Latest Lamborghini laptop from Asus really looks the part

Asus and Lamborghini have teamed up for yet another new round of computer products. The raging bull has supplied design touches to various Asus laptops over the past few years, and this marks the seventh generation of car/computer collaboration. Called the VX7 and inspired by the Murcielago, this Asus laptop features leather-lined palm-rests, a Lamborghini logo atop the clamshell lid and a set of Lambo-inspired taillights out back. Certainly the best part, no?

Available in Orange or Carbon Fiber, the VX7 utilizes a 2.0-GHz Intel Core processor and boasts 16GB of RAM, a Blu-Ray combo drive and a massive 1.5-TB of storage thanks to a dual hard-drive setup. Like any self-respecting machine carrying the Lamborghini badge, this bad boy won't come cheap – the pre-order asking price is €1,995. That's about $2,826 in U.S. currency for those of us sitting Stateside.

autoblog.com

A Laptop that Knows Where You're Looking

Eye-tracking cameras offer a new way to control your computer.
A camera over the screen is a standard feature for laptops. But only Lenovo's new model has a pair of cameras below its display to track the movements of a user's eyes.

The prototype laptop can be controlled with eye motions, reducing the need to use the mouse and making it faster to navigate through information such as maps or menus.

The laptop can notice when its user has read to near the bottom of a page and can automatically scroll down to reveal more text. The same trick also makes it possible to browse through an e-mail in-box without using the mouse at all. When using a map application, the user can zoom in on an area by looking at it and scrolling the mouse wheel. The computer also dims its screen automatically to save power when it detects that the user's gaze has left the screen.



"We're attempting to make the process of interacting with your computer a more natural experience," says Barbara Barclay, who heads North American operations for Tobii, the Swedish company that supplied the eye-tracking hardware and software for the prototype. So far, only 20 of the new computers have been made; Tobii and Lenovo will each have 10 with which to test out new ideas.

The two cameras below the laptop's screen use infrared light to track a user's pupils. An infrared light source located next to the cameras lights up the user's face and creates a "glint" in the eyes that can be accurately tracked. The position of those points is used to create a 3-D model of the eyes that is used to calculate what part of the screen the user is looking at; the information is updated 40 times per second.

The system can accurately track the direction of the user's gaze to about 0.5 degrees, which translates to about half an inch on the screen of the laptop. A user can shift position, says Barclay, but the head must be kept within a volume of roughly two cubic feet. Because the hardware is mounted and moves with the laptop's LCD screen, a user's efforts to accommodate the display's limited viewing angle by adjusting head and monitor position usually ensure that the eyes remain in proper camera range.

By: www.technologyreview.com

Microsoft Resumes Windows Phone 7 Updates for Samsung Devices

Microsoft on Wednesday resumed the roll-out of its first Windows Phone 7 update to Samsung phones.
The software giant suspended updates to Samsung devices last week after a glitch prompted the update to fail for certain users. Microsoft on Wednesday apologized for the bug and said that its "engineering team has pinpointed and fixed problems that were preventing a small percentage of Windows Phones from installing the February software patch," but offered few other details.
Microsoft started rolling out the platform update last month, but users soon started posting on the Microsoft forums about errors or being unable to install. Microsoft later said that "90 percent of people who received an update notification have installed the new software patch successfully," though it did not reveal how many of its Windows Phone users had already received the update.
"We're continuing to dispatch the update to other Windows Phone models," Microsoft said Wednesday. "As has been the case, the software patch is being sent out on a rolling schedule. You'll see a message on your phone when it's available."
The update "is designed to improve the software update process itself," Microsoft said last week. "So while it might not sound exciting, it's still important because it's paving the way for all future goodie-filled updates to your phone, such as copy and paste or improved Marketplace search."
It is not the larger update Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer promised at CES. That will add two components: cut and paste; and improved app performance when loading and switching apps. Customers can expect to see apps and games that load even faster, he said.

By: www.pcmag.com

Google's Android stars at electronics show

At a show where touchscreen tablet computers were king, Google's Android operating system was the crown prince.
Motorola Mobility's Xoom tablet powered by Honeycomb software, a version of Android designed specifically for the touchscreen computers, took the coveted title of best gadget at CES.
And Honeycomb, or Android 3.0, was the operating system of choice for dozens of the other tablet makers showing their wares on the crowded show floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Motorola Mobility, South Korea's LG Electronics, China's Lenovo, US computer giant Dell, Taiwan's Asus and Japan's Toshiba were among the global electronics giants unveiling Android-powered tablets, to name just a few.
While Apple's iPad still rules the tablet roost, Android, which is already widely used by smartphone makers, is shaping up to also be a major force in the tablet arena.
Android, which Google licenses to manufacturers for free, has become the number two mobile operating system in the United States according to comScore, with a 26 percent market share trailing Research In Motion's Blackberry OS but ahead of the 25 percent for Apple's iPhone OS.
Another technology giant expected to make a splash in the tablet arena, Seattle-based Microsoft, with its Windows 7 operating system, again failed to deliver.
Windows-powered tablets were few and far between at CES and attracted little notice with the exception of the Eee EP121 from Taiwan's Asus, which runs Windows 7 software and features a 12-inch (30.5-centimeter) touchscreen.
As if adding insult to injury, a Lenovo hybrid tablet-laptop, the IdeaPad U1, runs Windows 7 when serving as a U1 laptop and Android when the detachable screen is removed to work as a tablet, the LePad.
Rotman Epps said Google's Honeycomb actually "poses a much bigger threat to Microsoft than it does to Apple.
"Of the 24.1 million tablets we expect US consumers to buy in 2011, the majority will still be iPads, but consumers looking for a cheaper, feature-rich alternative will turn to Google, not Microsoft," she said.
"I guess the world will have to wait for Windows 8 tablets," Rotman Epps added in a blog post.
Mike Cleron, a Google engineer, said the Mountain View, California-based Internet search giant had spent more than a year "rethinking everything about Android from the ground up" before coming out with Honeycomb.
"We optimized Android for the new hardware," Cleron said, pointing out features which were not available on the first version of the iPad such as multi-tasking.
Most of the Android-based tablets on display also integrated other features not included on the iPad such as front- and rear-facing cameras to enable video chat and the ability to run Adobe Flash video software.
Motorola Mobility device team head Alain Mutricy, accepting the award for best gadget at CES, described the Xoom, whose 10.1-inch (25.6-centimeter) screen is about the same size as that of the iPad as the "next generation of tablets."
"Our partnership with Google has been very intense and has enabled some great technology," Mutricy said.

http://news.yahoo.com

Sony’s 3D Laptop: New F Series VAIO

With the curtain closing on this year’s CES 2011 event, it gives us time to reflect on some of the hottest pieces of tech to look out for. Sony’s new F series 3D VAIO looks like the business and is a gadget that I cannot wait to get my hands on.

A huge amount of the largest electronics companies have brought 3D technology to the table and implemented it in to their devices, with laptops being an addition to TVs, digital cameras, camcorders amongst others. The new F series line of laptops (un)fortunately requires 3D glasses. Many companies like Toshiba and Sony have their glasses free products in production, but they are not ready yet.

The VPCF21Z1E/BI model to be exact, comes packed with plenty of other juicy features as well as the full HD 3D playback. Also included is a 2nd Generation Intel i7 Quad Core processor for ultimate performance and an NVIDIA DX11 graphics card. PC Pro has provided an excellent review on Sony’s laptop and have informed us that the lid is 1cm thick, with the thickest point of the product being 45mm; the VAIO weighs 3.1kg so it is quite a bulky computer that is more suited for home than on the go. One of the best features is that you can change from 2D mode to 3D mode with the push of one button.

The new laptop is not available for a few months, with March being the time that a release is predicted. Unfortunately we dont have any pricing details either; however I can imagine we are looking at the £1500 marker. We have embedded a quick video of the F series laptop for you below. For a full list of specifications, pay a visit to Sony’s website. Also leave us your thoughts on the new VAIO and if you plan to pick one up when it launches.

IBM's Watson supercomputer destroys all humans in Jeopardy

Apple iPhone 5 may Debut with A8 SoC Processor

Apple unveiled the A4 System-on-Chip processor with the iPad launch in January last year. Later the same A4 Chip was used in the iPhone 4, fourth generation iPod touch and second generation Apple TV. Now a Hong Kong based newspaper Apple Daily has reported that Apple is working on the next generation iPhone and has contacted a few Taiwan-based suppliers for the components. It's being speculated that Apple is working on the ARM architecture based A8 System-on-Chip for the iPhone 5 and other devices.

The Apple A4 chip clocked at 1Ghz consists of an ARM Cortex A8 processor core and PowerVR SGX535 graphics crammed on a single die of silicon. It's powerful enough to offer amazing graphics on iPad, iPhone 4, fourth generation iPod touch and second generation Apple TV.

Apple is rumored to have contacted Taiwanese component makers for the A8 SoC packaging. The A8 SoC application processor is planed for the  fifth generation iPhone and other devices. There's no detail about the rumored A8 application processor. However, I believe that the A8 SoC chip would consist of a dual-core processor crammed with PowerVR SGX543 graphics on same silicon.

Recent findings from iOS 4.3 as reported by MacRumors pointed out that the future devices will have PowerVR SGX543 graphics. It's the same graphics that was rumored back in March 2009 and Apple was believed to be planning a multi-core iPhone. The PowerVR SGX543 supports dual-core processors and also OpenCL (Open Computing Language) that is used on Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The OpenCL allows the operating system to reap benefits of the GPU for general purpose computing and make the best of CPU-GPU combination. In short, future iOS version used with the A8 SoC comprising of multi-core CPU and powerful graphics would certainly make Apple devices more desirable.

As of now, none of these details are confirmed and hence I have to call them a speculation. Quite possible that details of Apple A8 might have been confused with the ARM Cortex-A8 CPU, which resides in the Apple A4 SoC processor. Nevertheless, a dual-core processor iPhone with powerful graphics chip surely seems like a feasible option for Apple, especially after the CES 2011 that brought us a number of 4-inch screen phones running dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra T20 mobile application processor. We don't mind multi-core smartphones but not at the cost of battery life. We hope Apple comes up with the best of both worlds.

techtree.com