Windows 7: Tested in depth – Crave at CNET UK

Deserved or not, Microsoft had dug itself a cold, deep, dark hole with Windows Vista. Users demanding that Redmond extend the life of Windows XP wasn’t exactly something they could be proud of, either. Bombarded by complaints and negative press even after the first service pack was released, the bar had been set high for Vista’s successor: Windows 7.

Luckily for Microsoft, Windows 7 is more than just spin. It’s stable, smooth and highly polished, introducing new graphical features, a new taskbar that can compete handily with the Mac OS X dock, and device management and security enhancements that make it both easier to use and safer. Importantly, it won’t require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded, partially because the hardware has caught up, and partially because Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make Windows 7 accessible to as many people as possible.

It’s important to note that the public testing process for Windows 7 involved one limited-availability beta and one release candidate, and constituted what some have called the largest shareware trial period ever. As buggy and irritating as Vista was, Windows 7 isn’t. Instead, it’s the successor to Windows XP that Microsoft wishes Vista had been, and finally places it on competitive footing with other major operating systems such as OS X and Linux.

Microsoft is offering six versions of Windows 7: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM and Enterprise. The three versions that Redmond will be promoting most heavily are Home Premium, Professional and Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, although Starter will also be available to consumers.

Windows 7 will support both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. The bare minimum requirements for the 32-bit include a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of available hard-disk space and a DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. 64-bit systems will require at least a 1GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 20GB of free space on your hard drive and a DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. A touchscreen monitor is required to take advantage of the native touch features. Do note that some users have claimed to have limited success running the Windows 7 beta with less than 1GB of RAM, but that’s not recommended.
Installation

Microsoft is offering several paths to install Windows 7. People can buy a new computer with the operating system already installed, upgrade from Windows XP or Vista, or do a clean install on a computer the user already owns. The clean installation took us about 30 minutes, but that will vary depending on your computer.

The upgrade procedure is different depending on whether you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista. Vista users merely need to back up their data before choosing the Upgrade option from the install disc. Both XP Home and XP Pro users will have to back up their data, then choose Custom from the install disc. Custom will have the same effect as a clean install, although it’ll save your old data in a folder called Windows.old. Once you choose Custom, you’ll need to select the partition of your hard drive that contains Windows XP, and then follow the instructions to enter your product key and allow the computer to reboot as needed.

If you’re not sure if your current computer can run Windows 7, you can download and run the Microsoft Security Essentials from Microsoft.

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New Vuzix VR Glasses To Be Unveiled at CES

Lots of neat and ground-breaking laptops will be on display this coming week at CES, and Voodoo may just lead the pack.

The world has never seen the HP branded Voodoo Firefly prototype, dubbed the  “HP Firefly with Voodoo DNA,” a laptop that features a uniquely positioned multi-touch touchpad, dual displays, and enough gaming muscle to tear through Far Cry 2 without a flinch. But here at LAPTOP we had a chance to play around with the behemoth of a notebook before it goes before the public eye in Las Vegas.

It’s one of the most innovative gaming notebooks we’ve ever fragged on. Voodoo provided us with an exclusive look at what is only a concept notebook. However, that doesn’t mean some of this machine’s innovations won’t wind up in other HP or Voodoo PCs.

Design
Calling this titan a Firefly is like naming a rabid pitbull “Cupcake.” After all, HP tells us it weighs 13 pounds including a massive pound power brick, and looks a lot like the laptop version of HP’s Blackbird desktop system with Voodoo DNA. With a 17-inch screen, it isn’t as large as the 20.1-inch HP HDX, but its not a system you would want to carry on your back (nor do we think you could even find a bag for it!)

The Firefly’s keyboard features customizable backlighting, much like the keyboards on the Area-51 m15x and m17x from Alienware. It also has HP’s QuickPlay controls for playing, skipping, and pausing music or video. There are toggle switches for wireless and audio mute, as well as controls for volume, treble, and bass levels. The entire notebook has the light etching and imprint design found on HP’s dv series notebooks.

Multi-touch Invasion
Pulling some features from the Voodoo Envy, the Firefly has a multi-touch trackpad. The Firefly’s pad is uniquely positioned to the right of the keyboard (sorry lefties) where gamers would normally keep their mouse. With three fingers on the pad, your left finger can be used as a left click, and your right finger as a right one. Hypothetically, this should mean that you could play a first-person-shooter quite well without a mouse. In Far Cry 2, however, we noticed that it was actually pretty hard to accurately aim. Moving around was easy, though, and much more efficient than trying to do so with a regular trackpad.

Double Vision
Underneath the large 17.1-inch 1920 x 1200 display is a second 4.3-inch LCD with 800 x 480 resolution, similar to the Fujitsu N7010’s which is found above the keyboard. This dwarf display acts as a second monitor at all times, so you can easily drag any window or application right onto it. We loved having the ability to check our Gmail during a frag match, or watch YouTube videos while working on the bigger display. The secondary screen’s resolution was a bit too high for us, though. Text looked too small and we found that we were squinting on Web sites while trying to type in new addresses.

Loaded with Gaming Muscle
Under the hood of the 17.1-inch Firefly we found a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core CPU, 4GB of RAM, a pair of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 GPUs running in CrossFire mode, and a 7,200 rpm 250GB hard drive. The Firefly spec sheet said the machine is capable of overclocking, but we didn’t touch the BIOS.

We weren’t permitted to run any benchmarks on the Firefly, since it remains a concept machine, but we did run Far Cry 2. We cranked the graphics up to Very High with Direct X 10 enabled and then went around setting the tall grass on fire with a flamethrower. Even with all of the effects on full blast around us—trees blowing in the wind, fires raging, enemies shooting—the game ran silky smooth. The machine consumes 170W of power; that’s not bad for a desktop, but quite the power sucker for a notebook.

We did notice that the Firefly slowed down a good deal when we tried to watch a YouTube video on the small screen while we were running Far Cry 2, but gameplay was fine when we substituted another video site, Ustream.tv, for YouTube.

X-Fi in the House
The Firefly doesn’t have a set of measly speakers or a budget soundcard. It packs in Creative’s X-Fi audio technology, which features Dolby sound and support for 5.1 surround sound speaker sets. Music sounded excellent out of the two tweeters underneath the display, and blasting grenades were loud and booming.

See in the Dark
The Firefly is the first notebook we’ve ever heard of with a night vision webcam. Theoretically it should let you make video chats in complete darkness with your gaming pals, since it switches to infrared mode in low or no-light conditions. However, the software wasn’t loaded on our machine. We’d love to see HP include this kind of feature in al types of notebooks so we can test it in the real world.

Final Thoughts
Though the Firefly will not come to market, we’re glad Voodoo is attempting to push the gaming notebook envelope. Features like a backlit keyboard and the ability to overclock the system have been done before, but this is one of the first notebook with a secondary display directly beneath the primary LCD, which could be used for all sorts of applications.  Moreover, the multi-touch trackpad was a stellar idea, and its placement is ideal for gamers, assuming HP and Voodoo can figure out how to make it work better for first-person shooters. Sure, the Firefly is not the sleekest concept we’ve seen, but we’ll be excited to see how Voodoo and HP leverage and tweak its innovations going forward.

Related Deals

• HP Mini 1000 Intel Atom 8.9in Mini Laptop (1GB/8GB SSD) $359.99 Free Ship at HP
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• HP Pavilion tx2500z AMD Dual-Core 2GHz 12in Tablet Laptop (3GB/250GB) $599.99 w/ Coup at HP
• Lenovo S10 Intel Atom 1.6GHz 10.2in Miniature Laptop 512MB/80GB (2.64lbs) $349 or $359 at lenovo
• Sony Style Coupon Code $200 off + Free Shipping on Sony VAIO Z/SR/CS/FW Laptops at Sony Style

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Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010

Ten tech predictions for 2009

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More Colleges Expected to Offer Online Interviews

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New Delhi

CHINA and India are in a struggle for a top rung on the ladder of world power, but their approaches to the state and to power could not be more different.

Two days after last month’s terrorist attack on Mumbai, I met with a Chinese friend who was visiting India on business. He was shocked as much by the transparent and competitive minute-by-minute reporting of the attack by India’s dozens of news channels as by the ineffectual response of the government. He had seen a middle-class housewife on national television tell a reporter that the Indian commandos delayed in engaging the terrorists because they were too busy guarding political big shots. He asked how the woman could get away with such a statement.

I explained sarcasm resonates in a nation that is angry and disappointed with its politicians. My friend switched the subject to the poor condition of India’s roads, its dilapidated cities and the constant blackouts. Suddenly, he stopped and asked: “With all this, how did you become the second-fastest growing economy in the world? China’s leaders fear the day when India’s government will get its act together.”

The answer to his question may lie in a common saying among Indians that “our economy grows at night when the government is asleep.” As if to illustrate this, the Mumbai stock market rose in the period after the terrorist attacks. Two weeks later, in several state elections, incumbents were ousted over economic issues, not security.

All this baffled my Chinese friend, and undoubtedly many of his countrymen, whose own success story has been scripted by an efficient state. They are uneasy because their chief ally, Pakistan, is consistently linked to terrorism while across the border India’s economy keeps rising disdainfully. It puzzles them that the anger in India over the Mumbai attacks is directed against Indian politicians rather than Muslims or Pakistan.

The global financial crisis has definitely affected India’s growth, and it will be down to perhaps 7 percent this year from 8.7 percent in 2007. According to my friend, China is hurting even more. What really perplexes the Chinese, he said, is that scores of nations have engaged in the same sorts of economic reforms as India, so why is it that it’s the Indian economy that has become the developing world’s second best? The speed with which India is creating world-class companies is also a shock to the Chinese, whose corporate structure is based on state-owned and foreign companies.

I have no satisfactory explanation for all this, but I think it may have something to do with India’s much-reviled caste system. Vaishyas, members of the merchant caste, who have learned over generations how to accumulate capital, give the nation a competitive advantage. Classical liberals may be right in thinking that commerce is a natural trait, but it helps if there is a devoted group of risk-taking entrepreneurs around to take advantage of the opportunity. Not surprisingly, Vaishyas still dominate the Forbes list of Indian billionaires.

In a much-discussed magazine article last year, Lee Kwan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, raised an important question: Why does the rest of the world view China’s rise as a threat but India’s as a wonderful success story? The answer is that India is a vast, unwieldy, open democracy ruled by a coalition of 20 parties. It is evolving through a daily flow of ideas among the conservative forces of caste and religion, the liberals who dominate intellectual life, and the new forces of global capitalism.

The idea of becoming a military power in the 21st century embarrasses many Indians. This ambivalence goes beyond Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle for India’s freedom, or even the Buddha’s message of peace. The skeptical Indian temper goes back to the 3,500-year-old “Nasadiya” verse of the Rig Veda, which meditates on the creation of the universe: “Who knows and who can say, whence it was born and whence came this creation? The gods are later than this world’s creation. Who knows then whence it first came into being?” When you have millions of gods, you cannot afford to be theologically narcissistic. It also makes you suspect power.

Both the Chinese and the Indians are convinced that their prosperity will only increase in the 21st century. In China it will be induced by the state; in India’s case, it may well happen despite the state. Indians expect to continue their relentless march toward a modern, democratic, market-based future. In this, terrorist attacks are a noisy, tragic, but ultimately futile sideshow.

However, Indians are painfully aware that they must reform their government bureaucracy, police and judiciary — institutions, paradoxically, they were so proud of a generation ago. When that happens, India may become formidable, a thought that undoubtedly worries China’s leaders.

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The Next World Order

Music Games for iPhone Give Artists New Spotlight

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Following only two months behind iPhone 2.0 (but at a significant installed-base disadvantage), Android still has a long way to go. But there is definitely some early potential. Here are our favorite apps of the year.

I still think Android, and its openness toward developers, can do some magical things and give iPhone a run for its money. But as we stated before, a lot needs to happen first—Android devices need to be a lot more numerous in consumers’ hands, numerous enough for third-party developers (along with Google’s first-party talent as well) to have a major incentive to drive the platform forward. It also has some major network power-management issues to overcome; the G1’s battery never makes it through the day for me, and while that may just be because it’s a shitty battery, Android’s always-on approach to network access and background processes surely plays a part.

The Android Market is not yet the iPhone App Store, but here is a taste of what is, hopefully, a lot more to come.

Anycut: Anycut takes advantage of one of Android’s fundamental strengths—the distillation of every possible event your phone can do—send a text message, go to a specific URL in a browser, etc—into a system-wide Intent, which any app can in turn access. Anycut allows you to take any intent and create a desktop shortcut for it—say, opening all of your Gmail messages labeled with a specific tag, or sending an SMS message to your most-texted contact.

Compare Everywhere: Like a hybrid of Japan’s QR codes and Google SMS’s UPC price check feature, Compare Everywhere reads barcodes (of just about everything, from a Criterion Blu-ray of The Man Who Fell to Earth I just watched to the stick of Right Guard sitting on my desk) and gives you a list of best prices—from online sources as well as physical brick-and-mortar shops near your GPS coordinates. The haptic buzz indicating a successful scan is unbelievably satisfying, and saves you money.

Shazam: Shazam’s same great song identification skills—able to snatch notes from the barroom’s speakers and pick the song in seconds—here on Android, co-existing with its identical iPhone version and similar ones for dumbphones. It’s an amazing trick, regardless of the platform, and good to see one of the bigger hits on the iPhone quickly and smoothly ported over.

TuneWiki: Still jailbreak-only for the iPhone since apps can’t access your iPod music, TuneWiki can show its full potential on Android, grabbing lyrics (that scroll karaoke style) and videos for all of your music as it plays.

Video Player: Video player plays H.264 MPEG4 clips, making up for a glaring hole left open in Android’s first release: no video player. It gets the job done, and is a prime candidate for something to get sucked back up into the core Android distribution, as is an open source project’s frequent wont.

Power Manager: Another necessity that’s both a blessing and a curse, Power Manager lets you take limited control over the things that influence how long your battery will live—turning on/off all the radios, GPS, adjusting screen brightness, etc according to your current power level. It shouldn’t be a necessary app for G1 owners, but it is; on the other hand, it shows how easy it is for a developer to fill a need and access hardware directly without having to ask permission. System-level functions like this, in large part, are not available to iPhone developers, and that’s notable.

WikiTude: One of the apps we were most excited about at launch, WikiTude could still use some polishing, but it shows just how cool augmented reality apps can be. Overlaying link to geo-tagged Wikipedia articles on your camera’s live view image utilizing the G1’s built-in compass and accelerometer, it’s an amazing thing to fire up on my roof in Brooklyn. Not so useful in the living room, but it’s a great proof of William Gibson’s classic notion—overlaying data from the web onto our live view of the world.

PhoneFusion Visual Voicemail: Solid visual voicemail support for Android. Another example of something other platform/carrier combos make you pay for (ahem, Verizon) or don’t let you access at all.

Chomp SMS: Well, what do we have here. This looks familiar. Chomp is a replacement SMS app that mimics the iPhone’s iChat-inspired text interface, and also happens to include a great soft keyboard looking exactly like the iPhone’s, but adding haptic feedback—something coming to future Android distros. It also ties into Android’s system-wide notification services, so if you want to drop the default SMS app altogether, you can.

Locale: In early versions, Locale was cool: it changed your ringtone or a few other phone settings based on your GPS location. Then, the features started coming, like the ability to send Tweets or use several other of Android’s Intents, and it became clear exactly what Locale is—a framework (like Applescript, essentially) for triggering anything on your phone according to your location. When I’m at the office, set Facebook status to frowny face. When I get home and it’s before 4PM, tweet “meet me at the bar” and start playing “O Happy Day.”

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The 10 Best Android Apps of 2008

The economy may be tanking, but innovation is alive and well.

When it came to products, incremental improvements were the name of the game this year. Phones got faster (iPhone 3G anyone?), notebooks turned into netbooks and pocket cameras went from recording standard-definition video to HD.

But the world’s corporate and academic R&D labs were busy laying the foundations of some amazing future technologies in 2008. They produced concepts such as silicon chips you can swallow for personalized medicine from the inside out and a fourth fundamental element in electronic circuitry. And engineers cranked out a few less groundbreaking — but no less important — inventions, like a space-age swimsuit to help Michael Phelps slice through the water faster than a river otter on a jet ski.

Here’s our countdown of what rocked our world in 2008 — and what will change yours in 2009 and beyond.

10. Flexible Displays

Flexible displays are likely to be a reality by 2010 or 2011.
Courtesy Phillip Spears

A sliver of the future can soon be tucked into your back pocket. For years, researchers have worked on thin, paperlike displays that can be folded, rolled or sewn into the sleeve of your hoodie. Flexible displays could change the way we interact with the info-universe, creating new kinds of cellphones, portable computers, e-newspapers and electronic books.

This year, the research moved from the realm of science fiction to plausible reality. With help from the U.S. Army, Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center has created a prototype for soldiers, and hopes to have the devices in field trials in the next three years. Startups like Plastic Logic and E-Ink have been developing similar technologies.

Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard announced a manufacturing breakthrough that allows the thin-film transistor arrays to be fabricated on flexible plastic materials, enabling manufacturers to “print” displays on big, newsprintlike rolls. Samsung showed off a mobile phone prototype with a flexible display that folds like a book.

Outlook: A Minority Report-style digital newspaper that you can roll up in your pocket isn’t happening before 2010 at the earliest. But to quote science fiction novelist William Gibson: “The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.”

9. Edible Chips

Grandma’s pillbox with the days of the week neatly marked is set to go high tech. Tiny edible chips will replace the organizer, tracking when patients take their pills (or don’t) and monitoring the effects of the drugs they’re taking. Proteus, a Redwood City, California, company, has created tiny chips out of silicon grains that, once swallowed, activate in the stomach. The chips send a signal to an external patch that monitors vital parameters such as heart rate, temperature, state of wakefulness or body angle.

The data is then sent to an online repository or a cellphone for the physician and the patient to track. Proteus says its chips can keep score of how patients are responding to the medication. That may be just the beginning, as the chips could improve drug delivery and even insert other kinds of health monitors inside the body. Now doctors may have a better answer to a common patient complaint — they will know exactly how it feels.

Outlook: If proven in clinical trials, edible chips could let physicians look into a patient’s system in a way that could change how medicine is prescribed and how we take the drugs.

8. Speedo LZR

Michael Phelps. 2008 Olympics. Enough said. Phelps and others were able to log faster times because of Speedo’s LZR swimsuit. It blends new materials and a dose of NASA rocket science to boost the speeds of elite swimmers — legally.

Viscous drag on a swimmer can be as much as 25 percent of the total retarding force. But Speedo’s suit, with its ultrasonically bonded seams instead of stitches, low-drag panels and a mix of polyurethane layers, can cut resistance and help swimmers move through the water faster. It also has a rigid, girdle-style structure that helps position the swimmer’s body in an optimal position. Did it have anything to do with Michael Phelps’ amazing eight Olympic gold medals? Probably not, as nearly every swimmer at the Games was wearing a Speedo suit.

Outlook: We’re hoping at least some of the technologies in the LZR will trickle down to the consumer level so we can slice through the water at the Y.

7. Flash Memory

When Apple blessed the iPod with flash memory, it gave new life to a technology that had long played second fiddle to hard disk drives. Now flash memory is a mainstay of most consumer electronics products, from ultralight notebooks to digital cameras and media players.

Next, the who’s who of the tech industry — EMC, Sun Microsystems, Intel and Hitachi — are championing flash drives for larger business users.

The advantage? Solid-state flash drives offer faster response times than hard disk drives and they require much less power. The hitch is that they are almost eight times more expensive than hard disk drives. But with the star power behind flash storage, the prices have nowhere to go but down.

Outlook: More data centers are likely to move to flash storage in 2009, which is likely to drive prices down further. If this trend takes off, say goodbye to the hard disk drives in your house. It will be time to flash your drive.

6. GPS

The Global Positioning System is old, old, older than you think. The system has been operational since 1978 and available for commercial use since 1993, but for years its use was relegated to expensive personal navigation devices and the dashboards of high-end cars.

This year, suddenly GPS popped up everywhere else, from the iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1 to notebooks such as Fujitsu’s LifeBook series.

And devices that couldn’t or didn’t include true GPS made do with cell-tower triangulation or geolocation based on Wi-Fi hotspots. Now getting lost is no longer an option.

Outlook: With widespread GPS capabilities throughout the gadget world, services that make use of geographic data, like Loopt and Yahoo’s Firebird, will be able to build critical mass.

5. The Memristor

It’s not often that a fundamental tech breakthrough has the potential to change how we compute. Nearly 37 years after it was first described in a series of mathematical equations, researchers at HP Labs proved that the fourth fundamental element of electronic circuitry is for real. The “memristor,” or memory transistor, now joins the three other widely known elements: the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor.

The discovery will make it possible to develop computer systems that remember what’s stored in memory when they are turned off. That means computers that don’t need to be booted up and systems that are far more energy efficient than the current crop. Researchers also hope the memristor can help develop a new kind of computer memory that can supplement or ultimately replace dynamic random access memory, or DRAM — the type of memory used in personal computers.

Outlook: Memristors are still primarily confined to the lab, so don’t expect commercial products based on this kind of circuitry for at least five years.

4. Video-Capable SLRs

Video-capable SLRs will meld high-def moving and still images.
Courtesy of Nikon

For years, high-end single-lens reflex cameras have been unable to do what even $100 pocket cams can do: Shoot video. That’s because of the type of imaging chip used by SLRs.

This year, the camera industry overcame that limitation. Two new cameras, the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D Mark II capture top-notch still images, but let the photographer to shoot high-definition video. No longer do SLR users have to stand by, while friends mock them for their expensive camera’s inability to shoot video.

Outlook: Shooting high-def videos with an SLR is cheap compared to using professional video equipment — and it gives photographers access to a wide range of lenses. In 2009, we predict this will lead to an explosion in arty, high-def videos shot by professional still photographers.

3. USB 3.0

Fasten your seatbelts. The data-transfer freeway is set to turn into an autobahn. The Universal Serial Bus, or USB, a popular standard for transferring files to your PC or charging your iPhone, got its first major update in eight years. USB 3.0 will be 10 times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard, and will increase the amount of electrical current that can be delivered through a USB cable.

Users need the increased speed — 4.8 gigabits per second, to be precise. Digital cameras and pocket-size HD video recorders generate a torrent of bits, all of which need to be transferred quickly to computers, so they can be uploaded to YouTube, adding to the internet video that only a handful of people will ever watch.

And as consumers carry around more devices, charging them off a PC using a USB cable will be much easier than carrying multiple chargers. With the USB 3.0 specifications nailed down this year, the standard will bump up the power output to 900 milliamps from 100 milliamps, allowing more devices to be charged faster.

Outlook: We expect the earliest USB 3.0 products in mid-2009.

2. Android

Handset makers from Motorola to Sony Ericsson are rushing to add Android to their lineup.
Jon Snyder/Wired.com

There were many reasons to dislike the T-Mobile HTC G1 phone: its color, poor battery life and a touchscreen that isn’t super-responsive. And the numbers reflect that. Only about 1.5 million units of the G1 have been sold since its October 2008 launch. Compare that to the 3 million iPhones that sold when it debuted.

But the G1 scores with its operating system. It runs Android, the free mobile operating system from Google. It’s the first mobile OS to make its debut in years and the G1 is just the first of what will be many phones that use it. With its open source base, growing developer community and dozens of cellphone manufacturers pledging to make Android phones, Android has the potential to reshape the wireless industry in significant ways.

Outlook: At least half a dozen manufacturers are likely to release Android phones in 2009, increasing the pressure on other smartphone operating systems. The iPhone is likely to remain the top-selling smartphone through the end of the year, however.

1. Apple’s App Store

Until this year, mobile app developers lacked an easy way to get their software into the hands of consumers, forcing them to make deals with finicky and power-hungry carriers if they wanted to get any distribution at all. Apple’s App Store changed all that. It made creating and distributing mobile applications for cellphone users easy — jumpstarting the mobile-app development market and creating clones such as the Android Market. It even forced Research in Motion to offer a BlackBerry Application Storefront. For thousands of programmers, the cellphone is the new PC.

Outlook: App stores have changed forever the way we use our phones, turning them into personalized devices filled with utilities, handy tools and copies of Tap Tap Revenge.

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Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008

With a Digital Stereo, Cisco Systems Is Starting a Push Into Home Electronics

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With a Digital Stereo, Cisco Systems Is Starting a Push Into Home Electronics

Faster Time to Market, Better Security, Isolated Work and Personal Usage Are Among Benefits Virtualization to Enable for Mobile Phones

PALO ALTO, Calif., November 10, 2008 – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced plans to bring virtualization and its many proven benefits to mobile phones through the new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). Built on innovative technology acquired from Trango Virtual Processors in October 2008, VMware MVP will help handset vendors reduce development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster. In addition, end users will benefit by being able to run multiple profiles – for example, one for personal use and one for work use – on the same phone.

“VMware is excited to extend the benefits of virtualization, which we pioneered for x86 hardware, to the mobile phone market,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer of VMware. “By abstracting the applications and data from the hardware itself, we expect that virtualization will not only enable handset vendors to accelerate time to market but can also pave the way for innovative applications and services for phone users. We look forward to working closely with our partners to bring new mobile solutions to market faster.”

“Gartner sees virtualization in the mobile space as a very promising and potentially a fast emerging market,” said Monica Basso, research vice president, at Gartner.  “We predict that by 2012, more than 50% of new smart phones shipped will be virtualized (1).  Virtualization can enable enterprises and consumers to easily manage and secure their phones and it can also help handset vendors reduce bills of materials and shorten development cycles to allow for faster releases.”

What is VMware MVP?
VMware MVP is a thin layer of software that will be embedded on a mobile phone that decouples the applications and data from the underlying hardware. It will be optimized to run efficiently on low-power-consuming and memory-constrained mobile phones. The MVP is planned to enable handset vendors to bring phones to market faster and make them easier to manage.

Benefits to Handset Manufacturers

• Accelerated time to market:
  Today, handset vendors spend significant time and effort getting new phones to market due to the use of multiple chipsets, operating systems and device drivers across their product families. The same software stack does not work across all the phones and, therefore, must be ported separately for each platform. This process is slow and expensive and ultimately slows time to market. VMware MVP will virtualize the hardware, enabling handset vendors to develop a software stack with an operating system and a set of applications that is not tied to the underlying hardware. This will enable the vendors to deploy the same software stack on a wide variety of phones without worrying about the underlying hardware differences. At the same time, by isolating the device drivers from the operating system, handset vendors can further reduce porting costs because they can now use the same drivers irrespective of the operating system deployed on the phone.
• Easy Migration to Rich Operating Systems:
  Increasingly, handset vendors and carriers are looking to migrate from proprietary operating systems to rich, open operating systems to enable their customers to access the widest selection of applications. With this transition to open operating systems, protection of trusted services such as digital rights management, authentication, billing, etc. is becoming an increasing concern. VMware MVP will allow vendors to isolate these important trusted services from the open operating system and run them in isolated and tamper-proof virtual machines so that even if the open environment is compromised, the trusted services are not impacted.

Benefits to Businesses and End Users

• Multiple Profiles:
  Companies are under increasing pressure from employees to support employee-owned mobile devices. Choice, however, brings with it complexity in managing a wide variety of devices in terms of both cost and security. It also brings increased risk in securing and managing employee-owned devices, especially if they contain confidential information. VMware MVP will allow IT organizations to deploy a corporate phone personality that can run alongside the employee’s personal phone on the same physical device.
• Persona on the Go:
  Smart phones are quickly becoming a combination of a PC and a wallet rolled into one package. A person’s phone persona – an individuals’ collection of applications, pictures, videos, music, emails, bank info, credit card information, PIM, etc. – is becoming much richer and more valuable. Consequently, the ability to protect and migrate personas will become an important purchasing decision. VMware MVP will save the persona as a set of files so that all the applications and data on the phone can be managed as a collection of files. People can then easily move their persona to a new device making the upgrade to a new phone virtually painless.

Visit www.vmware.com/mobile for additional information about VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform

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VMware to Bring Virtualization to Mobile Phones