Desktops
Photos: Dell Studio One 19 hands-on 
Women: if they're not complaining, they're baking a smashing pie. And that's one of many sexist kitchen-centric gags you won't be hearing from us today, no sir. For our topic is Dell's Studio One 19 -- a 19-inch touchscreen all-in-one, best suited for the modern kitchen -- and its recent adventure with our fingers on its face in Paris.
Initially released only in Japan, Dell's answer to the Asus Eee Top has become available to UK kitchens recently, for upwards of £649, and its capacitive touchscreen actually surprised us. For one thing, it worked, and in the world of cheap touchscreen devices, that's a sizeable achievement on its own. But also it supports elements of multitouch technology -- such as pinching a browser window to zoom in and out -- which also did what they were supposed to. Amazing. Continue reading...
Breadbox64: Twitter on your Commodore 64
Thank heavens! No longer do we need to be away from Twitter for a second -- even in the midst of a deep bout of nerdstalgia. For we can now tweet from our Commodore 64 using the adorable app called Breadbox64.
Your Commodore needs an Internet connection, of course, but as developer Johan Van den Brande points out, it's all very doable. In a post on his site, the Belgian engineer gives a step-by-step guide and even offers the app for free download. Continue reading...
Advent AIO-101, AIO-156: All-in-one twins
The tech stork delivered bouncing baby twins this morning, in the form of two Advent all-in-one PCs. It's just as well -- we're horribly hungover and in no mood to clean up the droppings of an actual human infant.
The Advent AIO-101 and its slightly smaller brother, the AIO-156, look almost identical but have wildly differing specs. The AIO-101 gets an 18.4-inch display, a dual-core Athlon X2 3250e, ATI HD 3200 graphics, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and a built-in TV tuner.Continue reading...
Steve Jobs ready to appear at WWDC?
Steve Jobs is on track to return to the helm of Apple this month after six months of medical leave, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal that cited unnamed sources.
Jobs announced in January that he would be stepping down temporarily from the chief executive post while recuperating from a hormone imbalance, and a return to the company this month could coincide with an appearance at the Worldwide Developers Conference, which opens on Monday in San Francisco. The centrepiece of the conference is expected to be the App Store and the new features of the iPhone OS 3.0, but there has also been speculation that Apple will unveil a new iPhone as well. Continue reading...
Shuttle X Vision X50 all-in-one: Ready for your meat grease
Nettops have never achieved the same popularity as their portable netbook brethren, but that hasn't stopped Shuttle crashing the party. Its entry, the X Vision X50 all-in-one PC, takes an unusual approach to combating consumer apathy -- it packs a tiny display and very few features.
Its 15.6-inch screen is no bigger than most laptops, but the X50 is ideal, we think, as a bedside or kitchen computer. You could use it to play movies, music from Spotify or to browse recipes in the kitchen without getting meat grease all over your cookbooks. Sure, you'd get meat grease all over the X50, but it feels relatively sturdy and can be wiped clean.Continue reading...
VirtualBox: Windows 7 on your Mac for free
If you've got a Mac with an Intel chip and you're itching to scoff at Microsoft fanboys who reckon Windows 7 will be a huge step forward, fret no longer. You can easily setup and run Win7 in a virtual environment on an Intel Mac -- we've tried it out. We can't advise every Intel Mac user to try this, but if you're an experienced computer user and take care to make sure your current data is backed up beforehand, this method for getting the Windows 7 Release Candidate on your Mac is pretty simple. The best part about it? It's free. Continue reading...
New Apple Mac ads: Stitch that, Microsoft!
Greetings, fight fans. Three new Apple ads have bounced into the ring, ready to hit back at Microsoft's recent sucker punches. Llllllets's get readyyyyy to rummmmmmble!
But first, let's recap. This most vehement phase of the Mac vs PC flame wars began with the introduction of Apple's famous "I'm a Mac" ads. Mac is a louche, laid-back hipster hanging out with staid, be-suited PC, a neat if infuriatingly reductionist summation of the brand perceptions surrounding these rival products. Continue reading...
Intel fined a record €1bn for illegal business practices
Intel has been smacked with a record fine of €1.06bn (£950m) by the European Union, for breaking EU competition law between 2002 and 2007 in an attempt to restrict its only real rival, AMD.
The chipmaker believed paying Dell, Acer, Lenovo, HP and NEC to delay or stop the launch of machines with its comparatively small competitor's chips inside, was fair play. The EU did not. And it also didn't believe giving manufacturers 'loyalty rebates' on the condition they bought almost all of their chips from Intel was okay either. Continue reading...
Apple preparing iMac, MacBook price cuts?
Apple could be getting ready to cut prices on iMacs and MacBooks.
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple plans to introduce less expensive versions of its two most popular Macs at some point over the next several months. It's not clear how much of a cut Apple has in mind, or whether it plans to offer more value at current prices, but Apple has apparently decided that it wants to hedge its bets against a proliferation of cheap netbooks over the last year or so, according to the report.
Mac pricing has certainly been a big topic over the last several months, as Microsoft has aggressively pushed the notion of the Mac as an expensive bauble unfit for recessionary spending. Continue reading...
Apple Macs to get Blu-ray drives?
In the yet-to-be-released iTunes 8.2, Blu-ray gets a mention on the 'About iTunes' splash screen.
For those not well-versed in the world of Apple computers, Mac machines currently don't support Blu-ray discs. Although you can install a third-party optical drive in the Mac Pro, you'll still need to boot into Windows to read Blu-ray media. But, if iTunes is going to allow ripping from these discs, we might finally see Macs and MacBooks with fully integrated Blu-ray support and drives.
Back in October, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs famously called Blu-Ray and its licensing process "a bag of hurt", implying that it was too expensive and too complicated for Apple to add Blu-ray drives to Macs. Continue reading...
