Summary

“Ultrabook” is a word used to describe a thin, powerful laptop. Ultrabooks are the way PC laptops will be marketed to us in 2013. Intel claims that ultrabooks represent a revolutionary “new era” in computing. Intel provides the ultra-thin guts to PC manufactures that bundle it into their unique ultrabook form. At their CES press conference this morning, Intel outlined all the new features these guts will have in 2013. And they're impressive, inside and out. 2013’s ultrabooks can be under 18 mm thin. With more powerful batteries on board, these new laptops will be able to power larger screens, they will have screens 14" or larger. Sandy Bridge integrated graphics can effortlessly power Direct X11 graphics. Build-in near-field communications brigs the possibility of instantaneous info transfers. Paired with identity protection system it is a convenient and secure package. There is computing muscle in Intel’s ultrabooks that necessary for Siri-like speech control without connection to cloud. Intel also interested in playing with user interfaces. Author is skeptical of Intel’s claim that touching laptops’ screen will ever be a viable method of interacting with them. He sees only this being usable in ultrabooks. Nevertheless, MacBook Air has been on sale since January 2008. The current generation of it has been on the market since late 2010. There's a lot of catching up to do, hence the major marketing. In the end there will be tons of sleeker, lighter and faster laptops on the market.

Informative Abstract

1. Ultrabook is a thin, powerful laptop that will be marketed to us in 2013. 2. Intel’s ultrabooks that contain the impressive ultra-thin guts, bundled into their unique form, represent a “new era” in computing. 3. 2013’s ultrabooks will be rather thin with large screens and more powerful batteries. 4. Ultrabooks can effortlessly power modern graphics, support NFC and speech control without connection to the Internet. 6. In the end there will be tons of sleeker, lighter and faster laptops on the market.

Annotation

The author tells about new Intel’s laptops named “Ultrabooks” with their extra facilities. He assumes that these laptops will be marketed to us in 2013.

Flexible, Paper-Like Tablet Computers Work Together To Make Computing More Like Shuffling Papers

By Clay Dillow

1. There’s a lot of consumer electronics news flooding out of CES in Las Vegas this week, but one of the more interesting technology stories we’re seeing is trickling out of Ontario, Canada, where Queen’s University researchers working with partners in the UK as well as at Intel Labs and Plastic Logic have developed a tablet computer that is both paper-thin and flexible. 2. And while we’ve seen concept prototypes for flexible e-ink screens and the like previously, what’s most intriguing about the so-called PaperTab is the user interface.

3. The idea behind PaperTab isn’t to make your iPad flexible, but to rethink the way we use tablet computers--and to make them more like the actual pieces of paper we shuffle around our desks. 4. Designed to work in clusters of up to ten tablets, the user can control various screens at once, with one or more PaperTabs for each app in use. 5. So you can have several documents or apps running at once and work across several PaperTabs to execute tasks while moving things around between them. 6. You can use several together to make a larger PaperTab display, or shuffle them around like you would actual paper documents. 7. Touch two PaperTabs together and you can swap data between them.

8. Rather than relying on buttons or swipe gestures, PaperTabs respond to the flexing of the actual screen in certain ways--bend the right side of the display to page forward and the left side to page backward, for instance. 9. And while it feels like this might be easier to master in theory than in practice, the folks in the video demo make it look pretty simple. 10. But the point is, PaperTabs create a really interesting workflow--something like taking the various windows on your PC desktop and breaking them out on your physical desktop while retaining the ability to quickly move data and programs around from page to page. 11. Figure out how to untether these things from those unsightly cords (they’ll need a paper-thin, flexible battery) and this Queen’s U. team might be onto something here--if not a consumer product just yet, at least a very cool interface idea.

Reference: http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2013-01/flexible-paper-tablet-computers-work-together-make-computing-more-shuffling-papers

1. flooding out of smth. – наводнившие, заполнившие;

2. trickling out of smb. – исходит от кого-либо;

3. tablet computer – планшетный компьютер (планшет) – полноразмерный IBM PC-совместимый ноутбук оборудованных сенсорным экраном, позволяющий работать при помощи стилуса или пальцев, как с использованием, так и без использования клавиатуры и мыши;

4. shuffle around the desk – раскладывать на столе (относительно бумажных документов);

5. swap data – перемещение данных, обмен данными;

6. swipe gestures – сенсорные жесты (для тачскринов);

7. to untether from cord – не связывать проводами (т.е. применять беспроводные технологии).