I’m at the Mobile World Congress in Spain this week and although I’ve been covering a lot of phone and tablet news (over at Carrypad.com) I’ve also been keeping an eye open for Ultrabook news. I didn’t have to look far because when Intel talks about one silicon product, it’s now inextricably linked with the others via the ‘Compute Continuum’ which isn’t just a keynote dream any more, it’s a real project to mesh devices from various parts of Intel’s product range.
In addition to the expected smartphone, tablet and AppUp announcements at Mobile World Congress, Intel’s European teams will be holding a ‘Platform of Choice’ event on the 28th Feb which will offer you a update on Intel’s activities in various sectors, including Ultrabooks. There will be both global and European focus at the event. I’ll be attending and I hope to see you there too.
Thanks to everyone that joined in the live testing session yesterday evening. It was totally worth the effort because we uncovered a few more nuggets of information and a lot of data on gaming as well as confirming battery life and performance. The videos are embedded at the bottom of this article.
The bad news first. During the evening we experienced two power-downs on removing / inserting the power plug while we were in a game. It was an instant-off situation [see it on the live video here.]. Apparently others have experienced this too. I testing today, I experienced an instant shut-off while World Of Warcraft was loading (on battery mode.)
Read the full story
We’ve given you a heads up (or two) about Intel’s AppUp application store wanting to expand into Ultrabooks. It’s a move that could even see some synergy in the Windows 8 Metro UI [Tenuous, Insider] and could be a serious earner for both Intel and developers but it needs seeding. That’s why Intel are offering prizes. In this case $250 for a Web app submission and and five chances to win an Ultrabook.
Echoing what we reported a few days ago is the official announcement that AppUp, the Intel-funded app store for Meego, Windows and Tizen will expand its product focus out to all PCs. Originally Intel had a keen eye on the Atom ecosystem for AppUp but by moving to support HTML5 apps, they think that all PC platforms could benefit.
Peter Biddle who heads-up the AppUp project at Intel had this to say in a blog post introducing the AppUp Elements conference in Seattle.
“Today we disclosed the expansion of the Intel AppUp program to support all PCs with a special focus on the new class of super-slim PCs known as UltrabooksTM. Intel expects as much as 40% of the worldwide laptop market next year to be captured by Ultrabooks, and with fast processors coupled with slick designs this is clearly another massive market for developers.”
From the moment I saw the Samsung Series 7 slate.with the Appup logo on it at IFA I knew there was something going on. It makes complete sense to use the Ultrabook category as a way to expand and springboard the Appup app store and to add extra value to Ultrabooks. I reported on the value of it here.
When I saw a Samsung Series 9 on the Appup booth at IDF last week I began to ask questions. Everyone kept their mouths shut. Now I know why.
In a list of sessions published on the Appup Elements event site today my suspicions are confirmed.
In this interview I made yesterday I ask Peter Biddle, General Manager of Intels AppUp application store project about the progress of AppUp so far, we talk about AppUp on MeeGo (which isn’t being launched this week) and why developers might want to move to MeeGo as a platform. There’s information on the process of converting apps from the Windows to the MeeGo base and Peter tells us that they are looking at other types of content for the AppUp channel.
Stay tuned for news coming from Intels midday event today. Rene James who heads up all of Intels software activities, will be presenting at 1230
Intel have scored a hit for their AppUp store. If you’ve got a netbook you can download it via the AppUp store. I’ve tested it and it’s working really nicely. I’ll be doing more ‘testing’ as soon as I can!
This is the sort of application that will start to attract attention for AppUp and while I suspect it was an Intel-supported port by Rovio, it won’t take too many of these before AppUp becomes a well-known and self-seeding product. The stats from this will be very interesting indeed. I’m sure Intel will be watching how many people download AppUp and keeping tabs on numbers from Rovio!
You can download AppUp and buy Angry Birds for your netbook here.
So here I am, in Las Vegas, stuck in a room testing games. Life’s hard!
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