 Welcome to News Desk on SiliconANGLE TV for Tuesday, October 16th, 2012. I'm Kristen Folletti. Sources say Apple has hired major Amazon executive and prominent search technologist William Strassier to run its Siri unit. Apple is announcing another small feat, and no, it's not the iPad mini. And Samsung is releasing some new details about its PC lineup. Join us now with breaking analysis on some of the latest announcements in the PC and mobile platform. It's SiliconANGLE News desk editor, Kristen Nicole. Welcome, Kristen. Good morning. So Strassier has been in charge of A9, which is Amazon Search and Search Advertising Unit. Can you give us some background on why he's a great steal for Apple? It seems that search and advertising may be a good direction for Apple. Either way, he's got a very long history in search techniques and methods, and he's got a long lineup of working with Oracle and Alta Vista, and of course, his own projects that led to Amazon. So it'll be interesting to see how Apple is going to leverage his talents for Siri in particular. As you mentioned, we know he's going to be working in particular with Siri. What specifically do you think he might bring to Apple when it comes to Siri? There's no telling exactly what they have in mind. Apple likes to look pretty far down the future, but Siri is going to be one of those really important technologies for consumer interfacing. It's a major data input method, and so it'll be a really good way for Apple to build up its database of information that can be leveraged to contextualize search information and really improve that artificial intelligence system all together. So we could see some interesting developments come out of this and maybe some more features and services out of Siri. Does his hiring signal a bigger move into search for Apple? It very well could, and I'm hoping so. This has been a shortcoming for Apple, and I think this last situation with iOS 6 maps really highlights where Apple needs to improve when it comes to the data that they have collected and how they need to better contextualize that and really build a service around it. They're competing with Google in this area in particular. Google's a little bit further ahead in finding more ways to turn things like search information into a contextualized service to give to consumers through a mobile platform. As it stands right now, how do you think Siri compares with other voice-activated personal assistants on Android, such as Google Now or Blingo and Maluba? It's probably the most popular artificial intelligence system for consumers right now. I think that it has a lot of promise in that regard, but when it comes to stacking up directly with things like Google Now, there's some pros and cons on both sides. A service like Google Now is really taking its entire, all the ways in which you interact with Google is being tied into Google Now and Siri is still pretty formulated in what it can offer and how it can respond to you. So with improved information and feedback coming from those consumers, more search integration and maybe even an advertising scheme, we could see a lot of different things from Siri in the coming years. In other Apple news, along with the iPad mini, Apple plans to announce a new version of its Mac mini. Can you give us some details about this new Mac mini? Yeah, it seems there's going to be a couple of standard configurations for the new Mac mini, some upgrades from the models that we've seen last year and even the process or upgrade that we saw last summer. And I believe there will also be one for Mac OSX. When will these new Mac minis be available? It sounds like according to some sources, it sounds like we may be seeing them later this month with availability in stores shortly after the announcement, which is of course expected next week. Speaking of their iPad mini, the price of the new gadget was leaked earlier this week. What will the starting price for the iPad mini be? It's $250, hopefully I think that's a pretty good price point for a new Apple device emerging and this seems like they might be looking for a range of product sizes and prices that would better compete with what we are seeing in the Android market. Very varied mobile marketplace, of course. So whatever Apple can do to be more competitive in that regard also seems like there's going to be quite a few sizes available. I'm not sure if the number 16 is going to actually come to fruition for them for the iDevice lineup, that's quite a few devices to choose from. But the range in price looks to be about 250 upwards to probably somewhere above 500 maybe even going into the 600 range. Nadia, do you think that 250 price point is reasonable enough to bring new fans into the Apple ecosystem? It could be, it's under $300. It seems like a fair enough price for an Apple device. It's kind of in between some of the prices of their other devices, the iPad of course, and then the iPhone or the iPod touch depending on your needs. So we'll see how it stacks up to other Apple devices. See if they're going to end up offering too much variety with a lot of overlapping functions and features. But then of course there's the rest of the mobile market tablets and smartphones that have, as I mentioned, a very wide range of devices that Apple could be looking to compete with with a more diverse lineup themselves. So when it comes to other devices, what about Android tablets? Is the price aggressive enough to compete with those? It really depends on if you want that Apple operating system or you want Android. Apple tends to be, not Apple, Android tends to be a price a little bit lower than Apple devices. And so with the holiday season coming up, prices, your main factor, you're going to want to go with those Android devices that are likely going to be right around $199. So it really depends on the experience you're looking for, the operating system that you want to give your loyalty to. Apple's going to be hosting another event in a little over a week on Tuesday, October 23rd. Anything that we can see on the horizon for Apple? There also looks to be another MacBook coming out, the 13 inch, I believe, is rumored to also be a part of this event next week. So it looks like there could be quite a few things coming out of whatever event Apple has next week and just in time for the holiday shopping season. Samsung has also been revealing details about its lineup of Windows 8 PCs and tablet hybrids. The Samsung America head of consumer electronics, Tim Baxter, said tablets and smartphones are ushering in a new era of computing mobility. New categories will arise as a result of this. So what does he mean by new categories? I think it's this hybrid PC tablet laptop thing going on. It seems to be gaining in popularity, at least from a conceptual standpoint. And as we discussed last week with some of the things that Lenovo was doing with their device diversity, these transitional tablet hybrids could be a good way to usher in the new era of mobility. And one thing in particular for Samsung with these hybrid devices, transitional devices is that they're, you know, they're doing it with the Windows 8 platform that's coming out very soon. So this is an enterprise play. It's really going to be an appeal to the business people out there and the ones that really need the most functionality and the most power with their tablets. So in their new category of the smart PC, how do you think consumers are going to respond to the laptop tablet hybrid? That's a good question. Some of the things that we've seen in the transitional space, some devices for Motorola didn't fare so well in the consumer market. There's others like Lenovo that are doing this, the double play in this in this area, so we'll see how the consumer uptake is. Samsung's done really well in the consumer market so far. But I really do think that this is going to be had its biggest appeal with the enterprise space. It looks like their laptops are ranging between four hundred and fifty to about fourteen hundred dollars desktops between around eight hundred to about seventeen hundred. When will these items be available for early bird Christmas shoppers? I think they'll be available pretty soon. It's from some other reports coming out before the end of the month. And, you know, Halloween's coming up very soon. After that, it's a free for all into the holiday shopping season. So I think we're going to be seeing a lot of devices from the top players coming out in the next two weeks. Well, Kristen, thanks so much for your time today. We appreciate you joining us. Absolutely. Take care. For all the latest in depth coverage and breaking analysis on tech innovation, keep up to date with Newsdesk on SiliconANGLE TV.