Google Inc, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, debuted a touchscreen version of the Chromebook laptop, stepping up its challenge to Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc in computer hardware.
A Wi-Fi only version of the Pixel Chromebook went on sale in the US on Thursday for US$1,299, Google said at an event in San Francisco.
In April, the company plans to introduce a US$1,449 version with access to so-called long-term evolution wireless networks, the fastest available.
Google, already leading in the market for smartphones with its Android software, is expanding in hardware to lure more users to its Web-based services with Chromebooks that rely on Internet applications instead of built-in software.
The company is taking a risk by pushing into the high end of a personal-computer market that has been slammed by diminishing demand.
Laptop purchases have tapered off as consumers and businesses increasingly favor smartphones and tablets.
“There’s a limited number of things you can do well with these types of machines,” IDC analyst Al Hilwa said. “The price is fairly high.”
In June, Google unveiled a US$199 touchscreen tablet, Nexus 7, to compete with Apple’s iPad as well as the Surface, a tablet introduced that month by Microsoft.
An older Chromebook made by Acer Inc (宏碁) costs US$199, while some versions from Samsung Electronics Co and Hewlett-Packard Co cost more than US$300.
Google, based in Mountain View, California, has stumbled with some previous forays into hardware. The company’s Chrome laptops have been slow to gain traction with consumers, as have the Google TV set-top boxes and high-definition televisions.
“First it was the battle of hardware, then it was the battle of software, now it’s the battle of hardware, software, browsers and eyeballs,” said Laurence Balter, an analyst at Oracle Investment Research.
The Pixel machine will be built by a manufacturer in Taiwan, Google said, without naming the company.
It has 4.3 million pixels, more than twice as many as a typical high-definition television, and features a 12.85-inch screen, Google said.
The device has a glass touchpad, and it runs Google’s Chrome operating system, it added.
“Touch is here to stay and is the future,” Chrome senior vice president Sundar Pichai said at the event.
“We wanted to design something which was very high end and premium for power users — people who are very, very demanding of their laptops,” he added.
Best Buy Co will sell the Pixel Chromebook on its Web site, as will Google, the company said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day