eNeura, a company out of Baltimore, Maryland, received FDA 510(k) clearance for its SpringTMS device to treat migraine headaches. The device delivers transcranial magnetic stimulation, hence the TMS in the product name, in order to disrupt the electrical signals that are thought to be responsible for migraines.

The SpringTMS is intended for patients to use on their own, positioning the device behind the head and activating a single pulse using buttons on the handles. In published studies, the device has shown effectiveness similar to available medications but without any serious side effects. It already received European CE mark of approval and is available in the UK for migraine treatment and prevention.

From the announcement regarding what led to the FDA clearance:

The FDA reviewed a double-

blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical study of 201 patients. The study, which took place in 18 U.S. centers, showed that nearly 38 percent of subjects who used sTMS when they had migraine headache pain were pain-free two hours after using the device compared to approximately 17 percent of patients in the control group. After 24 hours, approximately 34 percent of the sTMS users were pain-free compared to only 10 percent in the control group. The treatment did not produce any device-related serious adverse events.

Product page: SpringTMS Total Migraine System…

Easiest way to write your name on the moon

It’s one of the great traditions, not of sci-fi but of fiction in general: if you want the world to know who’s really in charge, write your name on the moon. Actually, some famous moon-scholars from literary history have chosen to write other messages, but according to physics blog Canonical Momentum, the challenges are basically the same: if you want to leave a note on Luna, you’ll need some seriously impressive hardware.

The first and most important challenge will be planning the message itself. To be legible to the human eye on the ground (preferable, we’ll assume), the letters must be at least once arc-minute high, or we cannot distinguish between two points. This arc-minute size corresponds to roughly 100 kilometres, meaning that any detail smaller than that will smear together and produce an unreadable message. With a message like “Hello,” we end up with a final size roughly equivalent to that When it comes to actually creating the message, things get a bit more complicated. What do you use to make your mark? Nuclear weapons certainly have the fire-power, but they leave circular impact craters that are hard to use for drawing, and they certainly don’t stand out well against the rest of the moon’s surface. 

Craters are also quite small, and despite all the destructive power of a nuclear bomb, its mark will still be small when seen from roughly 375,000 kilometers away. Though shadows, or hordes of coordinated mini-nukes could be used cleverly enough, we’re unlikely to use nuclear pointillism to rough out a message on the moon.

Using a laser is much more likely. At an achievable power level — say, 10 megawatts — a laser fired at the moon could cover roughly three meters with enough energy to reach the melting point of moon dust. This will have created a portion of the lunar surface that remains visible through reflection — though the downside is that the mark is only three meters to a side. 

Firing this X-ray laser will require a huge fraction of the energy used by the US each year, but should work at slowly burning a message into the moon. The word “slow” is operative here, as something like a 50,000-year timeline becomes necessary when working with any existing laser technology.

Check out the full post for a much more detailed look at how this all might work. The ultimate point of this thought experiment is to illustrate how hard it would be to do something like write your name on the moon — thankfully, hard enough that it probably won’t happen until a man with a chair for a face becomes ambitious. Remember, though, the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth and thus shows us only one side; if someone did write their name on the Moon, we’d have to stare at it non-stop until the end of our planetary system.

Or, of course, until someone invented Lunar tattoo removal — and the real world doesn’t have a Tick to send to the Moon with bombs strapped to his back.

New Intel-based tablets from major brands will start hitting stores in June, and senior executives at the chipmaker hope the offerings will move it closer to an aggressive sales goal.

Far behind rival Qualcomm (QCOM.O) in mobile devices, the upcoming tablets are the result of Intel Corp's (INTC.O) strategy to sell chips this year at a loss in a bid to stake out badly needed market share. Intel is betting that in the future, its customers will keep using Intel chips without the discounts.

Toshiba (6502.T) this week announced six tablets and PCs with detachable screens made with Intel chips, one of which runs the Android operating system and the rest Windows. More Intel-based tablets will start hitting U.S. store shelves in June and July for back-to-school shoppers, Erik Reid, general manager of Intel's Mobile Client Platforms unit explained in a recent interview.

It will be a new high-water mark, to be eclipsed by another high-water mark at the holidays," said Reid, who is managing Intel's tablet push.

With the PC industry shrinking, mobile devices and other new markets have become a top priority for Intel. Most tablets are made with chips from Samsung (005930.KS), Qualcomm and other companies that use low-power technology from ARM Holdings (ARM.L).

Earlier in May, CEO Brian Krzanich review that Intel was well on its way to reaching his goal for the company to increase its sales of tablet chips this year to 40 million units.

After shipping 5 million tablet chips in the first quarter, Intel is on track to meet a target of 7.5 million such chips for the June quarter, Krzanich said.

"We're on schedule to hit that number and we'll see if we can do better than that," he said.

Global tablet shipments from all manufacturers in 2014 will grow 12 percent to 245 million, less than a previous forecast of 261 million devices, because people are keeping their devices longer, market research firm IDC said on Thursday. Intel sold around 10 million tablet chips last year.

Manufacturers have launched a handful of Windows tablets running on Intel's newest Bay Trail chips, but those chips have been slow to appear in devices running the popular Android platform.

On Tuesday, Intel announced a deal with Chinese chipmaker Rockchip to make components for entry-level Android devices aimed at local consumers in China.

Partly reflecting the financial incentives Intel is offering manufacturers to use its tablet chips, the company's mobile and communications group had an operating loss of $929 million in the April quarter on revenue of only $156 million.

As well as big PC brands increasingly making tablets, Intel expects small manufacturers making devices for China's domestic market to play a major part in reaching its 40 million chip goal this year, Reid said.

"We're confident, but this is by no means saying it's in the bank."

                                   4K Ultra HD

Since the start of 2014, the buzz around consumer video technology has centered on 4K Ultra High Definition, or UHD, video. At both the Consumer Electronics Show and the National Association of Broadcasters Show, the exhibit halls were filled with massive screens showing incredibly clear, vibrant video images. As a result, companies throughout the video ecosystem, from TV makers to content producers, are trying to assess the impact of 4K and the pace with which it will roll out into the global marketplace.

The terminology around 4K can be confusing. The term "4K video" is derived from the number of pixels across one horizontal line of resolution. Consumer 1080p high definition video has a 16:9 aspect ratio widescreen resolution of 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels, or approximately 2.07 million pixels. In comparison, 4K UHD video has nearly 4,000 pixels per horizontal line in a 16:9 aspect ratio, giving a widescreen resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, which is approximately 8.3 million pixels overall, making 4K video four times the resolution of 1080p HD. The more pixels in a given resolution, the finer the detail of a picture can be, so 4K UHD video has a sharper appearance than 1080p HD.

The purpose of pushing video content beyond 1080p is more complicated than simply "bigger is better." Video and film are two different technologies that have attempted to accomplish the same goal since their inceptions -- to create a visual representation of live action on a two-dimensional surface. In the past, video and television for the most part have existed on a lower-quality tier than film. The big-screen cinema traditionally has served as the artistic, technological and financial pinnacle of screened audio/visual entertainment, with box office numbers serving as the measuring stick for the value of entertainment companies.

Recently, popular and highly acclaimed episodic programming like House of Cards (Netflix), Breaking Bad (AMC Network) and Game of Thrones (HBO) have given big-screen productions a run for their money in quality and artistic merit. Cinema and video, while still fundamentally different, are moving closer together in quality and scope than they have ever been, and the emergence of higher-quality video such as 4K UHD will provide TV programming producers an improved platform to continue this trend.

Improvement

With penetration of flat-panel televisions exceeding 80 percent in 2013, consumers have familiarized themselves with TV-related terms like "HD" and "LED." However, most consumers have never heard of "4K" or "UltraHD." In fact, less than 20 percent of broadband homes indicate any level of familiarity with 4K, recent Parks Associates consumer research shows.

Clearly, TV makers and the industry overall have some work to do in educating consumers. Retail will still drive the educational process, as it did when HDTV emerged, but the retail market faces significant challenges today compared to earlier. The online marketplace has supplanted a portion of the brick-and-mortar retail space, so consumers are not as likely to view retail store displays. In addition, a 4K demonstration online is not feasible, because consumers cannot see the higher-quality video unless they already have a 4K display.

Lower retail influence may require TV manufacturers to be more creative with exposing consumers to the technology -- perhaps increasing their presence at live events. It is also imperative to provide a side-by-side comparison to showcase the difference that 4K video offers compared to current HD televisions. Until consumers begin clamoring for 4K, the movement toward 4K will be an industry-driven initiative. These players will need 4K television sets entering consumer homes, as that will make it easier to justify production of 4K content.

Content Utilizes Cases for 4K Video

To take advantage of the amazing clarity of 4K televisions, video content must be optimized for 4K viewing. Thus, the content either must be produced using 4K cameras and equipment or converted to 4K resolution in post-production. However, not all video is produced and delivered in the same way. Premium video content can be grouped into three major categories, each of which benefits from 4K in unique ways:

• Live content
• Made for television/video content
• Filmed entertainment

Live Content

Live content includes sports, news programming, and live events produced for television viewing. 4K video provides a more realistic visual representation of the content, giving the viewer a more immersive experience.

The greater clarity of 4K video provides a look and feel that gives the viewer a closer sense of being at an event. The higher quality video and frame rates of 4K reduce picture distortion, particularly important for fast-moving events such as live sports, giving the user a more realistic view of motion.

 Many sports content owners are now eager to enable multiscreen experiences to further increase the level of immersion of the experience, including features that allow viewers to choose camera angles. Thus, in the near future, viewers will be able to have a uniquely custom experience while viewing a sporting event made more lifelike through the higher quality of 4K UHD video.

Made for Television/Video Content

Content made for television or video includes episodic television programs, television specials, made-for-television movies, and made-for-video programming. Episodic television has yet to see widespread 4K production. Most television networks do not yet see 4K video as a viable production and distribution format due to low consumer penetration of 4K technology.

OTT providers, however, are eager to exploit 4K technology to remain ahead of competitors and substitutes in the video technology landscape. Netflix plans to produce its popular and award-winning series House of Cards in 4K in 2014 and will partner with Walt Disney and Marvel Entertainment to produce four original episodic series in 4K. Amazon also plans to produce all of its original content with 4K equipment, which will include episodic comedy, drama, and children's program series.

Studios are open to supplying distributors with 4K content -- including Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and 20th Century Fox, according to Amazon.

Today, however, most of the 4K content from major studios is actually 2K video that has been remastered in 4K through additional post-production work.

Much of the 4K content currently available on Amazon includes nature documentaries, historically a common category for showcasing high-quality video. Nature documentaries typically combine wide landscape shots with extremely close detail shots. This pairing shows contrast between broader and finer detail on the screen, giving the viewer a sense of the capabilities of the video technology.

In addition, documentary directors often rely on shooting at high frame rates to capture intricate animal action, and playback requires smoother on-screen motion that only high-resolution video displays with high frame rates can provide. BBC and Discovery Networks established a high standard for nature documentaries in 2007 with their documentary miniseries Planet Earth. At that time, the miniseries served to showcase the capabilities of HD television in a consumer setting, and similar content is emerging in 4K today.

Filmed Entertainment

While filmed entertainment has experienced successful integration in the home video market, home video technology has yet to approach the user experience of viewing a movie at the cinema. One of the issues confronting 4K video in filmed entertainment is the fact that video and film are fundamentally different motion-capture processes. While film consists of light captured through a lens on physical celluloid photographic film, video consists of electronic data that is encoded and decoded to form a visual representation of the motion that is captured. While the media are closer visually than they have ever been in the past, the look and feel of video has yet to match that of filmed motion pictures.

High-resolution video looks sharp and crisp, but it lacks the cinematic look that comes from capturing individual pictures through a shutter. The experience becomes more like watching a live performance as opposed to a movie, which may or may not detract from the experience. Some filmmakers, like Quentin Tarantino, have vehemently opposed digital cinema as it attempts to portray a realistic presentation of action rather than an illusion of motion through individual photographic captures.

With large studios striving to control the rising cost of content production, digital film production enables one method of cost reduction while presenting the opportunity to market high-quality 4K cinema content to consumers. Whether filmmakers embrace digital production or not, large studios are expected to transition to 4K consumer video in the near future, in effect forcing the transition onto filmmakers.

Conclusion

With CE manufacturers aggressively promoting 4K as the future for televisions, consumers inevitably will desire content to exploit their newly acquired technology. As 4K and 8K video cameras become available and affordable, video content production likely will see a shift toward 4K and 8K. Many of the tech-savvy creative staff in video production will be eager to exploit the new technology, though this change will not occur until the industry has established the viability of 4K video in the consumer market.

Content companies will be especially wary, considering the recent failure of 3D television. However, unlike 3D, 4K video is more an enhancement of existing technology than it is a completely unique experience. Thus, 4K is more akin to HD rather than 3D, which is good news for the industry, because more than 80 percent of U.S. broadband households have an HDTV, while just 10 percent of have a 3DTV, Parks Associates research has found.

As 4K televisions become more affordable, adoption will rise. CEDIA dealers expect to install 4K home theater units in approximately 15,000 homes in the next 12 months, and manufacturers anticipate around 80 percent household penetration of 4K TVs in the next 10 to 12 years. In line with this timeline, and despite the outcry from several traditionalists in the film production industry, studios will move to digital film and video production for cost and quality reasons, eager to exploit the home video market for further gain

Microsoft recently established a .Net foundation and open sourced substantial parts of the popular programming language, continuing to spread its newfound love for open source software. However, it's another movement -- devops -- that may be more of a driving factor in Microsoft's .Net move.

In establishing the independent .Net Foundation and making more key pieces of .Net open source, Microsoft was promoting collaboration and community, it said. Many open source technologies exist for .Net, including the recently released .Net compiler platform codenamed "Roslyn."

Microsoft also highlighted the value and innovation that comes from broader community collaboration, even on its own developer tools and technologies, such as .Net

The fact that Microsoft recognizes the power of open source software is not remarkable -- the company has been working actively to change its thinking and strategy on open source software for years now.

What is interesting is the establishment of the foundation and the further opening up of .Net, which highlights how Microsoft technologies, including Windows, Azure and .Net, all have become part of the devops movement -- a trend referring to faster software releases based on collaboration and efficiency among developers and IT operations teams.

This is quite a contrast to the devops landscape that existed three or four years ago. Back then, when Windows admins would dare to speak up or ask questions about how they might get more agile and join the devops movement, they were told to switch to Linux.

Today, most devops tools and providers have integrations, plug-ins, and support for Windows management.

The PaaS Platforms

We also have seen .Net rise in the polyglot programming trend: A much greater variety of languages, databases, infrastructure and other technologies are used in developing, deploying and managing applications in today's market.

While most PaaS platforms have become polyglot and support a variety of languages, the enterprise world is still largely a matter of Java and .Net. Thus, .Net has become an important part of PaaS, particularly private PaaS aimed at enterprises.

The 2013 acquisition of .Net PaaS player Tier 3 by CenturyLink is evidence of this, as the acquirer sought to offer a complete set of outsourced IT services, from hosting to enterprise cloud. Prior to acquiring Tier 3, CenturyLink made a similar move in by acquiring polyglot PaaS player AppFog.

Further evidence of a Microsoft and .Net presence in devops comes in the form of added support of .Net among PaaS providers, including Red Hat with OpenShift.

Although Microsoft's proprietary programming language may not seem like a good fit, Red Hat had been fielding inquiries about working with .Net on its OpenShift PaaS since it launched the service. So, with help from Uhuru Software, which focuses on .Net and Windows support on open source cloud platforms, Red Hat set out to provide more choice to its OpenShift users. The prevalence of .Net applications among enterprise organizations also drove its support of the Microsoft technology, Red Hat said.

Waning

The most obvious reasoning for Microsoft's establishment of a .Net foundation and further opening up the technology is the continued presence and prominence of open source software -- and openness in general -- in key, fast-moving enterprise IT trends including cloud computing, Big Data and devops. Indeed, in 2012, when Microsoft spun off its open source-focused subsidiary Microsoft Open Technologies, it cited emerging opportunities in open technology -- including cloud computing and devops -- as the reasoning.

Today, Microsoft continues to reshape its approach to open source software, complete with new CEO Satya Nadella, who replaced one of the world's greatest open source opponents, former CEO Steve Ballmer, earlier this year.

Though there typically is no shortage of pushback against Microsoft when it makes open source moves, the skepticism and suspicion seem to be giving way to technicality and practicality, both within and outside of Microsoft. By continuing to promote openness, integration and true collaboration with other vendors and technologies, including open source, Microsoft is doing its part to ensure its place in key trends such as cloud computing and devops.

eBay is advising everyone to change their passwords, after it was hacked several months ago. There’s a clamour of condemnation over what sounds like a scandal. This giant American corporation losing your name, address, date of birth and other personal information is as bad as the ineptitude of our own Inland Revenue. 

Should You Be Worried About eBay?

So should eBay have acted sooner? Yes, in the sense they should have noticed earlier. But they didn’t because, apparently, there was no increase in fraud, which the company monitors assiduously. Indeed, the only inconvenience I’ve experienced myself when it comes to eBay and fraud has resulted from their being over-zealous.

And it’s plainly in their interest to keep customers’ details secure – investment in security is obviously vital to maintain trust. So what’s truly shocking, however, about eBay’s lapse is that while passwords were encrypted, all the other data was not. That’s probably what’s meant there’s been little rise in fraud thus far: millions of user names and passwords are valuable to criminals because people routinely use the same combinations for a host of sites, so trying them out automatically can be done easily on a wide scale across the web.

But inputting your name, address, and all that is needed to steal your identity is a tougher challenge to automate – it’s really a manual job, albeit with a bigger prize at the end. So the real scandal is twofold: eBay didn’t encrypt all this data – and the company and its users seem to have got away with that lapse. What damage there is to its reputation, and what may emerge in the future, remains to be seen.

eBay hack puts millions at risk of identity theft

Millions of eBay customers could be at risk of identity theft after hackers stole personal data such as names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, giving attackers the information they need to break in to other online accounts

The auction site today asked all 145m of its active users to change their passwords as it emerged that hackers managed to access the names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth of customers. It is feared that those details could now be used to leverage access to users' other online accounts.

Some sites such as online banking services accept a date of birth and address as part of their secure log-in process, while telephone banking services will often request the same details to validate who they are talking to. Having a list of these personal details would make life easier for a malicious attacker.

The eBay hack did not include passwords stored in plain text, but encrypted passwords were stolen. The company was unable to say today how strong that encyption was. However, because the attack took place between late February and early March, it is possible that the thieves have had time to extract them, said David Emm, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

It’s difficult to quantify the danger customers may be in following the eBay cyber attack, but of course any personal data in the wrong hands is bad news and it appears that the attackers have gained access to customers' names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, as well as encrypted passwords,” he said.

“The fact that this attack took place two to three months ago means the attackers have had additional time with which to attempt to decrypt the stolen passwords as well as make use of the other personal data.

“The worrying thing is that many people use a single password for more than one internet site and so if the passwords are compromised, they could be at further risk from cyber-criminal activity. The time lapse here highlights the urgency for customers to change not only their eBay and PayPal passwords but also on any other site that they use the same log-in details for.”

Paul Martini, chief executive at iboss Network Security, said that eBay could be viewed as the "golden goose of hacking targets" because of the vast scale of information it holds.

"The damage could well have already been done, as the time lag between the cyber breach and the discovery of the breach is in the months," he said. "Cyber hackers may not hit the obvious target of siphoning money or goods out of eBay; they may take the personal information gained from the database and target other popular sites."

It is thought that hackers managed to access some eBay employee log-ins which gave access to the company's corporate network. From there the attackers were able to access the database containing users' information and steal the data.

Today eBay said that it is "aggressively investigating the matter" along with law enforcement agencies in the US, because all of the company's servers are based there, and will be using the "best forensic tools" to track down the culprits.

The company will be sending an email to each user today to notify them of the data breach and ask them to change their password. They will also be advised to change their log-in on any other websites if they used the same password there.

It will also be making changes to its website within the next 24 hours that will force users to change their password the next time that they log on.

"We believe we have shut down unauthorised access to our site and have put additional measures in place to enhance our security," it said.

It is not yet clear why there was such a long delay between the attack and users being informed, but eBay says that it first discovered the attack "earlier in May". Since then the company has been performing a "forensic analysis

EEG-powered brain computer interfaces have the potential to allow severely disabled people to operate home automation systems, wheelchairs, and other technologies. Yet, anyone who has tried playing games controlled through EEG knows that it’s not easy to get one’s mind in a specific state every time you want to. So it can be a challenge that frustration can only exacerbate, resulting in mental fatigue and poor performance of the system. Peñaloza Sanchez, a PhD student at University of Osaka in Japan, has been working on overcoming this problem by building a learning mechanism into an EEG brain-computer interface.

The system attempts to recognize user patterns and eventually takes short cuts when it notices the person trying to achieve a task done previously. The EEG system works in conjunction with environmental sensors placed around the room the user would be in, feeding info like room temperature, whether doors are open or closed, and if appliances are left on. The system tries to predict what the user wants to do based on earlier recordings, and activates a series of actions such as to navigate a wheelchair to a certain spot or to turn off the lights. In order to prevent frequent mistakes by the over eager system, there are algorithms built in that can identify so-called “error-related negativity,” or the brain’s reaction when it notices a mistake being made. When such a signal is detected during the system’s automatic activity, it’s a sign that it’s making a mistake and the system cancels its current action to try again.

Reduce Mental Fatigue

Systems able to process thoughts and translate them into a command to move objects are very useful for people who cannot speak or move, but have the disadvantage of causing mental fatigue. However, a Mexican researcher designed an intelligent interface that is capable of learning up to 90 percent of the user's instructions thus operate autonomously and reduce fatigue.

This project, called "Automating a brain-machine interface system", is in charge of Christian Isaac Peñaloza Sanchez, a PhD candidate for Cognitive Neuroscience Applied to Robotics at the University of Osaka, Japan.

He explains that the system consists of electrodes placed on the scalp of the person, which measure brain activity in form of EEG signals. These are used to detect patterns generated by various thoughts and the mental state of the user (awaken, drowsy or asleep, etc.) and level of concentration.

It also includes a graphical interface that displays the available devices or objects, which interprets EEG signals to assign user commands and control devices.

"We've had pretty good results in various experiments with multiple people who have participated as volunteers in our in vivo trials. We found that user mental fatigue decreases significantly and the level of learning by the system increases substantially," the researcher says.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 getting KitKat update

The Galaxy Note 8.0 is taking a giant leap forward today in terms of the software - Samsung has started pushing out the KitKat update to the 8-inch Note in its home country. The update should be available over the air and via Kies at the moment, and will bump up the firmware version of the device to M500WKXUBND9. The update should include all the features and changes that were a part of the KitKat update for other Samsung devices. Highlights include faster performance, white status bar icons, improved battery life, full-screen album art on the lock screen, and wireless printing support.

Since the update is rolling out in South Korea, it shouldn’t be long before it arrives in other countries as well, though impatient folks can always head to our firmware section and download the firmware files to update manually (given the differences in the Korean variants of Samsung devices, we wouldn’t recommend flashing this one on non-Korean Galaxy Note 8.0′s.)

The update is also rolling out to the international variant of the Note 8.0 in Poland, which means it shouldn’t be too long before it begins showing up in more regions.

Firmware Details:

• • Model: SHW-M500W
• • Model name: GALAXY Note 8.0 3G
• • Country: Unknown
• • Version: Android 4.4.2
• • Changelist: N/A
• • Product Code: ANY
• • PDA: M500WKXUBND9
• • CSC: M500WANYBND9
• • MODEM: M500WKXUBND9

Microsoft aim at laptops with new Surface tablet

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a new Surface Pro tablet designed as a powerful all-purpose computer fit to replace a laptop.

Surface Pro 3 was touted as slimmer, bigger and more powerful than its predecessor and crafted for a world in which people want to work as well as play on tablets.

"We want products and technologies that enable people to dream and get stuff done," Microsoft chief Satya Nadella said at a press event in New York.

Pro 3 has a high-resolution screen that is 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) measured diagonally, weighs approximately 28 ounces (800 grams) and is slightly more than a third an inch (0.9 centimeters) deep.

The tablet has the Surface trademark keyboard cover, but modified to let users tilt it as they wish and more securely anchor the device while being used, say, in a person's lap.

It also comes with a "pen" that can be used to remotely activate Pro 3 with clicks or to write on it as though it were a notepad.

"We are super proud of Surface Pro 3," Microsoft corporate vice president Panos Panay said while introducing the tablet at the event.

"I am sure that this is the tablet that can replace the laptop."

Microsoft's new Surface tablet takes aim at Apple's MacBook

Microsoft Corp is hoping that the company's expertise in business software will help it take on Apple Inc in mobile devices.

At the presentation in New York, new Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella made it clear that Microsoft, which recently acquired Nokia's handset business, is committed fully to making its own devices, despite a lack of success for its phones and tablets so far.

We are not building hardware for hardware's sake," said Nadella, at the event. "We want to build experiences that bring together all the capabilities of our company.

The Surface Pro 3 tablet, which comes in three models starting from $799 and costing up to $1,949, features a 12-inch screen, much larger than Apple iPad's 9.7 inches. It also comes with access to Microsoft's Office software suite, employed in businesses around the world.

Microsoft executives made frequent comparisons with the MacBook Air at Tuesday's launch, making it clear that Apple's lightest laptop, which starts at $899, was the device to beat.

The same executives, highlighting a focus on the enterprise segment of the market, also talked up the limitations of existing tablets in a full office environment.

Microsoft "has concentrated on its key strength - business users who look at tablets as extensions and/or replacements for full laptop capability," Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates wrote. "Microsoft finally seems to understand it cannot go head to head with Apple's iPad, and must offer a superior business device."

Microsoft, which is recasting itself as a 'devices and services' company, has not made much headway on the devices side, except for its Xbox game console.

The Surface, launched in October 2012 and updated last year, has about 2 percent of the tablet market, failing to make a dent on Apple's iPad. Microsoft has only 3 percent global share in smartphones, chiefly through Nokia.

The Surface Pro 3 runs the full Windows operating system, and Microsoft hopes it will be the device consumers and companies go to when they are replacing laptops.

Initial reaction was positive, but analysts have doubts that Microsoft can easily haul itself into a meaningful position in the hardware business.

"This is Microsoft's best shot yet to move the needle in the right direction on market share gains," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. "The odds are stacked against Microsoft, although we have to credit Nadella with putting his pedal to the metal to go after tablet market share, which remains key going forward."

Availability

Surface Pro 3 will be available for pre-order beginning Wednesday with a starting price of $799.

A version of Microsoft's latest champion in the tablet war, powered by an Intel Core i5 chip, will hit the market in North American on June 20.

Additional models, including a top-end Pro 3 with an Intel Core i7 chip, will be available in the US and 26 other countries including France, China, Australia and Germany by the end of August, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is being innovative and counterintuitive with the Pro 3, touting a large-screen tablet while rivals boast smaller, pocket-sized devices, according to Gartner analyst Mike Silver.

Much care and thought went into technical features of the Pro 3, and a challenge for Microsoft is to get that message to mainstream consumers who aren't geeks.

"There is a lot of elegance in the device, but they have to prove they can communicate that," Silver said at the unveiling event.

"If everything works as good as it looks, you are getting pretty close to a device that can replace a notebook computer for a high percentage of people."

For Laptops Upgrade

Pro 3 has the potential to strike chords with people who want to leave their laptops behind and just carry a tablet when they are on the move, according to the analyst.

Panay cited research indicating that more than 95 percent of laptop owners also have tablet computers. But Microsoft has barely made a dent in a tablet market dominated by Apple's iPad and others using Google Android. Gartner surveyed showed the Microsoft operating system had just two percent of the global market in 2013.

Nadella stressed that Microsoft, which built its software empire working with partners who make computing hardware, wants to pioneer a merging of laptops and tablets and not to compete with device manufacturers.

"We clearly are not interested in building refrigerators or toasters; we are not building hardware for hardware's sake," Nadella said.

"The motivation is to create new categories; we want to build productivity experiences."

Microsoft in March released Office software tailored for iPads, and it soared to the top of the charts at Apple's online App Store.

While Office applications for iPad are free, subscriptions to Microsoft's online Office 365 service are needed to be able to create or edit documents, spreadsheets or presentations.

More than a billion people use Office, according to the Redmond, Washington-based technology titan.

The Pro 3 signals that Microsoft has decided to play into its strengths in business software and avoid going head-to-head with bargain-priced tablets powered by Google's free Android software, according to analyst

"Further, Microsoft finally seems to understand it can not go head to head with Apple's iPad," Gold added in a research note, saying the Pro 3 is a "superior business device" for work.