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Our Daily Deal: Dell 19" Wide Screen LCD Monitor for $89



The folks over at TechDealDigger are letting us know about some of the best deals they find on gadgets every day, so we're going to pass that information on to you. After all, in these tough economic times, every little bit counts. We may not be buying Swarovski-covered iPods any time soon, but everyone needs essentials like a computer, so take a look at what the online deals site sent us today.

For only $89 (including shipping and handling), you can get your hands on a 19-inch Dell widescreen monitor. It's got a 1000:1 contrast ratio, a 5ms response time, and an HD resolution of 1440x900 -- all this adds up to plenty of performance for gaming and watching movies, not to mention a heck of a deal for that price. If you're still using a standard 4:3 ratio monitor, or just wish you had a second monitor (which studies show can increase productivity), now's the perfect time to take the plunge.

Watch this space every day for new tech deals. [From: TechDealDigger]

Our Daily Deal: Dell Vostro A90 Netbook for $199



Every day, the folks over at TechDealDigger are letting us know about some of the best gadget deals they can find, so we're going to pass that information on to you. After all, in these tough economic times, every little bit counts. We may not be buying Swarovski-covered iPods any time soon, but everyone needs essentials like a computer. So, take a look at what the online deals site sent us today.

Have a laptop but sick of lugging it around just so you can check your e-mail or work on basic word-processing? You may want to look into getting a netbook. The budget-friendly computers may not have the performance specs of a top-of-the-line laptop, but they're a great deal for everyday tasks.

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Computers, desktops

Dell to Offer Encrypted Solid-State Drives for Careless Workers



Your hard drive is like your pet; if anything were to happen to it, you just don't know what you would do. And it doesn't help that it's constantly being attacked on all sides by viruses, breakdowns, and overheats.

To help deal with the problem, Dell announced yesterday that it will be offering encrypted solid state drives (SSD) from Samsung in the coming months, making Dell one of the first manufacturers to offer secure SSDs. The drives, which will reportedly deliver "some of the fastest encrypted storage available" (remember, SSD's are significantly faster than your standard hard drive) will bring your resting heart rate down a good 20-percent, as well; the drive offers 8.5 times the shock tolerance of a standard notebook's hard drive. Moreover, full encryption means that, for hackers, accessing all of this tightly held information will be tougher than frozen beef jerky. The encrypted SSDs will be available at 64, 128, and 256 GB capacities, though prices are still to be announced.

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Computers, Laptops

New Dell Laptop Has 11 Hours of Battery Life

The machine translation is pretty weak, but Dell's 12.1-inch (1,280 x 800 pixel) Latitude XT2 looks to have just made its first tentative steps in a global launch. The video posted after the break comes courtesy of Korean site, AVING, where the convertible tablet was apparently just released. Pinch to zoom and two-fingers swipes... yup, it's in there. 11-hours of battery (6-cell plus battery slice) and DDR3 memory (max of 5GB!) too in a chassis just 2.5-cm (0.98-inches) thick. Click through for the video while we track down the official specifications that already seem to be aligning with the unofficial specs leaked earlier.

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Cell Phones, Mobile Phones

Dell to Make Cell Phones?

You know who's blabbing again? That reclusive set of business people who always seem to be "familiar with the matter," that's who. This time, they've got the Wall Street Journal in a twist over renewed rumors that Dell is "preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month."

Next month, is of course the big cellphone coming out party known as Mobile World Congress in Barcelona -- an event Dell has flat-out denied any intention to attend. Still, the evidence presented by the WSJ is pretty overwhelming. First, sources say that a variety of smartphone prototypes, including one with a QWERTY-less touchscreen and another with a sliding keyboard, have already been built running Android and Windows Mobile. Second, Dell's smartphone team "spent much of last year" meeting with suppliers, carriers, and Asian phone manufacturers. Dell's team includes the former head of Motorola's phone division (Ron Garriques) and another Moto employee (John Thode) who heads up Dell's netbook group. The latter being of interest since the iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are considered netbooks by their makers. Oh, and Dell still hasn't made good on its purchase of Zing and its plans to build an all encompassing media ecosystem to manage your audio and video files across PCs and mobile devices.

Sources do contend that plans have not been finalized and Dell may still abandon the effort. But with Acer making the jump into Smartphones next month and other non-traditional players having great success in the space at the expense of the former cellphone powerhouses, one thing is clear: PC guys "will just walk in" and figure this out. Right Ed?

Computers, CES 2009

GPS No Longer Just for Getting You to Your Destination 5



Dell decided to tease the Consumer Electronics Show crowd with only a few details of its Mini 10 netbook computer, which comes with built-in GPS. We don't yet have details on how capable this device will be in regards to geotagging, directions or other functionality. We also don't know when -- and at what price -- the Mini 10 will become available, but we'll provide more details as they come.

Computers, Holiday Gift Guide 2008

Dell Debuts Design-Your-Own-Laptop Studio


It was HP who made the PC "personal again," but don't think Dell isn't doing its darnedest to make it ultra-personal... again. After seeing a number of Dell laptops get unorthodox paint jobs and hearing that it would make Art House machines CTO in 2009, we've now learned that Dell has swung open the doors to its all new Design Studio. Naturally, said studio was built to customize the outfit's Studio 15 and Studio 17 lappies, and it features an interactive gallery of original artwork commissioned exclusively for this initiative. Available for browsing right now, each unique image costs $75 to have "permanently tattooed into the laptop lid," meaning that you better heart that design a whole lot before pulling the final trigger.

Computers, Laptops, Notebooks

Dell Launches the Inspiron Mini 12



We knew more Inspiron Minis were in the works, and Dell's just officially announced the next member of the family, the Inspiron Mini 12. Yep, the same machine we first spotted all the way back in June, and nothing much has changed in the meantime -- you're looking at either a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 or 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor (a step up from the usual 1.6GHz Atom N270), up to an 80GB drive, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth / Wi-Fi, and that 12-inch, 1280 x 800 display, all in a 2.72-pound package less than one inch thick.

The bad news? It's Japan-only for now, but it'll hit the States late next month with a starting price under $600. That's a pretty hot price / performance ratio on paper -- if this thing performs like it should, it could potentially take away sales from more full-featured ultraportables like the Envy 133 and the MacBook Air. We'll see how it goes -- the netbook market suddenly got interesting again, eh?

Update: It's worth pointing out that this netbook runs Vista Home Edition, albeit sluggishly according to APC (XP and Ubuntu variants by end of year). It also ships standard with a 3-hour 3 cell battery or optional $79 6-cell battery for up to 6-hours of power.

Read - Dell announcement
Read - Laptop hands-on
Read - APC hands-on
Read - Dell Q+A

Computers

Global PC Sales Increase 15% in 2008, So Far

Global PC Sales Increase 15 Percent in 2008
Tech industry research firm Gartner has has just released its latest figures tracking the computer market, and, refreshingly, the news is good! While the rest of the economy is struggling just to avoid drowning in a sea of stagnant credit, the PC industry is soaring. According to the findings, global PC sales grew 15% since the 3rd quarter of last year.

There are a number of other interesting statistics:
  • Despite a significant increase in sales, Dell's market share still shrank.
  • Asus and Acer, companies that jumped on the netbook trend, saw huge growth.
  • HP maintained its spot as the number one computer manufacturer worldwide.
  • U.S. PC shipments grew only 4.6%.
  • Netbooks accounted for 5% of PC sales
Why exactly the PC industry seems immune to the current economic downturn is not known -- maybe everyone's staying home to watch their free music and free TV shows? -- but we're sure Apple and Dell aren't complaining. [From: Gartner.com]

Computers

Dell to Release Tiny 'Netbook' This Week


It's already confirmed for this week. Now The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Dell Inspiron 910 Mini netbook will be announced on Thursday the 4th courtesy of an eMail received from Box.net, an online photo and document storage service already seen bundled with Creative's Vado Pocket Video Cam. Apparently, Box.net services will "come pre-installed on the Dell Mini." A Dell spokeswoman confirmed that Dell is working with Box.net for online storage. A person familiar with the matter says that the Mini will likely sell for less than $400, run your choice of Windows or Linux (Ubuntu, is our guess), and sport a display slightly less than 9-inches. You know, all this service talk has us wondering if this will also be Dell's first laptop with its Zing-based audio and video services bundle. Fortunately, we'll know tomorrow.

P.S. That image above is from these earlier leaks and matches the keyboard configuration in Dell's own support documents. In other words, it's what we expect to see tomorrow.

Update: Heh, so much for that image above. Dell has updated the support docs again. See the new keyboard after the break.

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Computers, Back to School Guide 2008

Dell Debuts Eco-Friendly 'Petite' Desktop PCs


Like most product from Dell these days, there's little surprise left in Dell's Studio Hybrid desktop lineup of eco-friendly little PCs. First unveiled as a bamboo-clad concept in April, the computer is finally being released by the hardware giant with a starting price of $499, with interchangeable sleeves of Bamboo, Emerald, Quartz, Ruby, Sapphire, Slate and Topaz -- the latter six being of the shiny plastic ilk.

Dell isn't slouching on specs though, and seems to realize the potential of the Studio Hybrid -- which can be stood vertically or horizontally -- in the living room. There's an HDMI port standard, along with options for Wi-Fi, a wireless keyboard and mouse, Blu-ray and a TV tuner. Dell doesn't ignore the "green" roots of this project, either, and is including a system recycling kit, along with the natural reduction in packing and manufacturing materials. The Studio Hybrid should be available today.

Head on over to Engadget for more coverage and a gallery of the Studio Hybrid.

Computers

Dell Officially Debuts New 'Studio' Laptops, Dell Dock and Dell Video Software


Alright, this one is no surprise, but Dell is finally officially official about its leaked and re-leaked "Studio" laptop line. The specs are as previously stated, with a 15-inch Studio 15 model starting at $799, and a 17-inch Studio 17 model that starts at $999.

What is perhaps more interesting than rehashing those laptop specs for old times sake is the new software Dell is pushing to these laptops and eventually the rest of its computers. Dell Dock is just like what it sounds, a program launcher along the lines of the OS X dock, but with some app-categorization magic and fairly extensive customization.

Dell is also doing up Dell Video Chat, in partnership with SightSpeed, which integrates some rather easy-to-use video chat (powered by those integrated webcams on the Studio Laptops) with VoIP and IM for a pretty compelling alternative to Apple's iChat.

In all it seems Dell's continued fascination with Apple is starting to really pay off for the end user, and those pricepoints are just as loveable as ever. Both laptops should be hitting retail in the next few days.

Click over to Engadget for a full gallery.

Computers

Dell Unveils New Super-Small Laptops


We got a nice helping of slides dropped on our virtual doorstep this evening, fleshing out Dell's upcoming netbook -- which they seem to be calling the "Dell E." Um, Eeenteresting name choice, but that doesn't seem set in stone, and there's plenty else going on here to ponder over.

Dell's breaking the Dell E into two device types, a 8.9-inch model clearly meant to take on the Eee 900, and the 12.1-inch "E Slim" which actually looks positioned to take on the MacBook Air and X300, at a mere 0.8-inches thick, though perhaps in a lower-end capacity. Even the 8.9-inch model will have some distinctions, with E Classic model for super low-end use, and E Video and E Video+ for more RAM, larger flash storage, webcams and Bluetooth in the + model.

Rollout looks to be slated for August for the E, August / September-ish for the E Slim, and a followup for both of those in October of WWAN, with WiMAX after that. Dell even has a second version of both devices slated for Q2 2009, but that's all we know about those so far. Perhaps most interesting is that all of these run Linux and Windows XP, and while it's not clear if there's a full-featured Linux OS onboard, there does seem to be an instant-on, Foleo-esque Linux included on all of them called BlackTop. We're not sure if there's any relation to Splashtop, but the janky-ass interface and email / calendar / contacts apps seem to be telling us no.

BlackTop will support WWAN and WiFi, and Dell plans to move the 2.0 version to the Latitude and Vostro lines in a year or two. Peep the slides at Engadget for all the gory details. Oh, and the price? Dell E starts at $299.

Michael Dell States, For the Record, He Could Take Steve Jobs in a Fight


Michael Dell spent most of his time on stage at the All Things D Conference discussing the business (profit margins, unit growth, etc.). Things finally got interesting during the audience Q&A. Someone from the crowd asked if he could take Steve Jobs in a fight, and Dell flatly replied, "Yeah, I could take him." Now there's a fight we'd pay good money to see.

[Thanks Seenew for Jobs' Mii]

Computers

Dell's "Mini-Inspiron" Eee PC Killer Revealed

Thinking of a new Eee PC or maybe Wind laptop? Hold up, Dell's about to loose this baby on the sub-$500 mini-laptop world. All we've got are these pictures for now but the specs can't be far behind. Even the name "mini-Inspiron" comes from the file name of the Dell-supplied pics. However, if what we've already heard holds up, then we're looking at 8.9-inches dolled up in a sub-$500 price tag with a choice of both Windows XP Home or Ubuntu Linux, 8-in-1 card reader, integrated webcam, direct media playback buttons, and a "host of wireless access options." Expect more next week as the Computex show kicks off.

Check out more images of the mini-Inspiron at Engadget. [Source: Dell via Gizmodo]

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Weirdest Techie Heists and Scams

    Elderly Amish Man Caught on Film With Prostitute, Blackmailed
    When a 75-year-old Amish widower slept with a prostitute, he -- we feel certain -- felt pretty bad about it the next morning. As if that guilt weren't enough for the old man, the prostitute and her boyfriend demanded $67,000 from him, claiming that they had filmed the scene with wall-mounted cameras and would upload the recording to the Internet. The pair was later arrested and, we can only imagine, the Amish man abhorred technology more than ever.

     

    Bank Robber Gets Away With the Help of Craiglist
    In October, a bank robber -- wearing a safety vest, blue shirt, face mask and goggles -- eluded police with the help of Craiglist. Just outside the bank, while the robbery was in progress, stood a group of men who were responding to a Craiglist day labor opportunity. As the advertisement required, they were all wearing safety vests, blue shirts, face masks and goggles.

     

    Nude New Zealander Arrested After Responding to Fake Sexy Text Message
    Late in 2007, a Wellington, New Zealand man received a racy text message from two anonymous "ladies," giving him only an address and a request that he show up naked. Well, he indeed showed up naked... at the home of one appalled, unsuspecting New Zealander. Both the nude Romeo and the sadistic texter were arrested, though neither were prosecuted.

     

    Fake Craiglist Ad Costs Man Most of What He Owns
    Last Spring, a post appeared on an Oregon Craigslist board stating that the owner of a specific house was leaving all of his worldly possessions (still in said house) to whoever wanted them. When homeowner Robert Salisbury rushed home -- on a tip from a woman suspicious about the offer of a free horse -- he found his house being ransacked by 30 strangers. We suggest he take that horse and collect some vengeance Clint Eastwood-style.

     

    17-Year-Old Jailed for Stealing Virtual 'Furniture'
    When a 17-year-old Dutch boy hacked into several accounts on the Second Life-style site 'Habbo' in 2007, the the law got involved. The boy was discovered to have stolen $5,800 worth of virtual furniture and knick-knacks. Apparently, crime -- whether actual or virtual -- does not pay.

     

    Phishers Going After Your Phones in New 'Vishing' Trend
    Over the past year, sneaky spammers have begun to forsake the worn-out territory of e-mail in favor of cell phones' fertile frontier. The result? "Vishing." Get it? Voice mail phishing. It might be more ominous if it didn't sound like a James Bond villain saying, "Wishing."

     

    Burglars Break Into Restaurant, Steal HDTV, Leave Money / Food Behind
    Around Halloween of last year, a truckload of thieves drove into -- that's right, into -- a Pennsylvania Mexican restaurant, where they -- apparently uninterested in the cash register -- stole a mid-grade 47-inch HDTV and fled the scene. We've all heard about how this generation is lacking in ambition, but this generation's thieves, too?

     

Latest Reviews from CNET.com

CNET provides the latest tech news, unbiased reviews, videos, podcasts, software, and downloads, making tech products easy to find, understand and use.

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