News Bits: Xtreme Notebooks Launches All-in-One, OLPC Reviewed, Orange Box Review

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Growth of notebook shipments to slow in Q4

According to a DigiTimes report, the notebook shipments in Q4 of 2007 will only see a sequential growth of about 6 percent. Previous fourth quarter shipment growths over the last six years had a sequential increase of about 22 percent on average. On-year growth is also expected to slow down this year to 28 percent; the average over the past six years has been 39 percent.

XtremeNotebooks launches XN1 all-in-one PC

Image courtesy Engadget

XtremeNotebooks has launched its new XN1 all-in-one PC. It features a 22-inch widescreen display with a WSXGA+ (1680x1050) resolution that is capable of being an HDTV, a Core 2 Extreme processor, up to 2TB of hard drive space, an available Nvidia GeForce Go7600 256MB graphics card, and an HD DVD ROM drive. Other features include eSATA, an ExpressCard slot, and WiFi. The 22-inch version starts at $1,599 and the 19-inch version $1,489.

Read More (Engadget.com)

 

OLPC Laptop reviewed by New York Times

David Pogue of the New York Times got ahold of an OLPC laptop to review. He has a glowing take on this device, the video and review can be found here.

&quot;Despite all the obstacles and doubters, O.L.P.C. has come up with a laptop that’s tough and simple enough for hot, humid, dusty locales; cool enough to keep young minds engaged, both at school and at home; and open, flexible and collaborative enough to support a million different teaching and learning styles.&quot;

Read the official &quot;Orange Box&quot; review

Forum member The Forerunner is writing an ongoing review of the Orange Box, a compilation of 5 games from Valve. It is available for pre-purchase from Steam right now for $45; the official release date is October 10. The games included in the box are Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode: 1, Half Life 2 Episode: 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

Read the full review in the forums


Uruguay to buy 100,000 OLPC laptops

Uruguay has decided to purchase 100,000 OLPC XO laptops. The country is still spending more than the $100 apiece that they were supposed to go for, but has the option to buy another 50,000 at $199 per machine. Uruguay decided between the OLPC XO and the Intel Classmate PC and in the end of their testing, the OLPC won, with the less pricetag being one of the determining factors.

Read More (Engadget.com)


WaterField Designs debuts protective Apple keyboard sleeves

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Keyboard Travel Case

WaterField Designs debuted two new protective cases for the Apple wireless keyboard - the Keyboard Sleeve and the Keyboard Travel Case. The Keyboard Sleeve fits the keyboard only, while the Travel Case can carry the keyboard and several laptop accessories.

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Keyboard Sleeve

The Keyboard sleeve is available in two sizes - the short version is for the wireless keyboard, and the long for the wired. The sleeves are padded on the inside and made with a rubberized, non-slip material.

The Travel Case goes for $49, the Short Wireless Sleeve goes for $37, and the long for $39. The last-generation sleeve is still available for $29.

Full Press Release (www.SFBags.com)
Link to Product

New Betavoltaic batteries mean 30 years on a charge

In the next two to three years expect to see Betavoltaic batteries hit the market, which could allow notebook computers to run for 30 years on a single charge.

Read More (Laptoping.com)

 

30.... years... one charge?!?!!? thats really stinkin long

and yay forerunner. that review is awesome

 

I'll take 2 of those batteries thank you very much. Question is whether the price will be above or below $10,000 when the first batch is introduced. In any event, I doubt they will make it mainstream within 2-3 years from now. But one can only hope.

 

I thought the whole 30 year battery thing was false? is it actually true? /rejoice!

 

30 years? That's crazy talk!

 

Maybe so, but if it isn't, I'd sure love to have a few. Run 10 generations of laptops off of one battery.

 

30 years on one charge....pretty sweet...I'll take one, or two. These are going to be ungodly expensive though, in all likelihood.

That XtremeNB AIO looks a lot like the Sony LT...I wish they had gone with a 24" WUXGA (1080p) as a high res model, instead of the 22, since it would have been nice to get full 1080p support. However, its pretty good as is, though DX10 support would have been nice as well.

 

A 30-year battery?! Wow! Too bad it uses radioactive decay. Even if they say it's harmless, I'm a bit concerned on the safety of that battery. But it sure looks awesome!

I don't think it's likely that we'll see one that actually gets that much battery life; what they'll probably end up doing is shrinking the size/capacity way down so that it won't get nearly as much battery life (but still very good compared to what's out today), but will make notebooks smaller, since they won't have to deal with a bulky battery pack anymore. I can really see this technology being practical in handheld devices, too.

OLPC: We need more people to integrate technology into their lives to help them learn. especially in developing countries. I'm glad someone's finally reviewed the OLPC, and given it positive reviews to boot. I think the OLPC is great product/idea/philosophy, too.

Orange Box: I'm not a big HL2 player, though I did get the Holiday 2006 collection last Christmas, which consists of HL2, HL1: Source, HL2 Episode 1, and CS: Source. Right now it's taking up way to much space on my HD. I might even uninstall it, since I rarely play it (I really need to get back on the ball with my schoolwork)

Apple USB Desktop Keyboard Sleeve: Why?

XN1: Finally, a decent all-in-one PC. Too bad it suffers from a high price tag and lack of expandability: The 2 flaws of ALL all-in-one PCs.

Notebook shipments down: Oh well.

 

Hmm, I would consider the iMac to be decent as well, since its the best looking and the cheapest. Plus, it tends to have the best specs as well, compared to the Gateway One, this XN1, and the Sony LT.

 

Hmm if you want to focus on your schoolwork the Orange Box is definitely not for you. Team Fortress 2 alone will eat up your time. THanks for posting this Chaz, Team fortress 2 review is now up

 

30 year battery? What? How? Where? How much? That's crazy!

I'm still rather mad there's no black box instead of the orange box. I already have HL2 and EP1. I don't want to buy them again. For some reason Valve thought it was smart to make people who don't want to buy them again pay $10 to $15 more than the bundle. I beat HL2 and EP1 and never played them again. I don't think they're going to get me to come back.

 

Well you can give them away as gifts to other steam users. I'm gonna make a donation box for people want to donate those games.

 

I'd prefer an iMac for an all-in-one pc since it has a much better look than the rest of them.

The betavoltaic battery has been around for a while. It's a pretty cool thing nevertheless. But I bet there will be some people against using it because of potential radioactivity hazards and such.

 

The 30 year battery story isn't true. The story was also published on a dutch internet community a few days ago (the initial story and the story about it not being true).

This is what the second article says. The battery only delivers 25 watts per kilogram while the currently used lithium ion batteries deliver 1800 watts per kilogram. This means the nuclear battery has to be 72 times heavier. Also, the power it delivers to the laptop/device is only one third of the energy it emits through heat. This means your laptop probably will get too hot to use. The battery also appears to be more dangerous than mentioned earlier. But that's less important than the fact it won't work...

Edit: This is an english article about the battery.

 

Betavoltaics do not use a thermal conversion process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic