myecpro-laptop battery

With Apple’s tablet unveiling just a week away, more rumors are bubbling to the surface regarding the mythical product’s capabilities as an eReader and all-around life changer laptop battery.

Both personally and professionally, I’m most intrigued to figure out what the Apple tablet will deliver in terms of music and media playback. Will it run a full version of iTunes, or act more like an iPod or iPhone as an extension of your personal media collection?

We aren’t going to know the concrete details for sure until next week, but the rumor mill is at least getting some good speculative grist.

First up, we have a rumor from Electronista and Digital Music News pointing to iTunes LP support on the tablet. Currently, the interactive LP format Apple PA3191U-1BAS launched last September can only be viewed through your computer, and is not supported by mobile products such as the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I think the iTunes LP has been a misfit format on the computer, and I’m glad to hear that it might break out of the box. As a fan of vinyl LPs, a big part of my retro obsession is being able to hold and appreciate the album artwork from the comfort of my living room chair. Sitting in front of a computer and pointing and clicking around iTunes just doesn’t offer the same relationship with the media.

Now, whether or not people care about albums anymore still remains to be seen. But if iTunes LPs do make it onto the tablet, I expect that will spur more interest in the format for both consumers and record labels. The Apple tablet will undoubtedly be the “show-off” product of 2010, and users will find it hard to resist downloading at least a few iTunes LPs just for the thrill of impressing friends.

The second important tablet rumor music fans should be aware of comes from a TechCrunch interview with Michael Robertson, CEO of the music locker site MP3tunes. Michael seems certain that Apple PA3191U-1BRS is working on an iTunes update that will take advantage of the music-upload and fingerprint technology from Apple’s recent acquisition, Lala. Like Lala’s own music-scanning tool, the new iTunes feature would examine your music collection, upload any material it doesn’t already have in its vast library, and give you the capability to stream your music from Apple’s servers to any of your iTunes compatible wireless devices.

What the TechCrunch article doesn’t point out is the unlikelihood that Apple would provide this iTunes cloud service free of charge. It makes more sense that this would get rolled out as a feature of Apple’s existing MobileMe service.

At $99 a year, MobileMe doesn’t come cheap. But if the service promised music fans the ability to have a central, cloud-based back-up of all their music files, plus the ability to stream everything to their iPhone, iPod Touche, tablet, PC, or Mac, then it could solve some very real issues for people.

For example, a cloud-based iTunes music library solves the problem of storage, especially for users with music collections that run in the hundreds of gigabytes. Even users with modest music libraries may be able to leverage the MobileMe service to offload music playback to the cloud, and get by with a lower-cost, lower-capacity iPhone (8GB), thus expanding the appeal of the iPhone and seemingly lowering the cost of entry.

It could also solve the problem of the scattered music collections most users have between the multiple computers in their lives, by automatically linking them all to a master collection, or perhaps syncing media across computers via the cloud. Considering that many iTunes users are already at a breaking point when it comes to syncing media across their iPods and iPhones, it makes sense that Apple would want to address the problem before throwing a completely new type of device (a tablet) into the mix.

Sony laptop battery Ericsson is finally stepping into the Android smartphone market.

The company announced Thursday that it will launch its first Android smartphone in April in Japan. Sold through the large Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo, the Xperia X10–or SO-O1B as it will be known in Japan–will sport a 4-inch WVGA touchscreen and 8.1-megapixel camera. It will include both entertainment and social networking features.

The X10 is set for release in other regions, including the U.S., later this year.

Despite any hopes that the X10 might take advantage of the latest 2.0 version of Android, the phone Inspiron 2500 battery will run Android 1.6.

Powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, the X10 throws in the usual goodies, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS, but adds a stereo headset, 1GB of internal memory, and a 16GB MicroSD card for extra storage. Its camera offers a 16X digital zoom, auto focus, and image stabilization. Its face recognition can match the faces in a photo with contacts in your phonebook.

But it’s on the media and social networking front that Sony Ericsson hopes to make a splash. The phone will include Mediascape, an application designed to organize music, photos, and videos in one place. Mediascape also wirelessly plays media content from other sources, such as YouTube and PlayNow.

The X10’s Timescape app is designed to manage social contacts and conversations from one spot, letting you keep tabs on your e-mail, text messages, and your Facebook and Twitter accounts Inspiron 3700 battery.

Sony Ericsson could use a hot, new smartphone to light a fire under its performance. Hit by tough competition and weak consumer demand, the company has struggled the past couple of years and been forced to cut jobs and trim expenses.

Sales and earnings just announced for 2009 are evidence that Sony Ericsson went through a rough year, but some fourth-quarter results showed slight improvement, thanks to cost cuts and new products.

For 2009, sales plummeted to 6.8 billion euros ($9.5 billion) from 11.2 billion euros in 2008. The company’s net loss for the year reached 836 million euros from 73 million euros the previous year.

Sales for the fourth quarter also dropped, dipping to 1.7 billion euros from 2.9 billion euros in the prior-year quarter. But quarterly losses edged down slightly to 167 million euros from 187 million euros in 2008’s final quarter.

“The refreshed portfolio, coupled with the business transformation program has started to positively impact our financial results,” Sony Ericsson President Bert Nordberg said in a statement. “Continued cost saving activities and resource realignment are necessary in order to build a leaner, more efficient organization capable of meeting the demands of the changing competitive landscape.”

Looking ahead, Sony expects that its cost cuts won’t yield a sustained improvement until the second half of 2010. The company is also counting on a slew of new products  such as the Xperia X10 Inspiron 3800 battery, to help it return to profitability.

Advanced Micro Devices posted a fourth-quarter profit of $1.18 billion, its first profit in three years, largely due to a massive settlement with Intel laptop battery.

The $1.178 billion profit, or $1.52 per share, beat the analyst consensus estimate that had projected AMD to record a loss of 18 cents per share. In the same quarter last year, AMD lost $1.4 billion, or $2.36 per share.

The second largest global supplier of processors for PCs posted revenue of $1.646 billion, an increase of 42 percent compared with the same period a year ago. This beat analyst revenue estimates, which were pegged at $1.5 billion.

Fourth-quarter AMD gross margin, an important indicator of profit, was 45 percent, compared with 42 percent in the prior quarter and 23 percent in the year-earlier period.

AMD stated that the “favorable impacts” on its net income were primarily from a legal settlement with Intel. During the quarter, Intel and AMD announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes. As a result of this Latitude D830 batteryLatitude X300 battery agreement, Intel paid AMD $1.25 billion.

AMD said it expects revenue to be down seasonally for the first quarter of 2010.

Chief executive Dirk Meyer, who spoke during the company’s earnings conference call on Thursday, sees the PC market growing in “low double digits”–between 10 and 12 percent–in 2010.

And in 2010 the erstwhile chipmaker will put more distance between itself and its former manufacturing operation, which was spun off in 2008 and became Globalfoundries. “We have deconsolidated Globalfoundries starting in Q1. Moving forward, you will see us report AMD results only,” the company said in a statement. Globalfoundries will appear only as an equity investment in future AMD financial statements.

Notebooks a target as graphics chips surge
Laptops are a big target market for AMD in 2010, according to Meyer. “We’re under-penetrated in that category of product,” he said. “The broad (notebook) category represents an opportunity for us this year,” he said.

AMD laptop Latitude X300 battery processors are expected to become more competitive as the company moves most of its chips to a more advanced 45-nanometer manufacturing process. Intel, meanwhile, is in the process of transitioning to an industry-leading 32-nanometer manufacturing process.

The company shipped a record number of mobile “discrete” (standalone) graphics processing units (GPUs) in the quarter. And overall revenue in the graphics chip segment was $427 million, a 40 percent sequential increase and a 58 percent year-to-year jump.

AMD could have shipped more GPUs but supply from its manufacturing partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was “heavily constrained,” Meyer said. In particular, AMD’s new Radeon 5000 series of graphics processors have been well-received in the market.

As the date of the Apple laptop battery event next week approaches, more details about the device are leaking out.

On Wednesday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple’s newest gadget could be a hub for all kinds of media: magazines, newspapers, books, text books, music, games, and video. All of that has been speculated about before, but the target demographic and the primary use for the device–which falls somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop–has been more of a mystery. Now it seems we’re starting to have a clearer picture: the device has been purposely designed to be shared between members of a household as easily as possible, according to one of the Journal’s unnamed sources PA3176U-1BRS,PA3178U-1BRS.

Apple has “put significant resources into designing and programming the device so that it is intuitive to share,” including the idea of “virtual sticky notes” that can be left for others, and a built-in camera that can tell who is using it, says the Journal’s source.

The content, however, seems like it will be the key to the tablet. It was reported earlier that Apple has been talking with book and magazine publishers about porting their content to the device, but it wasn’t clear who exactly was involved. Apple has been in discussion with The New York Times Co., Conde Nast Publications, and HarperCollins Publishers over content deals, and is apparently also negotiating with TV networks such as CBS and Walt Disney for monthly subscription deals, according to the report. (CBS is the parent company of CNET.)

The Journal’s report also mentions the idea of an iTunes.com streaming music service that would allow purchase of iTunes content from places other than directly through iTunes, launching sometime in June. CNET’s Greg Sandoval reported earlier Wednesday that Apple is talking to all four major music labels about a free streaming service that would be designed to boost download sales.

If this is the strategy Apple is pursuing, it’s setting itself up to be the gatekeeper of all kinds of “old” media through its iTunes Store and connected devices by finding ways to continue to grow its share of music and video sales in addition to worming its way into electronic books, textbooks, and video games. It will be interesting to see who gets on board since both the music industry and film and TV studios have chafed at Apple’s gatekeeping practices in the past. One of the Journal’s sources–someone who worked with him previously–does say that Steve Jobs is “supportive of the old guard and (he) looks to help them by giving them new forms of distribution.”

The Journal’s report also included other details, some of which have already been reported elsewhere:

• It will have a virtual keyboard.
• Apple is talking to Microsoft not only about using Bing as the default search engine in the iPhone, but also as the default mapping service.
• Electronic Arts is in discussions with Apple about showing off the gaming abilities of the tablet–which explains why the gaming press was invited to the event next week.
• Apple is toying with changing “conventional payment structures,” for content on the device.

HP Enterprise Services today announced that SITA, a leading specialist in air transport communication and IT solutions, signed a five-year applications services agreement that will help add new capabilities and value to SITA’s existing laptop battery product line.

SITA will license HP Ticket Reissue and Refund software, which is designed to lower risks while reducing the time required to deploy ticket refunds and reissues to SITA’s clients. SITA will introduce it as Airfare Reprice/Refund and make it available to its clients as a service offering integrated in the SITA Airfare Price solution. This software can help improve customer service by automating a formerly labor-intensive function.

“The needs and concerns of the air transport industry drive our product development, innovations and strategic direction,” said Brian Cook, vice president, Airline and Passenger Solutions, SITA. “To address our clients’ increasing demand for seamless, flexible passenger travel, we turned to HP to help us add new capabilities to our D5318,HD438 product line and enhance value to our clients.”

Using HP Ticket Reissue and Refund software will help reduce SITA’s time to market and provide lower risk than custom development. HP will support the software within the SITA environment. In addition, HP will continue to provide applications development and maintenance of SITA’s current fares platform.

HP will deliver these services through its Best Shore® global delivery network. This delivery model focuses on providing the skills and expertise clients need from regional locations, using consistent business and technical processes.

“Technology is key to driving innovation and improving customer service in the competitive air travel industry worldwide,” said Eric Harte, vice president, Transportation Industry, HP Enterprise Services. “HP’s knowledge of the airline industry and expertise with applications services will continue to help SITA deliver reliable, secure and cost-effective services to its clients and the passengers they serve.”

As the world’s leading transportation IT services provider, HP KD186,GD761 processes more than 42 million airline reservations each month and more than 500 million per year. HP’s comprehensive portfolio of world-class technology solutions encompasses air carriers, airports, cruise lines, hotel companies, major reservations networks, logistics and modal providers.

Dell is doing its part to usher in the age of the super-sized solid-state drive. For the first time, Dell laptop battery can be configured with the newest large-capacity SSDs from Samsung.

Back in the day (last January), laptop buyers were stuck with a Henry Fordesque choice: order any solid-state drive you want with your laptop as long as it’s 64GB.

What a difference a year makes. On Friday, Dell quadrupled this to 256GB. The Samsung SSD is now available as an option on Dell’s XPS M1330 and M1730 laptop 6Y270,75UYF lines. Apple announced a 256GB SSD option on its MacBook Pro on January 6.

Upgrading from the base XPS configuration with the 256GB SSD will add $400, Dell said Friday. And Dell said the SSD will “be available on additional laptops in the coming weeks.”

Dell has also added a 500GB hard disk drive option that will add $150 to the base configuration price.

Solid-state drives are generally faster at getting data than hard-disk drives (and in some cases, much faster), but pricing is a hurdle for consumers. SSDs still command a premium, but that premium is shrinking. SanDisk said last week that it will begin offering a 240GB SSD for $499. SSDs with this kind of C1295,GD761,TD347 capacity had been priced well over $1,000.

The aesthete buys an Apple. This dig in the latest Mac-attack Microsoft ad contains a kernel of truth laptop battery.

Here’s the essential choice: A Dell with a pedestrian design but all the fixin’s or a gorgeous Apple MacBook that doesn’t offer quite as much. (Whether the prospective buyer needs a maxed-out laptop is a pertinent question too.)

The Dell paradigm is how many people define practicality, i.e., you get more box for the money. Hewlett-Packard of course falls into this category too.

I use both a MacBook (an Air) and a Windows machine (HP): a dualism of sorts: one pleases the eye, the other is more utilitarian. Of course, this characterization of the two platforms is greatly oversimplified (dare I not mention the dueling OSes: OS X Leopard versus XP/Vista?), but this is the kind of thinking that drives many purchases Latitude D510 battery.

Without further ado, let’s do a side-by-side.

Aluminum 13-inch MacBook

(Credit: Apple)

Aluminum 13-inch (LED) MacBook:

• OS: OS X Leopard
• Processor: 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9400M
• Memory: 2GB DDR3
• Hard drive: 250GB 5400rpm
• Camera: built-in camera
• Connectivity:10/100/1000 Ethernet / 802.11n
• Optical drive: 8x (DVD±RW)
• Warranty: 1 year
• Price: $1,599

Dell XPS 13

(Credit: Dell)

Dell XPS 13 (LED):

• OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
• Processor: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9500M–256MB
• Memory: 4GB DDR3
• Hard drive: 500GB 7200rpm
• Camera: built-in camera
• Connectivity: 10/100/1000 Ethernet / 802.11n
• Optical drive: 8x (DVD±RW)
• Warranty: 2 years
• Price: $1,598

A quick glance at the features shows that the Dell Latitude D520 battery beats the Apple. That said, the Dell isn’t an aluminum unibody design, doesn’t wow like the MacBook, and doesn’t carry the cachet of the Apple brand. The latter two intangibles are important for a lot of buyers.

Perceived performance is also an intangible. The question of which of two comparable systems is faster is often based on one’s individual definition of performance.

So, which computer carries the day? I’ll let the reader decide Latitude D600 battery.

Additional notes: Some readers say the OS plays a very large role in the buying decision. Particularly the fact that the Apple OS is a Unix derivative and that Apple users can run both OS X and Windows via Boot Camp. Duly noted.

Toshiba and Gateway are early participants in the growing cavalcade of Netbook makers expected to stretch across the exhibition floor at the Consumer Electronics Show.

These Toshiba and Gateway listings at a Canadian reseller follow Hewlett-Packard’s leak of its iMini 210 Netbook laptop battery specifications. All three models from HP, Toshiba, and Gateway are based on Intel’s new N450 silicon, aka “Pine Trail.”

The Toshiba and Gateway models both appeared on the Canadian reseller Web site Future Shop and both have similar configurations: the 1.66GHz Atom processor, 160GB (Gateway) or 250GB (Toshiba) hard disk drives, a 10.1-inch screen, 1GB of memory, and an Intel “GMA 3150 Express” graphics chip Latitude D500 battery.

And both systems come with the Windows 7 Starter edition operating system.

Pricing is where the two Netbooks part ways, however. The Gateway Netbook is listed at $299 Canadian, or about $285 U.S. Toshiba’s Netbook is listed at $459 Canadian, or $438 U.S.

New Netbooks aren’t the only laptops expected to make a splash at CES, which starts Thursday. Full-fledged laptops have leaked already from HP, Toshiba, and Gateway that use Intel’s new Core i3 mobile processor Latitude D505 battery.

“Sherlock Holmes” is not a wonderful movie. Despite the fact that so many ditheringly unstable people in the movie theater I wandered into on Christmas Day applauded when the final scene slithered away.

However, if you were to ask Robert Downey Jr.’s violently amusing Holmes to tell you discern the truth about the new Apple laptop battery tablet, he would surely repeat his words from the movie: “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay!”

So because there are many who are still groggy after the week’s festivities, I thought I’d scour around for data that will separate the rumor from the definitive fact.

Apple’s new tablet will be called the iTablet. And it will be launched last September. Yes, last September.

But wait, last September was a few months ago. So perhaps that information wasn’t quite correct.

Which means those facts must have not been data. However, now we know that the tablet will, in fact, be called iSlate. This is because a number of publications have been sleuthing around and discovered that this name was acquired and trademarked two years ago or more. And the name on the trademarking papers corresponds Latitude D410 battery with that of Apple’s senior trademarking specialist, Regina Porter.

So that’s settled then. It’s going to be called the iSlate. Or perhaps the iTablet. However, though I don’t want to thrust dry ice at your moistened enthusiasm, I should remind you that we can’t yet discount that it will be called the iMediaPod, the iMod, the iDoIt, the iMagic, or the iThingy. Yes, I made those up. But prove me wrong if you can.

Having settled on the name with certainty, we should look at what the product will actually be. Clearly, it will be a screen of around 10 inches upon which we’ll be able to, you know, read the papers, read books, and watch movies.

This will be especially useful while you’re stuck in some airport to which you’ve been diverted after a creepy little nerd wouldn’t stop playing his video game with the sound on for five hours on an American Airlines flight and a brawl ensued. (Disclosure: This happened to me the other day. I had to be restrained from attempting a citizen’s arrest on the little runt Latitude D420 battery. While his father, an employee of a well-known tech firm, sat there oblivious.)

So now let’s talk about the price of the iTablet, iSlate, iMod, iThingy. Thankfully, everyone is agreed on this. It will be somewhere between the price of an iPod and laptop. So it will be between $500 and $700..

Hold on, I just came across something that suggests it might be called the iPad. And here’s something that suggested that it will be launched last November and be called, perhaps, the Tapplet.

But let’s ignore that and focus again on the price. Which, I can now reveal, will be incredibly cheap. No, of course these aren’t my words. They are those of somebody quite famous who talked to the nice portly chap from the “Get A Mac” TV spots.

So there you have it. The iSlate (iTablet, iMod, iThingy) will cost a mere $399. Or even less. Perhaps. It will have a 10-inch screen. Probably. Or a 6-inch screen, possibly. It will let you do all sorts of things on a screen that is larger than that of your iPhone Latitude D430 battery. Very probably. And it will fold in two. Perhaps.

Here’s what we know for sure. If Steve Jobs could fool so many people for so long about his health, he can certainly fool the same people about the iSlate, iTablet, iMod, iThingy. Don’t you just get the slightest queasy feeling that you actually know more about Tiger Woods’ sex life than you know about the iPad?

All of the information about the iTablet, iPad, iWhatever includes mostly misinformation and disinformation. But it is a considerable part of the show. The show that is being orchestrated with all the finesse of that fine celebrity attorney, Gloria Allred. You might not have imagined that Steve Jobs and Gloria Allred have much in common. However, each focuses their vision very tightly on human beings, their emotions, their weaknesses and their curious foibles.

Allred and Jobs know that the anticipation is 50 percent of the performance. And each knows that when the show goes live, you have to have something that public didn’t expect. (”Rachel and Tiger are still sleeping together? No!”)

This is an interactive advertising show at its finest. The more the iTablet is talked about, the more attention it gets, the more important it seems. The more important it seems, the more many will believe in the idea of Apple creating a product that will truly be wonderful. Because Apple, in general, creates wonderful products that get real people excited.

The next step in the iSlate, iPad, iMod Latitude D500 battery show will come in January, when details of the new product from Apple will be revealed. Unless, of course, they aren’t.

Oh, and this just in. The Apple iTablet is going to fail. Unless, of course, it doesn’t. It’s all elementary, you see.

If the Apple tablet emerges as expected, this will be another big device market, following media players and smartphones, that the PC industry cedes to Apple laptop battery.

The writing is already on the wall already for Microsoft and smartphones, as spelled out in a previous post and as documented in shrinking market share numbers.

That’s not to say that Microsoft, Compaq (later Hewlett-Packard), and Intel didn’t have a chance. Remember the Compaq iPAQ PDA that debuted way back in 2000, powered by an Intel StrongARM chip running an early version of Windows Mobile?

That device had a lot of potential. The operative word being “potential.” An iPAQ could have been an iPhone. Or at the very least an iPod. And everybody could be drooling over iPAQs today instead of iPhones. Or using iPAQs instead of BlackBerrys. But of course things didn’t turn out that way.

Fast forward to 2010 (January?). Apple announces a tablet and suddenly everyone wants a tablet.

And what have Microsoft, Intel, HP Inspiron E1405 battery,Inspiron E1505 battery,Inspiron E1705 battery, and others been offering in the interim years when they had every opportunity to come out with a blockbuster tablet? Unattractive, bulky, half-baked convertible laptops that, let’s put it this way, have not taken the PC market by storm.

So, here’s the $64,000 question, uh, make that the $64 billion question. Why can’t the combined R&D smarts, market clout, and overall technological resources of Microsoft-Intel-HP-Dell come up with a thin, sexy compelling tablet and/or media pad that will turn heads and convince the unbelievers (the average why-would-I-need-something-like-that consumer) that a tablet is a must-have product?

Answer: Because Apple will.

Here’s a not unlikely scenario. Apple brings out the tablet/media pad, wows U.S. (and world?) consumers, sells a ton of units, Microsoft-Intel-HP-Dell follow suit with slavishly copied devices that don’t sell very well comparatively.

That’s how the market for successful newfangled devices works these days. Apple creates the market and everyone else follows in a panic.

Then there’s the Intel factor. Intel also wants to be a player in this space. But Intel and its coterie of PC makers can’t get off the traditional-design laptop gravy train. Plus, as formidable a chipmaker as Intel is, it is still behind the Qualcomms and Texas Instruments of the world in building the power-efficient system-on-a-chip silicon that goes into smartphones and will likely go into tablets.

So, here’s my question for Intel et al: How many people will be buying Netbooks or Intel-based MIDs (mobile Internet devices) in 2011 if Apple has a more compelling alternative? Answer: a lot less if the Apple VGP-BPS9,VGP-BPS9/B,VGP-BPS9/S tablet exists.

And add Asia-based device makers offering tablets using an Nvidia Tegra 2 chip to that. A number of these tablets are expected too in 2010. In fact, Nvidia is already doing what Intel should have finished doing a long time ago: make a competitive system-on-a-chip that powers small devices. Intel had the chance to make XScale (what StrongARM eventually became) into something big for small devices six years ago. But it didn’t. And now Intel is trying to reinvent the wheel by squeezing the upcoming “Moorestown” Atom chip into smartphones.

Intel, I’m sure you think Moorestown is a great idea, but it’s a little late. Apple beat you to it by about three years.