Xi3 Piston available for pre-order

Xi3 Piston, the minimalist computer for video games, is now available for pre-order. It will hit the market late this year, but if you want to have a $ 100 discount, you will need to order right now.

Piston is the first device that fits in the category of "Steam box" but is not an official product made ​​with Valve. The Xi3 Company tries to offer top performance in a very small package, appealing to a unique design. The entire computer is modular, and various internal components can be changed over time to always run the latest games.

Unfortunately, the hardware offered now, at $ 999 is a bit high. Even after reducing the pre-order price at $ 899, is not really justified. But we know now that in the aluminum housing there is a 3.2 GHz AMD Trinity, a Radeon 7000 series graphics chip, a 128 GB SSD and 8 GB of DDR3 memory.

Piston Xi3 was presented live at the SXSW and so we can see the first small computer interface, which is now referred to by the nickname "console". Obviously, the operating system is Windows, which received a custom interface. Below you can find the official video presentation with a video interface.

Microsoft has second thoughts about its Office 2013 license

Many Microsoft Office users have been upset on hearing that a license of Office 2013 is tied to a single PC, it seems that's not the case.

After announcing a few weeks ago that Office 2013 licenses will not be transferable, Microsoft seems to have second thoughts. For all those who agreed to purchase a license to the new Office it seemed absurd that such licenses to be tied to a single hardware configuration. In a new post on the official Microsoft Office blog, Redmond announced their policy change. Therefore, from now on, it will be accepted to transfer the license from one PC to another when the old one failed or you simply bought a new computer.

Changes described by Microsoft will be immediately put into practice, while scripting of the licensing document will be implemented in the next update to the Office suite. To make things sound too good to be so simple, Microsoft announced some restrictions about the license moving. Further, you can’t use an Office 2013 license on two different PCs. If you plan to jump from PC to PC with the new Office suite, the company will limited you to install on another system one every 90 days. In principle there is an exception to this rule, if a PC has encountered a hardware problem you might spend some time on the phone with Microsoft customer service to prove the event.

Samsung director shatters Windows 8

Is neither the first nor the last to complain about Windows 8, Dong-Soo Jun unfortunately from Samsung is a director whose opinion counts.

Division memory chip President of Samsung, Dong-Soo Jun takes long term decisions related to power production dedicated RAM for desktops, laptops or smartphones. In an era where PCs lose more and more popularity, Dong-Soo doesn’t hesitate any second in a guilty finding.

In an interview with reporters in South Korea, Jun was very drastic in saying that PC were  not positively impacted by the release of Windows 8, because it isn’t better than the previous Windows platform Vista. "To leave no doubt in his statements, general manager of Samsung has insisted on the same line. He said that at this time we don’t see an explosion in the rate of adoption of ultra-books because of the uncompetitive Windows platform".

Because of the position they occupy, things are very simple, Dong-Soo Jon easily solved the problem caused by Microsoft. Moved his attention almost entirely from memory chips to the classic smartphones and tablets. The sad thing is, regardless of the number of complaints of Microsoft's latest operating system, the Redmond will never change direction of development of operating systems.

Windows Phone 8 can perform 3D scans

Windows Phone 8 will be able to provide access to an app designed for 3D scanning with mobile phones.

Smartphones already occupie an important place in our lives, and manufacturers of applications continue to work to ensure that things will be so in the future. It’s the same in Microsoft case, working on a series of projects that enable users to make 3D scans in the easiest way possible.

Among the solutions discussed, there is also an app for Windows Phone which turns your smartphone into a highly accessible scanning device. Basically the system works in a similar way to panoramic photos. All you have to do is to travel all around the subject while the application takes pictures from different angles. Later they are sent to Microsoft's servers where they are processed to form a complete picture from the scan.

Sent back to the phone which runs Windows Phone 8represented in 3D for which can be viewed and manipulated at will. Although at first glance seems a great discovery, such an application can be very useful especially when you want to send someone a more detailed picture of an object or a person.

Currently we do not know to what extent Microsoft will choose to integrate this feature in Windows Phone 8 or an app designed for this operating system.

Asus Transformer Book Debuts in Japan

It is amazing how some manufacturers like ASUS fail to give a completely new design concept hybrid with Windows 8.

For products unfortunately we do not always appear first in Europe or the U.S., Transformer Book of the image will make its debut this week in Japan.

With a variation of processors and specifications, the concept in the image could be one of the most well-developed hybrids. Basically there are two versions, one with Intel Core i5 and one with Intel Core i7. The one with Ivy Bridge i5 will be priced with the equivalent of $ 1,280, while the i7 configuration will jump to $ 1630. Worth to note that even in Japan, those who wanted a version with Intel Core i7 have to wait a week or two.

In reality, the product is a tablet that becomes a real laptop when connected to the keyboard dock. 950 grams tablet integrates a 13.3-inch Full HD display, 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD plus a place for micro SD cards. If you dock your tablet, you win an extra 500GB hard drive, two USB 3.0 ports, SD card reader, video outputs and an extra hour of battery life. In total, ASUS promises 6 hours of autonomy when docked and five hours without it.

Although the price is one of the lowest for an ultrabook or a hybrid compensated with high performance, justifies the price premium charged by ASUS for TransBook.