HTC to enter the tablet war.....again?

HTC is rethinking to re-enter the tablet market again, as far as NPD DisplaySearch, a consulting firm says, with a 10.1 inch full HD screen , windows 8 powered tablet in the pipeline, though no official confirmation from HTC or Microsoft has been made as yet. Clearly, HTC is on a high with the rave reviews of its latest smartphone, the HTC One , and though they had a dismal start in 2011 with the Flyer and Jetstream tablets (never heard of 'em?) which failed to do anything impressive, HTC knows it can get some share of the market pie that has been snatched off the goliath Apple in the tablet scene.And with HTC's innovative camera and design, plus the safe expectation of something as superb as the One really promises some action from HTC this year for sure. So HTC is one more name to look out for in tablet domains now. Stay with us for more updates about this and more upcoming devices

Quantity not a problem as Windows 8 hits 20,000 app mark , and that too mostly FREE!!

Microsoft's freshly-launched Windows 8 now offers 20,000 apps with almost 90 per cent of them coming with a price tag of zero.

Win App Update reports that there are currently 20,610 apps globally in the Windows Store, reckoning that the big 20,000 mark was hit on Tuesday November 20.

The same source added that 17,958 of those apps are free – but notes that not all apps are available in all countries.

Plenty of apps

Canada has the lion's share, it seems, with the lucky Canucks able to access 14,000 of the Windows 8 apps available.

The US comes in second, with 12,675 apps in their store and the UK is only slightly behind with around 11,000.

It's worth remembering that these figures haven't come from Microsoft so they might be slightly out – either way, it looks like Windows 8 is well on its way to being nicely stocked in the app arena.

The Mac App Store reportedly hit 10,000 apps back in April this year which is a slower rise given that Apple launched its desktop app hub in January 2011. However, the company did report that it hit 100 million Mac App Store downloads in December of that year which is not too shabby.

Windows 8, meanwhile, launched in October 2012 and looks to have added over 7000 apps in the last 17 days alone.

Quantity doesn't seem to be much of an issue for the fledgling OS – quality, however, is another story.

From Win App Update via TNW , Techradar

Samsung's Ultra Touch Windows 8 ultrabook to start at $809.99

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Samsung is taking the wraps off its 13-inch Series 5 Ultra Touch Windows 8 ultrabook today, and at a starting price of $809.99 for the Core i3 version, it’s one of the more reasonably-priced machines we’ve seen so far. An extra $50 will buy you a Core i5 processor upgrade, but otherwise, both models will have the same 1366x768 10-point touch display, 4GB of RAM, and 500GB hard drive with 24GB of ExpressCache — Samsung’s term for high-speed solid state storage directly on the logic board. The Series 5 Ultra Touch isn’t breaking any records with its 3.83-pound weight, but it’s not bad for a machine with a spinning hard drive.
The company also took a minute to touch on its renamed Ativ Smart PC 500T and 700T Windows 8 tablets, which will be selling for $749.99 and $1,199.99, respectively. While both will be running Windows 8 and not the more limited Windows RT, that extra $450 will buy you an Intel Core i5 processor (the 500T comes with an Atom Z2760), a bump from 2GB to 4GB of RAM, and a doubling of storage, from 64GB to 128GB. No word so far on availability, but we’re expecting all of these to be available for Windows 8’s October 26th launch.

Frankly, this is much better than the crappy ultrabooks out there under 1K$, and at least for now is one of the best buys out there

Windows 8 global launch kicked off with event in Shanghai, China

Windows 8, the much anticipated PC OS, was just launched in China a few hours ago, although many are still waiting for October 26 - the fateful day. As we understand, the global launch of Windows 8 will be marked by not one single event, but a whole series of them. The launch will start in China (October 23rd 10:00am local time), and end with the US party on October 26.
Today's Shanghai event isn't exactly exciting, mostly because we have already known pretty much everything about Windows 8 through the two preview versions and the RTM version. Nonetheless, the presence of Microsoft Surface tablets can somewhat compensate the lack of surprise. Chinese site WPDang was invited to the party, and live blogged the whole thing. To conclude it, highlights of the events are:

• Steven Sinofsky was there. Yeah Sinofsky the man. Not on a Surface skate board though.
• Over 50 Windows 8 devices in the hands-on zone, varing from tiny tablets all the way up to all-in-ones.
• Surface RT, of course, with all 5 colors of Touch Covers. Monkeying around allowed. WPDang had some fun with it, apparently.
• Availability of Windows 8 OS won't happen today. Will have to wait till the end of the US event.
• Apparently Xbox Live has been ripped off from the Chinese version of Surface, most likely because video gaming consoles are forbidden by Chinese laws, therefore Xbox 360s are not allowed, consequently Xbox Live and the Xbox brand fall into a grey zone. Curiously Xbox Music seems to be there.
• They danced Gangnam Style on the stage. Seriously.

Side to side comparison: Surface RT (left) is a bit thinner than the New iPad (right).

As WPDang's brief comment put it: "[When surfing the web] The scrolling animation is as smooth as that on Windows Phones, more fluid than iPads. All Flash videos we tested play perfectly." Great to know.
Some more pictures below. For even more nice pics of the event and Surfaces, click the source link to find them on WPDang.

Surface RT, red cover. Looks great.

Big happy family.

Keep tracking our posts for more info on windows 8 !!
:D

Source : vpcentral