Laptops Arena

I don't know about you, but most touch screens I've crossed my path with so far weren't extremely sensitive. In fact, I managed to draw the conclusion that some of them simply didn't care about me, if I can put it this way. Well, I guess some touch screens could easily be used as "kick screens," but not for too long, anyway. The good news is that Mitsubishi managed to come up with something I would really like to experience one-on-one: the 3D touch screen!

While 3D motion tracking isn't such big news, doing it by using a single panel, that surely is! Just think about the fact that you have a 3D touch screen, and no extra cameras, sensors, or another "trick."

Even more, Mitsubishi's 3D touch screen seems to have a very high level of precision, being able to measure the distance to your finger in steps of about .08mm, up to a distance of 20mm, also guessing its approach speed. Considering its short range, Mitsubishi says this tech will be most useful for mobile devices, but I would also think about having such a 3D touch screen in netbooks.
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Taking it all a few steps further, I think even full-fledged laptops could take advantage of a 3D touch screen. Could you imagine such a thing like virtual sculptures, where you're actually molding air with the help of such a 3D touch screen? :)

We have the MacBook family, and we also have the iPod Touch multimedia player. All these come from Apple, of course, but this doesn't mean the Touch Book should also belong to Apple. I know, I know - for Apple, innovation is the game, but for Always Innovating, innovation is the name, before anything else, but if we look at the Touch Book, I can't say these guys aren't a few steps ahead of the crowd, either!

The best part of it all is that Always Innovating's product is simply great in theory - "Combines Netbook and Touchscreen Tablet; Provides Three Times the Battery Life at Under Two Pounds." 10 to 15 hours battery life? Come on, that's almost as long as my MP3 player! How did they manage to achieve this?
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Well, we're talking about a device powered by an ARM processor from Texas Instruments, and according to its creator, "You can use it as a netbook computer, a hand-held game device, or a video player. You can even reverse the keyboard to prop it up on a table in an inverted 'V'. Finally, because it is magnetic, you can remove the keyboard and put the tablet on the fridge to serve as a kitchen computer or digital frame."

The price looks great, with only $299 for the base model, and early orders can already be placed at http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/store/.

For a pretty long time, I heard countless rumors about the NVIDIA Tegra. A mobile platform? A graphics accelerator? An integrated CPU-GPU-chipset combo? A mobile phone? Well, it seems NVIDIA is going mobile, with the NVIDIA Tegra being the "computer-on-a-chip that enables a $99, always-on, always-connected HD mobile internet device (MID) that can go days between battery charges."

Hummm... are they going to kill the iPhone? I guess not, but it's good to see that we finally get something between the smartphone and the netbook. In fact, I guess the devices based on the NVIDIA Tegra will get a new market niche of their own, whatever its name. For now, I am out of ideas, so here's just a bit more from the official press release: "This platform will enable OEMs to quickly build and bring to market devices that carriers can offer for as low as $99 — bringing broadband connectivity and all of the Web’s HD content to the masses."
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The feature list of the NVIDIA Tegra mobile Internet device looks like this:

- 720p and 1080p video playback
- Days of use between charges
- Full Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity
- Optimized hardware support for Web 2.0 applications for a true desktop-class internet experience
- A complete software solution including Microsoft Windows Embedded CE OS, application viewers, full Internet browser, UI framework, board support package (BSP), software development kit (SDK), Web mail client, and more

I forgive them for the Microsoft OS, since "days of use between charges" sounds outstanding, only that I have one big problem with that - what if they consider this "use" to be the same as the stand-by hours of a mobile phone? Well, that remains to be seen, but considering the above, the NVIDIA Tegra could be exactly what the GPU maker needed to keep going at full speed!

Available at Lightinthebox online store the Mini PC Notebook is a feature-rich portable computer that acts as a MP4 player, wireless Internet tablet and gaming device.
We have no idea who developed it as on the store doesn’t specify this important detail but we can assume it is made in China.

From the specification we know that this mini PC has a 4-inch wide TFT display of 256K colors and touch-sensitivity, so it must show clear images with rich colors in any environment thanks to the adjustable backlight feature.
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It seems to run on Windows CE 5.0 operating system and to support PPC games and Flash ones, besides PocketNester 3D and Windows CE pre-installed games.

As it integrates the Wi-Fi module you could browse the Internet wirelessly and use different chat applications.
The media player has support for popular file formats including DivX, 3GP and H.264 videos.
Having a size of 150 x 71 x 16.5 mm, the mini notebook weighs 186 grams and comes with English language support, E-Book reading function, voice recorder, Office Documents Viewer, PDF Viewer, and up to 4GB extra storage capacity.

Its memory is of 1GB ROM and 64MB RAM while being powered by a 2400mAh Lithium battery.
The USB port is not missing either.

Lightinthebox offers it wholesale at an affordable price of $256.

Intel in association with Ziba Design has developed the world’s thinnest laptop known as Intel Mobile Metro Notebook which is just 0.7 inches thick and weighs only 2.25 pounds.

This slim laptop comes with Intel’s all major speediest and most efficient components. The laptop is just quarter of an inch thicker than a Motorola RAZR phone and also encompasses a magnetically attached folder to enable users to charge up the laptop wirelessly.

The laptop is compatible with all Intel chips and its important specs include Windows Vista’s Sideshow, WiMax, EV-DO, flash memory hard drive and an expected battery life of 14 hours.

The price of this sleek baby is not yet unveiled but the machine will soon strike the market sometimes at the end of this year.

Via businessweek.