This Apple docking station patent shows a screen base in which you can slide in a MacBook through its side. While this would be difficult to do with current MacBook models, it fits perfectly with the idea of the ultra-light, ultra-slim MacBook that allegedly will be presented at MacWorld. Basically, the patent shows an iMac-like unit with all the necessary ports and components, with a slot-loading right bay. The system works similarly to the old PowerBook Duo and its DuoDock base station, but vertically instead of horizontally. The complete patent text and diagrams leave no doubt about how it works:
[USPTO via ]
Running at 7,200rpm and with a 1TB capacity, Samsung’s new F1 RAID Class 3.5-inch HDD offers the world’s highest recording density and is aimed at storage and video surveillance applications. Using just three platters, the HDD’s low power consumption makes it the coolest operating 1TB drive in its class. Full press release is below.
Oh LG.Philips you are cruel. You teased us with your 4,096 A4 electronic paper last year and now you are at it again with this A4 (14.3-inches diagonal) 16 million colour model, with 7,000 hours between charges using a typical battery. LG.Philips says that the penetration of the technology would be fast in Korea. Meanwhile, we will have to settle with just licking it in Vegas. Along with the rest of the other cool-always-coming-never-arriving technologies. [Korea Times]
The Skinny: MediaSmart 1080p LCD TVs are coming of age—both the $US1,900 42″ and the $US2,400 47″ of them will have built-in Microsoft Media Center Extender connectivity and an improved higher-contrast panel (2000:1). They have 3 HDMI ports, 2 component inputs, integrated Wi-Fi in A, B, G, and N flavors and Ethernet. Has ATSC and QAM Tuners and 500cd of brightness. One catch: Though you can rent movies without your PC, the PC still needs to be running, and there’s a bit of a delay.
If you lack the wherewithal to afford one of HP’s dandy new MediaSmart TVs, you can get the next best thing, a $US300 HP x280N MediaSmart Receiver for your plain old non-connected HDTV.
The Skinny: Lenovo’s launching their Ideapad Notebook line and they’ve got textured magnesium covers, 11.1-inch widescreen, SSD options, weight 2.5 pounds, have a 1.3mp camera, touch sensitive multimedia controls, and face recognition biometric logins. Santa Rosa chips. Thinkpad heritage FTW. The Catch:No ultraportable can be called great without an LED backlight.
It’s an HP kind of night, apparently. The HDX Dragon, its beastly 20-inch gaming notebook, gets a shiny new gamer-worthy 1080p res screen: The world’s “first 20.1-inch WUXGA XHD Ultra BrightView widescreen display.” To pump all those pixels, the middling old GeForce Go 8000 video card is tossed in favour a 512MB 8800M GTS. Topping the HD goodness is Blu-ray or HD DVD player options.
The Skinny: HP’s new tx2000 Entertainment Notebook (really a tablet) sequelizes its tx1000 tablet with a slight design change, a new Wacom digitizer “optimised for hand-writing capture” with a rechargeable eraser pen, updated chips and a snazzier skin. The Catch: N-Trig’s DuoSense tech takes every other tablet down a couple of pegs.
Hitachi’s upping the notebook 2.5-inch storage game to the 500GB level, which means that you’ll have much, much more space to store all your eBooks and comics to take with you on the go. The Travelstar 5K500 will be available in 400GB or 500GB models, and have optional Bulk Data Encryption for drive-level security. It also has a power-usage level almost identical to its 5K250 predecessor, and have a 1.9 watt read/write power draw and a 0.7 watt low power idle.
The futuristic skyscraper look that HP conjured up for its MediaSmart Server will be seen in a number of new products branded with the MediaSmart name:
• First up is the mv2120 Media Vault, a junior Linux-based server with the Photo Webshare and iTunes server functionality of its big brother but a much lower cost. (They’ll start at $US300.) More »
