Filed under: Laptops
Sony has quite the history of crippling excellent, beautiful hardware with horrible, useless software. The company’s UX UMPC bluescreened on us the first time we turned it on, and crashed the first time we tried to shut it down thanks to all the bloatware on it, while a Laptop Mag review says their Vaio TZ ran “as if it were broken” before they managed to wipe it clean. Lucky for us, it appears Sony is finally seeing the error of its ways, but instead of removing the crapware altogether, Sony has the nerve to offer a $50 “Fresh Start” option, which “scrubs” the machine clean before shipping it your way. At the moment you can only configure the TZ2000 crapware-free, but hopefully Sony will be rolling out the choice to the rest of its laptops soon. Or here’s an idea, Sony: stop trying to milk profits and start giving consumers laptops that actually work out of the box.
[Thanks, Camron T]
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Filed under: Features, Wireless
Win or lose, all the bidders wrapped up in the so-called Auction 73 for precious spectrum in the 700MHz band are still under tight FCC-imposed gag orders in an effort to stem any funny business, but it looks like they’re at least ready to come out and dip their toes into the PR waters. Verizon, the biggest winner having claimed the big, wide Block C prize, says that it’s “pleased with [its] auction results” (we should certainly hope so), that the new airwaves will help it maintain its “reputation as the nation’s most reliable wireless network,” and that they’re now better positioned to lead the way with new services and devices. The megacarrier goes on to boast about the fact that its winning bids score it massive 298 million person footprint, plus another 171 million worth of licenses in different Blocks.
Meanwhile, AT&T seems happy with its purchase, too — but then again, it’s not like any of these companies would be issuing immediate statements expressing buyer’s remorse, we guess. The number one US carrier by subscribers reports that its newly acquired licenses, in combination with spectrum snatched from Aloha Partners earlier this year, now gives it 100 percent coverage in the 700MHz arena in the nation’s top 200 markets, with “quality spectrum” (whatever that means) covering 95 percent of the American populace. For what it’s worth, AT&T’s Auction 73 purchases were in Block B, which has moderately less bandwidth than Verizon’s Block C win — but as they say, it’s not the bandwidth of the spectrum, it’s the motion of the frequencies, so we’ll have to wait to see how these guys actually use these licenses before we rush to any conclusions.
Finally, from its brief statement, Google appears to have gotten exactly what it wanted: nothing at all. The company says that Auction 73 “produced a major victory for American consumers” because Block C’s reserve price was met — thanks largely to Google’s early bidding, it’s believed — which means that Verizon will be obligated to allow devices of all shapes, sizes, colors, and brands to participate when it flips the switch on its 700MHz network.
All three companies sound like they’re itching to say more as soon as the FCC allows it, so stay tuned as we try to figure out exactly what’s next for the auction, the carriers, and the people who actually want to benefit from this action (read: us).
Read - AT&T’s statement
Read - Verizon Wireless’ statement
Read - Google’s statement
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Filed under: Features, Wireless
Win or lose, all the bidders wrapped up in the so-called Auction 73 for precious spectrum in the 700MHz band are still under tight FCC-imposed gag orders in an effort to stem any funny business, but it looks like they’re at least ready to come out and dip their toes into the PR waters. Verizon, the biggest winner having claimed the big, wide Block C prize, says that it’s “pleased with [its] auction results” (we should certainly hope so), that the new airwaves will help it maintain its “reputation as the nation’s most reliable wireless network,” and that they’re now better positioned to lead the way with new services and devices. The megacarrier goes on to boast about the fact that its winning bids score it massive 298 million person footprint, plus another 171 million worth of licenses in different Blocks.
Meanwhile, AT&T seems happy with its purchase, too — but then again, it’s not like any of these companies would be issuing immediate statements expressing buyer’s remorse, we guess. The number one US carrier by subscribers reports that its newly acquired licenses, in combination with spectrum snatched from Aloha Partners earlier this year, now gives it 100 percent coverage in the 700MHz arena in the nation’s top 200 markets, with “quality spectrum” (whatever that means) covering 95 percent of the American populace. For what it’s worth, AT&T’s Auction 73 purchases were in Block B, which has moderately less bandwidth than Verizon’s Block C win — but as they say, it’s not the bandwidth of the spectrum, it’s the motion of the frequencies, so we’ll have to wait to see how these guys actually use these licenses before we rush to any conclusions.
Finally, from its brief statement, Google appears to have gotten exactly what it wanted: nothing at all. The company says that Auction 73 “produced a major victory for American consumers” because Block C’s reserve price was met — thanks largely to Google’s early bidding, it’s believed — which means that Verizon will be obligated to allow devices of all shapes, sizes, colors, and brands to participate when it flips the switch on its 700MHz network.
All three companies sound like they’re itching to say more as soon as the FCC allows it, so stay tuned as we try to figure out exactly what’s next for the auction, the carriers, and the people who actually want to benefit from this action (read: us).
Read - AT&T’s statement
Read - Verizon Wireless’ statement
Read - Google’s statement
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Filed under: Laptops
Let’s not get hung up on trying to figure out a use for this thing, and just admire it for what it is: awesome. Jim built this “Spectrum ZX Laptop” out of an old ZX Spectrum 48k and a Toshiba Libretto 110, using the Libretto for innards and the screen, while the Spectrum serves as a case and keyboard. The “laptop” gets a couple hours of batter life, and naturally Jim is running Linux on here — he plans to emulate some old ZX Spectrum games with it, but mostly it’s just art. A shot of the two machines in their original states is after the break.
[Via Hack a Day]
Continue reading ZX Spectrum Laptop mashes in a Toshiba Libretto 110 for some fun retro times
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Filed under: Laptops
There’s are a lot of reasons to pick another laptop over the MacBook Air — especially if you’re into little things like “useful ports” — but the comparison to non-Apple hardware isn’t even relevant unless you’re willing to switch to OS X, right? Well, the crew over at Xbit Labs decided to even the slate and evaluate the MBA solely as a Windows machine, wiping the drive clean of Leopard and installing Vista Ultimate. Although actually getting Vista on the Air was a bit troublesome due to the lack of a built-in optical drive and the Vista installer’s refusal to wipe out the OS X partition, once installed the OS performed fine, with Apple-provided drivers activating the media and brightness keys and even the multi-touch trackpad. The only major issues were over-aggressive activation of CPU power-management, which resulted in dramatic slowdowns during some tasks, and the fact that the case got fairly warm during use — both issues MBA owners using OS X have reported. Overall, while the MBA was a solid if unspectacular Windows machine, the lack of support and nagging issues with running a pure Windows MBA mean you’re probably better off going with laptop designed for Vista — hmm, we can think of one that might spark your interest.
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Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation
It’s been two years since we first heard that Qantas was bringing in-flight email and SMS to its fleet, and after a lengthy testing period, it looks like it’s finally happening. The last set of test flights wrapped up in January, and allowing people to check in on the status of their Nigerian money transfers and send R U HERE texts apparently didn’t cause any major problems, so the airline is moving to bring the tech to all Boeing 767 and Airbus A330 flights in Australia. Voice service still isn’t in the cards, but considering how long it’s taking to get any of this tech off the ground in the States, we’ll take what we can get.
[Thanks, Chris]
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Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation
It’s been two years since we first heard that Qantas was bringing in-flight email and SMS to its fleet, and after a lengthy testing period, it looks like it’s finally happening. The last set of test flights wrapped up in January, and allowing people to check in on the status of their Nigerian money transfers and send R U HERE texts apparently didn’t cause any major problems, so the airline is moving to bring the tech to all Boeing 767 and Airbus A330 flights in Australia. Voice service still isn’t in the cards, but considering how long it’s taking to get any of this tech off the ground in the States, we’ll take what we can get.
[Thanks, Chris]
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Now this is the type of new gadget that gets us all starry-eyed and drooling. The CradlePoint PHS300 will allow you to turn your Blackjack, Blackberry, RAZR or other cellular or USB modem into your own personal 802.11b/g wireless hotspot. Simply plug the USB cable from your supported cell phone into the PHS300 and your’re ready to go with…
Filed under: Gaming
Given how clumsy some of Nyko’s other Wii accessories are, we didn’t exactly have high hopes when we heard that the company was shipping the first third-party Wii Guitar Hero controller — so imagine our surprise when we found out it’s in the shape of a Telecaster, our fave axe and one thus far criminally ignored in the Guitar Hero pantheon. Just like the official controller, the Wiimote slips into the chassis to do most of the heavy lifting, but you won’t have spend quite as much to get your multiplayer on — $50, about $10 cheaper than the Activision Les Paul. The white version includes black and pink pickguards, while the blonde edition comes with black and white — anyone have a spare IGNORE ALIEN ORDERS sticker handy?
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Filed under: Laptops
It’s been a while since the HP dv2000 laptop made its original appearance, and it looks like HP’s giving the newest version a new model number as well as a slight redesign — say bonjour to the dv3000. Based around an oh-so-hip 13.3-inch display, the overall look of the machine is basically the same as the older model, but it’s slightly smaller. Inside, you’re looking at a 2.5GHz T9300 Penryn Core 2 Duo, GeForce Go 8400M graphics with HDMI out, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB disk, VGA webcam, a dual-layer burner, and an unusual combo USB / eSATA port that we’d like to take a closer look at. Not a bad piece of kit for $1,399 — too bad it’s only coming out in Asia around May.
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