All-In-One with Voice and Gesture Recognition Coming

Korean semiconductor and electronics company Samsung is preparing a new All-In-One system that will feature a rather large 27” screen and new user interface technologies.

When it comes to PCs, no “smart” technologies seem to be entering the market. The only smart and intuitive feature that seems to have really penetrated the tablet market and it also present on touch enable PCs is the “swipe” feature. Samsung and LG have new SmartTV that listen to you voice and recognize your face and oral commands so it’s only normal to ask ourselves when are these going to trickle down to the PC market? Microsoft’s Kinect is still slow to penetrate the market as a standard feature and voice recognition in now only available from specialized software.

It seems like Samsung wants to change all of this and the company’s new AIO concept not only features a 27” screen with the 10-point touch interface that everybody is touting, but also brings gesture and voice recognition. The integrate camera will monitor your gesture and a specialized software will interpret your move while voice commands will be also a standard feature. The beautiful screen sports a nice 2560 by 1440 pixel resolution and the system has USB 3.0 connectivity and Gigabit Ethernet.

Read more »

Toshiba’s “Transformer” Unhidden for a Glimpse

Japanese giant technology company Toshiba seems rather open to new ideas and concepts. It is now clear that ASUS’ Transformer concept is becoming a real product type and Toshiba acknowledges that and prepares a Transformer-like tablet of itself.

For us, the users, this can only mean good news as competition, may that be on the performance/quality side or on the price front, is always welcomed. In reality, a basic tablet user that wants to read, browse the internet, review some picture albums and listen to some music while doing any of these will most likely happen to have to write an email or just type something. When it comes to computer communications, typing is the most important and prevalent means of communication. Sure there’s voice and video, but most often you’ll happen to have to type a document, email or simply have to sustain a longer IM conversation because of the lack of proper connection for voice or video communication.

For any such activities, a keyboard dock for any tablet will prove most useful. The idea that a keyboard dock should do more than just allow typing is the most logical consequence of constructive thinking. Therefore designing a dock that allows doubling the battery life of you tablet and also brings a whole set of ports and connectors is a very good idea that’s very likely to be welcomed by the buyers. Now we see that Toshiba acknowledged all of these and has displayed at Computex 2012 a new tablet that comes with a detachable keyboard dock just like ASUS’ Transformer. The dock brings three extra USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI connector and an SD Card reader. There not much info on the device and we don’t even know if the dock also brings an extra battery as Toshiba hasn’t shared anything with us just yet, but we salute the company’s first foray into this product type.

Read more »

First 21:9 UltraBook Revealed by Toshiba

Japanese electronics and technology giant Toshiba is always trying the enthusiasts filled Japanese market with novel and sometimes strange solutions. The company’s new 21:9 UltraBook is a perfect example of good technology in a very strange package.

The new mobile computing unit from Toshiba is called Satellite U840W and although it reportedly weighs in at a little bit less than four pounds, the company is calling it an UltraBook. The only thing that could be characterized as “ultra” about the Toshiba’s Satellite U840W is the screen format and that’s rather an ultra-weird 21:9 format sporting an atypical 1792 by 768 pixel resolution. We haven’t the slightest idea about what Toshiba is trying to achieve with this strange design, but the company claims the old cliché that “it can display widescreen movies without black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.” Does this mean that all those TV and display manufacturers that claimed that the 16:9 format is ideal for the FullHD widescreen resolution were lying through their teeth? We would gladly welcome the 4:3 format along with the logical and decent 16:10 format back in our life if any of the manufacturers has the decency to deliver the same amount of screen surface that they were offering half a decade ago.

This 21:9 format we would respectfully let it just for Toshiba’s PR and marketing guys along with the managing leaders that decided to market such a device. The rest of Toshiba’s Satellite U840W is pretty decent performance wise. We have Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor with a rather peculiar 10 GB or RAM maximum configuration and a nice tandem of storage devices. Toshiba’s Satellite U840W comes with a 500 GB HDD, but also has a 32 GB SSD for caching. The body of the laptop has a nice metal texture and WiDI support along with USB 3.0 connectivity is also present. The model will likely have two names, Satellite 840W for Europe and 845W for the rest of the world.

And for the final disappointing tough, despite the screen looks like it’s a 17.3” or 18.4” model, it’s just a meager 14.4” with a mediocre TN panel. There’s no word on battery life and whole thing is not what we’d call thin. The keyboard is backlit with a nice blue light and the whole thing costs about 900 quids. That’s around 1400 USD or 1150 EUR for the buyers that like strange experiments.

Read more »

Toshiba Presents LX830 All-In-One with 10-Point Touch Input

Technology giant, Japanese company Toshiba has chosen Computex 2012 as right moment to launch the company’s new All-In-One (AIO) system. The LX830 AIO from Toshiba has lots of connectivity options and comes packed with a wireless keyboard and mouse.

The new AIO system from Toshiba is powered by Intel’ latest generation “Ivy Bridge” processors and can accommodate up to 16 GB of DDR3 RAM memory and up to 2 TB of storage, but there’s no mention on whenever the storage bay is 3.5” or just 2.5”. The LX830 feature a large 23-inch display that sports a fitting FullHD 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution. The display is also a touch input device with support for up to ten simultaneous input points. We don’t really understand what the use for 10 simultaneous touch inputs, but we won’t delve into that right now. Toshiba’s new LX830 All-In-One system also comes with rich connectivity options such as Wireless N, Bluetooth 4.0 and Gigabit Ethernet.

There are also six USB ports available, but only two of them are USB 3.0. There is also a HDMI input so that the LX830 can be used as a display option for other devices such as smartphones, laptops or tablets. We’re quite pleased that Toshiba managed to sneak in 6 USB ports, but we wonder why only two of them are USB 3.0. At 920 USD, Toshiba’s new LX830 All-In-One system could have included at least four USB 3.0 ports along with an SD Card reader. Toshiba’s new LX830 All-In-One system does also have an integrated TV Tuner along with a coaxial cable input. This is a nice addition, but we would have rather had that as an option. Unfortunately Toshiba’s integrated optical disc drive unit is also like Acer’s and is not a slot-in loading model, but rather a simple slim ODD like in most laptops.

The problem with such a slim ODD is the fact that you need both of your hands to insert a disc inside as you must provide support to the tray when you’re fitting the disc in. Also the laser lens is exposed to dust, moisture and accidental scratches or simple hand grease. We would have liked to see a slot-in ODD just like ASUS’ Transformer AIO has. Toshiba’s new LX830 All-In-One system is about 600 quids  in England or 920 USD for the American buyers. The dwellers on the old continent that would like to enjoy those 10 touchpoints will have to shell out about 740 EUR for Toshiba’s new desktop.

Read more »