Hasta La Gadget!

The FTC claims that up to 7 rental companies as well as a software firm agreed to cease the usage of spyware which actually obtained unauthorized, recorded confidential and personal information, ranging from logged computer keystrokes to something closer to home – captured webcam images of children, individuals in partially undressed poses, as well as the goings-on behind bedroom doors.

The rent-to-own companies actually used software that was provided by now-defunct software firm DesignerWare LLC in order to assist in the tracking and recovering of rented computers. The FTC claimed that these companies had breached more than just customers’ trust, as they went beyond searching for stolen computers, touting that “an agreement to rent a computer doesn’t give a company license to access consumers’ private emails.”

Perhaps it would be prudent to just make sure that the webcam on your laptop remains taped over as you can never quite tell who might be watching.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Dell Vostro 3360, 3460 and 3560, Toshiba Portégé Z935 Light 13.3-inch Ultrabook,

Are you extremely particular about the kind of processor that your budget-friendly notebook has underneath the hood? I suppose if you have answered in the negative, then you would be pleased to hear that the HP Probook 4545s notebook will be able to pack in quite a decent performance without breaking the bank, while running on an AMD processor to boot. You know the saying, it does not matter what color the cat is, as long as it is capable of catching mice. Well, the HP Probook 4545s notebook is said to be specially designed for the enterprise market, so you can be sure that a handful of key points such as durability, multimedia capability, performance and a full array of ports are taken into consideration.

When it comes to the issue of durability, it is rather obvious that folks who are always busy as a bee and are on-the-go tend to put have their precious notebooks endure some rather harsh moments, through transportation and perhaps even the environment. Good to know that HP has taken the corrective steps to make sure that HP Probook 4545s’ chassis remains rigid all round, using aluminum that has been treated to be smudge and scratch resistant in the process.

Not only that, just in case you are feasting on a dinner of pizza and Coke again, the keyboard has been specially constructed to be spill-resistant, which is a must-have feature for business notebooks as you can never quite tell when a clumsy moment will send that can of Coke flying across the keyboard. Apart from that, there is also an integrated sensor which will park the HDD heads in order to prevent a fatal disk crash just in case you drop your HP Probook 4545s by accident.

HP has also thrown in a webcam that works decently for standard use,while a discrete GPU should make it a decent gaming machine, although do not expect to run the latest titles in the highest quality settings. It has a 15.6″ display at a resolution of 1366×768 which is not too hot in this day and age, but functional. You can have up to an AMD quad-core A8-4500M 2.8GHz + Radeon HD 7640 GPU, up to 8GB RAM, where it carries a pair of USB 3.0 ports and an equal number of USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, and VGA connectivity. Any takers?

Company Page

[ HP Probook 4545s notebook runs off an AMD processor copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

The legal system’s engines can take awhile to get churning, but there’s no questioning the impact when they’re at full bore. German prosecutors have wrapped up an almost three-year investigation into allegations of HP managers’ bribery by charging the executives involved. Hilmar Lorenz, Päivi Tiippana and Ken Willett, along with claimed accomplice Ralf Krippner, have all been indicted for supposedly funneling €7.5 million ($9.7 million) in bribes through a German subsidiary and far-flung shell accounts to land a €35 million ($45.3 million) PC supply deal with Russia’s Prosecutor General Office early in the previous decade. While only the people directly attached to the scandal currently face any consequences if found guilty, German lawyers are motioning to have the PC builder attached to the case, and there’s a chance the formal charges could fuel an ongoing US investigation. HP is cooperating even as it’s trying to distance itself from the indictments as much as possible — these are for old allegations and a “former HP company,” it says. While we don’t yet know the whole story, it may be a protracted tale knowing that at least Tiippana and Willett plan to fight the accusations.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

German prosecution charges HP staff with bribing Russian officials to clinch PC contract originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Forbes  |  Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

Windows 8 is coming folks, and so is an onslaught of new machines featuring Microsoft’s something-for-everyone OS. Dell already showed us some of its fresh consumer Win8 hardware back at IFA 2012, and now it’s the enterprise’s turn to shine. First up is the Latitude 10 tablet, which packs an Intel Atom SoC, a 10.1-inch IPS 1366 x 768 LCD display covered in Gorilla Glass, 8-megapixel primary camera plus an HD front-facing shooter. It’s got 2GB of RAM and up to 128GB of eMMC NAND storage, plus an SD card slot should the integrated storage prove insufficient. Connectivity comes via one full-size USB 2.0 port, a microUSB charging socket, mini-HDMI, a headphone/microphone combo jack, proprietary docking port and a micro-SIM slot for WWAN use. The Latitude 10 packs up to a 60Wh battery, which isn’t remarkable in and of itself, but the fact that it’s removable is. That means road warriors can travel with a spare cell or two to keep their slate in the juice no matter how long they work on it. While the swappable battery can keep the 10 from being tethered to an outlet, the dock Dell built for it ensures it’ll have a stylish place to rest when it is. The dock expands the slate’s connectivity with four USB 2.0 sockets, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and audio output.

Next is the Optiplex 9010 all-in-one desktop we saw earlier this year. It still has the same 23-inch, 1920 x 1080 panel on the front and vPro-equipped Ivy Bridge silicon lurking beneath — the only change is the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8. The Latitude 6430u is an addition to Dell’s venerable business laptop line, and is the first to bear the Ultrabook moniker. It’s generous to label the 6430u as such, as it’s .82 inches thick and weighs 3.7 lbs, but it’s still a fairly thin and light laptop — plus it has the same solid magnesium chassis construction as its Latitude brethren. The 6430u crams a 14-inch, 1366 x 768 matte display into its 13.3-inch chassis, and users have the option of Ivy Bridge Core i3, i5 and i7 silicon with vPro, up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB worth of solid state storage. Naturally, there’s 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth and mobile broadband available for wireless connectivity. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you how much Dell’s new business computers will cost, but we do know that they’ll be available when Windows 8 is, which is to say late October.

Continue reading Dell’s Latitude 10 tablet and dock, OptiPlex 9010 AIO, Latitude 6430u laptop arrive to tempt business pros

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets

Dell’s Latitude 10 tablet and dock, OptiPlex 9010 AIO, Latitude 6430u laptop arrive to tempt business pros originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

There’s potentially bad news ahead if you’re hoping to wipe the drive on that future HP Envy X2 and load Ubuntu — Intel reportedly claimed at IDF that Clover Trail-based Atom processors “cannot” handle Linux properly. As outlined in The Inquirer‘s account of events, the issue is more a matter of optimization than an outright block: Linux doesn’t yet know how to cope with all of Clover Trail’s power state changes at the kernel level, which would put any penguin-powered PC at a disadvantage. Intel would really, really prefer that you run Windows 8, as the new Atom and Microsoft’s OS are tuned to work hand-in-hand. Linux might catch up, but the Windows-only emphasis is a sharp break from Intel’s tendency to shower love on open-source OS projects across the board, including ongoing work like Intel-native Android builds or Tizen.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Software

Intel claims Clover Trail-based Atom won’t properly run Linux, points us to Windows 8 instead originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Engadget Spanish (translated)  |  The Inquirer  | Email this | Comments