Memorex's TouchMP MP3 player may not exactly do much to stand out from the pack of PMPs, but it does only cost $99, which is no doubt enough to earn it some serious consideration from at least some potential customers. According to the folks at CNET, however, while they likely won't find themselves too disappointed by the player, they also shouldn't expect something that rivals ones costing twice as much. On the upside, while the touchscreen interface isn't much to look at, it apparently does get the job done fairly effectively, and the player itself...Read More »

Ready for another edition of Microsoft's Laptop Hunters? This time it's Lauren -- not the infamous original LH -- and mom seeking the perfect PC to take with her to law school. Top on the list of needs is a portable with speed and battery life, all for less than $1700. Shying away from the more expensive MacBook Pro -- a pretty tame jab, much like the last ad -- the dynamic duo settle on a Dell XPS 13a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, and a $899 price tag. All in...Read More »

Seven year legal battle is over US regulators have finally thrown in the towel after seven years of battling memory chip designer Rambus in court.… Full published article at: Read More »

What, you didn't even know VTech was dabbling in home audio now? You should be ashamed! All jesting aside, the outfit's first-ever WiFi radio -- which was introduced "way back" at CES -- is now shipping. Priced at $199.95, the Wireless Music Hub boasts built-in 3W stereo speakers (not to mention a 10W subwoofer), 802.11b/g support, an FM tuner and an auxiliary audio port. Additionally, it can play back MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV and RealAudio files stored on any nearby WiFi-enabled computer, though it can't actually get more beautiful with age. Sorry.Filed under: Home...Read More »

We're no strangers to crazy DARPA projects around here, but this one especially strikes our fantastic fancy. The agency's researchers are currently undertaking a project -- called Silent Talk -- to "allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals." That's right: they're talking about telepathy. Using an EEG to read brain waves, DARPA is going to attempt to analyze "pre-speech" thoughts, then transmit them to another person. They first plan to map people's EEG patterns to his / her individual words, then see if...Read More »

Can't afford the petaflops In tough times, you have to make tough decisions, and Japanese server maker NEC this morning announced in Tokyo that it was pulling out of the Next Generation Supercomputer Project sponsored by the Japanese government. The project involved NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi building a hybrid scalar/vector massively parallel system.… Full published article at: Read More »

You know the drill by now -- first comes the leak, then comes the announcement, then comes the photo shoot. And now, comes the video. Right on cue, the cool cats over at GottaBeMobile have whipped out the Handycam in order to show off Lenovo's latest entrant into the oversaturated netbook arena. They seemed to appreciate most every tweak applied to the S10-2, though they did lament the fact that the new kid on the block didn't have a matte display as on the original S10. The vid's just past the break.Read More »

$199.99 and two years of your soul Verizon will unleash its 3G netbook over the weekend, and - as expected - it's an HP.… Full published article at: Read More »

Star performer The next Ubuntu should see improved video performance, along with updates to the underlying Linux and open-source infrastructure.… Full published article at: Read More »

The old-boy interconnection network Duncan Roweth, one of the founders of British parallel supercomputer switch interconnect maker Quadrics, is leaving the company to take a job over at HPC rival Cray.… Full published article at: Read More »