April the 8th, Intel announces another 1,400 layoffs in Costa Rica.

Things are not going well for the chip giant.

I suspect the big push by Intel and Microsoft fueled by give aways is going to drain both companies ready cash inside the next calender year.

Do they have enough sucker base to tweek while they do this?

Do you feel like donating sucker money to them while they hunt aimlessly for a future?

Sure you do !!!  Go out and buy you a new MS Windows something or other with an Intel inside !!!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365692,00.asp

Which Browser is Best? Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Internet Explorer vs. Maxthon vs. Opera


Yep, the name Maxthon is new to you, it is the English language version of a Chinese browser that you will hear more about in the upcoming years.

Look to see more Chinese supported items ranking with (and over) some of the old school boys very soon.   Maxthon is already ranked over Opera browser by PC Magazine, and that is a lot of progress very quickly for an item that was in Beta last year.

Also note that Maxthon uses several of the big boy's search engines, so it is somewhat like Dog Pile as it is a compiler of the other engines' results.

And moving they are, Firefox, very quickly, far faster than any other OS out there.  Even if Foxconn only put 300 or even 100 programmers on it (did you really believe 3,000 programmers?) that is still a lot of programmers and can make a lot of very quick progress.

(which is a good thing since they are starting out so far behind in feature-richness and you can only make a fetish out of being "bare bones" for just so long)

Firefox OS 2.0 starts emerging from its cocoon

http://www.cnet.com/news/new-features-and-appearance-for-firefox-os-2-0-emerge/

"Focusing on programming could offer some respite from the politics, and there's plenty of work to be done to modernize Mozilla's mobile OS. Firefox OS 2.0 will add several new features, including edge-swipe gestures. Swiping in from the left or right sides cycles among apps. Swiping down partway from the top will reveal an all-purpose search bar, and swiping down farther will show a task switcher.

The new version of the OS also should be more responsive to touch gestures. People strongly dislike lags between a finger swipe and a device's response.

Other notable additions on the Firefox OS roadmap for version 2.0 include:

   The ability to select, copy, and paste text.
   A more useful lock screen that shows music player controls and a scrollable list of notifications.
   A FindMyFox phone locator feature, including remote wipe, location tracking, and the ability to make the phone emit a noise.
   Integration with Firefox Accounts, a single-sign-on feature for the Firefox Marketplace, FindMyFox, and other services.
   New features for creating ringtones from music.
   Smarter typing input that invisibly increases the size of a letter's tap target based on predictions of what letters might come next.
   NFC (near-field communication) support for sharing photos, contact information, and Web addresses with other NFC-equipped devices.
   The ability to dial somebody directly from the call log.
   A feature to quickly jump to the top of the email inbox; scrolling upward will reveal a "go to top" bar for faster navigation.

Less dramatic changes, including a new camera app, are set to arrive sooner with Firefox OS 1.4, which is due to enter final testing in about two weeks."

Hong Kong Electronics show is going on starting today.

So much new stuff is coming out, lots of new chips, awards and stuff that has nothing to do with the American Market (until later on in the year anyway).

China is taking care of China first, we will get stuff whenever there is enough production to bother with us as a secondary market.

If you want to watch this rather long clip, you will see Allwinner getting the #1 volume shipper award from ARM for being the largest volume ARM shipper in 2013.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et0tUD_mL0E

If you watch the whole thing you will see Allwinner intends to compete in ALL markets, PC desktop, Laptop, Tablet and Phone.   Starting in June of this year.  

Allwinner joins MediaTek now as being bigger than Intel or Microsoft.

Allwinner competes strongly in all mobile markets, and has the A80 Octa chipset now that can run a PC, a Laptop, a Chromebook, a Chromebox or a tablet.   Same chip can run Windows 8.1 but that isn't a priority to Allwinner (they say there are standards and commercial issues with Microsoft that "still needs to be work out").

Allwinner is a member of all the ARM Iinternational Standards Boards.   Allwinner supports Linaro and FOSS softwares.  Olimex and Cubieboards are both shipping the new Allwinner chipsets in open source boards that can all run Ubuntu at this time, with even better chips and better accelerated graphics support promised for this year for 'better gaming on Steam".

Allwinner is NO LONGER A LITTLE CHINESE CHEAPIE GUY -- they have grown large and progressive and are an integral part of FOSS and the ARM Standards Group at this time.  

As of today, with Allwinner and MediaTek both being bigger than Intel or Microsoft (along with all the rest of the old school ARM big boys) we sorta need to change what we say about standards.  

Microsoft is now viewed in China by the new big boys as the one who is "not conforming to international standards" and it is the non-compliant Microsoft that is the one that is going to be dead last to be supported accordingly.

Microsoft is the one who has got to change -- question becomes can they pluck their head out of their butt quickly enough and get compliant to current international standards before they become completely irrelevant?

Lastly as you watch the clip, note how many Chinese only OS systems are shown that are NOT KNOWN TO THE WEST RIGHT NOW.   I counted 3-4 on display just at the Allwinner booth.

Maxthon isn't the only Chinese browser/operating system the Chinese have cooked up in the last year.  Most are Open Source Android based, but the ones that tend to come here are Google Android with the Play Store.

BTW, any vendor who is counting on being x86 and Microsoft compliant to offer them a long term future is kidding themselves.  

Both Intel and MS are going to have to move quickly to get in line with ARM/Android international standards.  Intel is already there with about half of their newer chip count right now and MS was sorta close with RT but has abandoned it in favor of their still to be announced Win 9 "Threshold" product which has now taken a big legal hit in the past few months.  

Now that FOSS has made it clear they will legally reclaim any attached code that MS combines Linux code into, MS is now at a total loss as to how to proceed.  

Without a Windroid base with Linux/Android in it, it seems MS had no real plan after all.  

Windows 8.1 derivatives don't look like they will get any traction as what people are making clear that what they really want is much more like the Win 7 look and feel -- and that entire interface type won't play in the mobile world at all.

It will be interesting to see what MS comes up with -- and if they have to give it away for free when it gets here because it includes FOSS code.   Apple is giving free OS upgrades away on their OSx products now, and so is Google on their OS products.  

Microsoft is smoking dope if they expect to charge people hundreds of dollars for OS product upgrades/updates when everyone else supplies them for free.   Especially when MS wants to impose non-conforming standards and all the rest of their nonsense on top of charging big $$$ for the OS.



..... and Flash, you better be glad Google still supports you or you would be just about GONE at this point in time.  HTML 5 rules in the orient.