Seeking to attract more original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to develop Windows 8-powered PC products, Microsoft Corp yesterday took the stage at Computex in Taipei and introduced the new features of Windows 8.1.
“We want to be the best partner to all hardware manufacturers, from the way we engage and invest in new product designs to the experience we jointly deliver to customers,” Nick Parker, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s OEM division, said at a product demonstration featuring new Windows 8-powered desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Microsoft is scheduled to make a complete introduction of its Windows 8.1 operating system at its Build Conference, which runs from June 26 through June 28 in San Francisco, California.
Demand for Windows 8-based PC products has been lukewarm since the operating system was launched in October last year.
Acer Inc (宏碁) president Jim Wong (翁建仁) said on the sidelines of the trade show forum that “Windows 8.1 is an improved operating system but whether it could meet consumers’ expectations remains unclear.”
“It will take time for consumers to learn the updated Windows 8 operating system and get familiar with it. We will watch market reactions closely,” Wong said.
Separately, Intel Corp yesterday said its latest chip for tablets and ultra-thin notebook computers is in final testing and is likely to be made available ahead of the Christmas shopping spree.
The new Atom system-on-a-chip — Bay Trail — is based on a 22-nanometer Silvermont microarchitecture and includes quad-core processing and Gen 7 graphics.
Supporting Windows and Google Inc’s Android operating systems, the next-generation chip would offer significantly improved processing and graphics performance, the company said.
In addition to the new chip for tablets, Intel will provide a product codenamed “Merrifield” for smartphones, which it says will improve performance by 50 percent and allow longer battery life than current versions.
Products powered by Merrifield will be available early next year, Intel 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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts