Laptops

Netbooks eat into Microsoft's revenues

Paul Mah — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:09:36 -0500

Citigroup Global Markets analyst Brent Thill thinks that the drop in first-quarter earnings and revenues at Microsoft is related to the success of netbooks, or low-end laptops. In a report explicitly titled "Netbooks crash the party," Thill noted that "their sales are literally blowing the roof off any analyst's expectations." Sales of netbooks are expected to reach 11 million before the end of this year, and reach 41 million by 2012. This is phenomenal growth, considering that there were only half a million netbooks sold last year. Unfortunately for Microsoft, up to a quarter of netbooks run the Linux operating system, with the rest opting for the older--and cheaper--Windows XP Home Edition. Indeed, Microsoft has been forced to push back its planned obsolesce of the Windows XP operating system as a direct result of netbooks. Still, it is too early at this point to tell whether netbooks are cannibalizing sales of Microsoft's Vista operating system, or creating a brand new market as customers acquire netbooks as a secondary unit.

To read more on the article:
- check out this article from the Inquirer

Apple unveils MacBooks with multitouch trackpad and Nvidia graphics

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:55:32 -0400

As expected, Apple introduced a new line of MacBook laptops yesterday, and they are faster and slicker than their predecessors. The key innovations are its "multitouch" trackpad and thinner laptop casing, which is constructed from a single aluminum slab. Gamers will rejoice over the inclusion of a new Nvidia Geforce 9400M integrated graphics processor and more powerful 9600M GT, both of which will be exclusive to Apple for now. Apple says the 3D graphics power will be "up to five times" that of previous MacBook Pros.

The multitouch trackpad is especially interesting. The first of its kind, the trackpad is 39 percent larger and as its name implies, it sports multitouch capabilities. It has no button, though; instead, one can simply press down on the pad itself, or define parts of the trackpad to act as the button. Users will swipe and pinch by moving one to four fingers across the glass surface--which means entirely different configurations are possible.

For more on MacBook:
- check out this list of related articles
- check out the article at CNETNews.com

Notebook makers downgrade the value of having Blu-ray

Paul Mah — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:47:44 -0400

Once introduced as the de-facto feature in the highest-end models of laptops, Blu-ray drives are selectively being sidelined by manufacturers, according to The Inquirer. Asus has canceled the feature in its top-of-the-range notebooks, while Acer, another heavyweight in laptop manufacturing, has no plans at all to even introduce these drives to their line-up. One reason for this shift could be the decline in popularity of Blu-ray; sales have dropped 13.39 percent this week compared to last week, with hardly any growth even for DVD sales.

For more about this report:
- check out the article at The Inquirer

Sales of subnotebook reach for new heights

Paul Mah — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:38:12 -0400

According to market-research firm Gartner, worldwide shipment of subnotebooks is on target to reach 5.2 million this year, with 8 million units expected to be sold in 2009. Gadget site Brighthand estimated that this could well represent a staggering 50 million units by 2012. Numbers aside, the question to ask when approaching this new category of devices is this: Do subnotebooks represent an additional sale for manufacturers? Or rather, do they end up cannibalizing sales from traditional laptops and desktops? Moving ahead, I suppose another pertinent question to ask would be whether some of these devices would find their way into the enterprise.

To more information from the original article:
- check out this Brighthand article

Dell unveils new business laptops

Paul Mah — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:01:04 -0400

Dell announced seven new Latitude notebooks earlier this week aimed squarely at business people that prefer to work via a laptop. Under development for the last two years, some features that can be found in these new Latitudes include a dedicated security subsystem to protect data, and longer battery life to the tune of 19 hours on one of the models.

What is interesting is that they also include proprietary technology that allows immediate access to features such as web, email and calendaring, all without having to "boot up the system completely." Additional details are not available at the moment, though it has been reported to involve the use of a separate low-voltage processor that bypasses the main operating system altogether. In this mode, the laptop could apparently run for several days.

For more on the story:
- check out this article from InformationWeek

Student arrested for pictures taken from webcam

Paul Mah — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:29:19 -0400

A 23-year-old student, Craig Matthew Feigin, has been arrested and charged with modifying computer data as well as disrupting or denying computer system services. Apparently, a young woman passing through town had problems with her laptop. She was introduced by friends to Feigin and left her laptop with him. Unknown to her, other than fixing her computer problems, Feigin took the opportunity to install a couple of applications on-the-sly--the popular Log Me In remote-access application and a more nefarious one called Web Cam Spy Hacker.

Feigin was busted when the woman got suspicious of a constant "on" light and approached a friend, who uncovered the unauthorized applications. Apparently, the Web Cam Spy Hacker software is available at a Web site registered to Feigin's residential address. Police recovered more than 20,000 photographs, with some showing the young woman in various stages of undress. After his arrest, Feigin admitted to doing the same to other women. A police detective noted that, "We have eight or nine more potential victims that we know of now."

For more details on this case of computer voyeurism:
- check out this Gainesville Sun article

How your mobile phones and laptops lie to you

Paul Mah — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:27:58 -0400

Your mobile phone and laptop are constantly lying to you. Referring to the signal strength and battery life displays on such devices, blogger Dan declares,"Neither display is actually telling you what you think it's telling you." For example, four or five bars of reception on your mobile phone does not necessarily equate a high-quality conversation. The reason is because the signal bar does not take into consideration the amount of interference at your current location, or the signal-to-noise ratio. Ditto that for Wifi signal strength.

It gets worse when it comes to battery meters--especially those for mobile phones. Dan highlights how mobile phones seem to spend most of their time showing a full or almost full reading. However, the situation goes downhill--to flat, pretty quickly once the gauge reaches the halfway mark. Dan attributes this to pressure from marketing departments to reflect higher performance than is actually the case.

To check out what Dan has to say:
- check out the blog entry at Dan's Data

UK Ministry of Defense admits to the loss of hundreds of laptops

Paul Mah — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:49:57 -0400

The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) has come clean and admitted to the loss of a staggering 658 laptops and 121 USB flash drives since 2004. Only 32 of these laptops were recovered. This revelation came only after a parliamentary question was tabled, and the final figures are at odds with earlier indications from the MoD. There was no additional information available as to whether the lost laptops and flash drives were encrypted, though the likelihood is that the majority of them were not. Clearly, the issue of lost laptops and flash drives will be one to dog corporations and even governments for some time yet. To make matters worse, the recent development of "cold boot" attacks threatens to render disk encryption less robust than it once was thought to be.

For more information on this story:
- check out the iTnews Australia article

Free laptop-tracking system becomes available

Paul Mah — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:29:59 -0400

A joint research project between the University of Washington and the University of California-San Diego bore fruits in the form of Adeona, an open-source service aimed at helping businesses and individuals track the movements of lost or stolen laptops. When installed on laptops, Adeona will set up an encrypted connection to the open source OpenDHT storage servers. Should a laptop become lost, installing Adeona on another computer with the correct password will allow the victim to track his device via IP addresses. Unlike other commercial laptop-tracking products, privacy is maintained as no other users will have access to personal data on the protected laptop.

For more on this new open source service:
- check out this TechNewsWorld article

Samsung starts mass producing 128GB SSD

Paul Mah — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:02:46 -0400

Samsung has started mass producing 128GB solid-state drives (SSD) in both 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch versions. A 256GB version is expected to enter production sometime later this year. Prices for the 128GB drives were not available at the moment. On the technical end, the SSDs consume about 0.5 watts in active mode, and just 0.2 watts in standby mode. The attraction here lies in their low power consumption, which paves the way for higher capacity gadgets and laptops that carry a longer battery life.

Samsung claims that its 128GB drive will last 20-times longer than a conventional laptop hard disk. Whatever the case, you can expect the prices of flash drives to drop as more manufacturers switch to full-scale production.

For more on Samsung's SSD:
- check out this article from PC World