Laptops Archive

  • The robot doctor will see you now

    The robot doctor will see you now

    Posted on April 27, 2010 | No Comments
    It's a brave new world of health and technology, coming together to keep you as healthy as modern medicine allows. The Senate Committee on Aging was witness to a show-and-tell of sorts last week, getting a first-hand look at some of the hi-tech innovations that promise to annoy people who cringe at the idea of universal healthcare. Because keeping people healthy is pure, pure evil, apparently.

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  • Who needs privacy? 56,000 photos taken in Philly school district kerfuffle

    Who needs privacy? 56,000 photos taken in Philly school district kerfuffle

    Posted on April 21, 2010 | No Comments
    This MacBook-spying story could be the creepiest story in quite some time. We already know the allegations: that the school district provided MacBooks to its students, but then took photos of the students without their knowledge or consent. Now we're getting numbers. One student claims he was photographed more than 400 times, and now it has emerged that, over a period of two years, school district officials took some 56,000 photos in total, with many of those including students in the frame. FIFTY-SIX THOUSAND! You know, you send your kids to school expecting them to learn a little bit of math, maybe about evolution and the Big Bang, but you do not expect them to have their privacy violated as if we're living in East Germany.

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  • Use your laptop to detect the next big earthquake before it happens

    Use your laptop to detect the next big earthquake before it happens

    Posted on April 20, 2010 | No Comments
    It's pretty great that people are just now realizing that Planet Earth isn't some sort of static strip mall. There are volcanoes, and earthquakes, and hurricanes, and tornadoes, and tsunamis—objects from outer space regularly invade the atmosphere. This planet is alive, brother! So, idea: you know how certain laptop models, like ThinkPads and MacBooks, come with built-in accelerometers? They're there in order to protect the hard drive from a devastating fall, but what it you could use said accelerometer to detect an earthquake before it happens?

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  • Allegation: School district used laptop to take 400+ photos of student without permission

    Allegation: School district used laptop to take 400+ photos of student without permission

    Posted on April 16, 2010 | No Comments
    Oh, this school district is totally boned. You'll recall that the Lower Merion School District, in Pennsylvania, had given students MacBooks so they could do their schoolwork. Fun. What wasn't fun, though, was that the school is alleged to have snapped photos of the students without their consent. The whole kerfluffle is wrangled in the legal system now, and one of the district's employees who had access to the images called it a "little LMSD soap opera." Replied another: "I know, I love it." Oh boy, not good for the school district.

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  • If England wins the World Cup you could win a Toshiba TV or laptop

    If England wins the World Cup you could win a Toshiba TV or laptop

    Posted on April 12, 2010 | No Comments
    Toshiba will give away a free laptop or TV to one lucky winner if England win the World Cup this year. I guess Toshiba won't be giving away any TVs or laptops anytime soon!

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  • Upcoming Live Blogs: Apple’s iPhone OS 4 tomorrow, Microsoft’s Project Pink on 4/12

    Upcoming Live Blogs: Apple’s iPhone OS 4 tomorrow, Microsoft’s Project Pink on 4/12

    Posted on April 7, 2010 | No Comments
    Start the countdown, folks. Tomorrow at 10 A.M. sharp, Apple will finally be dropping the curtain on iPhone OS 4.0 – and we’ll be there, reporting live. We’ll get to the ol’ Infinite Loop bright and early, armed to the teeth with laptops, cameras, an array of 3G USB dongles, and all the other gear [...]

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  • Don’t worry: The Intel Core i3 is just fine for gaming

    Don’t worry: The Intel Core i3 is just fine for gaming

    Posted on April 5, 2010 | No Comments
    We've seen a few systems (mainly laptops) come with the Intel Core i3, a sort of entry level, dual core processor. The questions on everyone's mind is, is it a viable processor when it comes to gaming? Apparently so~!

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  • My top iPad pet peeves… so far

    My top iPad pet peeves… so far

    Posted on April 3, 2010 | No Comments
    I’ll update – or shorten this list – as I work with the device. Sticky fingers – The iPad screen is big. It takes lots of fingerprints. It takes a nice brushing with a soft cloth to clean. Keep out of direct sunlight – As you saw from my photos, the screen washes out like mad in [...]

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  • Scientist: Don’t bother going green because there’s nothing we can do to save the planet

    Scientist: Don’t bother going green because there’s nothing we can do to save the planet

    Posted on March 31, 2010 | No Comments
    Well, I hate to be the one to break this news to y'all, but here we are. You know the "green" movement, where companies try to say things like, "Oh, our products are more safe for the environment than our competitors' products"? I don't want to say it's complete nonsense, but the scientist who devised the Gaia theory—our planet is an organism, and we should do our best to ensure its survival—has just said that there's no chance in hell that we're going to save the planet. His advice? "Enjoy life while you can." So, so amazing.

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  • Exclusive first look at the Viliv S10 Blade

    Exclusive first look at the Viliv S10 Blade

    Posted on March 12, 2010 | No Comments
    Laptops are becoming smaller and smaller and after we saw and lusted after the Sony Z series we were curious how the new Viliv S10 would perform. First off, it looks great. It’s very slim and the battery life is promising thus far. Is it an iPad replacement? Sure. It’s light enough and small enough [...]

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  • You get what you pay for, with SSDs and just about everything else

    You get what you pay for, with SSDs and just about everything else

    Posted on March 12, 2010 | No Comments
    My aunt called last night to ask about a laptop she saw advertised in the weekly circular. It had most of the features she wanted, and was priced lower via the ad than she'd seen online for a similarly configured laptop. This led to a brief discussion of name brand preferences for laptops, and the price differences between them. I had to explain to my aunt that you get what you pay for: a laptop is made up of lots of little parts, each available from a variety of OEMs and distributors. Different brand name laptops use different OEMs and distributors for their parts, so the quality of the individual components inside the laptops vary wildly. Generally speaking, better quality parts cost a bit more, but provide better performance and better reliability. A recent study from DRAMeXchange Technology (who?!) proves this point as it relates to solid state drives.

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  • Consumer Reports says Apple has the best tech support, Acer/Gateway/eMachines the worst

    Consumer Reports says Apple has the best tech support, Acer/Gateway/eMachines the worst

    Posted on March 11, 2010 | No Comments
    Consumer Reports has a new report on which computer company has the best tech support. Apple wins! That's what happens when the same company controls the hardware as well as the operating system (and several of the most prominent pieces of software). The highest ranking PC manufacturer is Dell for desktops and Lenovo for laptops.

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  • Be careful when handling that iBuyPower laptop!

    Be careful when handling that iBuyPower laptop!

    Posted on March 1, 2010 | No Comments
    Whoa. It seems that our amigos over at Laptop Magazine had a bit of a run-in with an iBuyPower laptop, and that nasty little cut was the result. IBuyPower's response? “Yikes, we need to look into that, one moment please.”

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  • Exciting new HP ProBook s-series models promise fun, excitement

    Exciting new HP ProBook s-series models promise fun, excitement

    Posted on March 1, 2010 | No Comments
    These laptops have keyboards. They allow you to type. Are you ready for some football? Then you better go play foorball because we’re here to talk about HP’s four new ProBook models, ranging from 13.3-inches to 17.3-inches. They start at $719 and run a Core i3/i5/i7 and 8GB of RAM. SlashGear has a hands on so [...]

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  • Remember that school that was spying on kids? Well now it’s creepier

    Remember that school that was spying on kids? Well now it’s creepier

    Posted on February 24, 2010 | No Comments
    The Lower Merion School District (motto: "We're Building the Future Police State"), caught using a remote monitoring service on school-supplied laptops while the kids were at home, had some pretty creepy rules on the books to ensure compliance. To wit we find, thanks to strydehax, these gems:
    * Possession of a monitored Macbook was required for classes * Possession of an unmonitored personal computer was forbidden and would be confiscated * Disabling the camera was impossible * Jailbreaking a school laptop in order to secure it or monitor it against intrusion was an offense which merited expulsion

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