9/03/2011 Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba show off first Ultrabooks at IFA 2011

Ah, the Ultrabook! Intel’s made-up new market niche that combines the thin of the ‘thin and light’ group with the power of full size notebooks. Really, you could just keep calling them notebooks or laptops, but where’s the fun in that? Whatever you call them, the group represents a concerted effort by Windows laptop manufacturers to challenge the Macbook Air’s slim profile and solid performance.

At IFA 2011, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba have all shown off their first Ultrabook models. First up is the Acer Aspire S3 (above), which offers a 13.3″ LCD at 1366 x 768 pixels, integrated 1.3MP webcam, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0. Processor options range from the Core i3 to i7, and Acer’s lower-end S3 models will feature a 320GB or 500GB hard drive — a 240GB SSD will also be available. Even at less than a half inch thick, the S3 still has room to include a standard HDMI port. Battery life on the Aspire S3 is estimated at 7 hours for SSD models, and Acer states that it can resume from sleep in about a second and a half. Prices for the Aspire S3 will start at 799€ (just over $1100).





Next up is the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s. Like the S3, it’s under a half inch thick and features a 13.3″ 1366 x 768 display. At the top end, the U300s can be configured with a Core i7 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. There’s also a 1.3MP webcam, USB 3.0 ports, Intel WiDi and an HDMI port for video output.

Lenovo estimates up to eight hours of battery power, and the company’s RapidDrive SSD tech ensures near-10 second cold boot times. The U300s is available in the sexy clementine orange you see above as well as a more business-like graphite shade. It’ll go on sale in November at a starting price of $1,195.




Finally, we’ve got the Toshiba Portege Z830. And yes, it sports a 13.3 inch LCD at 1366 x 768 pixels and is about half an inch thick. At less than 2.5 pounds, however, Toshiba says the Z830 is the lightest 13.3″ notebook around.

Core i3, i5, and i7 processor options are available, and the Z830 packs a full array of ports: ethernet, VGA, HDMI, and two USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0. The obligatory webcam is also built in, and Toshiba estimates 8 hours of unplugged use on the U830′s 47Whr battery.

Apart from being light and packed with full-sized ports, the Z830 also feature a spill-resistant keyboard. It’s expected to hit the street at less than $1,000, but that’s as specific as Toshiba is getting at this point.

From the looks of things so far, it’s going to be tough for companies to make their Ultrabooks stand out from the crowd, but they’ll find a way — much like Android smartphone and tablet makers do. Acer’s offering high-capacity HDDs, Lenovo has ultra-fast boot times and the eye-catching orange shell, and Toshiba brings supreme portability without sacrificing hook-ups.

@AtulPlayer

8/28/2011 HP TouchPad to run Android thanks to TouchDroid

By now, there’s a massive, yet unconfirmed, number of brand new owners of the HP TouchPad tablet. As you read this, thousands of apps are being installed, the UI played with, and the device as a whole is being re-judged. Compared to other tablets in the market, the TouchPad is still a major competitor when it comes to hardware, and yet it’s only $99 right now… if you can find one. So, they will continue to fly off the shelves until there are none left and the people at HP can move on with their lives.

What happens when that “new gadget smell” wears off, though? The honeymoon effect with your new,
heavily-discounted device wears off and you’re left with a tablet that isn’t likely to get any better than it is right now unless you do something yourself. The Preware community already has a nice collection of things you can do to play with any WebOS device, but even that has its limits. So, what are you to do with that shiny new tablet? Well, eventually, you’ll be able to put Android on it.

RootzWiki, the Android-focused rooting, modding, and development forum has put together a small team dedicated towards assembling Android for the TouchPad, as well as performing the hacks necessary to shoehorn the OS on the device. The team has put forth a clear plan of attack and is documenting the process along the way using both the RootzWiki forum as well as a separate “TouchDroid” Wiki. Each of the team members purchased their own TouchPads, but also have a donation link available in case they brick one of their TouchPads, or if one needs to be the victim of a teardown for additional information.

Basically, they will attempt to put (stock) Android 2.3.5 from the Android Open Source Project on the device at first. If that succeeds, they will move in to CyanogenMod, a popular Android rom that has a full suite of tablet enhancements for large screens. When the next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, becomes available, the team plans to port that to the TouchPad as well, provided Google sticks to their plan to release Source once again when that version comes out.



This attempt has garnered a mixed bag of responses from TouchPad users. There are those who would rather keep their stock WebOS experience still, though I refer you to the first paragraph for my opinion on that. There are those who welcome the Android port with open arms, and likely bought the tablet with that in mind from the beginning. While I am an Android user, I must say that I am a huge fan of the WebOS experience and have preferred it over Android for some time now.

I’m not the only one, apparently. James Kendrick recent wrote that what he would rather see happen is closer to what RIM has in store for the Playbook. Some sort of emulator to allow Android apps to run on the TouchPad, while still following the rules and multitasking principles of WebOS. I have to say, that idea excites me. I feel that solution would certainly be more elegant, and would preserve much of what we have come to appreciate from WebOS. I do know, however, that making that work is a great deal more difficult then just shoehorning Android onto the TouchPad. So while I am excited at the possibility, I will refrain from holding my breath.

Another notion that was raised was the possibility of seeing Windows 7 or Windows 8 on the tablet in the future. Essentially, if the TouchPad gets opened up for Android, the sky will be the limit for modders who want to push the limits of this device. So many things will be possible as long as there is an audience and developers interested in making the TouchPad do “all of the things.” If you have a TouchPad, keep your eyes on the RootzWiki guys, as they will most certainly be making noise about their developments regularly.


@Atul Purohit

Documentary proving Chinese military university hacking disappears

Earlier this week it was revealed that a documentary had been made that proved a Chinese military university was using software to hack dissident groups as well as US entities. The hacking was done using a compromised US-based IP address, which made the situation, and what was supposed to be a documentary bragging about Chinese military intelligence, even more problematic.

In the time since the clip was noticed it’s gotten a lot of press and it seems to have resulted in that documentary being pulled.

As of today the video–”The Internet Storm is Coming” episode of the series called Military Science and Technology–is no longer available in its original location, on the website of Chinese state-run television station, and has been disavowed by Chinese officials as the work of an “imaginative producer”. The video is still available on YouTube for those who would like to see it.

The significance of the clip is, if anything, enhanced by its removal from where it was originally posted. This is of course a catch-22 for the Chinese because if their claims about an imaginative producer are true and the video was pulled for good reason, we’d still be suspicious. That noted, given the episode’s use of a legitimate University of Alabama IP address and that fact the target was set to be a Falun Gong website, it’s unlikely that this purely a work of fiction.

For their part Chinese officials have denied this or any other story of cyberwarfare, while the US Pentagon, Google, and other groups have accused the Chinese government (or associates organizations) of hacking in the past.

The NYT noted t
hat Chinese documents have used fake footage in the past though, including footage from Top Gun as a supposed training exercise. So it’s not impossible that this could be an example of that, though the source material is not as recognizable as the 1986 hit.
via the Washington Post


@Atul purohit