Lenovo’s first consumer ‘Netbook’
Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10 Netbook PC is the company’s first entry in the “Netbook” PC market. Lenovo designed the slim, small IdeaPad S10 to complement a consumer’s primary PC or as a first-time, introductory PC purchase. The IdeaPad S10 allows users to perform simple activities such as surf the Net, check and write e-mail, listen to music and run basic applications. Lenovo also plans to introduce Netbook models designed specifically for students and educators.
The IdeaPad S10 is about one-inch thick and weighs just over two pounds. It has a 10.2-inch screen and a keyboard 85 percent of the size of a full-function notebook PC’s keyboard, coupled with an energy-efficient LED backlit display that provides longer battery life than traditional displays. The IdeaPad S10 Netbook includes WiFi and also has an Express Card slot for optional high-speed mobile broadband. The machine comes with a built-in web camera for video messaging, two USB ports and a 4-in-1 multicard reader.
Using the Intel Atom processor and running on Microsoft Windows XP, Lenovo offers the IdeaPad S10 in two configurations — 512MB of memory and an 80GB hard drive or 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive. The machine will be available beginning in early October.
Keep devices out of the trash
According to a report by the International Association of Recyclers, on average, 400 million units of consumer electronics a year will be scrapped during the rest of this decade. Electronic waste (e-waste) is the fastest growing type of waste and 40 percent of heavy metals such as mercury and lead in landfills comes from e-waste. So don’t throw away broken consumer electronics — fix them. PartStore.com stocks over eight million parts across 500 brands for consumer electronics, appliances, computers and wireless products. Unfortunately, the company ships directly only to US destinations, so you’ll have to be imaginative to get around this problem.
Find information immediately
PopIn Inc. (www.popin.cc) is a “customized annotating service” for PC and Mac that gives you the kind of information you want, about the word you need to know, when you need to know it. Detailed information about the search term is temporarily embedded right in the Web page you are reading, so when you finish reading the explanation, your eyes are exactly at the point where you should resume reading the original document, saving you the trouble of finding your place again. This browser tool allows users to select a word and find and integrate related information about that word from other websites. PopIn is browser and device independent.
Breakthrough color display technology
The new HP DreamColour LP2480zx display is a breakthrough in color display technology that is expected to disrupt the economics of color management by enabling companies in areas such as animation, game development, broadcast, product design and graphic arts to affordably deploy a color-critical display on every desk. The HP DreamColour LP2480zx generates the industry’s first combination of true 30-bit color — enabling a range of one billion colors — in a widescreen, LED-backlit liquid crystal display (LCD) at a fraction of the cost of most high-end, studio-quality LCD displays. The HP DreamColour display achieves more than 63 times the colors available on mainstream LCD displays. Reds, blues and greens are visibly deeper, blacks are four times darker, and whites are programmable for increased relative accuracy. The display also includes a night vision interface for darkroom working conditions.