| Lenovo ThinkPad X1 confirmed, faster-charging integrated battery detailed Posted: 24 Apr 2011 10:33 AM PDT Yesterday's speculation has turned into today's fact. The ultraslim Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is most definitely real, coming soon, and just so happens to be packing some fancy new battery technology as well. This intel comes straight from Lenovo's own servers, where a highly informative PDF (intended for reseller partners, but accessible to all) dishes the dirt on the upcoming laptop. The X1's "slice" battery won't be user-replaceable, but what you lose in flexibility will be made up for in sheer performance gains, as Lenovo is touting it'll last three times as long as a normal battery and will recharge 2.5 times faster than previous ThinkPad cells. That's thanks to some fanciness named RapidCharge that will revitalize the X1 to 80 percent within 30 minutes. The presentation slides show the X1 right alongside Lenovo's latest Edge models, the E420s and E220s, as part of "a new generation of ThinkPads," and given that both of those are now shipping, the ultraslim, but still unannounced, X1 can't be far behind. Finally, just for some added intrigue, we've also spotted mention of an "X Slate" within the document -- any ideas as to what that might look like? [Thanks, Alexandr] |
| RIM wants Hulu Plus on the Blackberry PlayBook, 'conversations' continue Posted: 24 Apr 2011 09:12 AM PDT RIM wants Hulu Plus on the just-released Blackberry PlayBook. It also wants everyone to know it wants Hulu Plus on the Blackberry PlayBook, after the streaming video service unceremoniously blocked access to its videos just days after the tablet's launch. Now, both PC Mag and The Wall Street Journal are reporting the same terse email statement from RIM: "We are in conversations with Hulu to bring the Hulu Plus subscription service to BlackBerry PlayBook users." No word on the content of those conversations or a timeline for resolution, so for now PlayBook users will need to find another way to satisfy their yearning for Seinfeld reruns. |
| HTC Sensation procures online real estate, launches sign-up page Posted: 24 Apr 2011 07:08 AM PDT The G2X may be getting all the attention as the current flagship for T-Mobile, but HTC is bound and determined to make sure it doesn't stay that way for long. Curious souls may be happy to learn that a sign-up page has been set up for the HTC Sensation to update fans on news and announcements. This is a good sign that nary a precious moment of time is being wasted; after all, we've got a full six weeks before the heavily-rumored June 8 launch, and there's an abundance of opportunities for the two companies to get the word out like crazy between now and then. Who can blame them for taking advantage of one of the summer's hottest devices? Interested folks should head to the source link below to sign up. |
| Amsterdam orders 125 public EV charging stations, hastens the death of internal combustion Posted: 24 Apr 2011 03:06 AM PDT Amsterdam is known for its affinity for two-wheeled transportation, but the cycling-crazed city is also making a serious commitment to EVs for those Dutch who prefer driving. As a part of a plan introduced two years ago to eliminate internal combustion from its streets by 2040, the Netherlands' capital is looking to add to its existing 100 EV charging stations. The City Council has charged Dutch power company Essent with the installation of an additional 125 public plug-in points this year, with the possibility of adding 625 more. These new chargers may make it easier to juice up your electric car, but given the current price of EVs, we aren't sure how many Amsterdam residents will trade in their Kalkhoffs for Fiat 500s and Smart ForTwos. PR's after the break. Show full PR text RWE equips Amsterdam with charging stations for electric vehicles
Amsterdam City Council awards major contract to set up city-wide charging facilities
Initial delivery of 125 charging stations
The Dutch energy utility Essent, a wholly owned subsidiary of RWE AG, was asked by Amsterdam City Council to deliver and install at least 125 charging stations. The delivery may be extended for up to 750 charging points. The first charging points are due to be installed quite soon, in the first half of this year.
Amsterdam City Council has ambitious environmental targets and is planning for 10,000 electric vehicles by 2015. The city already has about 100 publicly accessible charging points, which makes Amsterdam one of Europe's trendsetters in the introduction of electric mobility.
"This contract is very important for Essent and RWE. It's the first time in the Netherlands that electric mobility will cover an entire city and become part of the scenery," says Peter Terium, CEO of Essent. "The charging stations we are setting up in Amsterdam have been developed by RWE and have so far been installed in numerous European countries, including Germany, Poland, Hungary and Austria.
"After Berlin, we see Amsterdam as our second European metropolitan project where we are seeking to implement a mobility scheme for an entire city," says Ingo Alphéus, CEO of RWE Effizienz GmbH. "Electric mobility is being promoted particularly swiftly in the Netherlands. So we can learn from our shared experiences and then apply these to other cities."
RWE provides intelligent European-wide system solutions for electric vehicle charging facilities. RWE is already operating over 800 charging points in 14 European countries. Its customers in each country include, above all, local councils and authorities, energy utilities and fleet operators. |
| New radio wave technique could detect alien planets, receive interstellar tunes Posted: 23 Apr 2011 11:02 PM PDT Any experienced planet hunter will tell you: finding exoplanets is the real challenge, where hardened professionals go to test their mettle. These tricky bodies stymie conventional methods – like seeing a planet pass in front of its parent star – because exoplanets often have decades-long orbits, meaning you could spend a lot of lonely nights fruitlessly searching the skies. So scientists at the University of Leicester in England developed a new approach: looking for radio waves emitted when ultraviolet flares light up the atmospheres of planets like Saturn and Jupiter. The flares – auroras – even if invisible to ordinary telescopes, are detectable by radio telescopes like the European Low Frequency Array (or LOFAR, pictured above). The scientists hope those methods will help them discover planetary systems up to 150 light-years away, perhaps even some that can sustain life. And, of course, keep them one step ahead of Richard Branson. [Image credit: LOFAR / ASTRON] |
| How would you change Lenovo's ThinkPad X120e? Posted: 23 Apr 2011 08:32 PM PDT It's one of the first Fusion-based laptops out of the gate -- certainly one of the first with a semi-business-oriented shell -- and we found it to be one of the best modern ThinkPads we'd seen when reviewing it a few months back. Naturally, the quantity of machines shipping with the E-350 APU is swelling, but the X120e still touts one of the most unique feature sets available. For those who picked one up (for business or pleasure... we're hardly picky), we'd love to know how you'd tweak things. Are you satisfied with the build quality? The value? Would you encourage Lenovo to tweak a design that has remained largely constant for the better part of the last millennium? Would you have swapped out the APU for something a bit less integrated? Toss your thoughts in comments below; you never know if you'll be the dude / dudette that pushes the ThinkPad into its next evolution. |
| Visualized: a Foxconn worker walks into an Apple store... Posted: 23 Apr 2011 06:25 PM PDT ... and thinks, "I should ask for another raise." |
| Dell's 10-inch Android and Windows tablets get names, specs, release dates Posted: 23 Apr 2011 03:41 PM PDT Well, well, what have we here? A pair of 10-inch Dell tablets, one running Windows 7 on those fancy new Oak Trail chips from Intel and the other pushing Android 3.0 with a Tegra T25. We already saw these devices leaked in February, but now we have some specs and release dates. The Wintel powered Latitude ST boasts a resolution of 1366 x 768, 2GB of RAM, up to a 128GB SSD, GPS, an accelerometer, both front- and rear-facing cameras, an 8-hour removable battery, and "1080p video output," which we assume means HDMI-out. The Android-flavored Streak Pro opts for a 1200 x 800 panel, but keeps the pair of cameras (and two mics) for video chats, while adding an unspecified mobile broadband radio and slathering Dell's Stage UI on top of Honeycomb (whether or not that's a good thing is purely a matter of taste). Pricing is still up in the air, but the leaked roadmap indicates the Streak Pro will land in June, followed by the Latitude XT3 convertible tablet in July, and the Latitude ST in October. |
| HTC Flyer up for preorder for $499 at Best Buy on April 24th Posted: 23 Apr 2011 01:59 PM PDT Europeans have been able to preorder the HTC Flyer for months, and now curious Yanks are about to get their chance, too. The tablet will be available for preorder on April 24th (that's this Sunday) for $499 with Best Buy as the exclusive seller. Though our friends across the pond have been able to snag 3G versions, the one about to come stateside just has WiFi. The Flyer, as you'll remember, is the phone maker's first tablet, and has a 7-inch (1024 x 600) display, aluminum body, 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip, and a version of the company's Sense UI that was tweaked with slates in mind. Alas, It'll ship with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), but HTC is promising an eventual upgrade to 3.0 (Honeycomb) and all of the bigger-screen goodies that come with it. Show full PR text Statement: Best Buy Launches Pre-sale of Wi-Fi HTC Flyer
The pre-sale begins April 24.
Best Buy today announced the Wi-Fi HTC Flyer™ will be available for pre-sale beginning April 24 in all Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile standalone stores. Best Buy is exclusively launching the highly-anticipated Wi-Fi only version of the HTC Flyer tablet later this spring. It will retail for $499.
"We are excited to be the only national store where you can pre-order and purchase the Wi-Fi version of the HTC Flyer," said Scott Anderson, head of merchandising for Best Buy Mobile. "There is a tremendous amount of excitement and curiosity about tablets in our stores and adding the HTC Flyer to the mix will drive even more interest."
The HTC Flyer is a fast, portable, light-weight tablet that integrates the immersive and highly intuitive HTC Sense™ experience and enables content including videos, music, games and more to be easily accessed and enjoyed.
For more information or to find a Best Buy or Best Buy Mobile standalone store in your area, visit www.bestbuy.com/mobileor www.BestBuyMobile.com. |
| PSA: T-Mobile G2x and LG Optimus 2X include two-button screencap function (video) Posted: 23 Apr 2011 12:01 PM PDT Taking screenshots on Android has always been an ordeal akin to an emergency visit to the dentist -- you know you have to do it but you just don't want to. The convoluted process involves either installing the Android SDK on a computer, enabling USB debugging on the target device, and running ddms, or rooting the specimen and firing up one of the many existing (and potentially shady) screenshot apps. In contrast, taking screenshots on other platforms is often simply a matter of pressing the right key combination in the right order, like holding the sleep / wake button and then clicking the home button in iOS 4. Well it looks like the folks at LG have decided to grace both the T-Mobile G2x and its Optimus 2X sibling with a rather simple yet nifty bit of code that lets you take screenshots by simultaneously pressing both the power / lock and home buttons... Huzzah! Now let's just hope Google borrows this idea and makes it a standard feature in all future Android versions. Take a look at our demo video after the break. [Thanks, redman12] |
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