Those Windows 10 on ARM devices that we were just talking about yesterday are representative of Qualcomm and Microsoft's "Always Connected PC" initiative. The idea is to have a PC laptop with the battery life and always-on connectivity of a smartphone. It's going to take more than just Microsoft and Qualcomm to make that happen, though. Qualcomm just announced that it's partnering with nine more telecom operators in addition to the five it already had.
The original announcement included China Telecom, TIM in Italy, EE in the UK, and Sprint and Verizon in the US. Today, T-Mobile and AT&T join the party in the US, as well as Swisscom in Switzerland, Telefónica in Spain, Cubic in Ireland, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, Transatel in France, CMCC in China, and Telstra in Australia. Not all of these operators will be stocking and selling the Always Connected PCs, but all of them will offer support for the devices on their networks.
There's still no specific word from anyone on exactly when you will be able to buy one of these machines. In its announcement, Qualcomm mentions that Lenovo is joining HP and Asus in the first wave of Windows 10-on-ARM devices with the Miix 630 that we covered last month. Qualcomm says that consumers should "look for specific mobile operator announcements and offers" in the first half of 2018. Asus told Anandtech last month that it expected its NovaGo machine to launch in the second quarter of 2018, so we'd expect its competitors' devices around that same time.
Isn’t a desktop PC with an ethernet cable “always connected”?
There might, possibly, be a practical distinction between ‘always on and connected’ and ‘always connected while on’, but given that no one’s trawled the depths of Intel’s ME I’m more inclined to agree with you.
Microsoft better check it’s privileges, before we loose all of ours.
Always connected, always spied on.
When wireless charging becomes ubiquitous… devices will stop even having an off button.
you mean tracked and you pay for it !
Off mean Off. Save our batteries!
unhhh these have 30 days of standby…
Ehhh, what’s the point of an “always connected” PC? Obviously the concept has been floating around for a while now, but I just can’t think of any reason this feature is necessary on anything except a smartphone. I’d argue that even tablets don’t need to be always connected. It really seems that the necessity of “always connected” is directly related to portability of said device.
I guess you answered yourself, then?
Microsoft wants in on the Chromebook market.
This is in the short-term interests of some companies, at the expense of people and even society itself. They want your time, your ears, your eyes, your thoughts. Endless dependency on a stream of throw-away devices, with your data stored on their servers.
Ehh, its less about being “evil” than it is about greedy.
Always-on devices on anything other than a Smartphone makes much sense to most people as an IoT device does. Both of them are trying their darndest to part your wallet from your hard earned money. $200 Smart Cups? $150 Smart Thermostats? $100 Smart T-shirts? $400 Smartwatch that needs a phone pairing?
With economic problems plaguing even most first-world nations because of increasing debt problems, ever increasing cost of living, and stagnant wages, these types of devices make no sense, and should be the last on anyone’s minds.
I agree its greed and not evil. But forget debt levels, I say filling every space with pointless technology is actually harmful regardless of the cash offered up front.
I look at marketing sheets for the IoT devices and I often notice that it says it will notify you when something happens.
Imagine having Internet of “Things” all over your house.
Imagine how many notifications you would get every day!
There are studies indicating all the notifications actually give us stress, and we’re better off reducing it. That’s just for Smartphones and Computers, nvm that + IoT.
I think most of IoT is innovation seeking a purpose, solving problems that weren’t problems in ways which are unacceptably interconnected, fragile, and short-lived.
By most moral standards greed IS evil.
even my smartphone is NOT always connected ; as soon as possible, i’m on WIFI !