HP Touchsmart 300z (Novice, Under $2,500)

HP's all-in-one desktop ($799 – $1,099, depending on the configuration) includes the specs you'd want for day-to-day computing: a 20-inch widescreen LCD, an AMD Athlon multi-core processor, 2-4-gigabytes (GB) of RAM and up to a 750 GB hard drive. But what separates the Touchsmart 300z from the pack is the user-friendly, iPhone-like touchscreen interface, which has been much improved with the addition of Windows 7. No need for a stylus. Just select an item by tapping a finger on it. To rotate a photo, move your fingers in a circular motion. And if you prefer a touch keyboard, tap the edge of the screen twice. It's so intuitive, you'll wonder why all computers don't have one.

HP Beats Laptop (Media Hound, Under $2,500)

It's rare that a PC laptop makes even Mac owners look twice, but look twice at the above photo. See? The 15-inch black-and-red stunna -- essentially an HP Envy with a Beats by Dr. Dre veneer -- has a lot in common with the MacBook Pro, actually: the chiclet keyboard, the buttonless, multitouch trackpad, the slim, bezel-etched design, even the $2,299 (and up) price tag. But it's the 1.6GHz Intel Core i7-720QM processor, ATI Mobility Radeon graphics card, networking-optimized Windows 7, and great screen that make this a multimedia powerhouse ideal for playing music, movies, and pictures while on the go or at home. Yes, the 'Beats' brand may be mostly a marketing gimmick, but it does mean that the system also comes with a pair of Beats Solo by Dr. Dre headphones ($199 on their own), an audio interface with two stereo outputs and ultra-loud output level, which makes it good for producing or performing music live. For those who produce their own music -- or trendsetters who want a distinctive-looking PC -- the $2,229 Beats Laptop is tough to beat.

Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, underwent successful breast cancer surgery Monday at Stanford University Hospital in California. Diagnosed on February 20th, Fiorina is set to participate in chemotherapy treatments at Stanford with an excellent chance for a full recovery, according to her chief of staff Deborah Bowker.

During her tenure as CEO of HP, a position she held from 1995 until her forced resignation in 2005, Fiorina was at the helm of the merger between HP and rival Compaq, a move that was widely criticized due to resulting layoffs and suspended earnings. After her consequent resignation and departure, Fiorina received even more criticism for her $21 million severance package, which included an additional $21 million in stock options and pension benefits.

Fiorina currently heads a Bay-area based charity, Carly Fiorina Enterprises, and -- after holding a position last year as the top economic adviser to presidential candidate John McCain -- has also hinted at a possible foray into politics. Because of that service, along with her appearance at the California state GOP convention the day after she was diagnosed with cancer, Fiorina has received backing from a large contingent of California Republicans for a proposed 2010 run against US Senator Barbara Boxer.

While Fiorina does plan to limit her upcoming engagements and travel in order to recuperate, Bowker told the Mercury News that after the successful surgery Fiorina is "doing great" and plans to "enthusiasically" return to all of her previous endeavors.

[From: SFGate]

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Well, what do you know? Nearly four years after Arizona State University opened its very own flexible display center comes this, a prototype device that's purportedly easy to manufacture, easy on the environment and practically as strong as Thor. HP and ASU have teamed up to demonstrate the fresh e-displays, which are constructed almost entirely of plastic and consume far less power than traditional computer monitors. The "unbreakable displays" were crafted using self-aligned imprint lithography (SAIL) technology invented in HP Labs, and while we'd love to see this in a pliable laptop at CES 2009, we suspect it'll be a few years yet before these slither out to the commercial realm.

Due to popular complaint, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has pulled advertisements for the TouchSmart computer that featured a Gary Glitter song, WEBN.com reports. The song in question, 'Do You Wanna Touch Me,' was performed by Joan Jett in the version used for the advertisement, but was originally written by Gary Glitter, a '70s glam rocker and convicted sex offender.

Glitter, who is best known in the U.S. for the basketball arena anthem 'Rock and Roll, Part 2,' has been convicted of possessing child pornography in the U.K., and just recently served prison time in Vietnam for molesting two underage girls.

Having received an undisclosed number of complaints about the use of Glitter's song, Hewlett-Packard pulled the commercial, claiming that the corporation was not aware of Glitter's songwriting credit on the song.

For our part, we've been saying for years that 'Rock and Roll, Part 2' should never again be played at sporting events, as much because of Glitter's despicable crimes as because of that song's being freaking obnoxious. [From: WEBN.com]

No clue if HP will be sticking with the Digital Clutch moniker (wouldn't be a bad choice, actually), but one's thing for certain: The computer manufacturer is teaming up with designer Vivienne Tam for a highly decorated netbook. The shot you're looking at above is just about all we have to go on, but obviously this one won't appeal to those who aren't into vivaciousness, vividness and, um, flora.

We are told that it'll be available this December with an Intel Atom processor within (which is pretty noteworthy given HP's current relationship with VIA), but everything else is being closely concealed for now -- even though Atom typically equals 1-gigabyte (GB) of RAM, a 1.6GHz clock speed and an 80GB HDD. But hey, a woman has to have her secrets, right?

[Thanks, Ronald]

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]

Hey guys / gals, check this out. Best Buy is practically admitting that it is just now starting to "gather insights from customers and work with manufacturers to design products that address [consumers'] needs." In a rather odd release, the big box retailer is announcing two new laptops that'll be exclusive to its store: the 14.1-inch Toshiba Satellite E105-S1402 and the 13.3-inch HP Pavilion dv3510nr. According to the release, these laptops were created and inspired by feedback from Best Buy customers

The Toshiba will feature a 1.2-inch thin frame, WXGA (1,280 x 800) panel, backlit keyboard, DVD burner, 5.5-hours of battery life and an $1,199 price tag. The HP (shown after the break) will include a LED-backlit WXGA display, up to 4-hours of battery life, inbuilt webcam and precisely the same retail price.

Eventually, Best Buy is hoping to expand the Blue Label series to other product lines, though there's no word on where to find these elusive input cards that it's supposedly using to pick and choose wares.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and MTV are joining forces (again) to launch a new reality mini show thats being pitched as "the 'Real World' with more computers." 'Engine Room' is a show that gathers young creative types from around the world, sticks them in an apartment in Brooklyn, and makes them create digital art using HP PCs. Episodes will run only five to seven minutes each and will air both on mtvU (MTV's channel targeted at college kids) and will be available online.

If this sounds as much about advertising as it does about programming, you're not too far off. 'Engine Room,' like 'Meet or Delete' and 'College 500' before it, fall into the category that is being called branded-entertainment. Branded-entertainment generally consists of usually short-form reality shows with heavy branding from a sponsoring company, in this case HP. In other words, it's just like the soap-operas of yore, only with more of a reality-show-twist and the 'product' actually being used in the show.

In 'Engine Room' 16 contestants will be divided up into four teams and compete for a prize of $400,000 and a chance to program the giant MTV screen in Times Square. Filming is complete and the editing is almost done. If you feel like you really need a multi-part infomercial posing as a television show in your life, then check out 'Engine Room,' which premieres tonight. To be fair, we haven't seen it yet, so it just might be good -- but if it stinks.... [From: New York Times]

Those that know Rahul Sood, founder of Voodoo PC and CTO of HP's global gaming business, might not be so surprised to hear he used a working MacBook Air to cut his thick, rich, chocolatey birthday cake. While wearing an HP shirt. And then posted it to his site. Good luck, Rahul -- we're totally sure the Apple fanboys of the world are going to give you a pass on this one.

The market for cheap sub-notebooks is simply exploding. It all started with the OLPC XO, then Intel jumped in with the Classmate. Soon Asus revealed its critically acclaimed Eee PC, and these low-priced, low-powered (often Linux-running) machines truly started to take the world by storm.

The latest entry into this field is the Hewlett Packard 2133 Mini-Note PC. The Mini-Note starts at $499, for the entry level model with 512 megabytes of RAM, 4-gigabytes of storage, a 1-gigahertz VIA processor, and Linux. At the top of the heap is a $749 model loaded with Vista Business, 2-gigabytes of RAM, and a 1.6 gigahertz VIA processor. The $749 model also comes with a 120-gigabyte hard drive that spins at 7,200 RPM for super fast data access. Many full-sized notebooks only come with 5,400 RPM drives, and most ultra-portables are saddled with a 4,200 RPM drive.

The first batch of reviews are in, and they're all pretty positive. Some complain about the lack of power due to the VIA processor, and the awkwardness of the side-mounted touch pad buttons, but most are blown away by the full-sized keyboard and the 8.9-inch screen that at a resolution of 1280x768 can display a full Web page without any horizontal scrolling, unlike the ASUS Eee.

The Mini-Note sounds like a strong competitor to the Eee and other cheap compact notebooks, but the price does sound a little high. An Eee PC similarly equipped to the lower end Mini-Note costs about $100 less, and for the $749 asking price of the high end model, you could buy a much more powerful laptop, though one not nearly as small.

From Engadget

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Sure, iPods are cool, but they're just not the status symbol they once were, and there's nothing cool about having sleekest slimmest laptop on the market if everyone else has one, too.

Companies are realizing this and know that people, especially fiercely independent Americans, have a need to be different. So, as a way to make their products stand out (and their customers feel a little more unique), consumer electronics producers have taken to decorating many of their goods with graffiti and modern-art inspired graphics, intricate etchings, vaguely Japanese designs, and yes, even leather.

We wandered around CES and snapped pictures of some of the coolest examples of decorative electronics and customization options available to try and make you the consumer feel a little less like just part of the herd.

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It's a little early in the product life to declare Windows Home Server a failure or a success yet, but this holiday season is shaping up to be the first real test of its market viability.

Windows Home Sever is an offshoot of the company's enterprise platform for Web and file hosting designed with consumer in mind. Essentially, it's a system that will automatically backup several computers connected to a home network, as well as allow for easy sharing of music, videos, files, and printers -- even from remote locations via the Web. Microsoft's pitch is that the Home Server will have a painless, dummy-proof set-up and interface, and early reviews confirm that this is in fact what Microsoft will provide when the first models show up in time for the holidays.

Hardware vendors have started loading the niche OS on bare-bones PCs with copious amounts of storage to lure in the media hungry masses in this age of P2P file sharing. And just in time for Chrisma-Hanu-Kwaanza, the big guys are unveiling their entries into this market. Even companies whose business is usually storage are trying to get in on the ground floor. Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, Iomega, LaCie, Leo Computers, LifeWare, Maxdata, Medion, Tranquil, Velocity Micro, and HP are all launching, or re-launching boxes with the Home Server platform installed. Systems are expected to cost in the $500-$700 range.

The question is whether there is a big enough market for a consumer-oriented server. Setting up a server is a simple enough process that most power users could have one set up in a matter of hours, without shelling out for specialized hardware or software. The average consumer is still intimidated by the idea and skeptical of the need, though anybody who downloads a lot of video and music or uploads their own pictures -- and also lives in a household with other computer users -- could certainly use a home server.

It remains to be seen whether or not Microsoft can do for home servers what the iPod did for digital music players. Unless the company can simplify its story of what a home server actually does and why the average consumer needs it, it may end up achieving a more modest, non-revolutionary success a la Apple TV.

Meanwhile, La Cie just released the much less expensive Ethernet Disk Mini ($200), which is getting rave reviews so far.

From Engadget

Microsoft's Service Pack 1 for Vista is now available in limited beta tests. This first system update is critical for Vista since, traditionally, most businesses wait for the the release of the first service pack before migrating to a new version of Windows. If user complaints are not addressed in this update, many consumers may choose to skip Vista altogether. Considering the fact that Microsoft just ended support for Windows 98 last May, it's possible people will remain with XP until something better comes along.

From Slashdot

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True Big Brother 24/7, 365 surveillance is not here just yet, but if Martin Sadler, a senior scientist at Hewlett Packard is to be believed, it's not too far off. By 2057, he says there will be roughly one million sensors and recorders for every U.K. resident. Sadler has warned that the amount of information being collected from such a network of devices will lead to important ethical dilemmas.

Though New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg recently suggested a video surveillance program for downtown Manhattan, public surveillance is much more prevalent in the U.K. than it is here in the states. Its effectiveness as an anti-terror tool was most famously demonstrated in 2005 in the wake of the London bus bombings when video of the suspects was immediately made available to the media.

Today, the average Londoner is captured on surveillance at least 300 times a day, a number that's on the rise. Many uses of the technology are "innocent and harmless," but the shear wealth of information being collected may lead to dangers that we're only now beginning to understand. Sadler's eerie vision of the future isn't limited to one in which advertisements are targeted at people based on where they were earlier in the day -- though, that will certainly happen. He envisions a future in which there are sensors so small, they'll be able to permeate our bodies to collect personal data.

Sadler says, "We have some real choices that we can make over the next few years about how much we benefit from all this information ... or how much it presents some sort of dark future for us." As we recently reported, the South Koreans are currently conducting a similar self-audit to determine the future dangers of developing technology, only the Koreans are focused on robots instead of surveillance.

From The BBC

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