Dec 30

HP files for ‘Zeen’ and ‘Airlife’ trademarks for handheld devices

Posted in: cellphone, handheld, HP, smartphone, Today's Chili

Having only recently marked its return to the handheld computing space with the iPAQ Glisten, HP seems intent on forging ahead with more hardware in the coming year. The above trademark applications — filed in September and October 2009 — mark out some very broad categories, but we can narrow them down a little with the help of some context. Given all the industry excitement over tablet devices, the Zeen could well be the name of a forthcoming slate-shaped machine and accompanying software, while Airlife seems to be planted firmly in the smartphone arena. The moniker suggests a software ecosystem rather than actual hardware, but that would make little sense with just one handset out there; if we were the betting type (and believe us, we aren’t), we’d probably expect to see more mobiles coming from the computing giant in order to take advantage. Of course, companies don’t always follow through on trademark applications, but it sure seems as if HP is casting a wary eye over the burgeoning handheld market (and / or planning to not get left behind in the months ahead).

HP files for ‘Zeen’ and ‘Airlife’ trademarks for handheld devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink New York Times  |  sourceUSPTO (Zeen), USPTO (Airlife)  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 29

HP 210 netbook forgets announcement in lieu of support pages, retail listings

Posted in: HP, netbook, Today's Chili

Uh oh, looks like HP has confused its product release order of operations. Without even a hint of an official announcement, the HP 210 netbook has appeared in two quadrants of the internet: retail and troubleshooting. The former is eCost, which claims the 10.1-inch matte black portable is in stock for $390 and touts a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 (yep, that’s Pine Trail), integrated graphics, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, and a 6-cell battery. As for the latter, we need look no further than HP’s own support pages — similar to what happened with the Mini 311 back in September. So will we get an eye-full before CES or will we have to wait for the big show? After?

HP 210 netbook forgets announcement in lieu of support pages, retail listings originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  sourceeCost, HP Support  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 28

HP Envy 14, Envy 17, and new EliteBooks leak onto the scene

Posted in: HP, laptop, Laptops, leak, Today's Chili

The tap that keeps on leaking has inadvertently let loose an internal “notebook index” document that corroborates earlier rumblings of a forthcoming Envy 14. Sourced from HP’s Korean site, this little ditty reveals Envy 14 and Envy 17 models, which both tick the ‘HP external USB DVD Drive’ category, bringing up the intriguing possibility of a 17-inch laptop without an integrated optical drive. The bigger machine is also listed alongside “new” 6- and 9-cell battery packs, but other internal specs remain unknown. In other news, successors to the Elitebook 2730p tablet, 2530p ultraportable and 8730w desktop replacement have been spotted, with 16:9 display ratios on the smaller machines and 16:10 on the 17-inch workstation. Hit the read link for more details, and keep it locked to the Engadget channel as CES hits in a few days’ time, when a lot of these sketchy leaks will be replaced by exhaustive spec sheets and full-color, in-the-metal photography.

[Thanks, Billy]

HP Envy 14, Envy 17, and new EliteBooks leak onto the scene originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 22

HP Responds to Claims of Racist Webcams

Posted in: HP, Today's Chili, YouTube

Are Hewlett-Packard MediaSmart webcams racist? Not exactly.

In a video posted to YouTube this week, two co-workers – one white and one black – tried out the webcam face-tracking software on an HP MediaSmart computer. It is supposed to follow users as they move, but it fails to recognize Desi, a black man. When his co-worker Wanda, who is white, enters the frame, it immediately recognizes her and follows her in the frame.

“As soon as my blackness enters the frame … it stopped,” Desi said. “As soon as white Wanda appears, the camera moves. Black Desi gets in there? Nope, no facial recognition anymore, buddy. I’m going on record and I’m saying it. Hewlett-Packard computers are racist.”

Despite the accusations, Desi is good-natured and seemingly amused by the problem.

HP responded on its community blog.

“We are working with our partners to learn more,” HP said. “The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty ‘seeing’ contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting.”

“Everything we do is focused on ensuring that we provide a high-quality experience for all our customers, who are ethnically diverse and live and work around the world,” HP continued. “That’s why when issues surface, we take them seriously and work hard to understand the root causes.”

PCMag’s network analystSamara Lynn’s take on this issue: Don’t Play the HP Race Card.

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Dec 21

HP Mini 210 spied with PineTrail CPU, found cavorting on retail sites

Posted in: HP, intel atom, IntelAtom, Mini, netbook, Today's Chili

Remember that Mini 210 mentioned in HP’s leak from a few months back? Looks like it’s on the comeback as the Pine Trail-powered replacement for the Mini 110 (noticing a trend here?). Logichp has some fancy press pics, and additionally, online retailer eCost lists the little guy for $321 and claims 1GB of RAM, 160GB to 250GB HDD, 802.11b/g/n, card reader, and Windows 7 Starter Edition, a.k.a. the new norm for netbooks.

[Thanks, Tim]

HP Mini 210 spied with PineTrail CPU, found cavorting on retail sites originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Laptoping  |  sourceeCost, Logichp  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 17

Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Desktops

Posted in: Apple, hewlett-packard, HewlettPackard, HP, imac, lenovo, Today's Chili

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today’s bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the holiday season.

Let’s face it, not everyone needs (or wants) to carry their computer around on the daily routine. Sacrificing portability can have its advantages — and while nettops and all-in-one PCs have become a much more dominant force this year, the traditional, highly upgradeable desktop tower is still the reigning bang-for-the-buck champ. Just make sure your certain special someone has enough desk real estate for whatever potentially-enormous chassis you decide to take home and wrap.

Gallery: Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Desktops

Continue reading Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Desktops

Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 14

LCD price fixing investigation reaches $860 million in total fines, Chi Mei latest to ‘fess up

Posted in: Apple, att, HP, Law, LCD, nokia, Today's Chili

It’s not every day we get to cite an official US Department of Justice news release, so it’s with a certain glee that we can announce the US taxpayer was last week enriched by another $220 million courtesy of the not-so-fine folks who swindled him out of that money in the first place. Joining the ignominious ranks of LG, Sharp, Hitachi and Chungwa Picture Tube, Taiwanese manufacturer Chi Mei is refunding the US state for the pecuniary impact of its collusive practices, which were primarily related to keeping prices artificially high and profits proportionately inflated. US companies directly affected by these ignoble activities include HP, Dell and Apple, but don’t you worry, AT&T has already started the inter-corporation scuffle, with Nokia piling on for good measure. Man, it almost seems like crime doesn’t pay.

LCD price fixing investigation reaches $860 million in total fines, Chi Mei latest to ‘fess up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashdot  |  sourceUS Department of Justice  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 10

The 3 Best Netbooks Right Now

Posted in: HP, Mini, netbooks, Today's Chili, top, Toshiba

Yesterday, we saw the best laptops at any price. But what about their little brothers, the netbooks? Quite simply, here are the three best models that you should choose from, provided by Mark Spoonauer from Laptop:

Toshiba mini NB205

Starting Price: $399.99 ($382.36 now at Amazon)
If you’re going to be staring at a 10-inch screen for hours on end you deserve a design that doesn’t feel claustrophobic, and the 3-pound NB205 delivers with the biggest touchpad in its class and a spacious chiclet-style keyboard. This netbook doesn’t look cheap either, thanks to the textured lid and slick color options (black, white, pink, blue or brown). We’re not fans of Windows 7 Crippled Edition, but the NB205’s nearly 9 hours of battery life and 250GB hard drive make this $399 machine a great deal. [Review]

HP mini 311

Starting Price: $399
What a difference Nvidia graphics make. This Atom+Ion-powered netbook can not only handle mainstream games like World of Warcraft without breaking a sweat, it takes full advantage of Flash Player 10.1’s hardware acceleration for dramatically smoother Hulu playback on the 11.6-inch screen (or bigger screen via HDMI). You can even edit video on this 3.2-pound powerhouse, which comes with a stylish HP Swirl pattern in black or white. If you care about longer battery life, get the cheaper Windows XP version.
[Windows XP Review] [Windows 7 Review]

Samsung N140

Starting Price: $384.99
Samsung made a splash last year with its first netbooks for the U.S., and the $399 N140 builds upon the success of the NC10 but modernizing the design, adding Windows 7 (though it’s Starter), and beefing up the hard drive to 250GB. Available with a burgundy or blue lid and outlined with silver trim, this Atom machine performs like other netbooks but features a glare-free matte display and comfy keyboard. You also get decent audio courtesy of SRS Sound. [Review]

Mark Spoonauer is the editor-in-chief of Laptop Magazine and Laptopmag.com, which reviewed over 130 notebooks and netbooks during 2009. To see all of their top picks of the year, click here.

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Dec 10

HP Plans 1-2 Windows Phones Next Year

Posted in: HP, Today's Chili, Windows Mobile

glisten-200.jpg

The HP iPAQ Glisten (eww) may be an underwhelming, stock Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. But HP isn’t out of the smartphone business; in fact, they never were, HP’s Mike Hockey said to me today.
HP has been releasing one or two phones a year for a few years, but the last one we actually saw on a US carrier before the Glisten was in 2006. The HP iPAQ 510 from 2007 and the HP iPAQ 910 from 2008 never made it to a carrier in the US, but they were more popular with carriers in Europe and Latin America, Hockey said.
The company has refocused on getting phones into US carrier channels, acknowledging that unlocked devices just aren’t going to sell over here in large quantities. So expect to see iPaq phones appearing on US carriers at least annually from here on out. That will allow HP to sell to “prosumers” and small businesses as well as big enterprise buyers.
HP also has a “tight, ongoing” relationship with Microsoft, Hockey said. It sounds like HP will stick with Windows phones for a while going forward – and that explains, in many ways, the major problem with the Glisten. Unadorned Windows Mobile 6.5 just isn’t attractive to anyone except large enterprise IT buyers right now.
Before you mock, remember that Apple only releases one phone a year, but it’s a great device. If you want to be a presence in the phone market, you can do it with one phone a year, but that phone has to be a real differentiator. The Glisten, with its creaky generic Windows Mobile 6.5 build, just isn’t it.
All that could change next year, if Windows Mobile 7 impresses. HP better hope it does.
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Dec 09

HP leaks forthcoming Radeon GPUs, Core i3 CPUs, Hulu and Netflix software integration

Posted in: ati, CoreI5, CoreI7, HP, hulu, intel, leak, netflix, radeon, Today's Chili

We’ve come across a bonanza of information about HP’s Spring 2010 plans for North America. Kicking off the new year in style will be Pavilion desktops featuring a choice between ATI’s Radeon HD 5350 (code named Evora Cedar), which will have HDMI, DVI and VGA ports along with 1GB of onboard memory, or the juicier Radeon HD 5570 (aka Jaguar), which bids adieu to VGA in favor of DisplayPort and bumps up the memory allowance to 2GB. Core i3-5xx and Core i5-6xx machines are also slated for the early part of 2010, based on that energy-conscious Clarkdale core we’ve already seen, with the difference being that Turbo Boost and higher L3 cache (4MB versus 3MB) will be available on the higher numbered chips. Arrandale fans need not despair either, as HP’s TouchSmart 600 all-in-ones will be getting upgrades to Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs based on that architecture. Finally, on the software side, HP is introducing native Hulu and Netflix to its MediaSmart software suite. Check out the gallery below for more, and let the waiting begin!

Gallery: HP leaked slides

HP leaks forthcoming Radeon GPUs, Core i3 CPUs, Hulu and Netflix software integration originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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