Do you want it enough to pay almost $800 for it? 

See also: Best Android smartphones (August 2013 edition)

When Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, kicked off an Indigogo campaign to raise $32 million, I have to admit I was sceptical that the handset would see light of day. After all, $32 million is a lot of money, and asking people to pay almost $800 for the promise of a handset that they've not see a single review for is asking a lot.

Even the early bird price of $600 is hardly walking around cash for most people.

The total pledged currently stands at a shade under $8.4 million. A respectable total, but with only 15 days to go, it's far short of the total needed for the funds to be released and for the project to move forward.

And time is ticking.

However, given that this is the largest crowdfunding campaign in history – the last one to come close to this was the Pebble smartwatch campaign, which successfully hit the $10 million mark – it is hard to predict what might happen. Successful campaigns usually see the greatest number of pledges at the beginning and end of the campaign, but with less than a third of the total needed pledged so far, a last-minute resurgence in pledges, no matter how enthusiastic, seems unlikely to make up for the shortfall.

Even selling all fifty "Enterprise 100 bundles," consisting of a hundred Ubuntu Edge smartphones, would only add $4 million to the pledge pot. To get the project on track, Canonical needs 40,000 backers to pre-purchase an Ubuntu Edge smartphone over the remaining 15 days. That's over 2,600 a day.

Given the rate at which the total raised is going up, there are fewer than 100 people a day pre-purchasing the handset.

What happens if the $32 million isn't raised? Simple. The Ubuntu Edge won't happen.

"If we don't reach our target there won't be an Ubuntu Edge," Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, told The Guardian. "We greatly appreciate every bit of support we receive during the 30 days. The funding target takes into account the large cost of manufacturing a high-end smartphone."

So, what went wrong?

• Ubuntu doesn't have enough market clout
  Linux accounts for some 1 percent of the operating system market share, and Ubuntu is a subset of that 1 percent. Given that anyone can run Ubuntu on a PC for free, and yet fewer than 1 percent of PC users do, I fail to see the mass market attraction of this handset.
• Too many handsets
  There are dozens of quality Android handsets out there that people can walk into a store, try, and buy. The market is close to saturation.
  I read and re-read the campaign page looking for things that gave the Edge the edge, and beyond a few geek thrills such as sapphire glass screen and 4GB of RAM, I came away empty handed.
• Too much of an ask
  $32 million is a lot of dough, and expecting to raise this in a month is unrealistic. Hardware is expensive to bring to market, and big projects could be beyond what the current crowdfunding model can sustain.
• Ambiguous spec
  "We’ll choose the fastest available multi-core processor, at least 4GB of RAM and a massive 128GB of storage," tells me little about what to expect. I'd expect the spec to be nailed down at this point, at least as far as who the suppliers for the different components might be.
• Too far off into the future
  The expected handset delivery date of May 2014 feels far too far in the future. Sure, stuff takes a long time to make, but people are impatient.
• Wait and see
  I suspect that a lot of people are playing a wait and see game. If the targets are hit and this gets made, then they'll be able to pick one up at some point afterwards. If it doesn't, then it's dead before the start.
• Dual boot, double trouble
  Dual boot isn't for everyone, and whether you are dual-booting Linux on Windows, Windows on a Mac, or Android and Ubuntu Mobile on the Edge, two operating systems means twice the learning cure, twice the system admin, twice the updates, and twice the hassles.
• Reboot
  The Ubuntu Edge, with its ability to run Ubuntu when connected to a full-screen display, is not a new idea. Motorola tried this with the Atrix. It was an interesting idea, and reviewers loved it, but it did little to improve Motorola's position. 

According to the new research, FOBS is the primary factor driving growth in the overall enterprise storage systems market.

"The future of storage is software based," said Ashish Nadkarni, research director for IDC. "FOBS solutions are much more versatile and will quickly outpace more rigid, hardware-based options."

FOBS systems, in the form of software, virtual storage appliances, hardware appliances, or self-built for delivering cloud-based services, are forecast to experience a compound annual growth rate of 24.5 percent from 2012 to 2017.

This does, however, mean bad news for hardware providers in the file servers and scale-up appliances and gateways market, with the market expected to be in decline by 2017.

"Increased versatility will result in more diverse use cases for FOBS," said Amita Potnis, senior research analyst at IDC. "To be successful, suppliers must commit to making their platforms more compatible with server and desktop virtualization, in-place analytics (which IDC calls Compustorage), and NoSQL databases."

"FOBS solutions will continue as the dominating media of choice for applications like archiving and eDiscovery, which are governed by compliance and regulatory requirements."

IDC also predicts that DIY storage will become more prevalent during the forecast period, but that commercial solutions will still experience strong demand.

Outside the datacenter, another big shift affecting storage traffic is the growth of mobile, social, and cloud, all of which are heavily weighted toward IP-based connectivity mechanisms for consuming storage resources.

PC gamers are, according to Jon Peddie Research, buying and building PCs "with a fervency that could be compared to motorcycle, 4X4, and sports car enthusiasts, always looking for more speed, power, utility, and handling." This is likely to be good news for all the major PC players, especially given that high-end gaming bits command a greater profit margin than budget and mainstream parts.

"Not only is gaming becoming an even more important purchasing influence of PC sales due to the offloading of more basic functionality to smart devices, but we are forecasting growth in the most expensive discrete graphics products," said Jon Peddie, president of JPR, in a statement sent to ZDNet.

"We are also impressed with the embedded graphics offerings this generation and going forward."

So, good news for Intel and AMD, both of which have put massive effort into APUs that combine the CPU and GPU onto a single chip.

But it's not better hardware that's driving sales, but new high-end games aimed at PC users.

"The effect that key titles have on hardware sales is phenomenal," said Ted Pollak, senior gaming analyst at JPR.

"Enthusiast PC Gamers embrace content creation and modding, so when titles like Bohemia Interactive's ARMA 3 are in the pipeline; we start to see anticipatory hardware sales. In fact, we are estimating over $800 million of PC builds influenced primarily by this title."

$800 million dollars of PC builds as a result of a single game shows the sort of power that the gaming industry now has over the PC industry. It also goes to show the massive effect that the shift that the games console mush have had on the PC industry as a whole.

New games that are in the pipeline are putting such a strain on PCs that swapping out the graphics card is not enough, and instead gamers are building of buying in high-end overclocked PCs to cope with the workload.

There's also hope that gaming will be the savior of the tablet PC. JPR believes that casual gaming could help expend the x86 tablets market, opening the door to the living room, previously the domain of the games console. 

See also: What's right (and wrong) with the Google Chromecast

So, what made the Chromecast a success with consumers?

• Luck
  Never underestimate the power of pure luck in the success (or failure) of a device. Hitting the market at a time when there are few distractions, and at a time when consumers are more receptive to new ideas, can mean the difference between success and failure.

• Price
  At $35, the Chromecast dongle is cheap. Dirt cheap. You can easily spend more than that on an HDMI cable.
  In a market where other devices have price tags ranging from $100 to $500, we now have a streaming device that is available for a bargain basement price.
  Google has broken new ground with the Chromecast, and it will be interesting to see how others respond.
• Scarcity
  How many Chromecasts did Google make? Was there huge demand, or just limited supply?

• Simplicity
  The Chromecast is a simple device. It has an HDMI port, and a power input port, and that's it. Once it is connected to the TV, you're instructed to download the Chromecast app that takes you through the set–up process, all of which takes a few minutes.

• Streaming from the browser
  One of the coolest features of the Chromecast is that it can stream content from a tab in the Chrome browser.
  This means that consumers are freed from having to rely on specific apps being available for the device, and can stream anything they have access to from a browser.

• The Google name
  Most consumers are aware of the Google brand, and this gives the company a leg up over lesser-known competitors such as Roku. The popularity of its search engine, its web-based services, and of Android has put Google onto a strong position.

• Hole in the market
  Despite the Apple TV, the Roku, and games consoles such as the box and PlayStation, both of which have been transformed into streaming devices, the living room is still up for grabs. There are still hundreds of millions of TVs out there not connected to the vast ocean on online content.

Some things to keep an eye on:

• Future sales – With the demand continue, or was it a flash-in-the-pan?
• Competition – What will be the response to the Chromecast?
• Price war – Will the Chromecast lead to a price drop across the market?

Eager not to enter into a 'core war' that dominated the PC CPU industry, a Qualcomm executive branded eight-core processors manufactured by rivals as "dumb."

Speaking during a Taiwanese media roundtable, Qualcomm senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher said that thinking only in terms of cores was "silly" and that it doesn't deliver what consumers need, and as result these octa-core monster processors are not going to be successful in the long run.

"You can't take eight lawnmower engines, put them together and now claim you have an eight-cylinder Ferrari," said Chandrasekher.

"It just doesn’t make sense."

Qualcomm, he said, would instead focus on delivering the best experience for users. This, he went on to say, starts by knowing what customer actually want.

"So, clearly, great modem experience, great battery life, fantastic multimedia experience – all of that put together in a beautiful package that they can go buy, because these are all fashion statements in addition to being utilitarian devices."

He went on to accuse rival – such as MediaTek, a company that has just come out with a new octa-core processor – of not being able to engineer a product that consumers wanted, and instead had resorted to "throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks."

"That’s a dumb way to do it, and I think our engineers aren’t dumb."

When asked directly if Qualcomm was planning on launching an octa-core part, Chandrasekher said that "we don’t do dumb things."

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 parts are all quad-cored.

While Qualcomm quite clearly doesn't think much of the current lineup of octa-core processors, they are clearly gaining traction within the market. OEMs Acer and Lenovo are both using MediaTek silicon, as is Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi.

Putting further pressure on Qualcomm, Samsung has also developed an octa-core processor for use in selected versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4, and last month the company unveiled an updated Exynos 5 Octa part.

It's inevitable that some players will get caught up in a mobile parts "core war." Years of PC marketing literature has conditioned consumers to believe that more cores equals more power. Not only is this inaccurate, but as we shift from the era of the PC to post-PC devices, more cores means more pressure on battery life, so there's certainly a balance that needs to be struck.

However, given the inevitable forward march of progress, I believe that Chandrasekher's comments should be taken as meaning that Qualcomm doesn't have any immediate plans to release octa-core parts, not that the company plans to shun them forever.

It's not a matter of if, but when.

AMD's new G-series SoC processors pushes power consumption into the realm of single digit wattage. The new AMD GX-210JA is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) with a TDP of only 6 watts, but according to AMD its average comsumption is closer to 3 watts during normal usage.

But don't let the power consumption fool you into thinking this is a lightweight part. The GX-210JA is a dual-core, fanless 1GHz processor that also packs a discrete Radeon HD 8180 GPU running at 225MHz, and comes complete with support for enterprise-class ECC RAM.

On th downside, it is missing USB 3.0 support, and only comes with 1MB of L2 cache.

AMD is aiming the new part not at the stagnant PC market, but instead at markets such as digital signage, thin client systems, medical imaging, media players, and automation.

See also: Intel targets microservers with 8-core Atom SoC

"The advance of APU processor design, the Surround Computing era, and The Internet of Things has created the demand for embedded devices that are low power but also offer excellent compute and graphics performance," said Arun Iyengar, vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Systems.

"AMD Embedded G-Series SOC products offer unparalleled compute, graphics and I/O integration, resulting in fewer board components, low-power use, and reduced complexity and overhead cost. The new GX-210JA operates at an average of approximately 3 watts, enabling a new generation of fanless designs for content-rich, multimedia and traditional workload processing."

The GX-210JA is currently shipping to OEMs, but the price hasn't been disclosed.

AMD continues to distance itself from the PC by entering into different markets, and the new G-series SoC is just the latest move of that shift. Rumors are circulating – from a number of reliable sources – that AMD's FX line of CPUs will soon be discontinued as the company moves from CPUs to APUs that combine both the CPU and GPU onto a single chip.

Introduction

Looking to replace your aging Android companion with something newer and with a little more "oomph"? Here are five excellent Android-powered smartphones from Google, Motorola, and Samsung.

No matter whether you are looking for a consumer handset or something that will be suited to a BYOD role, you're bound to find something of interest here.

The handsets are arranged in no particular order. My current favorite continues to be the Nexus 4. It's a powerful package that delivers what I believe to be the best, purest Android experience possible. However, I have to admit that some of the features present on the Samsung Galaxy S4 make it a great choice for the BYOD crowd. 

Google)

Google Nexus 4

The Nexus 4 is the smartphone that Google thinks Android should be loaded on.

One of the downsides to the Nexus 4 is that it doesn't come with LTE support, despite having a supporting integrated modem. According to LG, the manufacturer of the Nexus 4, the LTE modem requires a signal amplifier and filter to work, and these components have been omitted to keep the cost of the handset down.

Despite this, the Nexus 4 is a solid, well-made Android handset.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.2)
• 1.5GHz quad-core Krait processor
• 4.7-inch WXGA IPS display
• 8MP rear camera
• 1.3MP front camera
• 8/16GB internal storage

Google)

Samsung Galaxy S4 "Google Play Edition"

Like the idea of a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone, but prefer a device that gives you a more pure Google Android experience? Or maybe you just want an unlocked handset. Either way, take a look at the Samsung Galaxy S4 "Google Play Edition."

This is the same hardware as the Galaxy S4, but with all the Samsung bells and whistles removed. Some people love this, others hate it. But if you want it, it is yours, unlocked, for $649.

• Skinless Jelly Bean (Android 4.2.2), which means the same experience as the Nexus
• 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600
• 5-inch Super AMOLED high-pixel-density (441ppi) display
• 13MP rear camera
• 2MP front camera
• 16GB internal storage
• MicroSD slot

Samsung)

Samsung Galaxy Note II

The Samsung Galaxy Note II is the Android smartphone for those people with large hands to hold it with, and large pockets to keep it in.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II really is a solid handset packed with an array of high-end features. It even comes with the S Pen that can be used to copy text, crop images, and to share content.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.1)
• 1.6 GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor
• 5.5-inch Super AMOLED HD display
• 8MP rear camera
• 1.9MP front camera
• 16/32/64GB internal storage
• MicroSD slot

Samsung)

Samsung Galaxy S4

The second new kid on the block — Samsung's new and long-awaited Galaxy S4.

There's an awful lot to like about the Galaxy S4 — the powerful CPU, plenty of storage space, a user-replaceable battery, the microSD slot, the fact that it can be used as a remote control for a DVR. It is very much like HTC's new One handset, except marginally better in almost every way (except, perhaps, for the plastic shell).

Another quality handset from the company that is now the king of the Android smartphones.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.2.2)
• 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 (1.6GHz octa-core processor offered in some markets)
• 5-inch Super AMOLED high-pixel-density (441ppi) display
• 13MP rear camera
• 2MP front camera
• 16/32/64GB internal storage
• MicroSD slot

Motorola)

One to watch - Motorola Moto X

Here's a handset to watch over the coming weeks – Motorola's new Moto X.

I used to be pretty partial to Motorola handsets back before the iPhone. They were well built, and while they relied heavily on gimmicks, delivered decent performance and long-term reliability.

The Moto X is interesting, not because it is manufactured by Motorola – now owned by Google – but because it takes a new approach to computation power. Rather than one chip with multiple cores doing the work, the Moto X has a total of eight cores spread over four different chips, each doing a different thing.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.2.2)
• Motorola X8 computing system, consisting of a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core clocked at 1.7GHz, a quad-core Adreno 320 GPU, and two low-power processors, one that is used for natural language and the other for contextual computing
• 4.7-inch AMOLED HD 720p display
• 10MP rear camera
• 2MP front camera
• 16/32GB internal storage
• NFC
• Wireless charging

Sony)

Sony Xperia Z

A newcomer to the list. Sony's Xperia Z packs a lot of cool features under the hood, sporting the sharpest LCD panel on the market, and a 13-megapixel camera capable of capturing HDR video.

This handset is also thin, coming in at a svelte 7.9-milimeters. But don't the thinness fool you, the Xperia Z is tough, featuring tempered glass, and a dustproof and waterproof build.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.1)
• 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor
• 5-inch TFT 1080p (1920 x 1080) display, powered by the Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2
• 13MP rear-facing camera
• 2MP front-facing 1080p HD video capture
• 16GB internal storage
• MicroSD card slot

HTC)

HTC One

The all-new HTC One is the first of two new kids on the block in terms of Android-powered smartphones.

Under the hood, the HTC One isn't all that different to Samsung's new Galaxy S4 — it features the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 CPU (although it runs a little slower), 2GB of RAM, and a 1080p screen — but it is also a very different beast thanks to Sense, the bold new user interface HTC has loaded into the smartphone. It also features an aluminum shell, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S4, which has a plastic shell.

This handset is confirmed as coming to Verizon later this summer.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.2) with HTC's Sense user interface
• 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600
• 4.7-inch Super LCD, Full HD, high-pixel-density (468ppi) display
• 4MP rear camera
• 2.1MP front camera
• 32/64GB internal storage

Motorola)

Motorola Razr i

Perhaps not the best — or best made — handset around, but the Razr i is nonetheless a decent, solid smartphone that won't break the bank.

The DuPont Kevlar fibre and Corning Gorilla Glass construction gives it a good feel in the hand, and it comes with an SD-card slot for storage expansion, something that the Nexus 4 doesn't have.

• Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), but Jelly Bean inbound
• 2GHz Intel Atom Z2460
• 4.3-inch Super AMOLED 540x960 display
• 8MP rear camera
• VGA front camera
• 8GB internal storage

LG)

LG Optimus G Pro

Smartphones are getting bigger, and the Optimus G Pro from LG is a real handful. The huge 5.5-inch display, combined with a quad-core Snapdragon processor makes this a serious piece of kit, but the overall size of this phatlet might put some people off.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.1)
• 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 CPU
• 5.5-inch 1920x1080 full HD IPS display
• 13MP rear camera
• 2.1MP front camera
• 32GB internal storage
• MicroSD slot

Karbonn)

Karbonn S5 Titanium

Some people love the flexibility that a dual-SIM handset can offer, and not only does the Karbonn S5 Titanium some kitted out with dual-SIM support, but it is also a solid, decent-spec handset that's functional enough to please most users.

• Jelly Bean (Android 4.1)
• 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 CPU
• 5-inch qHD IPS capacitive touch display
• 8MP rear camera
• 2MP front camera
• 4GB internal storage
• MicroSD slot

The performance bump to 10 Gbps, which was first announced in January, takes the standard to USB 3.1.

SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps makes use of a more efficient data encoding system and delivers more than double the effective data throughput rate of existing SuperSpeed USB. However, the new standard is fully backward compatible with existing USB connectors and cables.

Also, according to the USB Implementers Forum, compatibility with existing USB 3.0 software stacks and device class protocols is guaranteed, as well as with existing 5 Gbps hubs and devices and USB 2.0 products.

"The USB 3.1 specification primarily extends existing USB 3.0 protocol and hub operation for speed scaling along with defining the next higher physical layer speed as 10 Gbps," said Brad Saunders, USB 3.0 Promoter Group Chairman. "The specification team worked hard to make sure that the changes made to support higher speeds were limited and remained consistent with existing USB 3.0 architecture to ease product development."

Even Intel, which is pushing its own Thunderbolt technology, is happy with the announcement.

"The industry has affirmed the strong demand for higher through-put, for user-connected peripherals and docks, by coming together to produce a quality SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps specification," said Alex Peleg, Vice President, Intel Architecture Group. "Intel is fully committed to deliver on this request."

The reasons why Windows RT, and the Surface RT tablets in particular, failed are many and varied. There was lashings of brand confusion as consumers struggled to figure out the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT. There was the shock that Windows RT wasn't the Windows that people knew and loved, and instead a body-snatchers style clone couldn't do many of the things that people expected from Windows. There was the lack of compelling apps. Office was bodged to work on the platform, rather than being designed specifically for tablet usage.

There was also stiff competition from the iPad and the myriad of Android-powered tablets flooding the market.

And, to top all that off, the price being asked for the tablets was stratospherically high.

The problems, it seems, came down to the fact that Microsoft didn't understand how the PC hardware business worked, despite being at its core for several decades. Microsoft is used to dealing with software, a product that spends years in development and then sits on shelves for several more years bringing in license fees. Once Microsoft has put the effort into developing products like Windows and Office, it can print off product licenses as and when it needs them.

It's a long term game.

Hardware is different. Cycles are much smaller, and the product's profitable lifespan is scarily short, and beyond that the product becomes a liability. You can't just make one tablet and then clone that in response to demand. Manufactures build them in batches, in the millions. Rumor has it that some 6 million Surface RT tablets were made, which suggests that either Microsoft was staggeringly optimistic, or the OEM that built them wanted to maximize profits and somehow negotiated a deal that was favorable to them. The manufacturer, after all, doesn't care whether they sell well or languish on shelves, they get paid either way.

But all is not lost. I still think that there's room in the market for Windows RT, as long as Microsoft is willing to put the effort in.

• Rebrand the sucker – Who came up with the name "Windows RT" in the first place? Seriously, guys. I know Microsoft has come up with some real branding stinkers over the years (Kin, Zune, Azure …), but this is probably one of the worst because it took an existing product (Windows) and tacked on a suffix that means nothing. "Windows Tablet" or "Windows Tablet Edition" seem the most logical to me.
• Firesale the old hardware – Yes, that's going to mean a loss, but the Surface RT tablets are getting older – and more obsolete – with each passing day. Holding onto them isn't going to make them rise in value, unless the accountants at Redmond are planning to wait for them to become antiques.
• Focus on the benefits of Windows RT – I see this as the familiarity of Windows combined with the robustness of the iPad. The key benefit I see in Windows RT is that it is a no-nonsense platform that can't be trashed by poorly written apps and drivers. It's Windows without the fuss of Windows.
• Get more apps into the App Store – If third-party developers aren't willing to gamble on the platform, then Microsoft needs to put its own developers at work.
• Get the price right – Surface tablets don't have to be a premium product. In fact, unless Microsoft want's to go head-to-head against the iPad (something which I don't think Microsoft is in a position to do so right now) then it is better going after the budget to mid-range markets. This means budget to mid-range price tags.
• Sell. Sell! SELL! – Products don't sell themselves these days (why do you think Apple runs all those ads).

There's still a chance for Windows RT … but not while it is called that, and certainly not at the price Microsoft has been trying to foist it onto consumers for.

Is there a simple way I can control my desktop (and, if possible, my notebook) from my iPad or iPhone? I've had a look but I quickly got lost in a jargon! Is there something easy?

With the summer upon us – for a while at any rate – people want to spend more time away from their PCs and Macs. But that doesn't mean they don't want to be out of the loop. And a great way to do this is to set up your smartphone or tablet with the ability to remotely access your system.

I've tried dozens of solutions for controlling my systems remotely, but the one I keep coming back to – and the one that I use myself – is LogMeIn.

There are a number of reasons why I recommend LogMeIn over the competition:

• Easy to set up – you don't need to know anything about networking!
• There's a free version of the service that is ideally suited to 90 percent of users
• It's platform agnostic, which means that you can drive PCs or Macs from other PCs, Macs, iOS or Android devices
• Access multiple devices
• You can wake up a system that's off remotely if that system supports "wake on LAN" (most modern systems do)
• Connection between devices is encrypted
• Built-in multi-monitor support
• Syncs your clipboard, so you can copy data from a remote device

If you want more features – such as file transfer, remote printing, file sharing and more, then this is available for $69.95 per year. You can check out the features matrix here.

As long as you are in a 3G or Wi-Fi zone, you can get access to your systems. Screen quality will adjust according to your connections speed, but even at its worst, it is good enough for most applications.

You're probably wondering if it's really possible to control a desktop system from something as small as an iPhone? It is. You don't want to be doing something involved and complex like creating spreadsheets or editing images, but for quick and simple tasks, it is more than adequate.

Highly recommended!

Writing on the Webroot blog, security expert Dancho Danchev highlights the dangers facing corporations, both small and large, from low-cost USB flash drives that are capable of bypassing Microsoft's AutoRun protection measures present on Windows 7 and Windows 8.

The flash drives get around Microsoft's security mechanisms by tricking the operating system into thinking that the memory stick is not a memory stick but instead a 'Human Interface Device,' such as a keyboard.

Within 50 seconds of first plugging one of these devices into a PC, the malicious scripts or files contained on it will be run and the system is compromised. This load time is cut down substantially on subsequent mountings of the device. Without a physical inspection of the device, it's almost impossible to tell it apart from a benign flash drive.

And the price is cheap, with a modified 128MB USB stick costing $54, and a 8GB version costing only $64.

The barrier to system infiltration is low, you just need to know where to find them (no, I'm not telling you, so don't bother asking).

Think you're safe because you use OS X or Linux? Think again! There are devices being marketed that claim to be able to get infiltrate these operating systems too.

So where does this leave organizations who have adopted BYOD? In a bad place, that's where.

Currently there are no security patches for this problem, and given the low-level nature of the access, it remains to be seen whether this is even possible.

Then there's security software. While endpoint security can go some way to protecting against this sort of threat, this is a new threat and one that current security tools are not ready to deal with.

That leaves physical security. This includes:

• Physically protecting USB ports.
• Strict audit of USB hardware.
• Using tamper-proof USB devices, such as IronKey USB flash drives.
• Confiscation for inspection, and then destruction of unauthorized hardware.

All this might seem extreme, but at present this is all that companies have got to protect themselves against this low-cost, high-risk threat.

Google's previous attempt at making the jump from PC and post-PC devices and onto users TV didn't really catch on, with the Google TV initiative being a failure for both Google and the manufacturers. It was too much to expect users to replace an entire TV.

Then came the $299 Q media streaming device. That one failed before it was even released.

Now Google is taking a more modest approach with the Chromecast dongle.

Does it have what it takes to catch on?

What's right with the Chromecast?

• The price. At $35 it's not going to break the bank.
• Small, powerful, and quite an impressive feat of engineering.
• It's simple to use. Everything from hooking to up to using it is about as simple and idiot-proof as it can be. If you want endless cat videos on your TV, this is the easiest way to get them.
• No extra remote control to clutter up the living room (or get lost).
• It's platform-agnostic, being able to work with iOS and Android devices.
• Tight integration with the Google Play store.

What's wrong with the Chromecast?

• It needs a power supply (either a dedicated one, or power from a non-service USB port on a TV). This means more cable kludge.
• Content offering limited.
• The Chromecast is competing against much more established devices, such as the Apple TV.
• Yet another closed ecosystem.
• It's a "jam tomorrow" device, ordering promise of bigger and better things to come.

Verdict

The Chromecast is a cheap and cheerful streaming dongle, and if you want an easy way to get YouTube onto your TV – and you don't already have some sort of set-top box that can stream it for you – then for $35 you're hardly betting the farm.

But with that said, if you're buying this in hope of better things to come from it, I wouldn't bother. Google has a long track record of impressive, promise-filled launches that later amount to very little. 

While the new Nexus 7 looks very much like the old Nexus 7, it is in fact a very different animal, from the 7-inch 1920x1200 IPS LCD screen to the 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Pro S4 processor.

On the outside, the new Nexus 7 is thinner, narrower, and taller than the original model, and the textured coating on the back of the tablet is gone.

Internally, the new Nexus 7 offers a few surprises. First, the battery is a 3.8 V, 15 Wh, and 3950 mAh unit, which has less capacity that the 4326 mAh battery of the original Nexus 7, but still lasts an hour longer thanks to more efficient components.

Inside the new Nexus 7 is also an induction loop to facilitate wireless charging. This is the first time that I've seen this feature on a tablet, and I look forward to seeing it on more devices.

The hardware inside the Nexus 7 is also top-notch, and is a big win for component maker Qualcomm.

• Qualcomm APQ8064 Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core CPU (shown in the red square below)
• Adreno 320 GPU (on the Snapdragon SoC)
• Elpida J4216EFBG 512 MB DDR3L SDRAM, four ICs for 2 GB total (shown in the orange squares) 
• Analogix ANX7808 SlimPort transmitter
• Texas Instruments BQ51013B inductive charging controller
• Qualcomm Atheros WCN3660 WLAN a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and FM radio module
• SK Hynix H26M51003EQR 16 GB eMMC NAND flash
• Qualcomm PM8921 quick charge battery management IC

The highs

• Powerful hardware
• The sharpest 7-inch display on any tablet, with 323 pixels per inch
• Great sound system
• Great battery life
• The purest Android experience
• iFixit gives it a 7 out of ten for repairability

The lows

• The user interface is still not lag-free
• No SD card slot, so no easy storage expansion, which I find annoying, but this allows Google to upsell a a more profitable higher capacity Nexus 7
• A no-frills tablet

Should you buy?

With prices starting at $229 for the 16GB version, this tablets is both good value and well made, and it is a no-brainer for someone looking for a decent tablet at a good price.

If you owned an original Nexus 7 then this is a solid upgrade, but it seems that some of the rough corners – especially user interface lag – haven't been fully smoothed out. The lag isn't horrendous, but it is still there, and it if such things bother you then this small annoyance will quickly grind at your soul.

The Atom C2000, codenamed Avoton and Rangeley, is based on Intel's 22-nanometer Silvermont architecture and has efficiency at its core, pushing aside bit power consumers such as the Xeon and Phi parts.

Avoton is aimed at microservers, and is the successor to the Atom S1200 line, codenamed Centerton. Rangeley, on the other hand, is aimed at network and communications equipment.

The C2000 can handle up to 64GB of datacenter class ECC DDR3RAM, and comes with built-in controllers for Ethernet, USB 2.0, SATA and second-gen PCI Express. It also comes equipped with a cryptographic accelerator.

Atom C2000 SoCs can be fitted onto cards in a variety of configurations and be used to replace higher power draw Xeon silicon. For example, the first-gen SeaMicro SM1000 server made use of 256 dual-core Atom processors.

"Centerton is a good product, but it's nothing compared to what Intel is bringing to the market with Avoton," said Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel's Cloud Infrastructure group.

"Some customers have been telling us they still want the performance of Xeon, but the extra features in the SoC products, so this will be the first Xeon-based SoC," said Waxman.

The C2000 is part of Intel's Rack Scale Architecture (RSA) initiative, which is itself based on the Open Network Platform reference design. This model takes a conventional server and breaks it down into constituent components, or modules, such as power supply, storage, compute, and so on.

This modular approach is designed to reduce costs and increase flexibility by allowing modules to be shared.

The information comes via the Android enthusiast site Android Police, and the details suggest that the new tablet is on par, or perhaps a little faster, than the Nexus 4.

Here's what the new Nexus 7 brings to the table:

• Android 4.3 Jelly Bean
• A 7-inch 1920x1200 retina-display screen with a pixel density of 323 PPI
• Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz (same as the Nexus 4)
• 2GB of RAM (same as the Nexus 4)
• Adreno 320 GPU
• NFC support

This spec is pretty much in line with both what I expected and what rumors had suggested the hardware configuration would be.

Performance in benchmarks suggests that the new Nexus 7 is significantly faster than the old Nexus 7 (for example, the new Nexus 7 scoring 7,188 in 3DMark's Ice Storm Extreme test, compared to 1,877 for the old Nexus 7), but displaying comparable performance to the Nexus 4.

The increased performance should allow app to run faster and for the UI to feel smoother and more fluid.

One annoying fault that remains is audio latency. This is common to Android devices and is usually in the region of 80-90 milliseconds. Tests carried out by Android Police suggest that with the Nexus 7 this has been cut to 40 milliseconds, but should ideally be as low as 10 milliseconds.

Google is expected to unveil the new Nexus 7 later today. 

Christopher Mims and Richie King of Quartz throw at lot of pretty charts and numbers at readers in an attempt to convince them that the iPad market is saturated.

Rather, it seems that the overall market for tablets is beginning to saturate, leading to slowing sales of the iPad. Pew recently found that 34% of American adults now own a tablet, with even higher penetration among households earning $75,000 or more (56%) and college graduates (49%). It’s certainly possible that the drop in iPad sales is due to cannibalization by Android tablets—which now have almost the same global market share as iPads and are shipping in greater numbers each quarter—but many of those tablets are of the cheaper, lower-end variety.

But the charts and infographics aren't convincing me for a number of reasons.

First, here's a chart showing a saturated market. It shows iPod sales, a product that has ben on the market for over a decade. Everyone who wants one already has three.

This is a saturated market.

Apple has sold almost 400 million iPhones, and that market is still going strong, so it is a little hard to imagine that after three years and 155 million sold that the iPad is juggernaut has hit the buffers.

Then there are the sales themselves. Shipping 14.6 million iPads in a quarter is not shabby by any means. It took Apple 15 quarters (between Q3 07 and Q1 11) before it managed to shift this many iPhones in a quarter. On top of that, despite a fall in sales the last quarter was still Apple's fifth best quarter for the iPad (behind Q1 13, Q2 13, Q3 12, and Q1 12).

Then there's the 40 million iPads that Apple managed to shift during Q1 13 and Q2 13. Over the two quarter following the release of a new iPad and the iPad Mini, Apple shifted almost a third of all the iPads sold so far. High demand following the release of a new product invariably leads to a fall off in demand. This, in my opinion, is the most likely reason why iPad sales fell so dramatically. 

There are similar patterns present in the iPhone sales data.

Finally, what about all the new territories that Apple is expanding into, such as China. These markets are fresh, and about as far away from saturation as you can get.

The Quadro K6000 GPU, built around the company's successful Kepler architecture, delivers five-times higher compute performance and nearly double the graphics capability of its predecessor, the Nvidia Quadro 6000 GPU. The GPU is backed up by the world's largest and fastest graphics memory.

• 12GB ultra-fast GDDR5 graphics memory lets designers and animators model and render characters and scenes at unprecedented scale, complexity and richness 
• 2,880 streaming multiprocessor (SMX) cores deliver faster visualization and compute horsepower than previous-generation products 
• Supports four simultaneous displays and up to 4k resolution with DisplayPort 1.2 
• Ultra-low latency video I/O and support for large-scale visualizations

"The Nvidia Quadro K6000 GPU is the highest performance, most capable GPU ever created for the professional graphics market," said Ed Ellett, senior vice president, Professional Solutions Group at Nvidia in a statement to ZDNet. "It will significantly change the game for animators, digital designers and engineers, enabling them to make the impossible possible."

Also unveiled are new GPU for mobile workstations, including the flagship Quadro K5100M. These mobile GPU, also using the Kepler architecture, deliver what the company describes as "the best possible performance and graphics memory available on notebook platforms."

The Quadro K5100M is the latest in a line of Nvidia workstation notebook GPUs, a line that includes the Quadro K4100M, K3100M, K2100M, K1100M, K610M, and K510M GPUs.

The Quadro K6000 will be available later this year – Nvidia is slating it for a fall release – from the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo and other major workstation providers.

The new Quadro mobile workstation GPUs will also be available this fall from major mobile workstation OEMs.

Let's begin with Apple's flagship product, the iPhone.

The iPhone did remarkably well, selling 31.2 million over the quarter, compared to 26 million in the year-ago quarter, and a record for the June quarter. This represents a 20 percent unit sales growth compared to the year-ago quarter, which resulted in a 15 percent increase in revenue.

"We are especially proud of our record June quarter iPhone sales of over 31 million and the strong growth in revenue from iTunes, Software and Services," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. "We are really excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and we are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014."

So far, so good. But this is set to change.

Moving on to the iPad, Apple sold 14.6 million tablets (iPads and iPad Minis combined), down from 17 million from the same period a year ago. This represents a 14 percent unit sales decline compared to the year-ago quarter, which resulted in a 27 percent drop in revenue. This is a particularly precipitous fall for the iPad, and could result from a number of factors, from market saturation to consumer fatigue with Apple's tablet.

During the last quarter Apple only managed to shift 3.8 million Macs, down a fraction on the year-ago quarter sales of 4 million. The Q3 quarter Mac sales represents a 7 percent unit decline and a 1 percent drop in revenue compared to a year-ago quarter.

iPod sales have also stalled. Whereas once Apple could have relied on non-holiday quarter sales in the region of 10 million (increasing to over 20 million during a holiday quarter), this quarter's sales of 4.6 million are down a whopping 32 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. iPod revenues are also down, a massive 31 percent.

The era of the iPod is definitely drawing to a close.

Bottom line:

• Overall, quarterly sales for the iPhone was good, showing a very strong upward trajectories. Cumulative iPhone sales now exceed that of the iPod, with almost 400 million handsets sold.
• The iPad experienced a larger fall in sales than I had expected, and no doubt the potential reasons for this will be pored over by pundits over the coming days.
• Mac sales are holding at around the 4 million mark, showing some signs of a slight decline. Is the Mac suffering a similar fate to that of the PC? 
• The era of the iPod is quite definitely drawing to a close. It had a good run.

See also: Problems facing supersized iPads and iPhones

I don't say this lightly either. Like Baxter-Reynolds, my career has, for several decades, been firmly rooted in the PC industry, and at the core of that has been Windows. And like Baxter-Reynolds, I also possess the superpowers/voodoo/magic/power needed to make PCs do what I want them to do. Give me an IT-related problem, and with a little time and adequate resources, I can put together the PC equivalent of the cotton gin.

I can safely say that I don't want to see the end of the PC. Ideally, I want things to stay just as they are for a long time.

But they're not, and people who think that the downturn in PC sales is temporary, or those who think that Windows is just as relevant and popular as it ever was, are either kidding themselves, deluded, or just desperately trying to plaster over the cracks in a crumbling ecosystem.

But as with most things in life, wishing for something doesn't make it so.

At a time when interest in and demand for consumer electronics is at its highest, Windows should be reaping the rewards of decades of groundwork. But it isn't, and both earnings and sales are suffering.

So, what's behind the swing from relevance to irrelevance? I see several factors at work.

Note that for the purposes of this piece I'm going to exclude any effect that the popularity of Windows XP, or the unpopularity that Windows Vista, might have had on Windows, as well as ignoring the effect that Microsoft's major Windows 8 paradigm shift might have had.

Choice

Microsoft flourished at a time when there was little in the way of competition. Apple's Mac OS, which was released a year before Windows, didn't offer much in the way of competition, and neither did Linux, which came on the scene in 1991.

Nowadays there's a lot more choice. In addition to direct desktop and notebook competition from OS X, there's Android and iOS kicking up a stir on the mobile front. And while the PC market is effectively saturated, demand continues to be strong for smartphone and tablets.

Choice invariably leads to the fracturing of markets, and this is what we are seeing happen with the PC.

Price

Since people only have so much cash to spend on tech, while shiny new smartphones and tablets are grabbing consumer attention, PCs are being shouldered out of the limelight.

At a time when everyone – consumers and enterprise buyers alike – are price sensitive, a $300 slate or smartphone is far more compelling than a $500 PC.

Also, at a time when component prices are being pushed into the dirt, the Windows operating system has become the most expensive part of most PCs. This is not the case for OS X, Android, and iOS devices. Whiule OEMs can put pressure on the supply chain to keep hardware prices as low as possible, there's not a lot they can do about the cost of Windows.

A shift of focus from the OS to the browser and cloud services

Once upon a time, when you wanted to do something on a PC, you fired up an app. Now, when people want to do something, they fire up a web browser and type in a URL.

The thing about web services is that they are platform agnostic. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, along with countless other web services, do not depend on being viewed from a Windows PC. In fact, many are being increasingly optimized for non-PC platform.

What people want nowadays is not Windows, but a connection to the Internet.

Why pay for CPU power, RAM, and storage when you can rent – or use for free – a server on the web?

Moore's law

Thanks to an ever-increasing supply of computational cycles, RAM, and storage, smartphones and tablets are shifting from being "companion devices" to standalone devices capable of doing real work. What once needed a PC can now be done on a smartphone or tablet.

Even I'm seeing the effect of this. Unless I'm doing some very specific tasks – rendering high-end video, carrying out complex photo processing, doing some sort of heavy computational lifting – I can use my iPhone, iPad or Nexus 7. And even when I need more power than post-PC devices can offer me, less and less do I need a high-end, monster PC.

Low-cost post-PC devices have become "good enough" even for content creation.

Simplicity, or lack of it

Bottom line, some people don't have the time, energy, inclination, experience, or know-how to make Windows do what they want it to do. I know that there are times when I don't.

And I'm not alone.

When I read tweets from long-time tech veteran – and the person who, unbeknownst to him, was responsible for inspiring me to write about tech – Jon Honeyball about his struggles getting a printer working on Windows 8, that's a clear indication to me that the Windows ecosystem is broken. Sure, printers have always been the spawn of the devil, but given the ease with which I can connect my smartphones and tablets to a whole host of devices – from fitness wristbands to my car stereo – hooking a PC up to a printer should be a snap.

Over the two decades that I've been helping people make the most from their PCs, I've lost count of the number of times that I've told people to delve into the Windows registry or run some arcane command that, to them, looks like it might summon the undead. I thought I was helping, but in the long run I was part of the problem. I was helping a bloated, convoluted, increasingly user-unfriendly product retain its dominance.

The bottom line

Windows, along with the PC, is going to be around for years to come. We're not talking about the sudden, premature death of the two icons of the modern IT world. Instead, what we are seeing is a slow, but certain, slide into irrelevance. Just as the stone ax gave way to one made of bronze, the Windows-powered PC must now give way to better, more customized, more refined tools.

The rumors suggest that the iPhone will see a bump up from the current 4-inches to 4.3-inches, while the iPad gets supersized from 9.7-inches up to a colossal 13-inches.

It's easy to think that scaling up a device is simple – just make a bigger screen and bung the electronics inside – but in fact there is nothing simple about it, especially when the company behind it is crazy about delivering a good, all-round user experience. In fact, there's a lot to take into consideration.

Here's just a few considerations:

Ergonomics

Are the bigger screen easy to use? Apple made a big deal of the fact that a 4-inch screen on the iPhone 5 meant that it could still be operated single-handedly with a thumb. Has Apple found a way to make an iPhone with a 4.3-inch screen that can be operated in the same manner?

In my testing of handsets on the market with screens larger than 4-inches, I have to admit that adding 0.1-inches to a screen can make the difference between the device being usable or awkward to use. 

As for a 13-inch iPad, well, that's an absolutely huge screen, and if you've ever handled a screen of this size – I have – then you'll know that it presents some huge design challenges. Weight and thickness are of paramount importance.

Is this why Apple is interested in Liquidmetal?

Battery life

While adding 0.3-inches to the iPhone might not be seen as much, adding 3.3-inches to the iPad means a massive increase in power consumption. This will undoubtedly mean bigger batteries, and this in turn means a heavier tablet. More weight potential means a clumsier experience.

Supply chain

Can the supply chain deliver enough large screens to meet demand? There has already been rumors that the new iPhone has been delayed because of screen shortages. Display output is measured in area, not panels, and adding a few inches can put significant pressure on panel makers.

Apple sells millions of iPhones and iPads every quarter, and anything that puts a crimp in the supply chain could cost the company hundreds of millions in revenue.

Price

Apple has managed to keep the price point for the iPhone and iPads constant. New iDevices cost the same as the old iDevices they are replacing. No price tag shocks for upgraders.

Bigger can mean more expensive, so Apple will need to squeeze the supply chain in an effort to keep the price tags on the bigger devices in check.

Fragmentation

Apple has worked hard to keep different screen sizes from causing fragmentation within the iDevice ecosystem. Apps scale nicely between the iPhone and iPad, the iPad and iPad Mini, and retina display and non-retina display devices.

The bottom line

While there undoubtedly a fascination with increasing screen size when it comes to Android and Windows devices, Apple is essentially only competing against itself, and the pressure to add more inches regardless of whether they are useful or not, doesn't exist.

This means that Apple doesn't need to take chances. Instead, it can bring products to market that consumers actually want, as opposed to forcing unwanted design tweaks onto users.