By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

The Lenovo Thinkpad X300 is cool, but now it’s been surpassed. Lenovo has announced a better, stronger, faster laptop, the X301 (go figure). The X301 ups the ante with, according to Lenovo, on average nearly 20% better performance over the X300 by adding DDR3 RAM and “the latest Intel Core 2 Duo ultra low volt processor.”

That CPU would be the as-yet-unreleased Intel Core 2 Duo ULV (ultra low voltage) U9300 (1.2GHz) and U9400 (1.4GHz) models, both with a 6MB L2 cache and 1066MHz FSB.

SSD size will rise to the occasion, with the same 64 GB SSD available, but also a 128 GB option. The laptop will include a DisplayPort jack, GPS, and up to 250% better mobile broadband. A WiMAX version will appear later this year.

Much of the rest of the laptop will remain as is, with a 13.3″ LED backlit display.

Pricing? Starts at $2,599. Availability? August 26th, but the 128 GB SSD option won’t show up until September.

In an emailed press release, Sam Dusi, vice president, worldwide notebook product marketing, Lenovo, said:

“Lenovo continues to push the technology envelope by giving road warriors the latest enhancements in solid state drive storage and digital display technologies with the new ThinkPad X301 notebook PC. This announcement extends our commitment to blending ultraportability and functionality, and equipping today’s business users with the most advanced, highest-performing computing tools.”

Their latest MacBook Air challenger, right? And it has plenty to take on the MBA with, except that it has to overcome Apple’s perceived mojo.

Additional info from the press release:

Like its predecessor, the industry-acclaimed ThinkPad X300 notebook, the ThinkPad X301 notebook offers cutting-edge features and technologies in a thin and light form starting at less than three pounds and one-inch thin. The notebook offers even greater storage capacity with choices of either 64 GB or new 128 GB solid state drive storage available in September. The ThinkPad X301 notebook provides on average nearly 20 percent better performance over the ThinkPad X300 notebook due to the latest DDR3 memory and the latest Intel Core 2 Duo ultra low volt processor.

New support for DisplayPort makes viewing high definition content easy and ideal for models with the ultra-thin DVD burner. With support for both DisplayPort and VGA, users can even watch high definition content on multiple displays. Designed for maximum options for wireless connectivity, the ThinkPad X301 notebook offers models with high-speed mobile broadband3 and WiFi to connect wirelessly to the Internet, and also with Bluetooth and Ultra-Wideband technology to connect wirelessly to other devices. Lenovo offers improved uplink performance by up to 250 percent for models with AT&T mobile broadband over previous ThinkPad notebooks with AT&T mobile broadband4. Models supporting WiMAX will be available later this year. Additionally, GPS on notebook models with high speed mobile broadband allow travelers to more easily navigate to the office or airport.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

On Sunday Intel announced that its upcoming Nehalem processor family will carry the “Intel Core” name, with the first in the series carrying an “i7″ identifier. The “i7″ CPUs are scheduled to launch in Q4. Other, later identifiers will “complement” the “i7″ indentifier.

In the press release, Sean Maloney, Intel Corporation executive vice president and general manager, Sales and Marketing Group, said:

“The Core name is and will be our flagship PC processor brand going forward. Expect Intel to focus even more marketing resources around that name and the Core i7 products starting now.”

Intel is trying to simplify branding. In the past “it’s been Core Duo, Core Solo. Basically, we’re going to simplify Nehalem down to just Core,” said George Alfs, an Intel spokesperson.

Of course, that doesn’t explain what the “i7″ represents, and curious folk like myself are of course wondering.

The logo is shown above, but as shown to the left, there will be a separate black logo for the highest-end offering, the Extreme Edition.

Nehalem will be manufactured using Intel’s 45-nanometer process, and will be Intel’s first CPU to put all four cores on one piece of silicon, something that AMD already achieved with its Phenom and Opteron processors. It will be the focus of the upcoming Intel Developer Forum conference in San Francisco, which runs Aug. 19th - 21st.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

OK - so this won’t solve the energy mess we are in when it comes to our cars, but it’s a pretty cool little gadget just the same.

No batteries - just power from the sun!
No assembly required
Measures just 33 x 22 x 14 mm.
When the sun shines on the solar panel, the panel makes electricity that turns the motor and the wheels.
A fun demonstration of solar power.
Will also work when close to a strong artificial light source.

Alice Adds: Now all it needs it a tiny solar-powered remote control.

Product Page
£11.99 (roughly $24 USD.)

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

In June, Pure Digital unveiled the Flip Mino, a still-smaller addition to their extremely popular line of flash memory camcorders. Since then, not only has Pure Digital sold its one millionth Flip, according to a new report just released by market research firm NPD Research, it now has the #1 selling camcorder in the U.S.

Take a look at the snippet from the NPD report above (click to enlarge) and you can see that not only does the Flip Ultra hold the #1 spot in June of this year, the Flip Mino, which was just introduced in June, is already at #6.

If you take a look at the full report (download the draft version of NPD’s report here), when you take into account all camcorder sales for all its models, Sony has the #1 ranking, but Pure Digital ranks #2 - and the first Flip was shipped in May of last year.

In an emailed press release, Jonathan Kaplan, Chairperson and CEO of Pure Digital Technologies said:

“Flip’s simplicity makes it easy for anyone to capture and share their stories and to participate in the explosion of video-sharing on the web, and that has been a winning approach with consumers. Our goal was to make video fun again and we transformed the camcorder market in the process.”

Full disclosure: we own a Flip Ultra camcorder. And a testament to how successful Pure Digital is at its goal of “making video fun again” is that my wife, a decided technophobe, picked up the Flip, played with it, and deemed it the simplest, easiest to use camcorder she’s ever seen. She loves its simplicity, its sleekness, and (yes) its cuteness.

As she said, you don’t have to expend mental energy on a new technological skill or know-how that isn’t even that important.

Yeah, she’s not like me. For me, it passed a similar test. I picked it up and was able to use it sans manual. Typical of a technophile, it doesn’t always work out, but it sure did here. And that’s what Pure Digital is aiming for: a camcorder that just does what its supposed to, easily and with no fuss. Good for them.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Earlier this month NVIDIA gave laptop owners with NVIDIA GPUs headaches. The company filed a report with the SEC (.PDF) stating that the company was taking a $150 - $200 million charge to cover (emphasis mine):

… anticipated customer warranty, repair, return, replacement and other consequential costs and expenses arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of our previous generation MCP and GPU products used in notebook systems. All newly manufactured products and all products currently shipping in volume have a different and more robust material set.

The previous generation MCP and GPU products that are impacted were included in a number of notebook products that were shipped and sold in significant quantities. Certain notebook configurations of these MCP and GPU products are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. While we have not been able to determine a root cause for these failures, testing suggests a weak material set of die/package combination, system thermal management designs, and customer use patterns are contributing factors. We have developed and have made available for download a software driver to cause the system fan to begin operation at the powering up of the system and reduce the thermal stress on these chips.

While Dell certainly isn’t the only notebook vendor to use the affected GPUs, they are the first to issue a series of BIOS updates to address the issues. Of course, much like the driver, this will increase your fan usage, cooling the GPU, but increasing noise and reducing battery life.

As noted in Dell’s post, however, if you’re seeing any of the following:

• Multiple images
• Random characters on the screen
• Lines on the screen
• No video

a BIOS upgrade isn’t going to help. Your GPU is fried and you need to talk to Dell Tech Support. My feeling is that, in or out of warranty (and remember, this is just MHO), Dell will stand behind its products and fix them, as they were inherent flaws in the original GPU.

Here are the available BIOS upgrades. While NVIDIA (and everyone’s) been rather closed-mouth about which GPUs are affected, the list of notebooks gives clues to that, revealing systems that are mostly using GeForce 8400M and related video chipsets. Nice to see no listing for my M1730, at least.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I first wrote about Microsoft’s attempts to get Windows XP on the OLPC last December. You may recall that James Utzschneider, the general manager of Microsoft’s emerging market unit, was just about the make at trip to the OLPC Foundation.

Microsoft was having to write a series of drivers and new code to get the OS to boot from the SD card, among other things. They weren’t even clear at the time if they could do it.

Yet Thursday in a post on Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential blog, Utzschneider announced that Windows XP on the XO-1 has RTM’ed.

On another front in this area, Microsoft internally “RTM’ed” (Released to Manufacturing) the Windows XP version we are building for the OLPC XO computer. Windows on the XO looks like it is on track for availability in these types of national educational PC deals in September. We still have no plans to make Windows available for individuals who bought an XO in the Give 1 Get 1 program though.

The addition of XP to versions of the XO-1 will raise the price of the laptop from $188 to slightly over $200, with $3 devoted to the cost of the OS with the rest for hardware adjustments including more RAM. Which of course explains why “Give One, Get One” XO-1’s can’t get the OS: not enough RAM.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I take it Open Tech hasn’t been reading the news, or they would have heard that Apple doesn’t take kindly to clone makers. After all, it’s only been a week since Apple sued Mac clone maker Psystar. On the other hand, this is a clone with a twist.

Open Tech is selling Mac clones, yes, but they won’t install the OS for you. Instead they will provide a kit that will allow the end user to Mac OS X. What they are trying to avoid is this part of the EULA for Mac OS X:

“You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.”

Except - they’re not really avoiding it, are they? That “enable others to do so” clause is a gotcha.

Right now, nothing is available anyway. The site simply says “coming soon” for all their models. Is this to give Apple enough time to sue before they waste time trying to take orders (heh)?

Also, the site has a .tk country code top-level domain (ccTLD). That would be Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand located in the South Pacific. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are headquartered in Tokelau.

More to come, I’m sure.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

On Friday Intel celebrated its 40th anniversary, and as part of that, they unveiled the World Mural Project. The project is a Web-based digital art piece that includes visual and written contents from the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, which stretches around the world. More than 500 young people in 21 countries participated in the project, with approximately 300 Intel volunteers at 70 Clubhouses around the world working with them.

Prior to the unveiling, I had the pleasure of speaking to Favianna Rodriguez, the digital artist commissioned by Intel for this project, Peter Broffman, the manager of Intel’s Informal Education program, and Agnes Kwan, Intel’s international PR manager.

Working with the clubhouses, the idea was to create one piece of digital art all contributed to from all around the world. As I indicated, each contribution would consist of two parts: one part graphic and one part textual.

The topic of the mural: What does the future hold?

This project is also part of Intel’s attempt to give back 1 million employee volunteer hours during their 40th anniversary year. As Intel told me, they are always striving to encourage employees to give back to the community, but this year in particular, they are shooting for more.

(And yes, I did ask about employees giving back to the community during normal “working hours;” after all most of us feel overworked in this global economy. The response was that it was on a case-by-case basis.)

If you click the image above, you can see a larger image of the mural.

In their 40th Anniversary press release, Intel said:

Through this project, youth all around the globe are telling us that they expect computers will continue to change the world in positive ways for the next 40 years and beyond.

“As an industry, we have a responsibility to fulfill these expectations,” said Bruce Sewell, senior vice president for corporate social responsibility at Intel. “By providing opportunities for young people in underserved communities to learn technology literacy and problem-solving skills, we hope to secure the next generation of innovators, thought leaders and role models.”

For those interested, Intel also has a Flickr set to celebrate its 40th anniversary here, with some vintage stuff, like a picture of a 4004 CPU and the original IBM PC.

Happy Anniversary, Intel, and congratulations.