Archive for January, 2011

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31 01/11

Memory upgrades, other deals return to desktops and laptops

PC sales held up better than expected last year. But the beginning of the year is usually a slow period and computer companies are looking for any angle to get us to buy. Meanwhile the price of DRAM has collapsed in recent months, making it easier to offer “free” upgrades to 6- or even 8GB on many systems.

Lately there has been a lot of concern that demand for DRAM is slowing down. Windows 7 doesn’t require more memory, and most users seem to get by just fine with 4GB or less. In addition, most tablet PCs have only 1GB of memory, so if slates start cutting into sales of netbooks and notebooks, it could further drag down DRAM. But these recent deals demonstrate that if the price is right, PC companies will keep on adding more memory.

These aren’t budget boxes either. Many of these are updated desktops and laptop designs that include Intel’s new, second-generation Core processors, known by the code-name Sandy Bridge, and in many cases discrete graphics. In addition to extra helpings of memory, it’s interesting to see how roomy 1TB hard drives are becoming common even in relatively inexpensive desktops.

Here are some current offers that caught my eye:

The Pavilion p6780t series, a new system HP launched at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, is currently available on hpshopping.com with both a memory and hard drive upgrade. The starting $629.99 configuration includes the new Intel Core i5-2300 quad-core, 6GB of memory and a 1TB hard drive. The bases system relies on Intel’s HD 2000 graphics, but HP offers several AMD and Nvidia discrete options. The smaller Pavilion Slimline s5780t series has the exact same configuration at the same $629.99 price (though with fewer graphics options). At the higher-end, HP’s Pavilion Elite 500 series desktop with 6GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive and Nvidia GeForce 315 discrete graphics starts at $599.99 with an AMD quad-core or $699.99 with the Intel quad-core.

On the laptop side, HP is also offering memory and hard drive upgrades. The HP Pavilion dv5t, a mainstream laptop with a 14.5-inch display, starts at $549.99 with a Pentium dual-core, 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. The larger Pavilion dv6z with a 15.6-inch display currently starts at $679.99 with an AMD dual-core, 6GB of memory and a 640GB hard drive. The desktop replacement dv7t with a 17.3-inch display has the new Sandy Bridge quad-core, the 2GHz Core i7-2630QM. It currently starts at $999.99 with the 6GB memory upgrade and AMD’s Mobility Radeon HD 6570 discrete graphics. The dual-core versions of Sandy Bridge are not available in laptops yet, which is why the smaller or less pricey notebooks are still using the older chips. (Here are links to reviews of different configurations of the dv5, dv6, and dv7.)

Dell is currently offering memory upgrades and other deals on several desktops on dell.com. Two of them stand out. The Inspiron 580 starts at $549.99 with an Intel dual-core processor, 6GB of memory and a 1TB hard drive. The higher-end Dell XPS 8300 has the new Intel quad-core processor and includes 18.5-inch LCD monitor. It starts at $949.99 with 8GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive and AMD’s Radeon HD 5450 discrete graphics. Most of Dell’s laptops top out 4GB–at least in the starting configurations–though these are sometimes advertised as memory upgrades from 2- or 3GB.

Best Buy lists several desktops on its site with 6GB starting with the Gateway SX series small-form-factor PC at $499.99 (reviews from CNET and others here). This budget system has a Pentium dual-core and a 1TB hard drive. The larger Gateway DX series tower packs the new Sandy Bridge quad-core, 6GB and a 1TB hard drive for $649.99. Best Buy also lists the same Dell XPS 8300 configuration without a monitor for $749.99. Most laptops on Best Buy’s site have 4GB of memory or less, but there are several models with more memory though they typically cost around $800 or more (there’s one Asus 11.6-inch laptop with an AMD dual-core and 6GB for less).

Obviously the exact pricing and configurations will change in short order. The release of Intel’s new dual-cores next month–and AMD’s Llano dual- and quad-core later this year–should bring a new wave of desktops and laptops. But as long as DRAM prices remain depressed, there will continue to be some attractive deals out there.

Source: Batterylaptops.co.uk

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29 01/11

Mobile phone market grew 18 percent in Q4, Nokia still rules

IDC has noted this week the international cell phone market place grew 17.9 % in the Q4 2010, thanks mainly to boosting smartphone product sales.
401.4 million models have been offered inside the quarter, in contrast to 340.five million in the similar period in 2009. For the yr, gross sales had been up 18.five %, jumping to 1.39 billion models. The figure was the most significant expansion fee due to the fact 2006′s 22.6 % jump.

“The cell phone industry has the wind behind its sails,” additional Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Around the world Mobile phone Tracker. “Mobile phone people are keen to swap out older units for ones that manage data too as voice, which is driving growth and alternative cycles.”

IDC concluded that smartphone sales will drive the development as a result of the stop of 2014, with expected 43.7 percent year-over-year growth in 2011.

Nokia retained the prime spot in cell phone shipments, followed by Samsung, LG, ZTE and Apple. ZTE sells low-cost characteristic phones and low-priced Android smartphones in China.

Full numbers:

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27 01/11

Yahoo! Cuts Another 100 Workers While Google Announces Plans to Add 6,000

Just a number of months after laying off 600 workers, Yahoo! is as soon as once again creating some hard cuts. one hundred to 150 staff might be allow go inside coming days. The Linked Press speculates it may have some thing to do with Yahoo!’s fourth quarter earnings, which can be anticipated to display “meager income growth.” Ah, the glory of functioning for any publicly traded business. You could possibly shed your livelihood at any minute so that a bunch of assholes could make an additional 3 cents a share future quarter.

Meanwhile, as Yahoo! continues to struggle, Google has announced options to get a major hiring spree. The provider says it will improve its workforce by 25%, including over six,000 new jobs. Google also just happened to take out a lease on greater than 100,00o square feet of office room in Venice, which include within Frank Gehry’s semi-ridiculous Binoculars Building.

The lesson of this story? Review your maths youngsters. The only thing that definitely separates these two businesses is Google’s superior search algorithm.

Source: http://www.batterylaptops.co.uk

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25 01/11

Lenovo IdeaPad U160 review

As nicely because the remarkable ThinkPad company machines, Lenovo also manufactures the IdeaPad collection. The U160 belongs to this sequence and presents good value, provided that your overall performance demands are simple.

A number of the far more powerful laptops within this group check may demonstrate to be overkill if your desires are constrained, so even though the Intel Celeron processor right here isn’t the latest model, it provides roughly double the overall performance of the netbook and can happily run most standard jobs with ease.

The identical might be mentioned for your integrated graphics card. It gives you fundamental graphical electrical power and even though suitable for consuming written content, these as films, won’t offer the energy for making it, unlike the Asus U35JC-RX080V or Apple MacBook 13-inch.

In spite of the laptop’s diminutive dimension – it truly is the smallest and, at one.4kg, the lightest right here – storage is great plus the 320GB difficult drive will give a lot of room for your information.

The laptop’s battery life of 305 minutes is about standard for the group, but with these a low-powered and resource-light processor, we expected more. Having said that, you’ll have plenty of power for use around the day-to-day commute.

The stable plastic chassis and resilient lid supply plenty of protection for your laptop computer around the street. Just like the Toshiba Portege R700-15x, the machine also options a sensor which recognises once the laptop has been dropped and takes measures to protect the very difficult drive – along with your info – upon affect.

The 11.6-inch screen is fairly tiny, but attributes the standard 1366 x 768-pixel resolution. Photographs are quite sharp therefore, and we were just as comfy functioning on this laptop because the bigger 13.3-inch versions.

Large keyboard

The keyboard spreads the width of the chassis, but is just as usable because the Apple or Sony Vaio VPCS139LE/B. A crisp action is offered and the keys are just the appropriate width apart.

One particular irritant well worth mentioning is always that that Lenovo has swapped the positions of the Ctrl and Perform keys, with all the latter now on the stop of the row. This isn’t exactly intuitive and took a while to get used to.

There may be no room for a dedicated numeric keypad. There are three USB ports for you to attach peripherals to, at the same time as the two VGA and HDMI video out ports, and eventually an eSATA interface – which transfers data to an exterior, compatible device at high speed – rounds out the specification.

If you’re immediately after a compact ultraportable having a decent battery daily life and efficiency plenty of for running function applications with ease, the IdeaPad U160 is great value at this quite competitive price tag.

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21 01/11

5 things to know about electric vehicle batteries

The buzz out of Bloom Energy today about the latest strategy for its fuel cell energy servers (it will offer them “as a service”) underscores the importance of storage technology when it comes to green energy approaches. It resonated especially loudly with me since I just spent an hour on Wednesday afternoon listening in on briefing about electric vehicle battery technology, held by the Electric Drive Transportation Association. (The link I’ve provided will lead to an audio recording of that call.)

What, you may ask, do electric vehicle batteries have to do with energy storage? Well, pretty much everything when it comes to whether these cars will succeed or fail.

The focus of the call on Wednesday was on advances in lithium-ion electric vehicle battery technology, which isn’t a surprise based on the participating companies: A123 Systems, which makes the battery of choice for the Volvo C30 Electric and the CityCar, and Johnson Controls Power Solutions, which just started shipping batteries to Azure Dynamics, which is the technology company providing the drive technology for the Ford Transit Connect Electric Vehicles.

For perspective: Bloom Energy uses solid oxide in its fuel cells. Some of the other companies that are popping up in the energy storage space, such as International Battery, are focusing on lithium-ion; others, such as Maxwell Technologies, are hanging their hat on ultracapacitor technology.

Here are my key takeaways from the call:
1. The company car factor. Fleet adoption will be critical in the adoption of electric vehicles, according to Mark Wagner, vice president of government relations for Johnson Controls. That’s because economies of scale are needed to help spur cost reductions and continued improvements in battery technology.

2. Forget the heat and AC? One thing that very few people have talked about (to me at least) is how much energy vehicle climate control — heat for the stupid weather we are having in the Northeast right now and AC for the stupid humid summer we are likely to have. Andrew Chu, who is the vice president of marketing and communications for A123, notes that the heating system in a car can eat up to 6 kilowatts per hour, which will absolutely take away from your “capacity for mobility.” Blankets anyone?

3. Don’t forget safety. Where the battery sits in your car might be a consideration for performance and safety. A123, for example, thinks the best place for a battery is in the center of the car, away from the crumple zones.

4. Who will “buy” batteries? This one is particularly interested and there are a couple of dynamics involved. First off, they will degrade over time. So, while you might have 100 miles of range to start, you might have 70 miles over time. Will that be enough or will consumers need to replace batteries every few years, much as they might with the ones currently used to kickstart your combustion engine. It is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, what happens to the old batteries. The executive on the call believes they will be reused. But who will take them back and where will they wind up and who will “own” them, given the environmental considerations of disposing of batteries? Charles Gassenheimer, chairman and CEO of Ener1, another company on the briefing, says used electric vehicle batteries might conceivably wind up as energy storage for the grid, which he contends is in sore need of storage technology. “Electricity is consumed as it is created. If you have any way of storing this on a large scale, you add a lot of robustness to the system,” he says.

5. Leave your impatience at the door. Electric vehicle owners who need instant gratification — aka, a fast charge for your vehicle in minutes rather than hours — will do so at the expense of battery life. So, those who expect the charging experience to mimic the fueling experience you get at your local gas station will be in for a rude awakening.

Source: http://www.batterylaptops.co.uk

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19 01/11

UK health-tech company secures US deal for GPS device

A trade mission to the US to help growing UK health-tech organizations open their companies up to the international market has produced its very first prosperous organization deal.

An Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire-based health-tech company founded by serial entrepreneur Sara Murray, batterylaptops.co.uk, has manufactured a GPS device that will be worn as a pendant or belt clip.

The deal with Mace Security International will see Mace exclusively represent buddi products and services inside the US.

The deal was secured in the course of a week-long trip to San Francisco and Silicon Valley as component of the Future Health Mission 2011, which is sponsored by a range of public and private partners, such as the Technologies Strategy Board, UK Trade and Investment, and Microsoft.

The buddi device locates and reports the position of a wearer, and permits push-button panic alert and voice communication inside or outside the home, school or enterprise.

The MaceBuddi device will be connected to Mace?¡¥s central-monitoring station, where live operators will respond and contact loved ones, very first responders and neighbours.

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18 01/11

The Toshiba Dynabook T551 3D laptop

Anyone who thought that the demand for 3D laptops would fade after a short time could need to rethink that idea, for Toshiba have turn out to be the newest manufacturer to bring out a 3D capable laptop, the T551.

The T551 is the newest machine to benefit from the new Sandy Bridge or second gen Core range of central processing units and needless to say in order to supply 3D high quality images the laptops integrated graphics would have to be improved too, the addition of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M really should take care of that nicely.

With a 15.6 inch high definition with 1,366 x 768 pixels resolution display this is the standard size screen for laptops, so no surprises there, the machine will likely be running Microsoft Windows 7 House Premium 64 bit operating system. There’s also a Blu-ray drive, for optical storage and offering multimedia playback, which is often going to be a top choice for consumers these days.

Under the fairly plain casing of the T551, there’s an Intel Core i7-2630QM quad-core mobile CPU with a base clock speed of 2.0 GHz running things, yet this is still a rather mobile personal computer with a hard disk drive supplying a capacity of 750 GB, which is going to be enough storage for most uses.

The video is handled by the 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M graphics card, which is combined with up to 8 GB of DDR3, this is how the T551 can produce brilliant 3D images, along with the 3D screen and glasses of course!

Other features include Gigabit Ethernet, super quick USB 3.0 ports, 802.11n Wi-Fi, a webcam and the HDMI output, which is necessary as this enables streaming to other larger monitors or 3D HDTV for that fantastic 3D effect. Nevertheless, bear in mind not to forget to pick up some extra 3D glasses, as your Pals won’t be able to enjoy the 3D effect without them.

There’s no word on pricing or availability at the moment, even though the Toshiba Dynabook T551 is likely to be released in Japan very first of all.

Source: Batterylaptops.co.uk

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17 01/11

10 mobile trends to watch out for in 2011

1. iPhone sales will rocket on the back of the Verizon deal

I predict Apple(apple laptop battery) will sell another 10-12 million iPhones in 2011 by way of its new deal to supply the US carrier Verizon with CDMA handsets. In 2010, Apple sold approximately 40-45 million iPhones.

The top of the marketplace for smartphone handsets will continue to be dominated by Apple worldwide.

2. iPad 2 will set the bar higher for tablets

The next generation iPad might be announced in early 2011, to ship by April.
A few of the expected features of the newer tablet contain a camera, gyroscope, USB card and SD slot, a thinner and lighter form, quicker processor and more memory.

The iPad 2 will further entrench the tablet as the media consumption tool of the future, with 13-16 million units of the original already sold.

3. Apps will replace mobile web content

Most mobile content is increasingly being consumed not by accessing mobile web pages, but rather by means of applications. At the end of 2010, the iPhone app store provided 300 000 applications, the Android store 130 000, Blackberry 18 000 and Nokia’ Ovi store 25 000 apps.

The trend towards an app-based mobile presence and customer engagement will accelerate.

4. Android will continue to produce credible iPhone competitors

Google Android handsets surpassed the number of iPhone handsets shipped inside the US in the course of the 1st half of 2010 for the initial time.

As the Android operating system continues to advance with the weight of Google billions behind it, new versions of Android schedule for early 2011 will mean that handset manufacturers will start to differentiate on hardware and branding.

5. Bifurcation of web & mobile social networking

For a long time, mobile social networking was something that you did while you didn’t have access to your desktop or notebook computer. This is quickly changing, enabling mobile social networking to actually carve a content niche called the real-time web.

Masses of rich social content with tremendous contextual relevance and stickiness will be created on the back of user mobility, handset camera availability, location information and the social graph.

6. SMS messaging and MIM

The high costs of personal SMS will continue to drive adoption of Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) applications (like Whatsapp or MXit) that are increasingly capable of operating system-driven message push. All significant handset providers will offer similar services, so that mobile messaging costs will become the cost of the transferred data.

Organisations, on the other hand, will use SMS more than ever to engage with stakeholders in Personalised Priority Messaging (PPM).

The growth in PPM will be driven by key benefits and advantages including immediacy (message push is inherent), relevancy, ubiquity (much more than 70% of the world’s population can be reached via SMS), simplicity and actionability.

PPM will probably be widely used in risk mitigation, business process improvement, demand generation, product consumption/usage, marketplace engagement, customer affinity, transactional flow, service delivery, and behavioral activity.

7. Location based-services

Increased handset and network support for location information utilisation will drive application development and increased adoption of location-based services. This will in-turn drive richer experiences in-app than are currently possible by means of Foursquare, Facebook or Google Latitude and their ilk.

8. Augmented reality

Augmented reality is today where social networking was in 2007. Increased smartphone adoption will drive augmented reality application development. 2011 will likely be characterised not by massive growth in augmented reality usage by the general population, but rather by crucial progress made in meta-tagging the real world by a fairly small group of early tech-savvy adopters.

9. Mobile coupons

The massive growth in the value and distribution of Groupon and the explosion of collective buying throughout 2010 shows that people are keen to save a buck in the current economic climate.

Expect to receive mobile coupons via SMS far more regularly; because mobile coupons are the easiest coupons to receive, store, mobilise and use and furthermore, they enjoy the highest rates of redemption.

10. Mobile payments

Two types of mobile payments will see widespread adoption in different markets, reflecting different use cases:

* Mobile cash transfers in developing markets, like African countries, where final transactions is going to be mostly handled with cash (MPesa broke new ground here in Kenya), and
* Mobile point of sale payments using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The US seems to be driving this category with Android 2.4 support for NFC and Citibank trialing NFC payments aggressively during 2010.

The cashless society will likely be that one step closer towards the end of 2011.

http://www.batterylaptops.co.uk

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15 01/11

Half the population have never recycled a battery

Half the population have by no means recycled a household battery, with numerous saying they just don’t know where to take them, according to the European Recycling Platfrom (ERP).

Around 40% of batteries are sold at Christmas – that’s about 10 per individual. It’s not surprising then that the beginning of a new year is when hundreds of tonnes of employed batteries could be making their approach to landfill.

Which? batteries expert Hazel Cottrell says: ‘When batteries end up in landfill they leak dangerous chemicals. ERP says that in 2009 only 2% of batteries had been recycled, so it is actually crucial we all recycle extra of them.’

If you are struggling to know how or where to recycle batteries, check out our essential recycling guide for ideas on the best way to recycle much more and better. We’ve also reviewed rechargeable batteries and single-use batteries, and recommend Finest Acquire batteries based on our thorough test results.
Recycling batteries

All shops selling more than 32kg of batteries every year must supply recycling facilities to assist reduce the number of batteries that end up in landfill.

However, our analysis shows that some shops are not usually following the rules, making it harder for you to recycle batteries. A Which? snapshot survey in November 2010 found that none of the four Poundland stores we visited had a battery recycling box. Of the four Lidl stores we visited, three lacked recycling boxes.

Poundland was ‘deeply concerned’ to hear our findings, which it could not explain and promised to investigate fully. Lidl said boxes had been stolen from two stores plus the box inside the third need to have been being emptied. You can read the full outcomes in our news story about battery collection.
Battery recycling targets

The law sets recycling targets at 25% of all batteries sold by 2012 and 45% by 2016.

Nonetheless, of those who don’t recycle batteries 45% said they didn’t know where to recycle them and 29% said they didn’t know it was achievable at all.

Just 2% said the main reason why they had by no means recycled a battery was that they don’t have time and only 8% said that they can’t be bothered.

http://www.batterylaptops.co.uk

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13 01/11

MySpace could be someone else’s space soon

Batterylaptops: MySpace management confirmed yesterday that it is considering selling the ailing web site, following the firm’s decision to lay off half of its 1,000-strong workforce earlier this week.

“News Corp is assessing a variety of possibilities, including a sale, a merger along with a spinout,” a spokeswoman at MySpace’s parent business said, according to a Bloomberg report.

The provider has only just kicked off the “process” she added, and talks between MySpace and News Corp are at a preliminary stage.

But the choice comes as little surprise, given the number of job cuts undertaken at the California-based firm, which came just a few months after MySpace relaunched as an entertainment portal in October last year.

As we reported yesterday, the firm is busy inking deals with “local” partners within the UK, Germany and Australia, so that the firm can manage ad sales and content in those regions. If a spin-off was to occur, these agreements, once in place, could prove to be critical to MySpace’s future.

Google similarly threw MySpace a lifeline of sorts late last year when it agreed to a multi-year search and advertising deal with the struggling web outfit.

Nonetheless, MySpace might wish to get its on the web estate in order 1st. Since the revamp, the web site has proved significantly slower to navigate according to sporadic reports about the portal. That said, the corporation has claimed a lot more than three million new sign-ups since the redesign.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg said that News Corp has tasked its executive veep of ops Jack Kennedy with the job of speaking to would-be suitors.

http://www.buylaptopbattery.ca/blog/

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