Metro

Get ready for the touch-screen laptop.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said today that "more than 40" touch-enabled Windows 8-based ultrabooks are in the pipeline. All of those use the chipmaker's Ivy Bridge processor, he said.

Otellini was speaking during a conference call after the company announced second-quarter earnings today.

In total, there are more than 140 Ivy-Bridge based ultrabook designs in the pipeline, he said. About a dozen of those products will be so-called convertibles that allow a laptop to be converted to a tablet.

A recent example of a convertible is the dual-screen Asus Taichi.

Otellini … Read more

New York City smartphone users who ride MTA Metro-North trains may eventually be able to buy their tickets electronically.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Metro-North Railroad is testing a new system this summer for buying tickets via mobile devices. The Metro-North is, according to some, the busiest commuter train in the U.S. by monthly ridership.

Acting as railroad riders, the MTA's own employees will download a free app to their iPhone, BlackBerry phone, or Android device. The free app will let them electronically buy any kind of ticket for any type of trip by entering their credit or … Read more

Those of you planning your next getaway can get a helping hand from Microsoft's Windows 8 Travel app.

Introduced in the Windows 8 Release Preview, the Travel app conjures up photos, articles, and loads of other data on vacation spots throughout the world. You can use the app to find the perfect paradise or look up information if you already know where you're going.

You can also get details on airports, hotels, and restaurants, and even book your air travel and make your hotel reservations by going through the app itself. Here's a quick look at how … Read more

Printing from a Windows 8 Metro app may throw you for a curve at first. But the process works fine once you get used to it.

For the Windows 8 Release Preview, Microsoft tweaked the way you print content, at least for Metro apps. Instead of choosing a print command from within the app itself, you print using the Charms bar. Selecting the Device charm provides access to your printer, among other devices. From there you can configure the various settings for your print job.

Here's how to print from a Metro app in Windows 8:

Despite their name, icons tend to be unappreciated, at least in Windows. But it's ridiculously easy to replace most icons with new (and better) ones, or add icons for specific uses (like the program your cell phone uses to talk to your PC). We're big fans of icon sets for Windows -- even more so when the icons are free. We recently came across a set of 343 high-quality Metro Style icons for Windows from VisualPharm, a developer dedicated to beautifying the Windows user interface. It's a simple download; just a compressed set of icons and an … Read more

Do you use the Start button in Windows? If not, then you're supposedly the reason Microsoft got rid of it in Windows 8.

Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft, told U.K. computer publication PC Pro that data indicated a decrease in the use of the Start button. Citing "telemetry" obtained by the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program, Sareen said the company found more users relying on the Windows taskbar for pinning and accessing their favorite software instead of going through the Start menu.

As a result of the reportedly dramatic drop in Start menu usage, … Read more

Microsoft's Surface tablet has got PC makers hopping mad. So, they're going to do something about it.

"[PC makers] are pissed off and they are looking for strategies now to not only counter the iPad but counter Surface," said a source at a large company that's part of the ecosystem -- the component suppliers and device manufacturers -- that does business with PC makers.

Separately, Roger Kay, principal analyst at EndPoint Technologies, told CNET last week that there was no shortage of "teeth gnashing" among PC executives and managers in response to the … Read more

The Twitter client MetroTwit is now a full-fledged Metro app available free through Microsoft's Windows store.

MetroTwit users who install the app in the Windows 8 Release Preview will find it similar in many ways to its Windows desktop counterpart.

The app starts off by displaying a column for your traditional Twitter timeline. Clicking on a tweet opens an app bar at the bottom of the screen with a variety of options. You can view the tweet full-screen, reply to it, retweet it, and mark it as a favorite. More options let you open the tweet at Twitter's … Read more

Microsoft's new programming model WinRT -- showcased by the new Windows 8 -- is designed to keep Microsoft relevant in the increasingly mobile world, analysts from research firm Gartner said in a statement today.

"Windows 8 is the start of Microsoft's effort to respond to market demands and competitors, as it provides a common interface and programming API (application programing interface) set from phones to servers," Michael Silver, vice president and analyst at Gartner, said in a press release.

Gartner's analysts, who recently released a report on the changes to Windows, said enterprises will take … Read more