Running Man of Tech: Can you turn a runner into a triathlete in 8 weeks?

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div xmlns='http://bit.ly/16Db7GR'><img alt="Running Man of Tech: Can you turn a runner into a triathlete in 8 weeks?" src="http://ift.tt/1bfUUd8"/><br/><br /><h3>Swimming: harder than I remember</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>I'm clinging to slippery tiles, fingers rapidly wrinkled, while small children play happily on foam tubes near me. In between the waves of sickness I'm wondering when these spaghetti-like buoyancy aids were invented.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Did they have them when I was young? Was I deprived of the joy they're bringing nearly ever child in this pool? Would I be able to pass as a swimmer now if I'd had one?</p><br /><br/><br /><p>These are the thoughts running through my mind as I attempt to come to terms with the fact I've got to run the <a href="http://ift.tt/HCsXwM">Windsor Triathlon</a> (<em>do</em> you run one? Do one? Try to tri? I'm not even sure of the terminology) in less than 2 months.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>It's day 1 of 62, I've got into the pool for the first time in five years and after 50 metres of what I think is front crawl, but probably more akin to a dying dolphin, I'm coughing up chlorine and panicking. I'm never going to be ready to race a triathlon (OH, RACE. That's it) by June.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>It's technology's fault. I've had the Garmin 920XT strapped to my wrist for a couple of months now, and every time I skip past the 'Swim' or 'Triathlon' settings to start a run I feel a pang of guilt. This watch <em>wants</em> to be swimming and cycling too.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>So I make a promise to this inanimate object last Sunday. If I can do the Hyde Park 10K race (the distance of the final leg of an Olympic triathlon) within 10% of my record, I'll add in splashing and spinning to running. The race goes well, I post my third best time ever, and I'm confident I'm fit enough to easily tame this triathlon.</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Garmin 920XT" src="http://ift.tt/1bfUS5g" title="I thought we were friends, Garmin. Stop SWOLFing me." width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>24 hours later I'm certain I won't. What's worse: the Garmin, which I was sure was going to help me supercharge my swimming, has let me down. It's telling me things about SWOLF and asking me if I want to start drills – I have no idea what's happening. And the pool I'm in is so small there's not even a mode for it on the watch, so the length counting is all wrong.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>I flop up and down the posh pond for another 700m in the next hour before calling it a day, my great hopes that the Garmin would somehow give me swimming superpowers sadly not come to fruition.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Help me, magic swimming man</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>The next day I call in the reinforcements. I head to the London YMCA (where I hear it's fun to stay) where they have dedicated triathlon swimming sessions, praying this will help me pick myself off the ground.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>But as I stand on the side of the pool, shivering while impossibly well-built men laugh confidently with one another next to me before plunging into the pool and racing off into the distance, I realise something: my internal equation of 'me being sort of fit from running + fancy gadgetry = easy triathlon' is miles out.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>I'm going to need training. Lots of it. Possibly more than I can cram into the time left. So after a harrowing 90 minutes, where it was kindly suggested a couple of times that I sit out a couple of drills, I slink back home and back to one of my greatest skills: Googling stuff until I find something that makes me feel better and I can forget I was worried in the first place.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>I learn that SWOLF <em>isn't</em> an enemy from Doctor Who - it's the metric Garmin came up with (inexplicably a mixture of swimming and golf) to see how efficient you are per length.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>I find out how to turn drills off. I learn that I'll need SO MUCH STUFF to do a triathlon (two different kinds of shoes, lubricant to get the wetsuit off more quickly, … there's even a company that specifically makes towels to help you transition between segments) that it's either going to be brilliant fun to try all this stuff out or a horrendous mess that sees me line up for the 1.5KM swim dressed as Left Shark through me misunderstanding what's what.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>And I find someone who might agree to coach me for this event. Speaking on the phone, you can hear the pause when I tell him what's ahead of me. Yes, eight weeks to go. No, I can't do 400m swim yet. Well, I cycle about a mile each day to the station.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>So he sends me a few tests to see where I'm at, meaning my entire weekend is taken up with a mini triathlon to find out if I can do this, leading to me sprinting 8 minutes in my local Parkrun before hopping on the bike for a couple another 16 minutes of hell.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>While pedalling I realise another two things: I'm going to need a helmet (because you can go <em>really</em> fast on a bike if you push really hard, which is a recipe for tree crashing) and the Garmin Fenix 3, which I've been testing since Friday, needs a brighter screen (more on that next week).</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Special shout out for Strava - the social network for the fitness-enthused has been really great for logging all the different activities, and I especially love it as it auto-syncs everything I do from the Garmin watch. Plus I've 'enjoyed' finding a few professional sportspeople on there this week, before weeping when I see how fast they're going.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Today comes the swim test, followed by a long hill session for the legs. The fact I'm looking forward to the latter, my usually most-dreaded drill, tells me this is going to <em>suck</em>.</p><br /><br/><br /><ul><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /><li>If you've got any tips, tech you want tested out or just want to mock me, I'm <a href="http://ift.tt/11edI3O">@superbeav</a> on Twitter, and you can <a href="http://ift.tt/1bfUSlu">see my stumblings on Strava</a> too.</li><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /></ul><br /><br/><br /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xKpT" width="1"/><br clear='all'/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoCD6" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xJ5e"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoF1F" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xKq0"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoF1H" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xJ5k"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoCTq"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xKq5"/> </a> <img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1DnoCTs" width="1"/><img alt="" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xKGm" width="1"/><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />From <a href="http://ift.tt/yaGhNV">techradar</a> </div><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />from http://bit.ly/1IYkYaG<br/></div>

Running Man of Tech: Can you turn a runner into a triathlete in 8 weeks?

Swimming: harder than I remember I'm clinging to slippery tiles, fingers rapidly wrinkled, while small children play happily on foam tub...

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Moore's Law at 50: how his predictions have shaped the future

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div xmlns='http://bit.ly/16Db7GR'><img alt="Moore's Law at 50: how his predictions have shaped the future" src="http://ift.tt/12Va8hv"/><br/><br /><h3>Introduction and impact of Moore's Law</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>It's 50 years since Gordon E Moore, co-founder of the Intel Corporation, made the observation that became known as Moore's Law. In 1965 Electronics magazine had asked him to write an article predicting what would happen in the semiconductor component industry in the subsequent 10 years. Moore was, at that time, director of R&D at Fairchild Semiconductor, and this made him something of an expert in the field.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Moore looked at the elements – transistors, resistors, capacitors, and diodes – being used in chips at the time (approximately 60), and based on their use in the preceding years, came to the conclusion that the industry would double these elements every year for 10 years until they hit 60,000 per chip.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Moore lays down the law</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>Ten years later and Moore's prediction proved very accurate, leading a colleague to coin the term 'Moore's Law', but at this time Moore revised his prediction to a doubling every two years. Ultimately transistors came to be the dominant element in chips, becoming the most useful measure of an integrated circuit's complexity.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>But Moore's Law wasn't just about the quantity of elements and a chip's resulting performance – Moore was also concerned with economics. His original prediction was based upon the number of elements within each chip where cost per component was at a minimum. Interestingly, in the past ten years, increases in transistor numbers have come to be more about cost than performance, with transistors being made smaller in order to keep costs down – although this further miniaturisation has resulted in performance gains in any case. Moore's Law economics in action!</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Although Moore's first and second predictions were, initially, a means of chronicling the industry's progress, over time Moore's Law became something of a driving force, encouraging semiconductor manufacturers to keep pace with the Law. Today, there are billions of transistors on chips, and this magnitude has a great deal to do with the existence of Moore's Law. It is said that the semiconductor industry still uses it to guide its planning and to set targets for R&D.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Major impact</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>This being the case, Moore's Law's impact on our lives and the progress of business and industry cannot be overstated. The way we communicate has changed irrevocably over the past few decades. If Moore's Law hadn't been adopted by the semiconductor industry as a call to arms, would we be working on our own individual computers, making business calls on smartphones or travelling to meetings in today's computer-controlled cars (if we bother to travel at all – videoconferencing has never been more sophisticated)? Unlikely.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>And there'd almost certainly be no internet without Moore's Law. Gordon Moore has helped to determine our technological reality and is arguably even more (no pun intended) influential in indirectly shaping our futures than Arthur C Clarke – and that's some achievement.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>So, what helped Moore's Law to gather momentum in the early years following the 1965 publication of Electronics magazine? Of course, the invention of the integrated circuit, which instigated and influenced Moore's article has a huge part to play – without it there would be no Moore's Law, I'd be typing this piece on a typewriter and TechRadar Pro would be a print magazine. We have Jack Kirby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor to thank for the 'birth' of Moore's Law and for keeping it alive ever since. But there were other contributions to the Law's early development.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Super shrinkage</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>The invention of DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) in 1967, by Robert Dennard at IBM, made it possible to fabricate single-transistor memory cells. The invention of the excimer laser at the Lebedev Physical Institute in 1970, and the subsequent invention of deep UV excimer laser photolithography by Kanti Jain at IBM in the early 80s, ultimately led to the smallest components in integrated circuits to shrink from 800 nanometers in 1990 to a low of 22 nanometers in 2012.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>The invention of flash memory, also in the early 80s, by Fujio Masuoka at Toshiba opened the doors for high-capacity, low-cost memory. And manufacturing costs for chips were driven down thanks to developments in CMP (chemical mechanical planarisation) by IBM and Motorola throughout the 90s. CMP smoothes the surface of chips making them easier and cheaper to manufacture.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>More recently, various announcements have made the future or Moore's Law – which Moore himself reckons has a limited shelf life – look pretty secure. Researchers at the Tyndall National Institute in Ireland announced that they had fabricated the junctionless transistor in 2010; researchers at the University of Pittsburgh announced the development of the single-electron transistor, 1.5 nanometres in diameter in 2011; and in 2012 a team at the University of New South Wales announced the development of a transistor comprising a single atom placed in a silicon crystal.</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Intel Wafer" src="http://ift.tt/1OsFDSC" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Will it last?</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>How long can Moore's Law go on for? As mentioned above, Moore reckons there'll be an end to it. "It can't continue forever," he told TechWorld.com in 2010. Moore says it'll be "two or three generations" before transistors are the size of atoms and that we'll reach a "fundamental limit" with existing processes before 2030.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Also in 2010, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors predicted that transistor-per-chip growth would slow by 2014, projecting that the Moore's Law doubling would shift from every two years to every three. Of course, the growth of nanotechnology could restore Moore's Law to its doubling-every-two-year predictor.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>However it might be sustained, as it did before, Moore's Law will have to evolve to survive. As we've seen, developments in semiconductor technology will continue to occur, but this won't necessarily mean that costs will continue to fall – Moore's original economies.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Other measures of the Law will have to come into play, meaning that it will morph into what some in the semiconductor industry call "more than Moore" and 'Gentleman Scientist' Chris Mack calls Moore's Law 3.0. Mack cites the cell phone camera as an example of 3.0 in action. These cameras incorporate image sensors directly onto digital signal processors using large vertical lines of copper wiring called through-silicon vias, so uniting non-logic functions that would previously have been kept separate from the chips themselves.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Assuming Moore's Law continues to have an impact on technology, what might the future look like? However you want it to look, basically, especially if nanotechnology becomes more influential. Cyber body parts, brain implants, wearable tech that interacts with your body biologically – our lives are set to change again and again thanks to Moore's Law as we keep living in what feels like the future. And as Moore's Law evolves to keep up with the technological evolution, there are no limits to where the semiconductor will take us. Here's to the next 50 years.</p><br /><br/><br /><ul><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /><li><a href="http://ift.tt/1gCnk1i">Moore's Law: how long will it last?</a> </li><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /></ul><br /><br/><br /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xK9r" width="1"/><br clear='all'/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoCmv" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xIOM"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoCmB" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xIOQ"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoCmF" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xK9x"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1DnoCCV"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xKpP"/> </a> <img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1DnoCCZ" width="1"/><img alt="" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1Q4xIOV" width="1"/><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />From <a href="http://ift.tt/yaGhNV">techradar</a> </div><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />from http://bit.ly/1IYl02f<br/></div>

Moore's Law at 50: how his predictions have shaped the future

Introduction and impact of Moore's Law It's 50 years since Gordon E Moore, co-founder of the Intel Corporation, made the observation...

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Don't install Windows 10 preview without reading this first

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div xmlns='http://bit.ly/16Db7GR'><img alt="Don't install Windows 10 preview without reading this first" src="http://ift.tt/1Pr6h1n"/><br/><br /><h3>Introduction</h3><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Windows 10 OS" src="http://ift.tt/1HY4j3e" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>So you are thinking about installing <a href="http://ift.tt/YRXM92">Windows 10</a> on your computer (laptop, tablet or desktop)? If so, we've put together a list of 5 things you need to do before installing Microsoft's latest operating system.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>The current iteration, 10049, is probably the most stable version to date and likely to be the penultimate one before the beta version is officially launched at Build 2015 in San Francisco later this month. Sandwiched between the two will be build 10051, which has already been leaked.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Upgrade or clean install?</h3><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Windows 10 installing" src="http://ift.tt/1IN99QR" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>Deciding whether to update the existing version of Windows or go for a clean install will impact on the entire installation process. Some devices, especially with a low amount of on-board storage, can only do a clean install. I prefer a clean install for two main reasons; it saves space and removes any risk of conflict that might arise. Plus you won't be able to roll back to Windows 8.1 from Windows 10 anyway.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Also, do make sure that you noted down your product ID key for Windows and have a boot disk handy, just in case the Windows 10 experiment doesn't go according to plan.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Regardless of your installation process, you will need to download the Windows 10 Technical Preview ISO, either 32-bit or the 64-bit one, the former for systems with less than 4GB and the latter for those with more than 4GB.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>If you don't know what an ISO is, it's probably not a good idea for you to proceed further – note that this isn't my advice, but Microsoft itself.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Once you get hold of the ISO, you can either burn it on a blank DVD or use something like <a href="http://ift.tt/1cQvRe9">this Windows USB boot tool</a> to create a bootable Windows 10 virtual disk.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Windows 10 TP expires on October 1, 2015</h3><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Windows 10" src="http://ift.tt/1cdfhrP" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>The Technical Preview of Windows 10 will expire in October 2015 which will give you ample time to play with, tweak and evaluate whether the OS will be a good fit for you.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>You can always contribute to the Windows Insider Program (WIP) if you are encountering any sort of issues. WIP provides you with a standard forum where you can query other Windows 10 users, and fairly often get answers directly from active Microsoft-vetted members.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>After that, you will either need to buy it, or get it for free by upgrading from an existing installation of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Microsoft has already confirmed that it will be releasing the final version of Windows 10 sometime in the summer, perhaps coinciding with the next iteration of its business suite, <a href="http://ift.tt/1NgzIVq">Office 2016</a>.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Create a Microsoft account</h3><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="MS account creation" src="http://ift.tt/1HY4j3g" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>If you don't have a Microsoft account already, do create one as it will allow you to save your existing settings and all your files to the cloud (on Microsoft's OneDrive), files that you will then be able to recover after installing Windows 10. Create that account BEFORE you start the installation.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>You don't actually need a Microsoft account to install Windows 10 (but then you will probably need to document your login details); the vendor made it more difficult to complete the installation of Windows 10 without getting one first.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Getting your own Microsoft account also means that you will get 15GB of online storage, which you can double if you link your phone or tablet (Android, Windows or iOS). Note that your browser's details are likely to be separate if you're using Chrome or Firefox, so you will need to have logins or save these separately.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Make a list of software to install</h3><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Windows 10 laptop" src="http://ift.tt/1Pr6fqp" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>It's unlikely that you'll need to actively search for and download drivers since Windows 10 usually does it pretty well. However, do make sure that you know what the components inside your computer are, just in case. Having that list makes it easier to troubleshoot afterwards; use <a href="http://ift.tt/yL8bVw">an application like AIDA64</a> to find these out.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>It's also worth compiling a list of all the applications you might want to install after you (hopefully) have installed Windows 10. I usually trust a nice little updater called <a href="https://ninite.com/">Ninite</a> with my installation troubles which essentially batch-installs a list of popular applications.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>The applications are mostly open source ones and are always the latest official versions – they have been tested for malware, won't badger you with any questions, and will say no to toolbars and extra junk.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Plan, plan, plan</h3><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Windows 10 on tablet" src="http://ift.tt/1cdffAa" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>One of the oft-forgotten aspects of installing Windows on a computer is connectivity. You need connectivity to get hold of the latest drivers and very often, you won't be able to have access to Wi-Fi. I usually use a USB NIC which plugs into any USB port, and is very handy in a number of situations (especially when you have an Ultrabook).</p><br /><br/><br /><p>I also have a micro-USB to USB converter and a 4-in-1 USB hub, both of which have been life savers for installing Windows 10 on tablets. Other accessories that might come in handy include a wired keyboard and a wired mouse (if you're looking to install Windows 10 on a tablet) as well as an Ethernet cable.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>If you want to get Windows 10 for cheap, you can always use the upgrade route, grab a cheap Windows 7 license online and update when Windows 10 becomes available. However you need to be wary of <a href="http://ift.tt/1Pr6h1w">Microsoft's rather complex licensing</a> scheme which we tried to analyse in a recent article.</p><br /><br/><br /><ul><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /><li><a href="http://ift.tt/1xKgn65">Windows 10: release date, price, news and features</a> </li><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /></ul><br /><br/><br /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1aubq8l" width="1"/><br clear='all'/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfbIo" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubrJG"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfbIs" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubrZX"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfeDS" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubq8v"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1Gwfcfv"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubs02"/> </a> <img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1Gwfcfx" width="1"/><img alt="" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1aubs06" width="1"/><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/> </div><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />from http://bit.ly/1NiJje8<br/></div>

Don't install Windows 10 preview without reading this first

Introduction So you are thinking about installing Windows 10 on your computer (laptop, tablet or desktop)? If so, we've put together a...

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Apple Watch on sale now, but some colors are sold out

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div xmlns='http://bit.ly/16Db7GR'><img alt="Apple Watch on sale now, but some colors are sold out" src="http://ift.tt/1ExLbsZ"/><br/><br /><p>Even without an <a href="http://ift.tt/1seQ3O2">Apple Watch</a> telling you the current time, you should know that it's time for the much-hyped <a href="http://ift.tt/16LmblC">pre-order</a> of the company's iPhone-compatible smartwatch.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>The clock has struck midnight in California, and that previously down Apple Store website has suddenly opened its virtual doors to early adopters of the wearable.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>There are 38 different designs out-of-the-box, and a range of <a href="http://ift.tt/1ND856B">Apple Watch prices</a> that make the decision even harder two weeks ahead of the April 24 <a href="http://ift.tt/1yEiMfn">release date</a>.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Certain collections, like the Apple 18-karat gold Watch Edition are well out of the average consumers' budget, which should help in a way. Stainless steel doesn't come cheap either.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Apple Watch sold out in some cases</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>A handful of Apple Watch colors are sold out - at least if you wanted them on day one - with the most popular variants displaying a shipment date as late as June. That was within the first few minutes.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>In particular, don't expect to get the Sport Band with a black band or space gray case, or the expensive Link bracelet in any color on the release date now.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>More colors are likely to see further shipping delays as the day wears on.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Apple Watch sales numbers</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>We don't know the official Apple Watch sales figures for a while, but the product category is unlikely to reach critical mass like the IPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. It's too new.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>That being said, we wouldn't be surprised if the most popular smartwatch ends up being the cheaper Sport variant with rubber band. It's "just" $349 (£299, AU$499).</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Appointments to try on and purchase the watch are required and expected to also be snatched up by eager consumers. They can be <a href="http://ift.tt/1HY4j3c">booked</a> through Apple's official website.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>That means there's no camping outside of Apple Stores for this launch. It goes along with the classier mantra for the Apple Watch, though some people will <a href="http://ift.tt/1yUz3NA">miss the line extravaganza</a>.</p><br /><br/><br /><ul><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /><li>Apple Watch competition: <a href="http://ift.tt/1ASCOUr">Apple Watch vs Android Wear</a>, <a href="http://ift.tt/1s5oYsC">Apple Watch vs Moto 360</a> and <a href="http://ift.tt/1FSkUnC">Apple Watch vs Pebble</a> </li><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /></ul><br /><br/><br /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1aubpBx" width="1"/><br clear='all'/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfbYV" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubpBB"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfbrR" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubpRQ"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfbrV" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubpRS"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GwfbYX"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1aubpRU"/> </a> <img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1GwfbZ1" width="1"/><img alt="" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1aubrJq" width="1"/><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/> </div><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />from http://bit.ly/1Ftv8JX<br/></div>

Apple Watch on sale now, but some colors are sold out

Even without an Apple Watch telling you the current time, you should know that it's time for the much-hyped pre-order of the company...

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Analysis: Imitation or innovation: can China be a real force in tech?

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div xmlns='http://bit.ly/16Db7GR'><img alt="Analysis: Imitation or innovation: can China be a real force in tech?" src="http://ift.tt/19WZ3BJ"/><br/><br /><h3>Introduction and monster markets</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>Do you own a Chinese-made gadget? You almost certainly do; virtually all smartphones and tablets – and much more besides – are manufactured in China. The home of Foxconn and a whopping 162 of the world's top 500 companies, Shenzhen in the country's Pearl River delta is where most electronics originate, from smartphones and tablets to laptops, TVs, displays, scanners, portable batteries, printers, projectors, LED bulbs, digital cameras, Bluetooth speakers, DVD/Blu-ray players, home appliances and even e-cigarettes. China makes it all.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>But can you name a Chinese electronics brand? The biggest global brands are largely from just three countries; Japan (Sony, Panasonic, Canon), South Korea (Samsung and LG) and the USA (Apple and Microsoft), all of whom use China to get their products made. China is full of expertise, not just in manufacturing products but in designing them, too – almost every stage of manufacturing is now outsourced to The Red Dragon.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>They make everything for everyone else, so why don't Chinese companies step out of the shadows and take the tech world by storm?</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Chinese tech brands</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>There are successful Chinese electronics brands that all of us have heard of. Really only one – Lenovo – is familiar to us all. Lenovo bought IBM's laptop business and now owns Motorola's smartphone business. The others are best described as 'emerging' – the likes of <a href="http://ift.tt/1FKwkKi">Huawei</a>, <a href="http://ift.tt/19WZ3RZ">ZTE</a> and <a href="http://ift.tt/1sbLnbi">Xiaomi</a>, which wants to be known internationally as Mi – are all beginning to issue consumer devices globally, or at least threatening to. Other names you may have heard in the tech press include internet firms such as search engine <a href="http://ift.tt/19WZ3S3">Baidu</a>, Tencent and Alibaba.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>"Chinese tech giants like Huawei and ZTE have been listed since 2007 amongst the top 10 companies worldwide in terms of PCT applications," says Simone Corsi at Lancaster University Management School, which runs the <a href="http://ift.tt/1xLWUnl">China Catalyst Programme</a> to pair SMEs from the UK and China on R&D projects. "Huawei topped that ranking in 2008 and ZTE and Huawei were respectively second and third in 2013, before US companies Qualcomm and Intel, and just after Panasonic."</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="TCL, like Hisense, is actively increasing TV exports" src="http://ift.tt/19WZ5t8" title="TCL, like Hisense, is actively increasing TV exports" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Monster markets</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>Emerging they might be, but all of those Chinese brands – and many more like them – are already massive at home. Take the display market. "The Chinese domestic TV market is 20% of the global market," says Jack Wetherill, Senior Market Analyst at FutureSource, "which gives brands such as TCL, Hisense and Skyworth economies of scale that they can leverage internationally … as domestic Chinese brands face a highly competitive local market they continue their push into other territories, and generally lead on price."</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Hisense – the biggest TV brand in China – has become one of the fastest-growing electronics brands in Australia and the US, too, where it sponsors the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis and NASCAR Xfinity, respectively. It's a fast-changing market – Chinese brands have grown their share of the global TV market from just 12% in 2011.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>The rise of the Chinese smartphone</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>China produces 2.5 billion phones each year, over half the global output. Often called 'the Apple of China', Xiaomi is China's biggest smartphone seller in just its fourth year. Its latest product, the <a href="http://ift.tt/1xLWUDD">Mi Note, is almost identical to an iPhone 6 Plus</a>, though slightly larger and lighter, but it costs a fraction of the price.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Beyond Xiaomi there are dozens of other Chinese smartphone brands ready to pounce. As the world's largest telecoms equipment maker, Huawei is using its global leverage to push its <a href="http://ift.tt/1DYucyC">Honor brand of smartphones</a> in the USA and Europe, while another Chinese brand, ZTE, which sponsors the New York Knicks basketball team, aims to ship 60 million of its Nubia and Star 2 smartphones globally in 2015.</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="The Mi Note" src="http://ift.tt/19WZ5cI" title="The Mi Note is lighter, thinner, bigger and cheaper than the iPhone 6 Plus" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>A brand new smartphone company called OnePlus is currently building an army of 'brand evangelists' across the globe while the likes of Oppo, Gionee, IUNI, Coolpad and Meizu are growing fast, too.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Phones have always been made in China, but until recently the country's electronics brands have lacked the desire and the marketing know-how to hit foreign markets. Xiaomi only sells its phones online, in limited quantities and in timed sales, under the motto 'just for fans'. Last year, Xiaomi's Redmi 1S smartphone sold exclusively on the Flipkart website in India sold out in a mere four seconds.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>"The way they are marketed is simply revolutionary," says Li Ma, International Business Director for Honey LLP, a social creative agency that helps Chinese brands enter foreign markets. "In marketing terms, China now leads the way in innovation."</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Li Ma" src="http://ift.tt/1xLWTjj" title="Li Ma, International Business Director for Honey LLP, specialises in taking Chinese brands abroad" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><p>Xiaomi's decision to only sell online is unusual, but proving effective, and it's setting the tone for the brand's planned entry into emerging markets. "It saves Xiaomi from the high cost of partnerships with distributors, retailers, and network operators, but more importantly, this unconventional approach gives Xiaomi better control over the timing of market entry," says Ma.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Imitation stereotype</h3><br /><br/><br /><h3>Innovation or imitation?</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>Chinese-made electronics remain cheap. Despite the new focus on innovative marketing, undercutting incumbent brands in foreign markets is the easiest 'in' route. That keeps the stereotype – that Chinese brands don't innovate, they imitate – going strong, but it's just not true.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>"You only need to look at the number of patent applications – which has now exceeded the US – to see how fast China is moving, and with a vast home market to exploit they are able to gain huge experience and drive down costs," says Dr Peter Chadha, CEO of DrPete Technology Experts. "I'm in no doubt that over the next 24 months Xiaomi's innovation and a host of others will overtake Samsung and the other Android proponents."</p><br /><br/><br /><p>The only barrier to that happening overnight is a lack of an established value chain in place in Europe and the US when it comes to service and support. That's not the case in emerging markets like Brazil, Turkey, Russia and Mexico, which is why Chinese brands are focused on them. "It started as an imitation but it is more and more innovation," says Corsi.</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Huawei's Honor smartphones are now available globally" src="http://ift.tt/19WZ48t" title="Huawei's Honor smartphones are now available globally" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Why do Chinese brands struggle to match Korean and Japanese brands?</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>It's simply a matter of time. "When Japan began its economic development and Japanese firms started internationalising, they were the ones looked at as the imitators with their 'reverse engineering' process," says Corsi.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>"The same applied for Korean companies … getting the recognition of global high-tech brands for Chinese companies is harder because of the wrong idea that has been diffused about China in the world by the media – low-cost labour, no IP protection, no creativity," says Corsi. "While this was true in the past, it is now more and more clear that China is shifting from the role of manufacturing superpower to the one of innovation superpower."</p><br /><br/><br /><p>However, until the stereotype of Chinese companies changes in the minds of Westerners, the country won't produce many global brands. Do people know that Lenovo is a Chinese brand? Probably not, because the name doesn't give it away. On that logic, Huawei will struggle, hence why its branding of the Honor phones rarely mentions the manufacturer's name.</p><br /><br/><br /><p><img alt="Hisense" src="http://ift.tt/1xLWTzB" title="Qingdao's Hisense is technically owned by the Chinese state" width="420"/> </p><br /><br/><br /><h3>The rise of China: the losers</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>Chinese brands are on the rise, but at whose expense? "Samsung, the market leader in the Android space, is the big brand under greatest threat as its leadership is largely due to hardware – and maybe brand loyalty and distribution – but there is no software differentiation of any note," says Chadha. "As the Chinese brands improve, the Samsung business will get riskier and riskier because they will be unable to compete on volume and cheaper prices."</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Apple is rather more protected, since it owns the software ecosystem that people are tied into. "It's essentially like buying a BMW Mercedes or even a Ferrari, but even the fuel that goes in the car is Apple's own fuel – i.e. apps – and so they make money throughout the ownership of the device." Samsung, nor any other maker of smartphones, has anything like as secure a business model to protect them from aggressive Chinese brands.</p><br /><br/><br /><h3>Dominating the conversation?</h3><br /><br/><br /><p>It may innovate more than any other country, but if Chinese electronics brands are to dominate globally, things need to change. Xiaomi doesn't even have an English language OS yet, and besides, there's little awareness or discussion of Chinese brands globally.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Social media mentions during <a href="http://ift.tt/1nTGDB8">January's Consumer Electronics Show</a> provide a good barometer of a brand's success, especially since all the big Chinese brands had big exhibition stands in Las Vegas, many for the first time.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>"We analysed the mentions of Chinese brands including Lenovo, ZTE, Xiaomi and Huawei during the CES and saw minimal mentions and visibility of them compared to others," says Dinah Alobeid, a spokesperson for analyst company Brandwatch. "The only brand out of the four that had a large volume of mentions was Lenovo."</p><br /><br/><br /><p>Lenovo had over 13,000 mentions on social media during CES, which dwarfed figures for ZTE (1,300), Xiaomi (1,200) and Huawei (800+). To put it in perspective, Samsung received over 35,000 mentions and even Apple – which had no presence during CES and no product launches during that time – managed more than 19,000 mentions. However, LG got just 2,000 mentions, suggesting that Chinese companies could quite easily eclipse the Korean smartphone maker.</p><br /><br/><br /><p>They may have a domestic market that dwarfs all others, but Chinese tech brands are going to have to work hard – and gradually – if any of them are to convince the world's media (and people in general) that they are innovators, and so join Lenovo in becoming respected global brands.</p><br /><br/><br /><ul><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /><li><a href="http://ift.tt/1sjvJcF">ARM: Days of China copying Western tech are ending</a> </li><br /><li style='list-style: none'><br/> </li><br /></ul><br /><br/><br /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1J3BLGn" width="1"/><br clear='all'/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1GsbsKk" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1J3BJyf"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1Gsbr9j" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1J3BJyh"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1Gsbr9l" rel="nofollow"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1J3BLGv"/> </a><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/><br /><a href="http://ift.tt/1Gsbrpz"><img border="0" src="http://ift.tt/1J3BJyn"/> </a> <img border="0" height="1" src="http://ift.tt/1GsbrpD" width="1"/><img alt="" height="1" src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/allnews/~4/Uv0MOjyg0ng" width="1"/><br/><br /><br/><br /><br/> </div><br /><br/><br /><br/><br />from http://bit.ly/1J3Fy6H<br/></div>

Analysis: Imitation or innovation: can China be a real force in tech?

Introduction and monster markets Do you own a Chinese-made gadget? You almost certainly do; virtually all smartphones and tablets – and much...

Read more »