Laptop, notbook, tech news

Asustek Computer has unveiled its latest gaming laptop, an attempt to fuse a stylish device for computer game enthusiasts with something small enough to carry to work.

The G51 laptop sports a 15.6-inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio and LED backlight. The graphics card on board is the Nvidia GTX-260M, while Asustek went with a Creative EAX-CMSS sound card for 3D surround sound audio.

The laptop will be available in major U.S. retailers such as Best Buy in July and it will be priced between US$1,300 and $1,500, an Asustek representative said.

Asustek plans to show off the device at Computex Taipei 2009, which opens next week.

The laptop will have Intel Core 2 Quad or Core 2 Duo processors and up to 4GB of DDR2 memory with dual hard disk drives offering up to 1TB of storage.

The G51 offers several features specific to gamers such as an illuminated keyboard and an overclocking feature that allows users to increase processor frequency. It also has a 2.0-megapixel Web cam.

Taiwanese Linux distributor Linpus Technologies plans to make a version of Moblin 2.0 available for download next week, a move timed to coincide with the annual Computex hardware exhibition in Taipei.

Linpus will show off a new version of its Linpus Linux Lite distribution based on Moblin 2.0 for the first time, including versions based on user interfaces designed by Linpus and Intel, the company said in a notice posted on its Web site.

Linpus Linux Lite will be one of the first distributions based on Moblin 2.0 to be released, it said.

Beta source code for Moblin 2.0 was released earlier this month and the new version of the operating system is tweaked to run on small, low-cost laptops called netbooks as well as handheld computers. Among the features offered with the operating system are the ability to boot up quickly and an improved user interface that allows users to easily update their status on a range of social networking sites, like Facebook.

The earlier version of Linpus Linux Lite was used with some versions of Acer’s popular Acer Aspire One netbook.

Moblin started as an effort by Intel to develop a version of Linux for handheld computers it calls MIDs, or mobile Internet devices. The devices have been slow to catch on with users, in part because hardware makers didn’t have access to a good operating system customized for small screens and a touch-based interface.

In April, the Linux Foundation took over the project but Intel remains closely tied to it, holding one of four spots on the Moblin steering committee.

Asustek Computer has unveiled its latest gaming laptop, an attempt to fuse a stylish device for computer game enthusiasts with something small enough to carry to work.

The G51 laptop sports a 15.6-inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio and LED backlight. The graphics card on board is the Nvidia GTX-260M, while Asustek went with a Creative EAX-CMSS sound card for 3D surround sound audio.

The laptop will be available in major U.S. retailers such as Best Buy in July and it will be priced between US$1,300 and $1,500, an Asustek representative said.

Asustek plans to show off the device at Computex Taipei 2009, which opens next week.

The laptop will have Intel Core 2 Quad or Core 2 Duo processors and up to 4GB of DDR2 memory with dual hard disk drives offering up to 1TB of storage.

The G51 offers several features specific to gamers such as an illuminated keyboard and an overclocking feature that allows users to increase processor frequency. It also has a 2.0-megapixel Web cam.

India has ordered 250,000 laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization, while a human rights organization will supply 5,000 OLPC machines to Sierra Leone.

In India, two government organizations and one private-sector entity placed the laptop orders, Satish Jha, president and CEO of OLPC India, said Friday. These are the first orders in India for the OLPC XO laptop, with distribution set to begin in June to about 1,500 schools.Giving a computer to every single child under the OLPC program was reportedly described as “pedagogically suspect” in 2006 by the country’s education secretary in a letter to the country’s Planning Commission. But the government as a whole did not have an issue with OLPC, and leading government education agencies support OLPC, Jha said. Most of the 250,000 laptops will go to children in suburban and rural areas, Jha said. In areas where Internet connectivity is not available or is too expensive, the laptops will be connected through mesh networks to a server from where information can be downloaded, Jha said.OLPC has a target to deploy 3 million laptops in India this year, he added.

In Sierra Leone, the plan is to distribute 5,000 XO laptops by 2011, according to Mohammed Kaindaneh, secretary general of the Human Rights Respect Awareness Raising Campaigners (HURRARC). Fundraising to pay for the project, which will cost about US$1 million, will take place over the next two years.

A pilot project involving 50 primary schools and 500 pupils will receive 100 OLPC computers, Kaindaneh said. The laptops for the three-month pilot are not included in the larger order for 5,000 OLPC laptops.

Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria and Ghana also have received OLPC laptops.

News of the laptop project in Sierra Leone comes as research teams in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe release findings that the Asus Eee PC netbook is a better choice for African nations than the XO laptop. Asus is better suited to individual owners and users in rural Africa who need low-power PCs, researchers found.

They ranked the Asus Eee first for the needs of Africa, followed by Intel’s Classmate, OLPC’s XO, the Inveno Computing Station and Ncomputing’s X300.

Intel Corp. said today it intends to appeal the European Commission’s $1.44 billion fine for anticompetitive behavior in the chip market, with CEO Paul Otellini arguing that the EC “ignored or disregarded” evidence “refuting” its judgment.

“There were a number of documents from OEMs or between Intel and OEMs that refute what was claimed here,” said Otellini during a hastily called teleconference with the news media after the EC’s massive fine was announced this morning.

Paul S. Otellini is president and chief executive officer of Intel Corporation.OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are PC makers that are Intel’s primary customers for processors. The EC ruled that Intel paid rebates to OEMs and to Europe’s largest IT retailer, Media Markt, in a way that shut out Intel’s closest rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which brought the complaint to the European Union. The EC is the executive arm of the 27-member-state European Union.

Although the rebates resulted in a reduction in retail prices, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that the harm to consumers stems from their not getting the choice of computers that they would have if AMD hadn’t been suppressed.

“Intel has harmed millions of EU consumers,” Kroes said earlier today, adding that the large fine should “therefore come as no surprise.”

Otellini “strongly disagrees” with the EC’s ruling.

“There is no evidence of consumer harm or competitor harm,” he said. “It’s just a matter of competition at work, which is something we all want to see, versus something nefarious.”

Otellini said Intel “has the right to do this” and that it causes “no harm and no foul.”

Otellini disputed one of the EU’s key allegations, that Intel paid “conditional” rebates to PC makers that unfairly locked out chip competitors.

The EC “alleged exclusive deals but couldn’t find them, so it said we must have hidden [the evidence],” he said. But the EC “got all of the documents that they wanted … so I’m really baffled.”

Otellini declined to release these documents, which include contracts with OEMs, citing a protective order in the U.S. case in Delaware. That order, according to Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, was agreed upon by Intel, AMD and the PC makers.

In those contracts, “there is no condition” demanding that OEMs buy exclusively from Intel, Otellini said.

Intel’s contracts with customers are “straightforward” and based primarily on volume. “The more you buy, the less you pay,” he said.

Otellini, who had only seen a three-page summary of the EC ruling, not the full 500-page document, said Intel plans to abide by the ruling even as it appeals it. The company has no plans to change its business practices.

Otellini pointed out that as far as he knew, no PC makers had joined the AMD complaint, which was raised nearly a decade ago. Thus, it was “absurd” to suggest that PC makers were disgruntled, or that Intel held any monopolistic sway over them.

“In most cases, our customers are larger than Intel. They have more buying power and are incredible negotiators,” Otellini said. “So on the face of it, the scenario is absurd.”

Despite the ruling, Intel has no plans to change its investment in Europe, Otellini said. Intel employs 6,000 workers in the EU countries, mostly in Ireland, where it has large chip plants.

Otellini took umbrage at Kroes’ tone when the fine was announced.

“I saw her remarks and they sounded like a joke. This is not a joking matter,” he said.

Reports that Dell might use Google’s Android OS in a netbook raises questions about what the device might look like and whether Android is ready for use beyond smartphones.

Software vendor Bsquare appeared to have leaked the news Wednesday that Dell is developing an Android-based netbook. In a press release, Bsquare said it was porting Adobe’s Flash Lite technology to “Dell netbooks running Google’s Android platform.” The release has since been pulled from Bsquare’s Web site and Dell has refused to comment on what it called “speculation.” But most observers think there is probably no smoke without fire.

Android is a Linux-based OS developed by Google for use in mobile devices, primarily smartphones. It includes an OS, middleware and some basic applications, and has a toolkit that developers can use to build other programs on top. Hewlett-Packard has confirmed it is testing Android as an option for netbooks, and some enthusiasts have already loaded the OS on the devices.

It’s easy to see why computer makers might be interested. Android is free to use, which means they don’t have to pay a license fee for Microsoft’s Windows OS, and it is open source, so they can customize it to build the types of products they think customers want.

Since it’s designed by Google, the OS naturally is friendly to Web-based applications. Google offers software libraries that make it easy to provide quick access to online services and data. The Google Maps library, for example, allows developers to add mapping capabilities to Android applications.

PC makers could design netbooks with distinctive user interfaces that provide one-click access to online services such as Google Docs and Google Maps. Android can also provide information about the location of a device, so netbooks could include applications that let users see the locations of their friends, for example.

Industry analyst Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said Android’s Web-centric design could lend itself well to buying new software on the Web, in a similar model to Apple’s App Store.

But he wondered whether Android is ready for use in netbooks. Moving an OS for mobile phones to netbooks is an ambitious plan and will present some challenges, he said. Acer echoed the same sentiment when the company’s president and CEO, Gianfranco Lanci, said last week, “It’s too early to say if we’re going to see Android on a netbook in the near future.”

Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis, put it more bluntly: “If an Android netbook were launched today, it would be a nonstarter,” he said.

The idea of an Android-based notebook makes sense, but the OS has to show that it can be successful in smartphones before it moves to another device, he said.

The OS and even typical netbook hardware designs may need to be revamped for Android to work, said Ronnie Schwartz, cofounder and chief technology officer of mobile software development firm IntuApps.

Applications developed using Android are streamlined for mobile phones with smaller touch screens, and few netbooks today have touch screens, he said.

Those are the problems companies like Dell and HP may be trying to solve, Kay said. Android is still evolving for smartphones, and it will go through the same process for netbooks.

“That story is yet to be written,” Kay said.

Months after the issue first surfaced, Hewlett-Packard laptop owners continue to complain about defective Nvidia graphics cards that could cause laptops to fail.

Some customers say that they have been treated unfairly by HP, in part because their laptops are not included on a list of affected machines that was issued last July by HP, so they are ineligible for a free repair or an extended warranty.

One laptop model with overheating problems is the Pavilion dv9500 line, with screens going blank or overheating, leading to system failure, customers wrote on one HP board. The laptop model isn’t on HP’s list of affected laptops, and in some cases HP is asking users to pay for repairs.

HP isn’t moving quickly to add new laptops to the list of affected PCs, customers wrote. Users are asking HP to examine and update the list of laptops affected by the issue. Laptop failure may also result from components unrelated to the issue with graphics cards, but a trend among posted complaints points to laptops with Nvidia parts, said Matthew Hilsenrad, an HP laptop owner.

“I hadn’t seen any post of ATI chips going bad, only Nvidia chips going bad,” Hilsenrad said. “A whole lot of people [on the boards] who bought the laptop around the same time seem to have the same problem.”

Hilsenrad owns a Pavilion dv9500 model with a Nvidia GeForce 8600 series graphics card, which he bought in September 2007. Many laptops not included in the list — including the HP Pavilion dv9500 and dv9600 series — bought in 2007 are now experiencing similar problems, Hilsenrad said.

He was asked to pay around US$400 to replace a motherboard when overheating rendered his laptop screen dysfunctional. He called HP to request a fix, but the PC didn’t fall under the extended warranty that HP issued for affected laptops.

After haggling with an HP case manager, he got the laptop repaired for around $215. However, the case manager said the affected laptop list could be updated to include the model he owned, in which case he would be refunded the amount.

Another poster, Salman Fateh, reported system failure and a blank screen on an HP Pavilion dv9500 with a Nvidia 8600 series graphic chip, which was purchased in October 2007.

“HP will not honor the extended warranty for this model. HP should honor customers and replace all laptops with defective Nvidia GPUs,” Fateh wrote in a separate HP forum.

Customers echoed Fateh’s opinion, saying that unless HP addresses the issue quickly, their laptops would become paperweights.

“HP needs to add the rest of these bad GPU units on the list, get them all repaired,” wrote a poster with the screen name Sarah Locker on HP’s board. “I don’t want to blame HP for Nvidia’s manufacturing fault, but it appears now that HP is the one that is dragging their feet.”

HP didn’t immediately comment on this story. Officials from Nvidia were not available to comment either.

Nvidia last July said that some of its graphics chips were overheating due to packaging material and the thermal design of some laptops. HP subsequently issued an advisory warning of possible laptop failure and a list of models affected by the Nvidia parts.

HP also issued a BIOS patch to keep system fans running longer to prevent overheating, and offered to repair laptops depending on certain symptoms. The affected laptops included some HP Pavilion dv2000, dv6000, dv9000 models and Compaq Presario V3000 and V6000 series laptops. HP also offered a 24-month warranty extension to affected customers in North America.

The federal government last week reported a 6.1% contraction in the U.S. economy during this year’s first quarter — a grim headline in the making. But economists and IT industry analysts saw some hopeful signs in the latest numbers, as did Wall Street, where stock prices staged a midday rally.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, in its quarterly report on gross domestic product (GDP), said that consumer spending increased by 2.2% in Q1 on a sequential basis, after falling 4.3% in last year’s fourth quarter. Consumers account for about two-thirds of overall spending in the U.S., so the first-quarter jump was seen as a good omen for the economy as a whole.

“If consumer spending is starting to recover, that means you’ve got signs that the economy is starting to recover,” said Andrew Bartels, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.

Bartels and other analysts said shrinking business inventories that also were cited in the Commerce Department report may spur increased production to meet the growing consumer demand. Moreover, the federal government’s economic stimulus spending under the $787 billion bill signed by President Barack Obama in February has yet to fully kick in.

The first-quarter decline in inventories “is a classic sign of reaching a bottom, because now the shelves are empty,” said Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics Inc., a market research firm in Irvine, Calif.

But overall, the first quarter was rougher than expected for the economy, and the drop-off in GDP followed a similarly sharp 6.3% decline during the fourth quarter of last year.

Tech Firms Report Tough Quarter

IT vendors were among the businesses that had a tough time in Q1. For instance, Microsoft Corp. reported a 6% revenue decline year-to-year, while IBM said its revenue fell by 11%. SAP AG Wednesday reported a 33% drop in software sales; its total revenue declined by only 3%, but that was thanks largely to increases in software support fees that took effect Jan. 1.

The data released by the Commerce Department explains why the revenues of tech vendors were down during the first quarter. The agency’s report shows that spending on software dropped by 8% in Q1 and that purchases of computers and peripherals were off by 25%, Bartels said.

But with the consumer-spending data suggesting that the economic downturn is flattening out or perhaps even coming to an end, Bartels expects businesses to revisit their capital investment plans and decide that they might have overreacted in making spending cuts. And although federal spending was down 4% in the first quarter, the stimulus plan “is going to turn government spending from negative to positive very quickly,” he said.

The Federal Reserve, in a statement issued this afternoon, said it also has seen signs of improvement in the economy, although its comments were guarded. The Fed said that “the pace of contraction appears to be somewhat slower” and that since March, “the economic outlook has improved modestly.” Household spending “has shown signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth and tight credit,” the Fed said, adding that weak sales prospects have prompted businesses to cut their inventories, investments and staffing levels.

Swine Flu an Issue

One wild card is the possible economic impact of the swine flu outbreak, especially if the World Health Organization determines that it amounts to a pandemic. Such a declaration might increase demand for technologies that support telecommuting, but it would hurt the travel industry and other businesses. Overall, Scavo said, a full-blown pandemic “could lengthen the recession, and that in turn could suppress demand for IT equipment and services.”

There is one economic sector that may be unaffected by the downturn: lobbying. Tech vendors spent $29.5 million in the first quarter lobbying Congress and the White House, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That amount is on track with last year’s levels, when the IT industry spent about $118 million on lobbying efforts for the year as a whole.

Some of us take out second mortgages to make ends meet. Some of us toil away at menial jobs to weather the economic crisis. Others stab their US$1,800 MacBook Air with a kitchen knife because it has a broken hinge. Who are we to say what’s right and wrong?

According to the resourceful genius in this video, he, as well as six of his friends who also own MacBook Airs, have all experienced issues with a broken hinge that attaches the monitor to the body. This defect also apparently gives one a bloodthirsty urge to repeatedly stab their MacBook Air in the display with a kitchen knife. On camera.

To add insult to injury, he recommends that we buy a Lenovo x300 laptop instead of a Mac. Uh huh. We have one question to ask: is it kitchen knife-proof?

I’m personally surprised it took three stabs to crack the screen. That’s gotta be some sort of testament to Apple’s build quality, right? And amazingly the MacBook didn’t explode in his face, electrocute him, or shoot hazardous LCD goo into his eyes. Well, it would have made for a more interesting video, anyway.

Dell is offering WiMax support as an option on three laptop models sold in the U.S., the company said Tuesday.

Customers can add an Intel wireless module that supports Wi-Fi and WiMax to Dell’s Studio 15, Studio 17 and Studio XPS 16 for US$60, according to Dell’s Direct2Dell blog.

Wireless broadband networks based on WiMax are only available in three U.S. cities: Atlanta, Baltimore and Portland, Oregon. That means most users won’t get any benefit from adding WiMax cards to their Dell laptops unless they live in one of these three cities. Over time, more U.S. users will get access to WiMax networks as operator Clearwire expands coverage to more cities.

Besides WiMax, Dell also said it’s also considering support for Long-Term Evolution (LTE), a more advanced cellular technology now under development that will offer faster data speeds than current 3G networks. The company did not say when it expects to make this option available.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all plan to roll out LTE services, with Verizon’s service scheduled to start later this year.