News Bits: Lenovo Y300 and Y400 Unveiled, Charging Wirelessly, Apple AMD-based Laptop?

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Lenovo unveils Y-series notebooks

Lenovo this week unveiled its Y-series notebooks in China, they are aimed at the consumer market with reasonable pricing and multimedia functionality.

The Lenovo Y300 is a thin-and-light notebook featuring a 13.3&quot; screen, slot-loading optical drive, and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce Go7300 graphics card. The Y300 also features a webcam, but it is not simply a webcam - it also lets you log into the computer. That's right - it acts in the same manner as a biometric fingerprint scanner, and can recognize a user if they simply look into the webcam. The Y300 weighs 2.2kg.

Lenovo's other Y-series, the Y400, features a 14.1&quot; display and has a stronger multimedia feature set. It does not feature a webcam, although it does have a 2-watt subwoofer built-in.

Both the Y300 and the Y400 will be available in Asia Pacific on December 15; pricing will be released at a later date.

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Charging devices wirelessly could soon be a reality

The Christian Science Monitor is running an article about how electricity broadcast through the air may become a reality. Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla thought about transferring electrical energy through the air more than a century ago. As an ever-increasing amount of people carry portable electronic devices, from laptops to iPods, there is a need to eliminate all wires, even those used to recharge the devices.

In San Francisco on Wednesday at a physics conference, a group of researchers detailed a method that would allow electronic gadgets to be recharged by leaving them within a few meters of an energy source. Wireless energy transfer is an attractive idea. It could help compensate for the limited battery life of today's devices, and some devices could not use any batteries at all and operate right from the power source.

Wireless energy transfer would not be harmful to people, because the enery would only jump to a receiving device that resonates with the originating source. Marin Soljacic, assistant professor of physics at MIT, says &quot;We are fairly optimistic that the safety issues will be OK.&quot;

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HP reports strong Q4 results

November 16^th - HP today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter, which ended October 31^st. Net revenues were $24.6 billion, a 7% growth year-on-year.

On a year-over-year basis, notebook revenue grew 24% , while desktop revenue was flat.

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Apple AMD-based laptop in the works?

It has been claimed that Apple is currently preparing a notebook based on an AMD processor by sources within Taiwan's manufacturing community, although the claim is not very clear. The claim is based on an increased demand for capacitors.

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Sony VAIO C-series notebooks are hot items in Taiwan

The Sony VAIO C-series notebook, based on the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, are likely to become hot items due to agressive pricing. The entry-level C-series is based on a Core 2 Duo T5500, features a discrete Nvidia GeForce Go7400 graphics card, and has an MSRP of NT$39,800 (US$1,213), which is 33.7% lower than the average selling price of Sony's VAIO notebooks in Taiwan this year.

Sony said that its 14.1&quot; VAIO FJ series and 15.4&quot; FE series made up 50% of shipments this year. The other 50% was made up of the 13.3&quot; SZ and 11.1&quot; TX series. Sony's agressive pricing of the C-series is likely to go head to head with Apple's forthcoming Core 2 Duo-based MacBook.

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Microsoft gives out copies of Vista Ultimate, Business to beta testers

Microsoft is giving a full copy of Windows Vista Ultimate or Vista Business to those beta testers part of the Windows Vista Technical Beta Program who submitted at least one bug. The testers will be given a product key and will be able to download the operating system; nothing will be mailed.

Microsoft's Vista has been five years in the making now, and the participants of the Windows Vista Technical Beta Program were very important in helping Microsoft get Vista out the door.

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woowooo. Tesla coils for all!

 

Does the Y400 get a better GPU?

 

I think the Sony VAIO C-series would knock the macbook out of the watter since it comes with a Go7400. Apple had better get a heads up if they are going to try and compete. Also, without meaning to, the Sony VAIO C-series could start competing with the Dell XPS m1210. similar size and specs.

 

That looks like a promising Lenovo. I get an Asus build vibe from it.

 

Lenovo Y300 specs looks much better than the Lenovo 3000 V series.

The Lenovo Y300 and Sony VAIO C-series looks much more of an attractive buy than the Macbook because the better GPU.

If I were Apple I would introduce a dedicated GPU for the entry Macbook lineup in the near future.

 

you are right, it does kinda look like a w3j. it must be the hinge.

 

http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/detail.php?id=1702&PHPSESSID=172a1c59922533d0b80aab98f4174435

The Y400 also has the Go 7300 like the Y300. Still it looks promising.

It's strange that they didn't include a webcam with the Y400. From the picture, the Y300's webcam looks very small so they should be able to do it if they wanted to. Also are the speakers supposed to be on the hinge? It look that way with the Y300 with one on each side, but the Y400 looks to just have one big one on the left side then.

 

Hmm..new Y series from Lenovo look thick, imo, and finally, we can find a lenovo notebook with built in subwoofer

 

I actually played with the Y300 back in July when Lenovo had a prototype of it. The build was quite nice and I was impressed that they were making a 13.3" with a graphics card, but felt that it was too low end to do much or be of any interest to gamers. After all, Dell is already putting a 7400 card in the 12.1" M1210 so a 7300 card is already behind there.

The shuttle control launch thingy on the top was awkward, though looks cool in theory. It had a software platform equivalent to Dell's Media Direct that you could quick boot to a Linux OS for playing multimedia etc. The overall design was bad with the buttons, it was hard to find the power button and they really needed some type of illumination on the other top row buttons as they were hard to see. On the whole I was impressed though as the design and form factor were nice and it's good to see Lenovo continuing to do different things.

Lenovo may look to bringing this to the U.S. next year, but there are no firm plans.

 

abaxter, your avatar made me want to comment.

OT: I am impartial to Ohio and Michigan, but my vote goes for OSU today!

 

wireless power? think about a rainy day and trying to charge ur phone wirelessly. eep, so many people are gonna get zapped. =)

 

I like Lenovo's new security feature of facial recognition. I wonder what is next? Retinal scan. "Try stealing my eye, mind you!"

 

Yes the facial recognition is something else. James Bond style.

 

OMG wireless power I've been dreaming about this for years!!!

Orange rim on the C-series?? *drools*

 

Facial recognition seems like a cool way to log into your notebook. Too bad Andrew found so many little faults with the prototype. All in all, not a bad looking offering though.

Me too. Then again, I remember seeing a film about Hydrogen cars back in the 80's...

 

They could always fix them by the time the Y300 comes to the USA, couldn't they? If Lenovo offered the Y300 for around $1000 I think I might end up buying one.

 

The Lenovo looks interesting. Its getting some "attention", even though its not Thinkpad-branded. Good job Lenovo!

It looks thick...

 

Awe come on, so does the Asus a8js

 

Good point, RefinedPower.

Did anyone notice that the laptop seems to look bad at front view, but great in angle view?

 

Looks more or less the same to me, nothing too special... I think it's more differences in lighting than anything. But they are different models. The top one (head-on view) is Y300 and the bottom one (angle view) is Y400.

Hydrogen cars? How was that supposed to work? Anyway even if there are affordable fuel cell cars made in the next couple of years, it won't solve the problem, it'll only push back the point of no return. I think I should work in the energy industry... solar........ because it's the only matter of importance if we as a species want to be here 100 years from now. Otherwise, all the advances in wireless energy won't matter... and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't get cooler than that. No pun intended.

Malia

 

If you think that we will only be hear another 100 years you had better check again. environmentalist have been predicting that our world would end in a 100 years since the 1700eds.
Hydrogen is actually a very practical technology if we can find a way of separating hydrogen from oxygen i.e H2o, using electricity in a commercial setting. it has been done in labs and there are concept cars that run on hydrogen right now. So probably at most 10 years from now we will have hydrogen run cars. Unless we develop an even better propulsion system, of course.
by the way please do not refer to humans as a species, we are much more than that.

 

Humans are not a species?? Yea I sure wish I was a human so I could understand, too bad that I'm only a frog...

I wasn't aware of any environmentalists in 1700s, seeing how science was uh rather unscientific back then, but I actually wrote 100 not because that's when somebody said the world would end but because it's far enough that it's plausible for humanity to be near the end point. That's right, not the world, just humanity. Like you know, dinosaurs went extinct, but the planet went on.

As far as actual numbers go, it's predicted that in 40-50 yrs we'll reach a tipping point if we don't do something about global warming. Tipping point means after it's reached, there's no going back. It's a theory, and who knows, maybe that's not how it works, but it's a widely accepted theory and it's not one I'd like to see experimentally tested. So, we have about 20 yrs to figure this thing out because the problem is so large scale, implementing this stuff will take a long time.

And.. hydrogen car.. like I said before, don't know anything about it, but cars alone will not fix global warming. I also assume noone talks about this topic for a reason. It's not practical until it can work on a commercial basis, and 10 years is a long freaking time.

Malia

 

First you talk like 100 years is just around the corner then you talk about 10 years being a long time LOL

Oh and you should brush up on your history, 1650-1700= renaissance = A revival of intellectual or artistic achievement and vigor. the 1650-1700eds marked one of the greatest growths of science we have ever seen. think of Galileo Galilei, the great phiscisit and astronomer. even before the 1700eds the environmentalist theorys were developed. What, you did not think we just came up with them in the 1900eds did you? Aristotle developed the theory way back in 384-322 B.C.
Theorys about humanity ending have been around for a long time and will continue to be perpetuated for a long time. I kinda think of environmentalism as a way for organizations to wast our tax money. And they do a good job I have to say.
This is not to say that we should not carry out environmentally sound practices, we should. just don't get hung up on it. the sun is shrinking at about the same rate as the ozone is building so as long as there is not a nuclear bomb our world will last for a solid thousand years at least. I am optimistic

 

They were prototypes of Fuel Cell cars, that use Hydrogen gas and emit only pure water. This was 20 years ago and they're still touting it as the next best thing same as back then. My comment was meant to be more along the lines of promised technology taking forever to reach market rather than an environmental one.

I think the Oil companies had something to do with the delay, because back in the 80's they actually showed a hydrogen-fueled car driving down the road...and they didn't have snazzy CGI back then to fake it .

Sorry to all for going so far off-topic.

 

I think you do mean disrespect - to myself and to NBR - since you decided to start a OT argument somewhere other than OT and to make personal insults. If you really do want to argue with someone, post your thoughts in OT, I'm sure someone out there can't sleep and is bored enough to write back.

Malia

 

My most sincere apology's. however you were posting incorrect information. In future it would be better, and would avoid confusion, if you could ask formal questions not make uninformative statements. Again I meant no disrespect to you or NBR and thoroughly apologize for any discomfort I may have caused.

 

If you were sincere, you wouldn't be telling me what to do.

Just because you think environmentalists are out to waste your money doesn't mean that what I posted is incorrect - and given your standpoint, I don't wish to discuss anything with you. I didn't ask a formal question because I wasn't looking for your response, and I'm still not. Now I'll unsubscribe from the thread. My suggestion for you re OT still stands.

Malia

 

IIRC BMW was developing an internal-combustion engine that would somehow burn hydrogen instead of gasoline. Dunno if it is still being researched or not.

And that pesky lack of cheap Platinum has hindered widespread adoption of fuel cells.

 

I believe there is a fleet of 60 BMWs that run off of hydrogen or electricity- a battery-that are being tested right now. It is an interesting technology but production of Hydrogen needs to grow significantly for there to be cars that run on it. In that line hydrogen production is being designed into the next generation of nuclear power plants.

 

Ok, back to the Lenovo question. Is the Y300 & Y400 out yet? Today is the 27th December,06.