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Averatec has released the 2575 12-inch notebook which is the newest addition to Averatec’s line-up of ultra portable consumer machines. With this latest offering, Averatec has integrated design and functionality with the hopes of attracting consumers interests, which could be difficult, especially with the slew of new notebooks hitting the market lately.

So, does the Averatec 2575 have anything new to offer to the ultra-portable notebook market? Depends on what your needs are and what you are looking for in portable computing machine. In addition to the “contemporary design” the Averatec 2575 comes pre-installed with Vista Home Premium and features an AMD Turion 64 X2 dual core chip, 2GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, ATI RS690 integrated graphics, a 1.3 megapixel webcam and a 4-1 card reader. The 12.1-inch display sports a 1280 x 800 native resolution with AveraBrite Technology. All things considered its seems to be a good alternative, especially with the $1,100 price tag.

Product [Averatec] Read [PR Newswire]

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Cell phones aren’t exactly the best platform when it comes to mobile gaming, but at least they keep you occupied instead of staring at the passenger sitting opposite you during your everyday commute. Namco Bandai has just released Paper Planes for the cell phone platform, allowing one to build virtual paper planes over the cell phone and letting them fly in different scenarios containing various objectives. You will start from scratch with a basic design, whereby you will need to put all your engineering knowledge (or the lack of it) tweaking the weight and angle of the flaps, select the power and angle of throw you think would work best and fly them to achieve the set objective. Sounds like fun, and best of all is, you don’t waste any paper and run the risk of getting paper cuts!

Posted Mar 21st 2008 1:37PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs
OK, perhaps not so sneaky, there’s a nice big BitTorrent logo right up front, but Myka seems to be quite the end-to-end solution for getting those torrents up on the big screen. The box hooks up to the internet via LAN or WiFi, includes a 80GB, 160GB or a 500GB drive for storage and runs a torrent client on Linux. Outputs include HDMI, composite, S-Video and SPDIF, and codec support is substantial. You can add storage via USB, and pull video off your computer if you’re not in a downloading mood. Prices range from $299 to $459. Let’s keep it legal out there, kids!

[Thanks, ARZ]

Mozilla had just released beta 4 of Firefox 3 a few weeks ago, and have already announced they feel its ready to go. While Firefox will remain as beta 4, the team behind the browser feel its now safe enough for just about everyone to begin using.

“In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there,” Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview.

Even with the approval from the Firefox team, the download website still has the “It is intended for testing purposes only” statement, but seriously does it not seem like everything is either currently in beta or remained in beta well after it had been adopted by the public. The full and final version of Firefox 3 is expected to be released before the end of June.

Read [Reuters] Via [Gizmodo]

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Sony will remove all the pre-installed garbage from its notebooks for an extra $50, but only if you spend $100 to upgrade to Vista Business first. The new configuration option comes on the slick TZ-series subnotebooks, reports PC World, and is being marketed as "Fresh Start." Most sites covering this are positively incensed at the idea of being held to ransom like this — having to pay to not have system-damaging software pre-installed seems, to them, to be a bad move.

Sony, however, is making a benevolent gesture. It merely wants you to free you from this:-

This was what came up the first time I booted up a $2,700 Vaio SZ sent in for review. See how horrible that is? And all you can do is complain about being saved from having to deal with it, for the low, low price of $50. Ingrates!

Perhaps all this trash is part of the production process, burned onto the hard drive in the factory, which is why it has to charge extra to remove it afterwards. It makes me sad, because Sony makes fantastic computers.

Here’s a funny quote from PC World’s story:

"Customers opting for Sony’s Fresh Start will miss out on software including Microsoft Works SE 9.0 bundled with a 60-day trial version of Microsoft Office, Sony’s Vaio Creation Suite Photo Software bundled with a 30-day trial version of Corel Paint Shop Pro; the Click to Disc video editor; WinDVD, and a free edition of QuickBooks Simple Start that can only track 20 customers."

"MISS OUT?," my editor shrieks.

Sony Removes Bloatware–for a Fee [PC World]

Posted Mar 21st 2008 11:33AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
Nary a fortnight after Nicholas Negroponte affirmed that his role wouldn’t be changing all that much once a new CEO was strapped in, along comes word that the nonprofit’s highly regarded Director of Security Architecture, Ivan Krstić, has moved on to greener pastures as of three weeks ago. According to a soul-bearing post on his own blog, the ex-chief outrightly noted that he could no longer “subscribe to the organization’s new aims or structure in good faith, nor [could he] reconcile them with [his] personal ethic.” Additionally, he admits that he was “asked to stop working with Walter Bender,” someone he greatly respected, and forced to report to a replacement “with no technical or engineering background who was put in charge of all OLPC technology.” It should be noted that Krstić seemed to admire his colleagues overwhelmingly, but we can’t help but wonder who else in there is feeling similarly about the recent internal restructuring.

[Via Yahoo / Infoworld, image courtesy of TheAge]

The Asus M50 entertainment notebook will come in a couple of variants - the M50Sv-B1 model features an Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 1.2GHz processor and a hd dvd optical drive (what the?!) while the M50Sv-A1 has a T9300 2.5GHz processor and a standard DVD burner. Both of them will be powered graphically by the GeForce 9500M GS 512MB dedicated video card which packs more than a decent punch, while you get a 15.4″ 1,440 x 900 display. 3GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive and Altec Lansing stereo speakers round off the list of features. Asus also allows you to replace the GeForce 9500M with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650 1GB video card if your budget provides. Both Windows Vista-powered models will retail from $1,499.99 upwards.

Alienware unveil the new Area-51 Desktop.

Link

Operating Systems

* Windows Vista® Home Premium
* Windows Vista® Ultimate

Processors, Chipset & Memory

* 45nm Intel “Penryn” CPU architecture
o Intel® Core™ 2 Duo (6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB)
o Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme (12MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB)
o Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme (12MB Cache, 1600MHz FSB)
* NVIDIA® 790i Ultra SLI Chipset
* Up to 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
* 4 dedicated DIMM slots for Dual Channel DDR3 Memory

Graphics & Video

* Standard Single GPU Graphics Cards
o 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9600GT
o 512MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 3870
o 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800GT
* Optional Dual GPU Graphics Cards
o 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 3870 X2
o 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9800 GX2
* Optional Ageia PhysX Physics Processing Unit
* Connectivity
o 2x Dual-Link DVI and S-Video Outputs

Storage

* Single Hard Drive
o 7200 RPM – up to 32MB cache and 1TB storage
o 10,000 RPM – up to 16MB cache and 160GB storage
* Dual RAID 0 Hard Drives
o 7,200 RPM – up to 64MB cache and 2TB storage
* Optical Drives
o 20x Dual Layer DVD Burner (CD-RW/DVD±RW)
+ Lightscribe technology
o Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
o 4x Dual Layer Blu-ray Burner (BD-RE, DVD±RW, CD-RW)

Networking

* Wired Connectivity
o Dual Integrated Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45

Audio

* Standard 7.1/5.1 Digital High-Definition Audio (8 Channel)
* Connectivity Front and Rear
o 2x Auto-sensing headphone jack
o 2x Auto-sensing microphone jack
* Optional Enthusiast Audio Options
o Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition Surround Sound Audio

Peripheral Connections

* 8 Hi-speed USB 2.0 ports
* 2 IEEE 1394b (9-pin) port – Powered
* 1 E-SATA port

Case & Chassis

* Exclusive Alienware chassis design
* AlienIce™ 3.0 high-performance cooling
* Standard system lighting
* Optional AlienFX System Lighting
* Standard 750-watt Multi-GPU-approved power supply
* Optional 1000-watt Multi-GPU-approved power supply
* Tool–less front and side panels
* Height: 19.01”
* Width: 9.97”
* Depth: 25.02”

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AMD today announced the appointment of Nigel Dessau as chief marketing officer (CMO). Before this job Nigel Dessau work for IBM and Sun. Now he has a difficult task: AMD’s global marketing, image and campaign strategies.

We wish him Good Luck but maybe AMD should hire some engineers to make better CPU…

In what seems like a strange story, Opera has announced they are now including a direct link to the AccuWeather mobile website from the Opera Mini start page. While Opera Mini seems to be the favorite mobile browser right now, and I do appreciate their effort to make my weather checking ability quicker and easier, couldn’t I just bookmark the weather site of my choice?

Nonetheless both Opera and AccuWeather seem pretty pleased with the announcement.

AccuWeather’s Senior VP of New Media saying: “We’re very pleased to offer our weather directly to Opera Mini users from their start page.”

Opera’s Senior VP of Consumer Products said: “Offering fast and convenient access to pertinent information is part of that experience and is even more critical on a mobile device. Partnering with AccuWeather.com provides timely and useful weather information to our users wherever they are.”

Its almost funny to see two companies so happy over a what amounts to a simple link, but seriously if you have not yet checked out Opera Mini, assuming you have a compatible phone, you should go ahead and download it. In addition to having quick and easy access to AccuWeather you will also get a solid mobile browsing experience.

Via [IntoMobile] Read [Opera Mini]

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