Month: January 2018

A look back at 2017

on January 25, 2018

At the beginning of each new year, we like to look back on the previous 12 months and review everything that we accomplished. Here’s a quick recap of an eventful 2017 for the XPRTs:

We continued our tradition of travelling to the world’s biggest tech expos. Bill went to CES in Las Vegas and MWC Shanghai, and Mark attended MWC in Barcelona. Travelling to these shows provides us with great opportunities to monitor industry trends and meet with other BenchmarkXPRT Development Community members.

We also continued work on our suite of benchmark tools and related resources. We updated BatteryXPRT in response to changes in the Android development environment, released two new HDXPRT builds to make installation and test configuration easier on new Windows 10 builds, and released the much-anticipated WebXPRT 3 Community Preview.

We released new media, including a video about our sponsorship of a team of North Carolina State University students who created an experimental VR demo workload, and new interactive tools, such as the XPRT Selector tool and the WebXPRT Processor Comparison Chart.

We continued to improve the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight by adding more devices, photos, and site features. We put 51 devices in the spotlight throughout the year and published updated back-to-school, Black Friday, and holiday showcases to help buyers compare devices.

At the end of the year, our most popular benchmark, WebXPRT, passed the 200,000-run milestone. WebXPRT use continues to grow around the world, and it has truly become an industry-standard performance benchmark for OEM labs, vendors, and leading tech press outlets.

We also continued work on our most challenging project to date, a benchmark for machine learning. We look forward to sharing more information on that effort with the community over the next few months.

We’re thankful for everyone who used the XPRTs, joined the community, and sent in questions and suggestions throughout 2017. Each one of you helped to make the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community a strong, vibrant, and relevant resource for people all around the world. Here’s to a great 2018!

Justin

Posted in Uncategorized |

Here’s to 100 more!

By Justin Greene

on January 18, 2018

This week’s Essential Phone entry marks the 100th device that we’ve featured in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight! It’s a notable milestone for us as we work toward our goal of building a substantial library of device information that buyers can use to compare devices. In celebration, I thought it would be fun to share some Spotlight-related stats.

Our first Spotlight entry was the Google Pixel C way back on February 8, 2016, and we’ve featured a wide array of devices since then:

33 phones
16 laptops
16 tablets
16 2-in-1s
6 small-form-factor PCs
5 desktops
5 game consoles
3 all-in-ones

In addition to a wide variety of device types, we try to include a wide range of vendors. So far, we’ve featured devices from Acer, Alcatel, Alienware, Amazon, Apple, ASUS, BLU, CHUWI, Dell, Essential, Fujitsu, Google, HP, HTC, Huawei, Intel, LeEco, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OnePlus, Razer, Samsung, Sony, Syber, Xiaomi, and ZTE. We look forward to adding many more to that list during the year ahead.

XPRT Spotlight is a great way for device vendors and manufacturers to share PT-verified specs and test results with buyers around the world. If you’re interested in sending in a device for testing, please contact XPRTSpotlight@PrincipledTechnologies.com.

There’s a lot more to come for XPRT Spotlight, and we’re constantly working on new features and improvements for the page. Are there any specific devices or features that you would like to see in the Spotlight? Let us know.

Justin

Posted in Performance benchmarking, Performance of computing devices, Performance testing on tablets, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Thinking ahead at CES 2018

By Justin Greene

on January 11, 2018

It may sound trite to say that a show like CES is all about the future, but this year’s show is prompting me to think about how our lives will evolve in the coming years. Some technological breakthroughs change the way we do everyday things like play music or hail a cab—while some transform the way we do everything. For technological innovation to truly shift society on a wide scale, it has to coincide with markets of scale in a way that makes life-changing tech accessible to almost everyone (think: smartphones in 2005 versus smartphones in 2018).

These technical and economic forces are coinciding once again in the areas of AI, automation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and consumer robotics. While many of our daily activities will stay the same, the ways we organize and engage with those activities are changing dramatically.

I’ll leave you with a few general observations from the show:

Huawei has a huge presence here. A new tagline for them that I haven’t seen before is a play on their name, “Wow Way.” I suspect we may have a Mate 10 Pro XPRT Spotlight entry in the near future.
The Kino-mo Hypervsn 3D Holograph display blew me away. People were crowding in to see it and couldn’t stop staring. It’s straight out of sci-fi, and its appearance is similar to Princess Leia’s hologram message in Star Wars. (By the way, it looks way better in real life than in the video.)
Sony is making a big push into smart homes by building systems that work cross-platform with a range of smart speakers and assistants. Between their smart home push and some of the cool home theater tech they had on display, I can see them gaining some brand power.
To me, the most exciting concepts at the show involved smart infrastructure, which promises enormous potential to boost the efficient distribution of water, energy, and transportation resources.
Surprisingly, I saw automation, smart city, and smart infrastructure displays from companies that I don’t always associate with IoT or AI, like Bosch and Panasonic. Panasonic was marketing an array of semi-autonomous vehicle cockpit prototypes, and had a section highlighting their partnership with Tesla.
By far, the strangest thing I’ve seen at CES has been the Psychasec booth, staffed by eerie attendants in pure white outfits who talked confidently about “downloading your cortical stack into customized bodies made from organic materials.” The Psychasec staff absolutely refused to break character, which made the whole scene even stranger. Check out the link above for the story behind Psychasec.

And, while I’m probably not supposed to admit this, my favorite part of the show so far has been the line of expensive massage chair vendors doling out free sessions…

More to follow soon,

Justin

Posted in AI, Automated cars, Automation, CES, Holograph, Internet of things, IoT, Trade Shows |

Gearing up for a busy year ahead

By Justin Greene

on January 4, 2018

We hope everyone’s 2018 kicked off on a happy note, and you’re starting the year rested, refreshed, and inspired. Here at the XPRTs, we already have a busy slate of activity lined up, and we want to share a quick preview of what community members can expect in the coming months.

Next week, I’ll be travelling to CES 2018 in Las Vegas. CES provides us with a great opportunity to survey emerging tech and industry trends, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and impressions from the show. If you’re attending this year, and would like to meet and discuss any aspect of the XPRTs, let me know.

There’s also more WebXPRT news to come. We’re working on several new features for the WebXPRT Processor Comparison Chart that we think will prove to be useful, and we hope to take the updated chart live very soon. We’re also getting closer to the much-anticipated WebXPRT 3 general release! If you’ve been testing the WebXPRT 3 Community Preview, be sure to send in your feedback soon.

Work on the next version of HDXPRT is progressing as well, and we’ll share more details about UI and workload updates as we get closer to a community preview build.

Last but not least, we’re considering the prospect of updating TouchXPRT and MobileXPRT later in the year. We look forward to working with the community on improved versions of each of those benchmarks.

Justin

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged CES, HDXPRT, MobileXPRT, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT |

Month: January 2018

A look back at 2017

Here’s to 100 more!

Thinking ahead at CES 2018

Gearing up for a busy year ahead

Check out the other XPRTs: