AMDs' Blog

If you are reading this text on a media tablet right now I bet you are doing just fine with the experience. But say once you are done you decide you want to do something a little more visually intensive, like watch a movie in HD, or that you have time to do some quick work on the presentation you are giving next week at work? AMD recently polled its Facebook fans and found that people who want their tablet to do more outnumbered those who are satisfied with what they have 2-to-1. Funny thing is: It can! Since we announced the AMD Z-60 APU late last year, AMD has found a home in performance tablets from Fujitsu and Vizio that deliver an uncompromised experience in a thin tablet with excellent battery life. And we aren’t done yet; at CES in January AMD demonstrated our upcoming APU codenamed “Temash”, including 3D gaming on some top titles. This is the first quad-core x86, system-on-chip (SoC) and is expected to deliver twice the graphics performance of the Z-60 APU.¹ To get our story out, for the first time in a number of years, AMD is putting itself front in center at the mammoth Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain this week to remind the market of what we can do. At our booth in Hall 7, we will demonstrate a number of compelling designs and usage scenarios that show what performance tablet and hybrid PCs can deliver. I expect we will surprise a lot of people and I’m really looking forward to being in the booth with all our demo systems to spread the word. The hybrid PC design is generating a lot of interest in the Windows 8 market for the flexibility it gives the user to choose between a tablet and a full featured clamshell notebook by simply connecting the tablet to its keyboard base.
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AMD is paying particular attention to the hybrid PC at Mobile World Congress following the announcement of AMD Turbo Dock technology on February 20^th. This new innovation delivers uncompromised mobile hybrid PC experiences in either operating mode. AMD Turbo Dock technology automatically adjusts performance of the AMD accelerated processing unit (APU) higher while a hybrid PC is docked and being used for more complex tasks like content creation.² Likewise, AMD Turbo Dock technology is designed to lower power consumption when in tablet mode, helping to save battery life and extend movie or video watching, as well as web browsing time. In engineering speak, AMD Turbo Dock technology is delivered through “dynamic TDP” that lets the processor automatically adjust its top frequency to the scenario in which it is operating. Another example of AMD innovation being alive and well! By focusing its energy on delivering a full-featured PC experience on tablets and hybrid PCs, AMD believes it can bring consumers what they want from their Windows 8 experience and grow the market at the same time through a new category of mobile computing. Steve Belt is Corporate Vice President, Ultra Low Power Products. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.¹ Test conducted in AMD Performance Labs using FutureMark 3DMark Vantage P as a metric for GPU performance and PC Mark Vantage as a metric for CPU performance. The AMD Z-60 APU-based system scored 455 and 1914 in 3DMark and PCMark respectively. The AMD A6-1450 APU-based system delivers scores of 981 and 3123 in 3DMark and PCMark respectively. The platforms tested were the AMD Z-60 APU with AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics, 2x 2GB DDR3-1066, Microsoft Windows 7 and the “Larne” reference platform with an AMD A6-1450 Quad Core 1.0GHz APU, AMD Radeon™ HD 8280 series graphics, 2GB DDR3-1066 system memory and Microsoft Windows 7. TEM-2 ² AMD Turbo Dock technology allows a tablet device to boost its performance when connected with a compatible base unit. AMD Turbo Dock-compatible base units provide supplemental APU cooling beyond what is available solely in the slate. Actual performance increases using AMD Turbo Dock technology will vary based on the manufacturer's tablet, base unit and supplemental cooling solution design. AMD Turbo Dock technology is currently available only on the 2013 AMD A6-1450 APU, and is not available on all tablet models - check with the manufacturer for specific models that support this feature.
1975. “Saturday Night Live” debuts. Springsteen releases "Born to Run". Telly Savalas continues to bring it home on "Kojak". And in the burgeoning high tech world, the Altair 8800 microcomputer makes the front cover of Popular Mechanics. Thus begins the desktop personal computer market. Of course, some thought the desktop would never take off: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” - Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 But by the 1990s, the desktop PC had become ubiquitous, with cost optimized motherboards, discreet GPUs for gaming, and the explosion of Dell with their build-to-order model. This last decade, the market growth moved to notebooks, and so the first rumblings of the demise of the desktop began. And it continues in earnest today as we move to the ‘tablets can even scramble my eggs’ world. Whether the market is growing or not – whether it warrants any significant press or not – I believe multi-millions of desktops will still be sold each year for the next decade. Lots of industries would love that volume. Unlike other suppliers, at AMD we’re committed to the desktop business and the foundation on which it was built: technically astute enthusiasts, gamers and all-around modders who want to tweak, tune and upgrade their PC. We will continue to offer this market CPUs and APUs in sockets for upgrades, compatible infrastructures with FM2 and AM3, and great value through overclocking, dual discrete graphics, more cores for the money, and performance you can see... Why stay committed to a market when others are bailing? For many reasons. First, there is a real market to serve and one that values what AMD can offer. Second, there is still significant innovation happening a device without a battery; like upgradable, energy efficient, small form factors. And last, it remains one of the best markets to test new technology and accelerate their time to market. So if you’re looking to build a new PC, you can protect your desktop investment for the future. Just remember who loves ya, baby! Leslie Sobon is Corporate Vice President, Desktop and Component Products, AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
Every few years, there comes an inflection point in the computing industry, a point of transition when alternative technologies reach a level of competitive capability that changes the course of events. We saw this happen over the past several decades with the introduction of high performance, low cost commodity servers, and we are seeing it happen again with the recent convergence of mobile technology. Today, it is possible to build an entire server on a single chip. Gone are the days of the data center wiring mess and individual blades that require maintenance. In the future, the entire data center should be able to communicate over integrated fabric solutions via a smaller number of wires. Servers should exist at such high densities that they will be treated as pixels on a LCD: the few that do fail will simply be marked as "bad" and left in place, as a lower cost alternative to racking and initializing the replacement machines. Using the same technology that was pioneered for the latest high performance tablets and smartphones, we can achieve tremendous levels of compute density, while simultaneously reducing the amount of energy required to run these systems. At Red Hat we see potential for such integrated, energy-efficient servers. That's why today we are proud to advance our long-standing relationship with AMD by displaying a commitment to ARM processors. We believe that in this new era of energy-efficient, high density, hyperscale computing, ARM processors will increasingly play a role as an alternative architecture. ARM has an energy-efficient DNA. In fact, the trade-offs made by ARM's architecture design team generally are done with energy-efficient performance in mind. The ARM architecture is also incredibly flexible, with many billions of cores in existence, featuring a wide variety of innovations. As ARM has matured, it has gained new capabilities. It has grown up from its embedded roots into a modern, legacy-free 64-bit architecture with the features needed in the enterprise today. These include the usual I/O interfaces, support for hardware virtualization, large physical address extensions (LPAE), and a standardized, compatible, server platform capable of running general purpose Linux operating system software, such as Fedora. Red Hat has been working with AMD for many years, across a broad range of applications and markets, yet over the past few months we have forged an even deeper relationship, driven by a mutual need to better understand the emerging hyperscale computing arena and the technologies that can fuel it. While we're just getting started, there is much to share about our progress to-date. The engineers at Red Hat have been working with AMD for many months as we prepare to bring support for the next generation of 64-bit ARM server processors to the Fedora Project. As you may imagine, enabling OS support for a new architecture takes quite a bit of planning. Fedora has supported 32-bit ARM processors for several years, including support for the latest ARMv7 32-bit server processors since Fedora 15, and we have the experience required to make this process a success. We have the initial pieces of our software stack built in our labs, and are able to run test programs using various emulation environments. Over the coming months, as the actual hardware becomes available, we plan to engage with the broader community and ecosystem partners, including AMD, to enable complete support for 64-bit ARM architecture in Fedora. This is consistent with the Red Hat way – embrace industry standards, and drive them through a broad ecosystem into the market. Moreover, I am happy to report that Red Hat engineers have also started work on a port of OpenJDK (Java) to the 64-bit ARM architecture targeting the initial release within a few months. There are many more opportunities ahead as we continue to drive the evolution of the emerging hyperscale computing model and the technologies that will fuel it. And as we continue on this path, companies like Red Hat and AMD have the opportunity to define the next wave of computing. If you'd like to join us, visit the Fedora ARM Project: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARMJon Masters is Chief ARM Architect at Red Hat, where he leads a fearless band of engineers affectionately known as the “A Team”. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
In addition to upgrading your smartphone, see what amazing tech you will be getting when upgrading to an AMD A-Series powered Windows 8 laptopI love smartphones and tablets. Their innovation has made as much of a mark on the early 21^stcentury as laptops did late in the 20^th century. There is no question that smartphones and tablets are enjoying an amazing ride, and for a good reason. They merge a lot of functionality in one – a phone, GPS, a camera and a whole lot of other things, including entertainment, and make it really simple for users to do bite size transactions on a whim. I still strongly believe in the need for a PC, however. We live in a multi-device world where we use different screen sizes for different purposes, as each of those screen sizes best serves a specific need. We use smartphones to feel connected all the time, tablets to have access to a suite of on-demand entertainment, and TV for passive entertainment. I have many friends who are likely going to upgrade their smartphone soon. But there has never been a holiday tech shopping season quite like the one ahead for 2012: there is an amazing array of new technologies and capabilities even in the more established product categories like notebooks. Against a crowded list of new comer devices, it is easy to forget what an incredible device the notebook PC is today. It is the only device that lets us freely consume AND create content, all at an affordable price, with a remarkable set of software programs, peripherals and compatibility. I use my smartphone to take pictures and videos, but use my laptop to edit and watch them. If I have a choice of typing an email on my smartphone or my laptop, I would much rather do it on my laptop – it’s just faster and more comfortable. In addition to this, the PCs are evolving with Windows 8 to bring customers familiar smartphone features like touch screens, apps, instant-on activation, long battery life, and a whole lot of simplicity. Not to mention even more GPU acceleration than ever. I have been hearing a lot of talk about how smartphones are eating into PC sales and how people will not need PCs because smartphones now have enough computing power for all our needs. In my opinion, that belief is misguided given the different purposes they serve. To that end, I put together this technology comparison chart that shows the difference between the latest smartphones and the latest AMD based laptops in terms of computing power, screen size, connectivity, storage space and price. As a bonus, my attempt at a list of 10 reasons why someone should buy an “old fashioned” notebook in addition to upgrading their smartphone. You might find it entertaining and educational at the same time.
Infographic: Top Ten List
Infographic: Smartphone / Notebook Feature Comparison
Sasa Marinkovic is the Sr. Manager, Technical Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
Today marks the general availability (GA) of Windows 8 and a significant milestone for Microsoft. At AMD, we are excited about the opportunity for AMD-powered devices with Windows 8 to hit store shelves and delight customers with a new, rich visual experience. Breadth of Platforms With more than 125 design wins for Windows 8 powered by AMD GPUs, APUs and CPUs, there’s something for everybody with our latest portfolio of platforms. From our recently announced AMD Z-60 APU designed for tablets and convertibles to the new AMD FX processors, there is a more diverse range of Windows®- based devices than ever before powered by AMD. Whether you prefer a tablet, notebook, traditional desktop or all-in-one, one thing is consistent across all AMD platforms…a focus on powering a great user experience. Let’s dig into some of the differentiating features of AMD platforms with Windows 8. AMD Radeon™ Graphics As Microsoft points out, Windows 8 is inherently hardware accelerated and really leveraging the graphics capabilities of the system more than ever before. AMD Radeon™ graphics are central to the AMD value proposition of driving an immersive visual experience across the range of devices that we power. There are a ton of new Windows 8 graphics features we are supporting across our DirectX 11-based APUs and GPUs, including smooth rotation, stereoscopic 3D, and Direct3D 11 video to name a few. AMD was also the first to ship DirectX 11.1 compliant hardware, the GCN-based AMD Radeon™ HD 7700, HD 7800 and HD 7900 cards, for full support of Windows 8 graphics features.AMD Start Now Technology Some consumers will be shocked at how fast AMD-based Windows 8 devices boot up, shutdown and resume from sleep. Microsoft outlined the work they did with the fast startup feature, but there was also hundreds of engineering hours AMD put in to further optimize around these scenarios for Windows 8. Optimizations went into our reference UEFI BIOS, minimizing the impact of our graphics drivers during the boot phase and helping reduce the time it takes to connect to a network. In our labs, we are down to an average boot time of around 8 seconds with our second generation A-Series reference platforms codenamed “Trinity” configured with SSD drives and Windows 8 fast startup. AMD Eyefinity Technology We love our multi-monitor setups at AMD. We invented the single-large-surface technology to solve a real problem: full-screen DirectX games only played on one monitor. Clearly, if you had multiple monitors, it was a waste of perfectly good pixels. AMD Eyefinity technology fixes this. With AMD Eyefinity, games can play across up to six monitors at incredible resolutions. We’ve even demoed 24 monitors being driven by a single PC. We’ve since brought this award-winning technology to our AMD A-Series APUs and are developing solutions around DisplayPort for consumers to connect to multiple monitors from AMD A-Series APU based notebooks. With Windows 8, consumers can have the same AMD Eyefinity experience with the new Windows 8 Start Screen and Windows Store apps. Because the Windows 8 UI is built on top of DirectX, it works with AMD Eyefinity just like games. For example, here is the Windows 8 Maps app on a 3-monitor setup with and without AMD Eyefinity. Without AMD Eyefinity (app displays on one monitor only)*
With AMD Eyefinity (app displays across all available monitors)*

64-bit Processors It wasn’t too long ago that AMD invented the 64-bit extension to x86 processors that is now the standard across PCs worldwide. AMD’s 64-bit technology continues to provide the foundation for AMD APUs and CPUs to deliver performance and compatibility with both the 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 8 and the millions of existing Windows apps in addition to new Windows Store apps. And for enterprises and developers who want to take advantage of client virtualization, the entire range of AMD APUs support Hyper-V with Windows 8. AMD AppZone AMD has been leading the industry toward the next generation of app performance with AMD App Acceleration on the path to full heterogeneous computing with HSA. We’ve created AMD AppZone as the one-stop-shop to find accelerated games and apps designed to run great on AMD platforms. We’ll highlight popular Gaming Evolved titles, “performance” Windows apps, new Windows Store apps and even Android apps via our collaboration with BlueStacks. Well, what are you waiting for? Time to head out to the nearest retailer and check out some new systems on the shelves. Would love to hear your thoughts…you know what to do. Gabe Gravning is a head of app ecosystem marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. *Screenshot only. Bezel not shown.
At AMD we believe industry standards lead to greater innovation, higher performance, and lower costs for our customers. From scientific studies to Hollywood blockbusters, we see how graphics professionals reap the benefits of OpenCL™ programming on our AMD FirePro™ GPUs. When it comes to system architecture, broad industry adoption of HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) will make computing easily accessible and broadly available for the software ecosystem. And, with the recent announcement of the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Miracast™ wireless display technology, we’re again throwing our support behind a best-in-breed, non-proprietary industry standard. It’s easy to see why: with the arrival of Miracast™, you can seamlessly display video between devices, without cables or even access to a WiFi router network. That means you can watch movies, view photos, and even play video games on virtually any display you want! As our CTO Mark Papermaster has commented before, the home network is in a constant state of expansion. Think about it – most families now own multiple computers, televisions, smartphones and tablets. As a result, smaller-screen devices are beginning to jockey for larger, shareable displays. Why bother watching a movie on a tablet when you can display it on a big screen? We hope to see a future where many TVs will come with Miracast™ support built in. It’s clear to me that we’ve truly entered into the era of surround computing, where displays are serving as the cornerstone for sharing and consuming all content. With the arrival of Miracast™, the content-sharing floodgates have opened. It’s a standardized technology we’re excited to have worked on, and one we believe will truly change how consumers experience and interact with computing devices. AMD has looked at many wireless display technologies for over 5 years now. We’ve been excited to participate in defining Miracast™ for the last few years as it represents the first wireless display technology with both the benefits of an open standard, and the possibility of low cost integration into a wide range of computing devices, handheld electronics, televisions and set top and media boxes. Our upcoming products are designed to natively and optimally support Miracast™ in hardware as we work with the WiFi Alliance to continue to define the standard. During the next couple of years, I anticipate Miracast™ to become ubiquitous in peoples’ homes. Since Miracast™ is based on standardized technology; we can assume rapid consumer adoption. Take a look at what USB and DisplayPort technology did for the computing industry. AMD actively contributed to defining both standards, and I believe Miracast™ is no exception. We have a stake in this game, and we hope to continue to participate and help refine this standard to ensure the best possible experience. What’s more, as we see greater adoption of Miracast™, or any technology for that matter, costs should decrease – something everyone likes to see. AMD plans on enabling this technology as soon as possible. We’re working closely with our major technology partners, Actionec, Broadcom Realtek, Atheros, Cavium, and Ralink, and plan to have Miracast™ certification for our AMD Notebook, AMD Desktop and AMD Tablet-based product lines in 2013. David Glen, Display Technology Lead and Senior Fellow, AMD His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies, or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
The demand for online video content continues with the explosion of online video calling, millions of video uploads, downloads and views and a growing demand for 3D and HD Internet video content. With this growth, it’s clear that people are innovating and driving the next wave of computing to create an even closer personal connection with one another through more realistic and vivid visual experiences. AMD Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) both anticipate and enable the outstanding high-definition experience desired and expected by tech enthusiasts and everyday consumers alike. With the ability to handle the demanding workloads in our visually rich lives, APUs are redefining the computing landscape. And, as the software industry embraces APUs with a growing number of applications – like MotionDSP vReveal – you are even more empowered to achieve a phenomenal experience and virtually endless possibilities. As applications continue to be optimized for APUs, users can potentially see increased performance for certain applications through monthly updates to our AMD VISION Engine. If you are looking for a new notebook or desktop, an APU-powered system is the way to go and we’ve “pinned” nine of the coolest systems on the market in our new AMD APU-powered Laptops & Desktops Pinterest board. Each laptop and desktop links back to one of our technology partner sites to make it easy for you to find more information on (and buy) the product. Here’s a list of products you’ll find on our Pinterest page:
- Gateway NV55SO5u Laptop powered by AMD A8 APU
- Acer AS5560 Laptop powered by AMD A8 APU
- iBUYPower Gamer Mage Desktop powered by AMD FX 8-core processor
- Lenovo ThinkPad X130e powered by AMD E-300 APU
- Lenovo C325 Touchscreen powered by AMD E-450 APU
- HP Pavilion g6 in Dandelion Breeze powered by AMD A-Series APU
- HP TouchSmart 320-1050 Touchscreen All-in-One with AMD A-Series APU
- HP Pavilion dm1z Laptop with AMD E-450 APU
- HP Pavilion dv6 Laptop with AMD A-Series APU
We first launched our AMD Pinterest page in November 2011. Along with our top APU-powered products on Pinterest, you’ll also find some of our favorite tech accessories, including headphones, laptop bags and cases, random gadgets and more. We’d love to hear what (p)inspires you! Leslie Sobon is the Corporate Vice President, Desktop Product Line Management. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
I love maps. I could spend hours exploring where I’ve been and where I’d like to go. It’s fun to switch between map view, satellite view and then “drive around” exploring places in street view. Sometimes I use Google Maps in the browser, sometimes I use Google Earth on my desktop. In the past, there’s always been a big performance difference between the “desktop” experience and the “browser” experience. Those lines are beginning to blur, thanks in large part to new standards like WebGL that provide web developers more direct access to the amazing graphics capabilities in modern PCs, like those powered by AMD Radeon™ HD discrete and APU graphics. That’s why I’m excited about the Google MapsGL announcement. Google MapsGL brings the power of hardware accelerated 3D graphics to Google Maps, providing a better maps experience with smoother transitions, 3D building and ability to “swoop” into Street View without a plug-in. Here’s a screenshot from my HP Pavilion dm1z powered by the AMD E-350 APU, which has fantastic graphics for such a thin and light notebook…perfect for the new hardware acceleration in Google MapsGL.

Also, check out the MapsGL video posted by Google. One thing is clear -- hardware acceleration is no longer for niche applications. It is used by so many of today’s most popular applications. It can help improve the speed and experience of your favorite software, from browsers to video editing to productivity apps. I look forward to spending countless more hours roaming the Earth…just a little faster now. And with plenty of legroom. Where would you like to see hardware acceleration applied next? Gabe Gravning is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
During the Apple WWDC, I was really struck at just how many features were added into iOS 5 and just how few new features had been added to Lion. Don’t get me wrong here, I like Lion a lot but after using many of the 250 new features, few altered how or what someone can do with a computer or already to with a tablet. The one exception was AirDrop, which makes peer-to-peer sharing easier. Also, many of the iOS features seemed like desktop features, and the new Lion features appeared to make it look more like iOS features. Let’s take a look.
New Desktop-Like Features in iOS 5:
- Tabbed Browsing: I remember some apologists explaining away the lack of tabbed browsing with the iPad 1. Now Safari has tabs…. on its 9.7″ display.
- Basic Photo Editing: No longer an add-on app like my favorite, Photogene, photo enhancements are available right inside the Photos app. Users can use auto-enhance, remove red eye and even crop photos.
- Reading List: Previously available on the Mac, the iOS Safari browser has the Reading list, a place to save articles you wish to read later.
- Mail Features: Now users can edit email text, add or delete email folders, and even search all the email text, not just the subject line for topics. All of this in the new Mail.
- Calendar Features: Like on Lion, users can drag time bars to set meeting time, can view attachments inside the calendar app and even share calendars.
- Mirroring: Via a cable to wirelessly through an Apple TV 2, see on a monitor or TV exactly what is on the iPad 2 or iPhone 4s.
- Improved Task Switching: With new “multitasking” gestures, users no longer need to click the home button to return to the home screen or switch between apps. They use a four-finger left-to-right gesture to switch tasks and what I call the “claw” to go to the home screen.
New iOS-Like Features in Lion:
- New Gestures: Every iOS user is familiar with finger scrolling, tap to zoom, pinch to zoom and swipe to navigate. Now this is available on a Lion Mac.
- Full Screen Apps: By design, every iOS is full screen. Now Lion has this capability.
- App Store: Required since the first iPhone; now ships with Lion.
- Launchpad: This is Lion's fancy name for iOSs Home Screen. This is where users can view their app icons.
- Mail Improvements: Yes, even desktop Mail is getting more like iOS. In this case, adding full height message panes.
So What? Why Should We Care?
So what does this mean, if anything? It is too early to tell, but it could signal a few alternative scenarios:
- Unity of UI? By uniting many of the UI elements across phone, tablet and computer, quite possibly it could make switching between iPhone, iPad and Mac easier. Also, as advanced HCI techniques like voice and air gesture emerge, do input techniques get even closer? Can one metaphor work across three different sized devices?
- Easier Switch to Mac from Windows? The logic here says, even if you were brought up on a Windows PC, if you can use an iPhone or iPad, you can use a Mac.
- Modularity? I’ve always believed that a modular approach could work well in certain regions and consumer segments, but only if the OS and apps morphed with it. For example, a tablet with a desktop metaphor makes no more sense that a desktop with a tablet metaphor. What if they could morph based on the state but keep some unifying elements? For instance, my tablet is a tablet when it’s not docked. When docked it acts more like you would expect with keyboard and mouse. They two experiences would be unified visually and with gestures so that they didn’t look like two different planets, but two different neighborhoods in the same city.
- Desktop OS Dead or Changing Dramatically? What is a desktop OS now? If a desktop OS is a slow-booting, energy-consuming, keyboard-mouse only, complex system, then Microsoft is killing it with Windows 8 next year anyways, so no impact.
- Simplicity Dead? If phone and tablet OSs are becoming more like desktop OSs, is that good for simplicity? Or are desktop operating systems getting more like phone and tablet operating systems? How do you mask the complexity and still be able to do a lot?
Where We Go From Here
We will all get a front row seat next year to see how users react to one interface on three platforms. Windows 8 will test this next year and Metro UI will be on phones, tablets and PCs. The only caveat here is the Windows 8 desktop app for traditional desktop which will server as a release valve for angst and a bridge to the future. Whatever the future holds, it will be interesting.
Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied
After release to developers at Apple's WWDC, the Apple iCloud is available to all consumers today with access to iOS 5 and updated iTunes. In many ways, it is incredible that millions will have access to the consumer power of the cloud. It's very integrated into the experience, but then again, it's incomplete when compared to the best-in-breed cloud apps and services available today. Will that make a difference in consumer acceptance? Let's see.What Makes a Great Cloud Experience?A few applications define by example what a great cloud app or service can provide. These are Evernote, Amazon Kindle, and Netflix. What makes these great examples of consumer cloud offer? While very different in terms of usage, they share similar variables that in aggregate make them awesome:
- Cross Platform: Windows, OSX, iOS, Android and the web. Kindle and Netlix are even available on special-purpose devices like the Kindle and Roku. Consumers can buy into the service and not worry about the platform going away.
- Continuous Computing: Continuous computing means a few different things. On content consumption, the next device picks up exactly where the last device left off. On Netflix, if I am halfway through a movie on my iPad I can pickup at the same spot on my Roku. When I pick up another Kindle device, it asks me whether I want to go to the latest bookmark.
- Sync: While a step back from continuous computing, it does assure that the same files are on the same system. On Evernote, every change I make is in synch when I open up the next device.
- Continuous Improvement: Monthly and even weekly updates to add features and functionality.
- Compatible and Data Integrity: Even with all these updates, the data keeps its integrity. If the service has a question about which version is the master, it asks me. Evernote will tell me that I have a duplicate entry and lets me pick the version or content I want.
iCloud: Cross PlatformAs we all know, Apple by design works in its own walled garden but that doesn't mean its completely closed off. You cannot get iCloud enabled apps like Pages, Numbers, Keynote or iBooks for Windows or Android. Even worse, you cannot get to your photos and PhotoStream on any mobile device other than iOS. To be fair, users can get access to Photo Stream on a Windows PC via iTunes, but users should at least be allowed access to their own photos over the web if they want. Users can access iWork compatible documents on all "modern" browsers by going to iCloud.com and downloading files. Windows users then need to drag and drop the updated file inside the web-based iCloud.com. - Grade DiCloud: SynciCloud will automatically "sync" photos (Photo Stream), purchased music and TV shows (iTunes), apps, letters (Pages), spreadsheets (Numbers), and presentations (Keynote), reminders, calendar, email, notes, and contacts.There are some major exceptions. iWork documents will not auto sync with the Windows "Documents" folder, as I think users would expect. Sugarsync, am iCloud and Drobbox will automatically sync documents with Windows. Also, personal videos and commercial movies do not sync on any platform which I don't fully understand. Maybe its a concern with storage on iOS devices or storage and throughput in the iCloud. - Grade BiCloud: Continuous ComputingWithin iOS phones and tablets, users can start right where they left off for TV shows, games (Games Center) and book bookmarks (iBooks).iCloud will not save the "state" for playing music (Music), playing movies (Videos), or web pages (Safari). Add the PC and Mac into the continuous computing arena and iCloud experience starts to degrade for most all use cases for a variety of reasons. iOS games don't run or sync on a Mac or PC and on Windows platforms iWork isn't available. Consumers over time will expect continuous computing on every usage model on every platform, the way Evernote does it today. - Grade CiCloud: Continuous ImprovementI cannot definitively answer this question as it will emerge over time, but I must extrapolate from what I have seen from previous drops of Apple software. Apple software drops, iOS in particular, have been consistent, often, and very solid code. - Grade AiCloud: Compatible and Data IntegritySo far so good, even on difficult to manage applications like word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. I make a one line change to a document without going back to "Documents" inside Pages, the one line changed on every other system. - Grade AWhat, not Straight A's?Apple has never needed to achieve a 4.0 in everything to be successful. Getting all A's in the core segment of users and building useful solutions that just work has been the hallmark. The first iPhone proved this and the iPhone 4s will prove this again as everyone else offers 4G but Apple doesn't have to. A good fallback to Continuous Computing in good Sync, and I believe that as long as Apple still allows other services with better capabilities into their walled garden, it won't be an issue now. Over time, I believe Apple will fill in the gaps in iCloud and that have fully thought through where they could add the most value and that's what they hit first. Your move, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
With all the tech-y talk about the AMD A-Series APU, it’s often difficult to see through the abbreviations and details to actually see how this technology can help make improvements to your daily life. Technology allows me to document the moments that mean the most to me: time spent with my family; the day-to-day events which are forever in danger of being taken for granted. Were it not, that is, for home movie making. For whilst this is no doubt a thorn in my wife’s side, it allows me to capture moments to be looked back on fondly in years to come. It has to be said that it’s with great joy that I weave these clips together into something a whole lot more presentable and tangible than my unsteady hand and chuckling narration can testify to. Now to the technological details which allow this to happen: there’s this fantastic MotionDSP software called vReveal which is accelerated by the AMD A-Series APU, making the video editing process that much more rewarding. The MotionDSP software specializes in cutting-edge video image processing, providing fantastic performance in terms of quality, speed, and ease of use. Essentially, it makes it a whole lot clearer when once it was a blurry undeterminable image. With this software you’re able to do great things with both video and smartphone footage you may otherwise lose heart on. There’s a One-Click-Fix function, which allows you close to real time clean-up of videos. It enables you to use things like color correction, brightness and contrast adjustments, sharpening, and even flipping of images should you so wish. This is all done super simply too – the fact that my kids often join in to help is a testament to this. With vReveal and AMD’s innovative technology, those shaky handheld videos can be restored to a smooth, enjoyable format you can then mold and play with to create your presentable home movie. Trust me, when you’re bringing your family and friends round to watch something you’ve slaved over for the past number of nights, you need the highest quality to truly astound them! Take a look at this video which showcases MotionDSP’s vReveal software accelerated by the AMD A-Series APU, and see for yourself the benefits it brings to consumers when they are video editing: "AMD A-series APUs power vReveal's panoramas from video" Michal Lisiecki is Product Marketing Manager EMEA at AMD and has worked for ATI/ AMD since 2005. He is our photo and video expert. Being a family man with three kids, Michal spends a lot of time videotaping them and capturing the memories and experiences using new software to make video filming easier for everyday use. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
Amazon threw their axe into the tablet sea Wednesday with the launch of the Amazon Kindle Fire. On paper, the Kindle Fire seems like a killer value proposition. For $199, you get continuous computing access to 18 million books, movies, TV shows, music, newspapers, unlimited cloud content storage, and fastest web browsing. And all this at less than half the price of the Apple iPad 2. There are a few important, unanswered questions that could determine whether that deal is too good to be true.Delivered ResponsivenessAmazon had a great showing at their launch event, but attendees weren’t able to freely touch the tablet themselves. Demos were carefully scripted that showed how good the responsiveness was. I remember how amazingly responsive the TouchPad tablet demos were, only to be disappointed at launch with the lags. The lags were quickly fixed with a patch a few weeks later, but the damage was done. Basic pinch, zoom, page turn, app load and app close must be responsive or it will just feel cheap. Buying a tablet with bad touch is buying a car with a loose steering wheel and a missing tire.Display Quality on Videos and PhotosAt 7”, to effectively see video content at the same size versus a 10” tablet, users must hold it closer to their face. Will we be able to see pixels? Hold the original iPhone close to your face, play a video, and you can see the pixels. That for me could be a deal breaker, but hey, that’s me. At $199, the Kindle Fire is a less considered purchase, but still considered. Heck, consumers return $5 food items because they didn’t like it, so don’t think they wouldn’t return a $199 Kindle Fire if it didn’t do what they expected.Video Content QualityI am one of the few people who own a Google TV. While I like the Amazon streaming service, it can get quite pixelated at times. It happens a lot more than it happens on Netflix, too, which leads me to surmise that it’s an Amazon issue. Bandwidth won’t be an issue on the downloaded content, but, again, what about the quality? I have downloaded movies from Amazon Unbox on my laptop and sometimes they are pixelated in spots. My laptop is 1366x768 on a large display and the Kindle Fire has 1024X600 resolutions at 7”, so probability will hopefully be small. The final question is how 16:9 content looks on a 16:10 display. Will there be black blocks on the top or bottom of the display or will the content be zoomed in and possibly blurry?Software Storage FootprintWith 8GB of storage, users will need to be very choosy with what movies, TV shows, music, games, apps and app content they store on the tablet. So the software storage footprint gets important. For example, if it takes 2GB, that leaves 6GB left for apps and content. The Amazon Cloud storage is great, but who wants to be deleting and re-downloading songs and apps to make room for a downloaded movie or a game that requires a huge, secondary download after install?Let’s take a look on iTunes at the popular movie “X-Men: First Class”. It packs a 1.79 GB download. While I don’t think the Amazon “portable” version will weigh in at this size, users will still need to think about their storage, and that’s never good.Silk Web AccelerationSilk promises many things, and to the user it promises faster web page downloads for a more enjoyable browsing experience. It could, potentially, eliminate any browser compatibility issues with the device and a web page. For example, even if the Silk browser didn’t support [?] the latest or oldest web standards, by pre-rendering certain elements of the page, the user wouldn’t detect a thing, only that they can interact with the web page.http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/This begs about 100 questions, but I’ll leave that for another analysis. I do have a few I will highlight.
- Privacy: Amazon knows everywhere I’ve been. Is there a way to opt out? How will it protect my personal information?
- Standards: Which will it support, which won’t it?
- Security: Will it capture my passwords?
- Control: Will user have any kind of control over which sites get “silked” and which ones don’t? I can’t expect Amazon to pre-render every site correctly, particularly the smaller ones.
ConclusionOn paper, the Amazon Kindle Fire appears to provide an exceptional value proposition for the consumer who is on a budget and cannot afford the iPad 2. There are, however, many unknowns that have yet to be determined that could impact the user’s experience. My experience with Amazon is that they under-promise and over-deliver. It’s been that way since their existence. I don’t think they are going to stop that given the importance of Kindle Fire to Amazon. I ordered mine within 5 minutes of the “doors” open up and I’ll hopefully have the answers to these questions above.Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied
So why aren't non-iPad tablets selling as well as the iPad? I read a very interesting article Wednesday from James Kendrick at ZD Net. His contention is that one of the biggest issues is competing with Apple's "consistent marketing experience". I agree that's a big issue, but I think there's an even more basic core issue here and it starts with risk, considered purchase process, influencers and the product experience. Tablets are a Risky and “Considered” Consumer Purchase Consumers, regardless of demographics and psychographics, share some common behaviors. When they are posed with a risky, considered purchase, they are looking for reasons to reject products and not look past their warts. And tablets are a risky, considered purchase. For a time, tablets started at $499, well above the starting prices of a notebook, desktop, or smartphone. Tablets don't run programs or content like the PC that consumers are familiar with. And they are very fragile when compared to other devices. Consumers Research to Mitigate Risk As I said above, when posed with an expensive, risky purchase, it is "considered", meaning they will research it or find a brand which "buffers" the risk. By researching it, I don't mean doing a master’s thesis. I mean doing a few web searches, going to a recommended tech site, asking a few "geek" friends and tossing a few questions out on Twitter or Facebook. What consumers heard back were some positive and some negative things about non-iPads. Even more importantly though, is that very few if any negatives ever came back from their iPad research. Worst thing you might hear back about the iPad is that it doesn't run Flash, it doesn't have SD memory upgrade, and it's expensive. So was it some conspiracy that the negative things were being said or were they just the facts of what actually shipped at launch? The fact is, the clear majority of non-iPad tablets at their launch suffered from many issues as it related to the iPad, which established the bar of a successful tablet. Tablets Lacked Convenient, Paid Content at Launch Many media tablets launched without a whole lot of media:
- Lack of video services like Netflix, Hulu, movie rental, or movie purchase capabilities
- Lack of music services like Pandora, Spotify, or music purchase capabilities
- Lack of book services like Kindle or BN Reader
This issue is being slowly solved, but the damage had been done at launch.

Tablets Lacked Stability and Responsiveness at Launch Many tablets launched with multiple application crashes, hangs and were intermittently unresponsive. When apps would become unresponsive, the users would get a message asking them what they want to do, similar to the way Windows alerts the user. The iPad 2 launch experience was responsive and stable. Yes, the iPad 2 does still experience some app crashes, but it’s less frequent and when it does, it just closes the app.

This issue has been solved for all non-iPad tablets with OS updates, but again, the damage was done at launch. Tablets Lacked Premier Applications at Launch I don’t believe consumers are fanatical about the 100’s of thousands of apps that should be on a tablet. I do believe that they want to have the most popular applications that they care about, though. Most non-iPad tablets launched without premier apps, like premier news, sports, and social media apps. One tablet even shipped without a built-in email and calendar client and research shows that email is the #1 tablet application. Android tablets shipped at launch without a Twitter app. Only Android 3.2 tablets have addressed this issue so far, but again, the perceptual damage was done. Tablets Shipped at Launch with Hardware Challenges Not only were there software issues at launch, but hardware as well. Tablets shipped with inoperable SD card slots and USB ports that didn't work properly. Even competing with the physical iPad 2 design was a challenge. Some tablets were nearly twice as thick as the iPad, used plastic design versus aluminum, and one tablet even shipped with a case that blocked major ports like power, USB and HDMI. Some of these issues have been addressed, but the damage was done. Should Everyone Else Just Quit? With all of these issues at launch and challenging sales so far, should everyone except Apple just quit and concede to Apple? Absolutely not! This is the first inning in a nine inning game, and the game hasn’t been lost. In short order, every tablet will be thin and light enough and power efficient enough until it's inconsequential. Most apps will move to web apps virtually eliminating the app barrier, and everyone will have the right paid content. Apple obviously won’t stand still and I agree with Ben Bajarin when he says, “success will only come to those who want to compete with the iPad by thinking fresh and taking bold and innovative risks.” I have had the honor to work for companies who slayed goliath and I have been slayed myself, so I have seen both sides. It takes courage and conviction and I believe the tech industry can and will do that. Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.
Over the last few weeks, Android 3.2 (aka Honeycomb) started rolling out to tablets like the Asus Transformer and the Motorola Xoom. While the announcement of Android 3.1 was met with great fanfare at Google I/O 2011, Android 3.2 didn’t receive a lot of attention as it started rolling out to systems. Ironically, I believe that with the rollout of Android 3.2, the operating system is finally ready for prime-time.

Background Android 3.X is Google’s operating system for tablets. It was first shown at CES 2011 and the first product it rolled out on was the Motorola Xoom. After its launch, the firestorm ensued and Honeycomb was viewed as having significant issues:
- Sluggish performance even while having superior hardware specs.
- Lack of stability and reliability as evidenced through repeated application crashes.
- Lack of apps. Even as of July 1, 2011, NY Times David Pogue reported that at the most, 232 apps were optimized for Honeycomb. The iPad had 90,000 optimized apps. To make matters worse, Android phone apps ran in a tiny window.
- Lack of external SD card support. Just do a few Google searches on “SD card” and “Xoom” and you will know what I am talking about.
- Limited USB connectivity. Keyboards, mice, digital cameras, card readers either didn’t work at all or were very inconsistent.
Needless to say, this didn’t exactly equate to a very good experience, as I have personally experienced on three separate 10” Android Honeycomb tablets. Improved Performance, Stability and Reliability Between Android 3.1 and 3.2, my Honeycomb experience is like night and day. Single-tasking responsiveness is close to the iPad 2, although the iPad 2 is still faster. Honeycomb does outperform iPad 2 on multitasking though. When I use a tablet, I use it as a primary device. I load around 20-30 apps, and I do set up the background tasks and widgets as they are differentiated features versus the iPad. Where I used to experience between 10-20 application crashes a day, with Android 3.2, I may get one a day. This is a huge breakthrough. And yes, I do get application crashes on the iPad 2. iPad 2 crashes are less pronounced and “hidden” as the app just dies and you are taken to the home screen. In Android, a dialogue box pops up on the screen and you are given the choice to wait, kill, or report the crash.

Improved Application Support Android 3.2 added the capability for users to better tap into the library of approximately 300-400K applications. Applications come in three forms that are somewhat transparent to the user:
1. Tablet optimized apps: Resolution, layout, fonts, content are optimized for the tablet.
2. Stretched apps: Phone applications are stretched to tablet dimensions keeping phone layout, fonts, and content. In some apps this is automatic; in others it requires the user to toggle a menu icon in the apps bar.
3. Zoomed apps: Fixed-size phone applications are zoomed in like the iPad phone apps. In some apps this is automatic; in others it requires the user to toggle a menu icon in the apps bar.
If a user runs across a a manually scaled-app, they are given the option to stretch or zoom. Many of the apps, though, were automatic and stretched into place.

Here is how some of the top Android phone apps look on Android Honeycomb 3.2.

As you can see, some of the phone apps look really good and others could be improved. The net-net is that Android Honeycomb tablet buyers just got 300K-400K more apps to run on their tablets. Conclusion Like the first Android phone OS, the Android tablet OS has quickly undergone a massive overhaul and improvement in a mere 6 months. The most recent improvements in Android Honeycomb 3.2 were virtually unnoticed by many in the press, but ironically, the update improved the experience to the point that Android is finally ready for prime-time. So does a massively improved experience guarantee success? Of course not. Android still has to deal with its IP challenges, fragmentation, and some “me-too” hardware designs, BUT, if you don’t first have a responsive, reliable experience with lots of apps, you have nothing. And Android finally has that for tablets. Have your say in the comments section below. Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google Plus.
By now, you’ve probably all heard or read about Apple’s new desktop operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, or just “Lion” for short. While I believe it is a really good operating system today, what I am most interested in is what it means for tomorrow. I’d like to share with you my thoughts on what I believe OS X Lion tells us about our computing future.

Device Modularity Device modularity is essentially when one device, when docked or connected to another one, becomes something even better or more functional. It’s a world where a phone becomes a tablet; a tablet becomes a notebook and even a phone or tablet becomes a desktop. I’ve touched upon modularity with a few previous blogs covering the Motorola Atrix Lapdock and Multimedia Dock, the BlackBerry PlayBook and even the Motorola Xoom. One of the inhibitors to good modularity is modality in UI. Or in other words, the smartphone, tablet, desktop, and laptop act like you would expect in the context you want. When you plug the phone into the dock to make it a laptop, it acts like a laptop, not a phone. Lion has unified many of the UI elements and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) between the iPhone, iPad, MacBook and the iMac:
- Gestures: Lion unifies gestures, or begins to, between the four platforms. Familiar gestures from iOS like pinch to zoom, tap to zoom, and swipe to navigate are just a few of the multi-platform gestures that are shared between phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop.
- Launchpad: Does this look familiar? This isn’t an iPad or iPhone; it’s Launchpad in Lion on a Mac Air laptop. Launchpad is a place for apps and folders of apps just like you see on the iPhone and iPad.
- Full screen apps: This isn’t exactly revolutionary if you’ve used Windows 7, but full screen apps does just that; allows apps to be maximized to the whole screen, just like iOS apps look with no windows. Then, a user can even “three finger swipe” between apps, similar to iOS 5.
So by unifying user interface and basic HCI, Lion has removed a major hurdle for the future, modular designs. Air Gestures We’ve all seen Microsoft Kinect in action in the living room and some of us have even seen “home-brew” tests using the Kinect SDK for the PC. Imagine more advanced, future computer “vision” on a much closer scale, or “near-field” basis, removing some of the actual physical peripherals. This could use very common and inexpensive cameras, possibly stereoscopic, with interconnects like CSI-3 and a heavy compute engine building a 3D model of the hand.
- “Magic Hand”: Consider removing the mouse and trackpad and replacing with a camera to use your own hand to do the gestures. Maybe even remove the keyboard and replace it with a projected virtual keyboard. The camera, like Kinect, tracks exactly what your hand is doing.
- Consistent Gestures: As described above, by having consistent gestures between all devices, the computer would be very focused on a specific set of near-field air gestures, not different ones by platform, increasing the chance of success.
With Lion unifying gestures today tied with future improvements with compute power and lower power with architectures like the AMD Fusion System Architecture, higher speed camera interconnects like CSI-3, a future without the physical mouse and trackpad becomes a distinct reality. Removing the physical keyboard is more of a stretch, but with pico projection a robust investment area, who knows? Also, with the success of keyboards on iOS and Android tablets, users are becoming conditioned to be satisfied with virtual, non-haptic keyboards.

Peer-to-Peer Communication Peer-to-peer communications occur when one device directly interacts with another without the need for a LAN or WAN. The trend with services and the internet has led to the belief that peer-to-peer was dead. Not so with Lion, as it actually dialed it up a notch.
- Airdrop: Airdrop enables two Lion-based Macs to safely send files directly between each other without the need for an intermediate LAN or WAN. It automatically creates an ad-hoc WiFi-WiFi connection.
I find this very interesting given Apple’s forecast of a “post-PC” world. With very innovative features like HP’s “touch-to-share” and enabling communications like WiFi Direct and BlueTooth 4/5, peer-to-peer comms could be making a comeback. I’d guess that we will be seeing even more of this in CE devices. Who would have thought in this “everything in the cloud” world? :-) Conclusion OS X Lion is a really good operating system for users today and also gives us some indications of interesting things to come in the computing future. I believe that Lion tells us a lot about the future of device modularity, our ability to ditch the mouse, trackpad, and maybe even the keyboard. Lion also guides to a world that increases the likelihood of even more devices talking directly to each other without the cloud middleman. It’s a future I can get excited about. How about you? Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter and on Google+.

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Infographic: Smartphone / Notebook Feature Comparison