Verizon to Offer HP Mini 1000 Netbook and ‘MiFi’ Service due on May 17

If you wish to buy notebooks of Dell and Acer at a discounted price, all you need to do is get into multi-year contract of wireless broadband service from AT&T. Yes! That is the deal between AT&T with partners Dell and Acer.

Similarly, it has been confirmed that Verizon is also coming into the market by selling HP mini 1000 notebooks at prices much lower if and only if the customers sign on the dotted lines of a 2-year wireless service contract.

There is much speculation on the pricing of the notebook as well as on the release date. Expected to be launched sometime in a weeks’ time from now, (rumored that it is due to be launched by May 17, 2009) it will not be a surprise if the notebook is made available at less than 200 bucks ($199) price (the pricing is yet to be confirmed though), but of course with a contract for 2 years and that’s not sickish considering the price advantage.

The model will be actually HP 1151NR, with a slight variation from its predecessor HP mini 1000. The notebook will sport a 10.1-inch monitor, and the tech specifications include: 1GB of RAM, 80GB Hard drive and a 1024×576 pixel clarity display with an integrated 3G modem.

The notebook is available with 3-cell battery. So, Verizon makes your HP mini notebook available to you at a cheaper price or else you need to buy a HP mini notebook starting from $350 and get that configured with 3G modem.

All said it is not one I would love to buy, I rather invest in a USB drive than spending 200 bucks even if someone yells its low on a netbook and why should I take the 2-year contract. Its so sicking, I hated this arrangement, maybe even if the netbook comes for free; a 6 month contract could be sensible.

It doesn’t make any sense to hang around with same netbook for over 24 months, at least me. The netbook will become obsolete by then. Doesn’t it?

Asus K Series K40IN-A1 Now Available in US, Features GeForce G102M

The Asus K Series K40IN-A1 laptop is launched and is presently available in the United States. The K401N-A1 is a 14 incher with LED backlit display that comes with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels the display will be great.

Aside it has an Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2 GHz processor. There is a 512MB video card which is from the GeForce G102M and a dedicated frame buffer. Asus K401N-A1 also has a memory of 4GB DDR2, and the laptop comes with a DVD writer and a 320GB hard disk. The K401N-A1 comes with in built webcam and 1 Gigabit inbuilt Ethernet cord and a LAN port. It also has 802.11b/g/n WIFI with a VGA and MMC/SD/MS media card reader. The laptop comes with Windows Vista Home edition operating system.

The ASUS K Series K401N-A1 laptop runs on 6-celled battery and don’t expect great battery life than 5 hours on continuous computing for the configuration but its light in weight with 5.3 lbs.

Sony Ericsson Yari Mobile Phone Review

Sony Ericsson Yari –Entertainment Unlimited. Sony Ericsson plans to launch mobile phones to combat the recession that has set in with company sales of the otherwise mid-segment phones. The Yari model from Sony Ericsson is basically for the game freaks and is a gaming handset that will revolutionize communication merged gaming industry with Gesture gaming technology.

The handset is expected to rock the gaming world with accelerometer for motion-controlled playing. What does it mean? It implies that you will no longer need otherwise push buttons to control the game. And again Sony Yari will be there with lot many new games.

This handset is a slider Yari model and comes equipped with a 5 megapixel camera with features including auto focus, face and smile detection as well as geo tagging.

The sleek and light weight Yari will support Microsoft Exchange Active Sync and will be available in two shades of achromatic black and cranberry white. It comes with a 2.4-inch display screen, a 60 MB of storage with 1GB micro SD memory card. For enhanced location-based applications there exists A-GPS support for Yari. Network that Yari supports include GSM, EDGE, GPRS and HSDPA. So you name one, it will support, cool!

Sony Ericsson Aino Mobile Phone Review

Pocketable Sony Ericsson Aino. I simply love the names in the Sony product portfolio, the latest Aino is no exception.

Aino, is the new handset from Sony Ericsson weighing juts about 134 grams and measuring 104×50x15.5mm. Now that size cannot tell what it has in store for you guys!

The new handset comes equipped with a slider numeric keyboard and a 3.2-inch touch screen. It may not be a PSP phone but Aino is the first phone with Remote Play. It is an entertaining slider, but unfortunately, the look of Aino is not breathtakingly beautiful.

However, Sony Aino is the first phone to sport touch screen display and a widescreen together. The USP of the model is that it can wirelessly connect to a PS3 from anywhere. You can keep yourself abreast with the latest music, play games and watch videos over Wi-Fi; a mobile phone finally that can sync so well with both your PC and Play station 3.

Well you can also snap your friends with an 8.1 megapixel camera that has auto focus, LED flash, geotagging facility, face detection and image stabilization technology and HSDPA high speed data. It also comes with a multimedia player and an FM radio. This Aino will be available with 55MB memory with micro SD card slot upto 16GB.

This particular smart phone from Sony Ericsson is expected to hit the market in the coming quarter of 2009 in Luminous white and Obsidian Black colors.

HD now possible on Asus Eee Box B204 and B206 Nettops

Asus has vowed to change the perception of Nettops which looked merely a desktop iteration of netbooks. They have announced the Eee Box 204 and B206 that will enable the users to enjoy HD content on their PCs. The HD capable Eee Boxes come with an HDMI output, DVI connector, Eee Cinema media player, remote control and a dedicated ATI Radeon 3400 HD GPU with 256MB DDR2 memory.

Rest of the specs remain identical as its predecessors with Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, 10GB Eee Storage, card reader, WLAN b/g/n, Ethernet and Windows XP Home as the only OS. B204 when compared to B206 is a bit superior because of the inclusion of Bluetooth and an integrated battery which functions like a UPS for the desktop.

No details on the price and availability though.

Nokia N97: First Nseries touchscreen phone

Nokia’s seriousness with the touchscreen interface is quite evident as we are seeing another power packed touchscreen phone coming from the Finnish giant. The N97, first touchscreen in the Nseries family is a multimedia monster boasting humongous storage capacity, bigger battery, large vivid screen and a physical QWERTY keypad under the screen.

The phone runs on the 5th Edition of S60, has a 3.5-inch bright nHD screen supporting up to 640×360 pixels and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Other features are common which you could find in any high-end Nseries device like A-GPS, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and flash, TV-Out, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP and a whopping up to 48GB of storage (32GB onboard and 16GB microSD). N97 also integrates the support for N-Gage games and a higher capacity battery of 1500 mAh, capable of giving around 6.6 hours of GSM talk time or 5.3 hours under the WCDMA network.

N97 will sell in first half of next year at a price tag of 550 Euros ($704) before taxes.

Specifications & Features:

Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100 Size: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm Weight: 150 grams OS: S60 5th Edition Symbian v9.4 Display: 3,5“ bright nHD (640 x 360 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratio) TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback Camera: CMOS 5.0 Megapixel, Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Optics, Flash Connectivity: EGPRS, HSDPA, WCDMA, Wi-Fi b/g Input Methods: QWERTY keyboard, Touch Screen Memory: 32GB onboard, expandable up to 16GB with microSD cards Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and EDR Music Player TV-Out A-GPS with Nokia Maps support Flash Lite 3.0 Nokia AV 3.5mm Talk Time: GSM – 6.6 hours/ WCDMA – 5.3 hours Standby Time: GSM – 430 hours/ WCDMA – 400 hours

Canon HV20: HD camcorders get sleeker, better, cheaper

Now that you know how much better high-definition video is than your DVDs, you must be thinking your home movies are starting to look pretty low-res, too. This spring might be a good time to upgrade to an HD camcorder, when Canon's second-generation consumer model hits the streets. The HV20 sports a few new features that its predecessor, the HV10, didn't have — including a 24-fps Cinema Mode to capture the look of film and an HDMI output for connecting to an HDTV — but the best improvement is probably the price. At $1,099, it's $200 cheaper than what the HV10 debuted at, plus you get an even sleeker form factor. You can almost overlook the fact that it records those state-of-the-art full-HD images to the archaic medium of MiniDV tapes.

Canon's news, as well as Sony's and JVC's HD-cam announcements at CES, means there will be plenty to choose from in the HD-cam arena come spring — as long as you don't mind spending at least a grand for the privelege of shooting super-sharp footage. Have a look at another picture of the HV20 (showing the controls) after the jump.

LG's new touchscreen phone is begging for your thumbgrease

We always say touchscreens are the future of cellphones, and here's proof that it isn't just a pie-in-the-sky idea. The LG KE850 is all screen, with whatever buttons you need coming up for you to press as needed.

There are certainly some drawbacks to touchscreen devices, such as their lack of tactile response, imperfect mapping making you press the wrong buttons, and their propensity to get greasy and disgusting really quickly. There's not much info on the KE850 at the moment, so who knows if LG has addressed any of these problems or is just releasing a phone to those people who've just gotta have a touchscreen phone, no matter what. We'll keep you updated when specs, availability, and price are announced.

Bluetooth watch shows you who's calling, the time

This Fossil FX6001 watch combines classic watch styling with Bluetooth technology, allowing you to see who's calling you without getting your phone out of your pocket. When you get a call the watch will vibrate and show you the name or number of who is getting in touch with you on a OLED screen. If you get a text, it'll let you know who's texting you. Unfortunately you can't actually read the text message on your watch, which would be a really nice feature. In any case it's a convenient way to screen your calls without pulling your phone out of your pocket. If they combined this with the Bluetooth headset watch you'd only have to take your phone out to dial. It's available for preorder now and will be released in November for $250. Thanks Falon for the tip!

Mad scientist creates robot version of himself

If you thought that lifelike female robot Korea was working on was creepy, get a load of this. Hiroshi Ishiguro, a senior researcher at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Japan, has created a robot that looks exactly like himself. Created using casts of his body, his robot doppelganger sits and fidgets, looks around and taps his toe just like his creator. Ishiguro actually created this robot to, no joke, fill in for him in the classroom at Osaka University, where he's a professor. By sending his voice through the robot from his home an hour away while wearing lip-sensors so the robot can replicate what he says, Ishiguro can redefine telecommuting. But why stop there? The possibilities are endless. Oh robot self, you were supposed to pick up the dry cleaning, not strangle everyone at the cleaners with your deadly iron grip! Robot self, I thought you were going to prepare dinner for my wife, not impregnate her with your killer robot spawn. You so crazy!

BenQ Dog Tag MP3 player is for tough guys

You're a tough guy! Look at you, so big and strong. Why, if it wasn't for your crippling fear of both airplanes and dying in a foreign land, you'd surely be in the armed forces. Hey, don't worry, your phobias don't keep you from being a hero in my book!

You don't need real dog tags anyhow. Just snag some of BenQ's MusiQ Dog Tags. They might not have your personal info on them in case you get taken down by an IED, but they can hold music on them! That makes them better as far as I'm concerned. Furthermore, the headphones are incorporated into a chain that looks just like the real thing! How authentic.

The best part of all is the Chinese website for this product. I don't want to spoil anything, but it has something to do with exploiting the WTC wreckage to sell MP3 players. Oops, I spoiled it! Check out the insane screengrab after the jump.

Solar technology could keep beer cold longer

New thin-film solar-power technology could come in handy in a field that I personally have a lot of personal investment in: keeping beer cold. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are working on Active Building Envelope technology, a new science that shrinks solar panels to micrometer-thin sizes, allowing them to be stuck on walls, roofs, or, yes, beer bottles. Less exciting but perhaps more practical uses for the tech could potentially be replacing climate-control systems, such as air conditioning, with thin solar strips on all the windows in an office building. If efficient enough, the thin-film technology could prove revolutionary and move our energy consumption more towards renewable solar power; if not so efficient, it could at least keep my Brooklyn Lager cold for an extra 20 minutes on a summer day. Either way, sounds pretty sweet to me.

Toshiba's new transporter to face Segway in dork-off

Apparently the Segway is so dangerous and crappy that it's illegal to ride around on one on a Japanese road, leaving a huge gap in the human transporter market in that country. You know, cause you see them everywhere here where they're legal. Anyhow, Toshiba is swooping in to fill that gap with their own fuel-cell human transporter, one that comes with OMG LED lights on it to warn people that there's a dork approaching. Apparently it's safer than the Segway, although whether or not it can protect you from getting beat up for your lunch money is not clear. No word on when this will see the light of day or how much it'll cost, but we'll keep you updated.

Sony debuts standalone Blu-ray player, finally

We knew this was coming, but the company leading the charge of Blu-ray in the high-definition disc war no one cares about has finally come out with its own player. Sony, that renowned screwer-upper of formats, just started shipping its BDP-S1 player on Friday, trailing both Panasonic and Samsung, and way behind the HD DVD camp. Playing all your Blu-ray Disc (BD) flavors — including store-bought, write-once, and rewritable media — the shiny player has an HDMI output for feeding ultra-sharp HD images to your HDTV in 1080p format, the Dom Pérignon of high-def signals. And, yes, it'll play your no-longer-cool DVDs, too.

The kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours… as long as you're willing to drop a thousand bucks. Too much for you? You may want to turn your lonely eyes to the PlayStation 3, which happens to be a Blu-ray player, too. Unfortunately, your chances of finding one selling at the $600 retail price before Christmas (or $500 for the lower-powered, but still Blu-ray-enabled, version) are slim to none. But there are only about 125 actual titles available in the format, according to the Blu-ray Disc Association, so what's your hurry anyway?

Flexis 03 concept phone could save your life

The great thing about concept designs is that, generally speaking, there isn't much info provided. It's just a pretty picture, a neat idea someone had, and the nuts and bolts are left up to the readers imagination. So let's talk about this Pantech Flexus 03, shall we?

The Flexus … let's see. Oh, so you see that white nub thing? Well, when you put your thumb on that the phone can detect what kind of food you're in the mood for. Then the built-in GPS will point you towards the best restaurant for you, taking into account distance, price, and reviews. As you can see by the screen, it's a music phone, so let's say it can download whatever song you want from any of the major online music stores on a speedy 3G connection. Yeah, that'd be nice. Also, it cures cancer.

OK, so none of the above paragraph is true (I think… there's a chance it might actually cure cancer), but hopefully sooner or later Pantech will decide to release this thing and give us some, you know, real information about it.

Toshiba makes 100-GB iPod-size hard drive

For the two or three of you out there that have managed to pack your new 80-GB iPods to the gills, good news! Toshiba has just unveiled a 100-GB 1.8-inch drive, the same size and brand used in your favorite music player.

While Toshiba's people didn't mention Apple at all in their announcement of the drive, you know they're just being demure. Apple would have their heads on the proverbial platters if they jumped the gun on any type of product announcement and didn't give Papa Jobs a chance to unveil it in some fancy manner. But in any case, I'm sure there are loads of people out there that have just plum-filled up their insufficient 60- and 80-GB models, what with how much space all those Pixar and Pirate movies take up, and will be delighted to know that they can dump their relatively new purchase for a new, moderately upgraded one.

Just like every other gadget, light bulbs go flat

If you've got a room in your house that never seems to get enough light, has CeeLite got the wallpaper for you. The company's Light Emitting Capacitor (LEC) panels are flexible, paper-thin light bulbs that you can hang on a wall, coming in sizes as large as 3 x 6 feet. Just a millimeter thick, the panels sandwich light-emitting phosphors between layers of electrodes. When an AC voltage is applied, the phosphors light up with a warm white glow, consuming less power than a neon or fluorescent bulb. The panel naturally glows evenly, though you can set them up to dim, glow brighter, or blink like crazy when touched. The panels are already lighting up store windows, dance floors, pillars, and trendy bars — and someday the custom carport I hope to build for my Tesla Roadster. Doubtful if you can buy them retail, but give one of CeeLite's distributors a call if you're still working on the cape for your Dr. Light costume.

Stop the madness! A video player so small you can barely watch it

From the "because we can" department comes this miniscule video player, providing you with the ability to view digital videos on a device about the size of a Listerine PocketPak. Yeah, just look at that thing, it's freaking tiny. Now I thought watching videos on one's cell phone was a dumb idea, but this just goes above and beyond into a realm where I just can't imagine anyone ever wanting to use this. Seriously, a 1.5-inch screen? What can you see on that? You wouldn't be able to make out any text or any faces that weren't shot in close-up. Let's just make an agreement right now, no video on screens smaller than 3 inches. Deal? Gadget makers, are you listening to me? If you simply must impress people with the smallest video player ever, you can pick this thing up by throwing away $80. Good luck.

Fruit clock tells the time, is delicious

This fruit clock will be really amusing and a cool conversation piece for the first few days you own it. You can tell all your guests about how it runs completely off the fruit, and how it uses the original scientific principles on which all modern electrical storage batteries are based to power itself. Isn't that just so cool? But around day 4 or 5, when the orange is starting to get rotten and/or eaten, you'll realize the very basic flaw in the design of the clock: you'll need to stick it in a new piece of fruit every few days and, presumably, reset the clock each time. Sounds like a lot of work for a pretty dorky clock. It's available online now for $15.

Keep tabs on your spawn with the Ion Kids Tracker

Since GPS implants aren't yet available/socially acceptable, it looks like your best option for tracking your rambunctious little child is the Ion Kids tracking system. It consists of two parts: first is the wristband that locks (locks!) onto the wrist of your child, second is the tracking unit. The point of the device is to be able to tell if your kids leave the yard, and if they hide under the sink after one of your drunken rages you can also use the "find" button to locate them. Furthermore, if it detects that it isn't touching a child's skin anymore it'll let you know that little Madison or Ethan or whatever you named your poor kid has been smashing at his parole bracelet with a rock. Now that's peace of mind! It's available now for a mere $300.