Hasta La Gadget!

What was inside the the Huge Mystery Box? Some people got it with Trekkie Betty’s stockings, others with the second hint, and some with Uhura’s bra. Here is the seeeecret—revealed: The Hot Rod Enterprise.

A couple of months ago Brian asked me: “Do you want to do something cool?”

This is something that Brian asks sometimes. It usually involves latex, handcuffs, and chocolate pudding. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case.

“It’s not what you think,” he added. (see?)

“Hmmm…”—I replied—”does it involve getting in scuba gear, jump on a supersonic plane, skydive into the Pacific Ocean, search for the remains of a Spanish galleon, find a gazillion gold doubloons, buy an island, and hire five former Playboy playmates to play rock paper scissors all day long?”

“No, but it’s pretty cool”—he said—”what about doing a custom Enterprise for JJ Abrams.”

Which, mind you, is not as cool as my first idea, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. And I did. They sent me the Enterprise, one of 30 models. The other 29 were sent to other people: artists, movie directors like Robert Rodriguez, and designers around the country.

Not all of them have arrived, but they are being distributed across cinemas in the US as I write these lines. Mine—Enterprise 10—is located at the The Bridge Cinema de Lux in Los Angeles, California. And my favorite so far—Enterprise 15, or Oreo Enterprise—is located at Rave Town Square Theater in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Check the rest in this link. [Star Trek Enterprise Gallery]

Google’s Android operating system is about to start showing up in a whole slew of consumer electronic devices other than cell phones, according to recent reports.

The Web site Android Guys reported late last week that Motorola is building a TV set top box for Japanese telephone and broadband …

Originally posted at News – Wireless

Welcome to my new Q&A column answering all your questions about cell phones and their accessories, such as Bluetooth headsets, battery packs, and more. I get plenty of questions e-mailed me to me about these subjects, so I figured many of you might have the same questions, too. At times, I might even solicit answers from you readers as well if I’m stumped. Send your questions and comments to me at nicole.lee@cnet.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, let me know in the e-mail.

P.S. I was thinking of calling the column The 411. What do you think?

Let’s begin!:

Q: I would like to know whether I can get an LG CU500V unlocked phone from any Web site or it’s just restricted to the AT&T mobile services? As of now I can only find LG CU500 unlocked phones from Amazon for $99, but it has a older software version unlike LG CU500V. Is it worth the price in today’s date. Since its a bit outdated? What about music quality? What about headphones and charger or it’s available in the box? What about the warranty cover for such Internet purchases? I am currently located in India, Mumbai (Asia Pacific). Please help. — Shaikh, via e-mail

…

(Credit: Sony)

Rumors of a new touch-screen Walkman were already making the rounds on the Web before its official announcement and, true enough, Sony unveiled its latest X-series portable multimedia player at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas back in January. We had the chance to sneak a prototype …

For a long time, Intel’s Atom CPU ruled the mini-laptop universe, powering Netbooks from Asus, Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo and others. After all — who wouldn’t want an inexpensive processor capable of powering an almost-pocket-sized laptop? Especially one perfectly suited of handling basic coffee shop chores such as Web surfing, e-mailing, or blogging.

But when you’re on top, everyone else wants a piece of your action. Two new potential Atom-killers have launched recently, each looking to steal some marketshare from Intel with variations on the Netbook theme. The contenders, in brief, are:

Intel Atom
The smallest processor currently made by Intel, the Atom is found in a majority of Netbook-style laptops. The most common versions are the Atom N270 (1.6GHz) and Atom N280 (1.66GHz), and popular Atom-powered systems include the Asus Eee PC 1000HE and Acer Aspire One AOD150.

AMD Athlon Neo
Intended as a step up from Atom-style Netbook processors, AMD’s Athlon Neo will be seen in ultrathin laptops such as the new HP Pavilion dv2. That particular system has a 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 CPU and a 12-inch display.

Via Nano
Chip maker Via has replaced its older low-power CPU, the C7-M, with the new Nano, specifically designed for Netbooks. The 1.3GHz Nano U2350 was first seen in the Samsung NC20 Netbook.

So, how did these CPUs fare when pitted against each other? To start with, it’s important to note that these are different Netbook-style systems from different vendors, so this is not an exact comparison — but it’s similar to the choices you’ll face when shopping for a low-cost, low-power laptop.

As one might expect, there’s no clear winner. When we sampled three laptops, one with each processor, the system with the Intel Atom was fastest in our multitasking test (but none of these single-core systems were particular adept at this task), but the one with the Athlon Neo was the fastest in one of our single-application tests (in this case, our iTunes encoding test), while the Netbook with the Via Nano was fastest in another single-app test using Jalbum, a photo program we sometimes use in place of Photoshop for low-power or Linux-based systems.

…