Notebook News: UPS and Toshiba, Apple iBook Recall, Google "Google IPO"

UPS and Toshiba Ink Deal That Will See UPS Fixing Toshiba Notebooks

We're all familiar with receiving packages that might possibly contain a laptop computer from United Parcel Services (UPS). But would you ever hand yourlaptop over to the person inthe brown suit to fix your broken machine? Surprise, surprise but that is indeed what Toshiba has asked UPS to do.Japanese electronics company Toshiba and the delivery and logistics behemothUPS announced an oddpairing this week which will have UPS employees repairing and servicing Toshiba-built notebook computers.

As part of the deal, UPS willmanage not only shipping and handling of Toshiba-made laptops for service, but also the repair and service itself. Owners of Toshiba notebooks will be able to drop the machines off at UPS retail shipping locations, from which they will be shipped to a UPS facility in Louisville, Ky. UPS employees who have been certified by Toshiba will perform the service and repairs as needed.

UPS and Toshiba say that the benefit for consumers here is that theywill be to speed up the turnaround time required to fix a broken laptop and get it back in the hands of the customer. Mark Simons, Toshiba's vice president and general manager for its digital products division, says that under the current system the turnaround time for a repair job ranges from eight to ten days. Outsourcing the repair work to UPS should cut that time to four days.

Toshiba sells about a million notebook PCs in the U.S. each year and has a return rate just under 5%.

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Apple iBook Display Problem Repair Program Extended

Apple started offering free repairs to iBooks with various display problems at the beginning of this year. These display problems include thingssuch as scrambled or distorted video, the appearance of unexpected lines on the screen, and video that freezes or displays intermittently.

The programinitially onlycovered iBooks made between May 2002 and April 2003. However, it appears that machines sold outside of this date range contain problems as well, therefore Apple has decided to take the high road and extend the repair program. Models made from May 2002 to October 2003 are now included in this program. Apple said the machines should have serial numbers between UV220XXXXXX and UV342XXXXXX.

If you think your iBook is affected call Apple or an authorized service provider. Apple said it will bear all costs for the repairs, including shipping, and said the fix could include either repairing or replacing the iBook's main logic board.

ATI Technologies Announces New External USB 2.0 TV Solution with "All-In-Wonder" Visual Quality for Notebooks

ATI Technologies Inc.announced last weekthe TV WONDER USB 2.0 – a high quality, low cost external TV tuner solution that easily plugs into both desktops and notebooks. The key features include quick setup, TV viewing with full personal video recorder (PVR) capabilities, and video capture for editing. This tuner will become available this summer in North America, TV WONDER USB 2.0 will be offered in two versions: TV WONDER USB 2.0 REMOTE CONTROL EDITION with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of USD$149 and TV WONDER USB 2.0 with an MSRP of USD$100.

“The unique combination of ATI’s industry leading THEATER 200 chip with the critically acclaimed MULTIMEDIA CENTER software, plus the high-speed bandwidth of USB 2.0, deliver industry leading ALL-IN-WONDER visual quality and advanced features not available in any other external video solution,” said Godfrey Cheng, Director of Marketing, Multimedia Products, ATI Technologies Inc. “TV Wonder USB 2.0 brings industry leading TV and video capture features to desktops and notebooks quickly, easily and without having to open the PC.”

Powered by ATI’s industry leading MULTIMEDIA CENTER™ software, TV WONDER USB 2.0 includes full PVR capabilities enabling users to watch, record and pause live television with ease. The product also features a fully-searchable interactive electronic program guide (EPG) that displays the schedule for TV shows for immediate or future viewing. In addition to video capture functionality, TV WONDER USB 2.0 features the EAZYLOOK™ distance user interface that enables remote access from the couch, bedroom or dormroom when used with ATI’s REMOTE WONDER™ remote control (provided with the Remote Control Edition).

TV WONDER USB 2.0 is able to deliver high quality images and sound via the Universal Serial Bus (USB) -- a high-speed communications standard that makes it easy to connect peripheral devices to desktops or notebooks. USB 2.0 is up to 40 times faster than USB 1.1. This remarkably fast speed makes it possible for TV WONDER USB 2.0 to deliver much higher quality TV images on desktops and notebooks. The USB 2.0 connection allows uncompressed digitized video and audio to be sent directly to the computer for a pristine live preview without any delays. The video can then be compressed using ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER® Encode to allow the customer to record the video for later personal viewing.

Thanks to Quikster for this news tip

Google on "Google IPO"

Not really related to Notebook news at all, but I'm sure you've all head and are sick of the media and finance world hoopla over Google. I'd just like to point out that Google is here to stay, I love the company and use Google.com every day, okay hour, but it's not infallible. Indeed, try a search on "Google IPO" and the second result you get is a blank page on Bloomberg.com, since when has no information been relevant information? Got me.

Google Search on "Google IPO": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Google+IPO

Google Returns this as 2nd Result: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001&refer=top_world_news&sid=a1ZjkrBqhQrQ

Here's a capture of Google search results on "Google IPO"

And here's the Cached page Google has for its second most relevant result...it's a blank page with zero information.

IBM ThinkPad T42 May 10 Release?

The IBM ThinkPad T42 will be available in May, although which day is not known exactly, but a good guess would be May 10, the same day Intel will announce its Dothan processor. The University of California Irvine has the specific May release posted on their website

http://www.book.uci.edu/bookstore/computer/ibm/notebooks/Tseries.html