Ultrabooks will rule in 2012

Ultrabooks are the new netbooks. It is the turn of these thin-as-a-skyflake laptop computers to play the role of savior of the computer market.

Things are not exactly blockbusters for the PC market right now.

With inertia taking hold of most things, there just isn’t much action expected in the computer industry. Most of the companies thinking of upgrading to the Windows 7 environment have already done so or are waiting for Windows 8 instead.

There are also plenty enough users, both consumers and businesses, still holding on to their Windows XP computers like a dictator does to his banana republic.

Ultrabooks, those Windows-flavored MacBook Air wannabes, are leading PC vendors’ special-ops efforts to jumpstart the market and break out of the industry’s uninspired performance so far.

Until Windows 8 provides the PC market with the jolt it so badly requires, these ultrathin laptops will have to reprise the netbook’s role when it saved the PC market from a downward spiral brought about by the recession a couple of years or so ago.

Flock of Ultrabooks at CES

The last few months of 2011 saw several PC makers giving consumers a trickle of ultrabooks.

At this year’s CES, however, this dribble has turned into a flash flood that threatens to overwhelm even the most jaded of PC users.

More than a dozen products were announced in Las Vegas, and, if we’re to believe some industry observers, there are over 60 more ultrabooks timed for release in 2012.

It seems, however, that consumers are not yet willing and ready to splurge on these anorexic mobile computers.

So, while these ultrabooks created lots of stir at the 2012 CES, some consumers are waiting for the Windows 8-flavored ultrabooks that are set to be released later this year.

Overall, however, these ultrabooks were only the most obvious sign of the PC’s leading role at the recently concluded trade show in Las Vegas.

While large-screen OLED TVs and Windows Phone smartphones stole a large portion of the limelight, ultrabooks and Windows 8 were quite ubiquitous (I just love that word).

Turning Evil?

Some IT market commentators are claiming that Google has just made its biggest blooper so far with what analysts are calling the “most radical transformation ever” to the company’s search engine.

Google claims its newly personalized search, which offers results that include data from its Google+ networking site, enables users to find “that one needle in a haystack of billions of Web pages, images, videos, news, and much more.”

Some quarters, however, are claiming Google’s revision of its search engine is among the worst violations of users’ privacy. Search Plus Your World, some critics claim, may expose private content.

Google users, however, may turn off personal search results.

I believe that after sometime, this issue will die naturally, with everybody wondering what the fuss was all about in the first place.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.

By ALLAN D. FRANCISCO
mb.com.ph

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