HP redesigns its ProBook laptops for small businesses, prices start at $499
Last fall, HP took a small step toward refreshing its ProBook business notebooks when it started offering some of them with AMD Trinity chips. Eight months later, it's time for a real makeover: the company just announced a handful of new models with a thinner, lighter design and a fresh look. The ProBook 430, 440, 455 and 470 range in size from 13.3 inches to 17.3, and are made of aluminum, with spill-resistant keyboards and a soft-touch paint job. With the exception of the 430, which ships in July with Haswell, they'll arrive this month with a mix of Ivy Bridge CPUs and AMD Richland chips. (Specifically, only the 14- and 15-inch models will be offered with AMD.)
Other particulars: they all have 1,366 x 768 matte displays (non-touch), with the 17-inch model stepping up to 1,600 x 900. All but the 430 can be had with an optional optical drive; if you skip it, there's a weighted placeholder sitting where the DVD burner would be. Additionally, the 440, 450 and 470 can be used with a six- or nine-cell user-replaceable battery. Everything comes standard with a hybrid hard drive, but the 430 also has an SSD option. Again, all but the 13-incher will be available this month, for $499 and up. So, you can bide your time until then, or you can tide yourself over with that handful of photos below.
Filed under: Laptops, HP
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Xperia Z goes on sale at the US Sony Store for $630, Xperia ZL gets a price cut
Americans wanting one of 2013's Sony flagships have had access to the Xperia ZL for awhile, but they've had to chase down an importer if they wanted the glass-backed chic of the Xperia Z. Sony has quietly put that dilemma to rest by offering the Xperia Z through the US Sony Store. For $630, locals can get an unlocked version of the flagship in black, purple or white, albeit only with HSPA+ 3G for carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile; there's no LTE to be found. Those who do want 4G speeds won't have to pay a premium, however, when Sony is selling the LTE-equipped ZL for the same $630. While neither deal will be quite as tempting as subsidized phones at major carriers, those willing to pay full price for Sony gear can now afford to be a little picky.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sony, AT&T, T-Mobile
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Via: Xperia Blog
Source: Sony Store
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How would you change Lenovo's IdeaTab S2109?
When we reviewed Lenovo's IdeaTab S2109, one quote sums up the essential frustration of this particular device. "There's no one huge, glaring reason to stay away; no, it's the combination of a middling CPU, unimpressive battery life and design quirks [...] that adds up to an experience that leaves us wanting more." So let's talk about why this device inspires so much apathy? If you bought it, what about it made it so unspectacular, and what do you think Lenovo could have done differently?
Filed under: Tablets, Lenovo
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Refresh Roundup: week of April 29th, 2013
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
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BlackBerry R10 leaks again with reported specs, hints at a budget Q10
Our initial look at the BlackBerry R10 quickly suggested that the smartphone would be a budget alternative to the Q10, but it wasn't clear just what we'd lose by penny-pinching. If DGtle is on the ball with its newly claimed specs, though, we won't sacrifice as much as we thought. Along with offering more photos of the R10, the site believes that the handset will have the same 3.1-inch screen size and 2GB of RAM as its QWERTY sibling. Instead, the sacrifices would mostly affect media hounds: the R10 reportedly steps down to a 5-megapixel camera in addition to previously hinted cutbacks in storage (to 8GB) and battery (to 1,800mAh). We may learn the full truth soon enough -- while there's no guarantees anything will happen, next week's BlackBerry Live conference is a prime opportunity for an unveiling.
Filed under: Cellphones, Blackberry
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Via: MobileSyrup, N4BB
Source: DGtle (translated)
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B&N cuts Nook HD, HD+ prices this week, hopes you'll gift mom poetry and prose May 12
As if bringing the Nook HD and HD+ access to Google Play this week wasn't already a sweet deal, Barnes & Noble is temporarily slashing the prices for its two reading-focused tablets. The reductions will last until the end of Mother's Day, putting the 7-inch Nook HD 8GB at $149 and the 16GB at $179 (a $50 discount), with the 9-inch HD+ set at $179 for 16GB and $209 for 32GB ($90 off). Compared to other options like the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 tablets, the deal may be enough to make up for both HD's lack of cameras and their UI shortcomings. Check out our reviews of the HD and HD+ if you're interest is piqued, and hit up the source link if you'd like to snag one. Full press release after the break.
Update: We'd also like to remind our UK readers that a similar limited-deal deal was put in place a few days ago, dropping the price of the Nook HD from £159 to £129, and the Nook HD+ from £229 to £179.
Filed under: Tablets
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Source: Barnes & Noble
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The Weekly Roundup for 04.29.2013
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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Switched On: On iOS, Now is Google's time
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In the early days of the internet economy, the saying went that webpages were created on Macs, served on Unix and viewed on Windows. In the iOS app economy, it's often the case that apps run on devices by Apple, but connect to services by Google. With the exception of many games, at this point, apps increasingly strive to be internet services.
Google has been investing in more of these services for a longer time and in a way more directly tied to apps than Apple has. Google Maps has been the best example, but others include Google Drive (with its editing features), Google Voice and Google+. In contrast, Apple's biggest consumer online service success (other than the iTunes store) has been iCloud, which is less app-like and more of a silent shuttle for documents and files among iOS devices.
Filed under: Software, Apple, Google
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All-in-one Atari 2600 controller crafted to curtail retro gaming clutter
Ahhh, the venerable Atari 2600. The godfather of console gaming has, in recent years, seen a resurgence as a hacker's muse -- mods to its innards and controllers are legion on the web. Recently, a new mod emerged: a controller that combines the capabilities of the Atari's joystick, paddle and keyboard controllers. It's crafted from a small wooden box, a cannibalized joystick, an Ethernet cable, some switches and a smattering of other electronic bits, and there's a full how-to on making one of your own on Instructables, courtesy of user x2Jiggy. If the mere mention of such an all-in-one has those DIY juices flowing, head on past the break for a construction video and see how it's done. It's high time you dust off your stock 2600 and break out Pitfall, Adventure or, well, Breakout.
Filed under: Gaming
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Via: Hack a day
Source: Instructables
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The After Math: The (homemade) hammer of Thor, Virgin space flights and an atomic movie
Welcome to The After Math, where we attempt to summarize this week's tech news through numbers, decimal places and percentages.
This week's After Math appears to have taken on a comic book theme. Want to make your own Thor hammer? How about your very own Atomic Watch -- rather than those radio-wave-based excuses of a timepiece? We've also got the very real prospect of civilian flights to outer space and, er, Kobe Bryant advertising Lenovo smartphones. Stranger things have happened, right? Join us after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Alt
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Get $100 off MAKE's Hardware Innovation Workshop this May 14-15!
We come bearing tidings of good savings from our friends at MAKE: get $100 off the regular price of the second annual two-day workshop designed for makers turning their projects into real businesses. The Hardware Innovation Workshop kicks off at the College of San Mateo just before Maker Faire Bay Area on May 18-19, and features big names in the world of making and innovation as well as startups you haven't heard about -- yet. The workshop will focus on innovative tools and technology, platforms and projects and devices and designs based on open hardware.
Read on to find out who's speaking...
Filed under: Wearables
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Ender's Game trailer teased on Google+, promises full preview on May 7th
Film promotion has changed over the years. Sure, there are still posters, trailers, TV spots, and radio and print ads, but now there's also Google+ -- at least for Ender's Game. The upcoming film, based on Orson Scott Card's award winning sci-fi novel, is using the social network to tease fans -- flaunting a brief peek at the film's trailer and advertising a Google+ Hangout with the film's creators. Leading actors Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield kicked off the hype machine by introducing a teaser trailer for the film, promising the full preview as a Google / YouTube exclusive next week. The entire clip (introduction included) falls under a minute, just long enough for die-hard fans to cry "the book is better." You can take your continuity complaints to the film's director, producer and star on May 7th.
Filed under: Google
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Source: Google+, YouTube
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Inhabitat's Week in Green: dog with prosthetic limbs, glowing sheep and gourd building blocks
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.
The start of May saw an abundance of groundbreaking stories about flora and fauna -- first, there was the heartwarming story of Naki'o, the first dog to be fitted with four prosthetic limbs after losing his legs to frostbite. Then we were surprised and slightly disturbed to learn that scientists in Uruguay used genetic engineering to create glowing sheep with genes from the Aequorea victoria jellyfish. In other illuminating news, a team of bioengineers in San Francisco is using genes from fireflies to create plants that glow. And the Institute of Space Systems in Germany announced plans to use Heliospectra's new LED lighting systems to conduct research into growing vegetables in outer space.
Filed under: Misc, Science
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Left 4 Dead 2 now available on Linux, reclaims beta moniker
Valve's bid to lure gamers away from Microsoft's platform just got a little sweeter: Left 4 Dead 2 is finally available on Linux. Despite early appearances in early leaks, the game has been absent from Steam's Linux compatible library. The wait might have been worth it -- early ports of the game apparently only ran at six frames per second, but it eventually surpassed its Windows counterpart. Now, Valve is looking towards is community to fine tune the port even further, offering a fully functional beta client to Steam users who already own the game. Although the focus here is Linux compatibility, the company is offering the beta to Windows and Mac users as well, and says that running the game on any system helps with testing. Ready to take down the horde? Fire up Ubuntu and get started. Otherwise, you can check out the company's official announcement at the source link below.
Filed under: Gaming
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Source: L4D Blog
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Debian 7.0 'Wheezy' now available, lets Linux users mix architectures
In a market crowded by ocelots, cows and mountain lions, it's nice to see an operating system that isn't named after an animal. The trend bucking OS? Debian's 7.0 update, Wheezy. Okay, it's technically the name of a penguin from Toy Story, but we'll give it a pass. The distro's latest revision hit over the weekend, offering users an improved installer, new media codecs, UEFI support and a handful of tools to help users create their own XCP and OpenStack cloud severs. Perhaps even more significant is multiarch support, which allows the OS to install packages for both 32 and 64-bit machines simultaneously, improving support for legacy applications. The update includes a ton of software updates as well. Thinking of upgrading? You'll find release notes and download information at the source link.
Filed under: Software
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Via: Phoronix
Source: Debian
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Pebble gets a golf app now, two-way app support within a month
Pebble and its developer partners have been working at a manic pace in recent days, and they've just released a flood of status updates that prove they're not easing up. Along with confirming that the first red watches have shipped inside of the past week, Pebble is now claiming one of its first notable golf apps through an updated version of Mobile Software Design's Freecaddie. Would-be PGA stars can check the hole distance and par when paired up with an Android phone, with iOS support due soon. At least some owners can look forward to a bright future, too. An SDK update within the next month will allow two-way interaction between apps and watches, albeit only with Android devices in any realistic way -- iOS releases bound for the App Store won't support bi-directional use "at this time." That's certainly an unfortunate discrepancy, although we may be too busy perfecting our swings to notice.
[Image credit: Thomas Harbinson, Twitter]
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables
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Source: Kickstarter, Google Play
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Mystery LG smartphone spied with no front buttons
Hello, what's this? While many of us were out enjoying the spring weather, @evleaks was busy posting photos of an unknown LG smartphone that, if real, represents a notable shift in the Korean company's design language. The device shares the Nexus 4's slightly curvy outline and lack of front-facing hardware buttons, but appears to have a taller screen, a new speaker grille and a different sensor layout. It's not very likely to be part of the Nexus program with that conspicuous LG logo at the front, but there are few other clues as to where it would fit in LG's phone family -- is it an Optimus G sequel, an Optimus LTE2 follow-up, or something entirely fresh? We may well see more of this mystery hardware in the near future, though, and there's already a close-up of the top bezel to be found after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG
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Source: @Evleaks (Facebook), (Twitter)
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