel’s newest Ivy Bridge processors.

They will also demonstrate future models with touch screens, based on Microsoft Corps’s Windows 8 platform, which is expected out later this year.

Broili said Intel engineers are working on other ways to improve ultrabooks, including tweaks to motherboards, touch screens and Wifi.

Separately, Intel launched a $300 million fund last year to invest in small companies focused on technologies complementing ultrabooks, such as improved battery life.

A few ultrabook models launched this year have been reviewed as nice but pricey, leaving some analysts skeptical the category will attract mainstream shoppers.

Otellini has said Intel is on track to reach its goal that ultrabooks account for 40 percent of all consumer notebooks sold by the end of the year.

Helped by emerging markets, the Ivy Bridge processor and ultrabooks, Intel expects PC shipments this year to grow by a “high-single digits” percentage.

source: interaksyon.com