We’re expecting Baytrail products to show this morning. We’ll hear about Ultrabooks and we’ll hear about Windows and Android mobility.

This article will update with relevant pics and information as the keynote progresses. (Start at 0900 San Francisco time)

0900: starting.

I think we just heard a new ‘bong bong bong bong’

First up is  Doug Fisher who sets the stage.

Hermann Eul will now go into details….

Smartphones….we want more. “It all starts with great CPU”

The Silvermont Core….

“Spans an Ultra Dynamic Range”

Announcing  Bay Trail.

Next generation of Intel multi-core. Intel HD graphics.

“Ample” performance.

Advanced imaging capabilities.

Asus announce T100 Baytrail Transformer

HD display. over 10hrs of battery life.

“Perfect for productivity.”

[Update: Pic from post-event Q&A]

Hermann: Baytrail wonderful for mobile gaming.

It’s demo time… Online shopping.

Nice avatar and measurements-based online shopping demo. Animated catwalk rendering impressive.

These manufacturers will release Baytrail based products.

Dell. Windows 8 8-inch ‘Venue’ Windows devices.

Branding – Venue – a range of products launching ni October.

What comes next….

We just had a lightshow….

Next up, Kirk Skaugen….

New 2-in-1’s coming.

Prices down to $349. Clearly Ultrbooks and BayTrail deivces mixing in this sector.

Sony Vaio Duo 13. Dell XPS 11, Sony Vaio Tap 11, Dell XPS 12 get a little demo. All info on these over at Ultrabooknews.com

Time 10:00

Tami Reller from Microsoft now on stage…

“Big fans of the category”

Windows 8.1 RTM released to developers yesterday.

2 million downloads from MSDN so far.

Windows 8 momentum. August “highest amount of activations in the history of Windows 8.”

Apps: Facebook, Foursquare coming. 8.1 will help the apps ecosystem.

VPro Ultrabooks and 2-in-1.

SSD Pro 1500. NGFF form factor helping to reduce time of disk encryption.

Intel Pro WiDi announced.

BMW on stage talking about Intel in their cars. Traffic info, etc. Also talking about IT infrastructure. [time for a break….]

50000 VPro Ultrabooks will be distributed internally at BWM.

Baytrail M and D…

140 design wins across this sector. Non touch clamshells down to $199 2-in-1’s down to $349

Branded with Celeron and Pentium capability.

What’s coming in 2014…

Broadwell 14nm systems….

30% power reduction for the same performance level on Broadwell

Perceptual computing being integrated into frames with 3D cam capability.

Kirk closes with a slide about developer opportunity.

Doug Fisher back on stage…

Skyrim with touch overlay shown…

Doug plugs IDZ – Intel Developer Zone. Online resources for developers.

Google announcement coming,….? Google flashes up on screen.

Android optimizations highlighted, NDK bridging technology, tuned Dalvik Runtime, optimized drivers.

Highlighted: Tools for Android.

New Chromebooks coming on Baytrail.

hp 14 with optional 4G

Acer, Toshiba, Asus Chromebox

Improve battery life by 50%

Coming for Holiday.

Google on stage. Sundar Pichai

Latest version of XDK for HTML5 announced. Doug talks about cloud combined with XDK and promotes IDZ again.

Keynote finished.

Update: Baytrail tablet pics. (Post Keynote event.)

Early reviews of CloverTrail devices are positive and that’s making investors and analysts sit up and take note. Deutsche Bank have just issued a note to their customers saying some very positive things about the platform and notes that it is competitive against ARM-based solutions.

Read the full story

Those of you that have been following me for a while know that I also have my finger in another pie…

Read the full story

Some members of the media were granted access to a Sony event held in Germany yesterday. Front and center at the event were the Sony S1 and S2 Tablets (which were first announced back in April), both of which take a differentiated approach to the tablet solution. Quite a few sites got some hands-on time, so let’s go through some of the general impressions.

As one would expect, Sony seems to have nailed the hardware design. The S1 is a “full-sized” 9.4 inch tablet running Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Most of the press seem to feel that its design invokes the feeling of a folded newspaper or magazine. One item of note is that the rear of the device is textured, which should result in better grip. I think a lot of tablet manufacturers fail to recognize the importance of grip in a tablet device. Good grip can compensate for a device that might otherwise be deemed too heavy.

In stark contrast to the S1’s design, the S2 features two 5.5 inch screens, and folds into a clamshell position for transport. It also currently runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb. I suspect that the actual OS version at launch might be a step-up of the 3.x-series by the time the S1 and S2 ship. Sony was mum on specs today. However, they did announce that the S2 will launch running on AT&T’s 4G network. AT&T has an HSPA+ network now, and is deploying LTE networks this summer. No one from the press appeared to get specific word on which variant the S2 will support, or if it will support both.

While most 10-inch Android Tablets are deploying with 1200 X 800 displays, the S1 has a 1280 X 768 screen. Despite the slightly lower resolution, the report from Germany is that viewing angles were good from both side and overhead perspectives.

Both devices are Playstation Certified. The jury is stil out on whether or not this feature is truly value-added. It certainly has not hepled reception of the Xperia Play, which debuted to lukewarm reviews.

This Is My Next caught a solid video of the S1 and S2 in action:

All-in-all, the hands-on reports seem to indicate positive interest. Of course, the proof will have to wait until the actual launches. No one is really certain how the Sony proprietary customizations of the Android OS (Quick View and Quick Touch) will be received. Sony’s Android solutions have not been hits so far, neither have they been complete failures. We’ll definitely let you know if these devices hit the mark or not when they release later this year.

This is totally unplanned so it should work out perfectly!

Update: The Live Session is over.
I’ll be writing a follow-up soon but please check out the recorded videos on YouTube – They’re well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PL21405378FDB03DF9

Late notice: Sascha has turned up in my neighborhood with the Playbook, Transformer and iPad2. I have the Tab 7, HTC Flyer, and Iconia Tab A500 in the studio so it makes sense, while we have the opportunity,  to go live!

We are live right now! Meetmobility.com/live

The chat is open already so if you’re looking at a tablet purchase in the next weeks, get over there now because this is a rare opportunity to see the best. The tablets aren’t bad either!

Spread the word.

@chippy and @Sascha_p on Twitter for latest information.

Jkk (via SlashGear) posted this video of the HTC Flyer tablet earlier today. It gives a good idea of how HTC expects people to use their first Android tablet (though we can’t forget about the HTC Shift!). None of what you’ll see in the video is footage of actual use though, it’s all proof-of-concept. Have a look at the video below, and scroll further down to see Chippy’s brief inking test with the device at CeBIT.

The video shows off the HTC well, but it’s important to look through the marketing speak. After some time with HTC’s ‘Sense’ UI on Android, I’m not looking forward to the version that’s designed for tablets. It looks like they’ve bulkified their already-chunky widgets for use with the bigger screen.

The section about gaming is very interesting but will probably go overlooked by most because the video didn’t give a lot of info about it. HTC has made a sizable investment in the cloud gaming service OnLive, according to SlashGear, and there will be a version of their controller than can connect to the HTC Flyer and allow you to play console quality games through it. There’s also a virtual on-screen controller option but that’s pretty much a joke if you are trying to play any real-time game. This will be the first Android tablet with OnLive integration and could give HTC an advantage over it’s competitors if the service stays exclusive to HTC. With the service you can be gaming on your computer, then pause the game and pick up right where you left off on the Flyer, that’s pretty darn cool.

It’s clear that HTC has taken a lot of inspiration from the LiveScribe, and they are saying that inking and notes will be integrated with Evernote which is really good news. The closer that HTC can work with Evernote, the better. Evernote has a lot of experience with (PC) tablets and note taking. I’m just hoping that the integration will be sufficient to create wholesome workflow. Without thorough integration, people are still going to have to lug their computers around to work anyway, which sort of defeats the purpose of attempting to relegate everything to a tablet. Google Cloud Print could also be an important piece to the all-in-one productivity puzzle that HTC appears to be aiming for.

As for the ‘write anywhere’ capability, it may be less useful than it seems. After looking at Chippy’s test with the inking (video below) it appears as though as soon as one writes on the screen, it immediately takes a screenshot and then annotates the screenshot, instead of actually interfacing with the content on the screen. That’s just a guess though and it’s early software, so we’ll have to wait and see how it really pans out.

One thing that I’m not happy about with on the Flyer (other than the ugly white plastic on the back) is the lack of pen-silo for the stylus. Despite how much they’d like to say that the Flyer is totally designed for inking, I don’t know how convinced I am if there is no way to store the stylus on the device. Folks are not going to want to haul that around as a separate piece, especially if they don’t use it all the time.

Here’s Chippy’s brief hands-on with inking on the HTC Flyer:

Meet:Mobility Podcast 63 is now available.

JKK (JKKMobile), Chippy (Carrypad) and special guest Al Sutton (Funky Android) talk in depth about Honeycomb and some of the tablet and netbook news from the last 2 weeks including Fusion, WebOS and Galaxy Tab 2

Listen, subscribe and download at MeetMobility here.

The readers here at umpcportal are generally a productive bunch. Many of you have been following the swiss-army knife of mobile computing, the handheld windows pc, for years and judging by the comments here, I know that a lot of you know exactly what you want.
Given that you’re an intelligent bunch I wanted to ask you your opinion on Windows Tablets.

Intel have just announced a run of Windows tablet PC’s for 2011 and we can expect them to be on both the Pinetrail and the new Oaktrail platform. Weight is likely to be 800gm and battery life no more than 5hrs given the size constraints. Capacative  screens are likely to feature heavily and you can guarantee that there will be more than one overlay package included that is supposed to make Windows 7 finger-friendly.

My position is much as it has always been. Mobile PC’s have their place but the requirement for full desktop operating systems is going down, not up. Sure, with a marketing push there might be some sales to be had but that’s nothing to do with ‘requirement’ right?

And what about the tablet form factor? Is that the best form factor to be putting out with a mouse-driven OS?

I’m interested to hear your views and specifically, thoughts about the following questions.

– Is the requirement for Windows 7 Tablets going up or down?

– Is the tablet form factor the best for a full handheld pc?

– What features are needed to increase the requirement of Windows handheld devices?

– What are the major selling points of a Windows handheld PC?

– Will marketing Windows Tablets as consumer devices be a good long term strategy?

Looking forward to your thoughts.