laptop

At CES, Dell demoed several Sandy Bridge laptops, one of which was the new XPS 17. However, only just this week has Dell gotten around to releasing them. Additionally, Dell is also releasing an XPS 15 with the updated platform. Right now, the XPS 17 is available in North America, Latin America, and Europe, while the XPS 15 is released in the United States, but will move to the rest of Dell's markets shortly. So what kind of changes do the new XPS laptops bring? And what about the Sandy Bridge chipset issue? ...read more

Short and to the point: Man takes broken laptop to a computer repair shop. Shop employees scam man out of $20 million. End of story.

It's actually quite a bit more elaborate than that, but the end result is the same. According to NetworkWorld.com, a New York couple defrauded wealthy pianist Roger Davidson out of up to $20 million by convincing him that his laptop virus was really a symptom of a larger plot involving government intelligence agencies, foreign nationals, and Catholic priests. Apparently the New York couple were believable enough that Davidson agreed to pay them $160,000 for month for round-the-clock protection.

"The suspects were isolating the victim and were basically trying to control every dollar that he had," said Police Chief Anthony Marraccini. "They did it very systematically and infiltrated every aspect of his life. It was almost a brainwashing technique."

The scam went on for over six years, and if convicted, the couple could face up to 25 years in prison.

The Lower Merian School District settled out of court. The district handed out some laptops to students that had tracking software with the ability to activate and take pictures via the webcam. This was only to be used if the laptop was stolen. The district claims it did no wrong, while a student and his parents say the school was spying on the student at home via the webcam, The settlement gives the primary student involved a comfortable little $175k trust fund and much of the rest of the $610k payout going to legal council. The district still claims it did no wrong, but says to have settled in the interest of all involved, saving far more money than a court case may have cost.

The biggest Big Brother of them all, the FBI, completed their investigation and are not following through with any charges against the school district. If they did that would make us pull out the ol' pot calling the kettle black zing. Oops, there it is anyway. Source 

"CoolerMaster prepared more additions to its popular gaming CM-Storm product line. We told you already about the CM Storm Inferno mouse, here, but we did not show you the CM Storm SF19, gaming notebook stand.

It includes two 140mm fans and has more airflow compared to NotePal ErgoStand (we mentioned it here). It is also possible to mount one 200mm fan. " source

"Acer plans to launch a new ultra-thin notebook that will feature a touch keyboard and use the back of the panel's glass substrate as the cover in the second half of 2010, according to sources from notebook players.

Acer is expected to adopt Corning's reinforced glass substrate and simply print color on its back to allow the substrate to function like a notebook cover for a frameless design. The design will help reduce the thickness of the ultra-thin notebook and can also reduce material costs.

Acer will also adopt a touch keyboard to allow the notebook to be even thinner, the sources noted." source

"MAINGEAR Computers, award-winning builders of custom computers for PC gamers and enthusiasts, unveils the new mX-L 15 multimedia notebook, a sophisticated mobile computing solution that gives consumers affordably powerful performance in a sleek design starting at $999.

Processing Power – mX-L 15 features the all new Intel® Core™ i5 / i7 mobile processors that boast a combination of fast cache, Turbo Boost Technology, and Hyper-Threading for faster multi-tasking and multimedia. Coupled with an integrated memory controller and dual channel DDR3 memory, the mX-L 15 delvers a silky smooth computing experience." source

"Back in November we reported on another in what's becoming a long line of issues with Dell's and Alienware's laptops, with M17x owners suffering from "skipping, stuttering audio" -- rather unbecoming in a high-end gaming rig. Dell was quickly on the case and initially indicated that a BIOS update last month contained a fix, only to learn that it didn't resolve all things for all people. There's still no proper resolution in sight, but Dell's Community Manager John Blain has told us that "getting the community more closely involved with this is going to be key." If you have an affected M17x John is asking that you stop on over to the Direct2Dell blog and shoot him a message with your machine's vitals. He's pledging to aggregate everything together and "expedite a resolution for those affected." Godspeed, mobile gamers." source