New Features Compliment the ThinkPad x200

The ThinkPad x200 has been around for a while. It is the classic boxy, unglamorous and straightforward business work machine—devoid of the frills, thrills, and fancy features that characterize its cousins. Lenovo recently announced that they are launching changes in next generation of X200s and T400s that add a bit of flair to the machine.

The ThinkPad X200 Tablet PC will get an upgrade to its touchscreen. Now, X200 users who purchase the optional touchscreen will be able to use a variety of touches to control their input. Two-finger touch, touch zoom, tapping, flicking, and pinching are all recognized by the touchscreen, and bring a new level of versatility to the device’s capability. Since touch technology has evolved to a new level, ThinkPad’s Sam Dusi remarked that “now [is] the right time for multitouch screens on PCs.” Since most PCs are not yet utilizing touchscreen technology yet, he may just have a point. While Apple’s MacBook touchpad and iPhone (or iPod Touch) are basically bristling with the technology, bringing it into the personal computer side of things may be helpful.

A few additional upgrades to the X200 include an extra-bright screen option for ease of viewing in direct sunlight. The screen also gets a specialized coating, which hides fingerprints and maintains a crystal clear display for the screen. With a boost in battery power, Lenovo is claiming that X200 users can get nine hours of battery life off a single charge, which is a helpful feature for the X200 clientele that includes largely sales personnel, health care, education, and other mobile professionals.

The powerful ThinkPad T400 also utilizes the advanced touchscreen technology. These computers now boast four-finger touch recognition, allowing them to move and manipulate objects, use two hands on the screen, or even collaborate with another user also touching the screen. They call it “advanced capacitive touch” and claim that the advanced hardware can compensate for touch imprecision, light-touch sensitivity, and other features. Lenovo even thinks that the power of the touchscreens will eventually render the mouse or touchpad obsolete.

“SimpleTap” is Lenovo’s trademark for a new tablet-focused technology that adds simplicity and customizability to the touchscreen. SimpleTap launches with a mere double tap anywhere on the device’s touchscreen. The double tap brings up a series of tile-like buttons that can open applications, go to specific websites, turn on the camera, turn off the computer, or other hardware functions. The tiles are completely customizable, meaning that within three quick taps, users can immediately access information or programs in a way that saves time and effort.

A Billion Bucks For Start-up Tech Firms Going Green

Backed by the success stories of Sun Microsystems and empowered by his billions of dollars in capital, Vinod Khosla is at it again. He’s pouring a billion bucks back into Silicon Valley to make the world a bit greener, technology a bit more progressive, and maybe his wallet a bit fatter.

Just yesterday, Khosla Ventures announced that they have raised $1.1 billion for two funds. Vinod Khosla’s venture-capitol firm has solicited funds from outside tech investors and from public sources for a major influx of money into exclusively green technology projects. It is the biggest dedicated fund of its kind in the last three years. This is received as good news for the reviving tech sector as well as for environmental technology research, which Khosla predicts will be big in the years ahead.

Both funds are focused on green tech research as well as IT startups with a focus on innovation and environment. The first fund, the larger of the two, consists of nearly $800 million. The goal of this “Khosla Ventures III Fund” is to aid the traditional pursuits of solar power, biofuels, energy efficiency, renewable batteries, and similar research. As Khosla himself remarked, it’s for “almost anything that can be made renewable, sustainable, more efficient and cheaper.” The money will flow toward research-focused firms which are in their early stages or mid-stage of research. One fourth of this fund was filled by CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System), which boasts the biggest public pension fund nationwide. Sheeraz Haji, who advises green tech research, regards this as a good omen for the future of the fund: “the fact that an investor like CalPERS is stepping up is a good sign.”

The other side of the fund, $250 million worth, is not for your traditional technology. It’s for the wilder side of green research, the kind that Khosla describes as firms who will “take risks that nobody else will take.” Khosla is one to take risks, which is part of the reason he is so successful. But clean tech start-ups which are commonly regarded as too pricey and too risky for investors, are just the kind of start-ups that Khosla wants to empower. He describes the investment strategy as an old-school strategy with a new-world focus: “This is the 1980s style of venture capital — real technical risk with small amounts of money and small teams.” And, while some of the money may get spilt along the way, that’s part of investing, according to the experienced investor himself, who said, “We will often invest in things that have a high probability of failure.”

Violent video games are a hot button issue in this country. Just what effects do they have on our youth, and are they propagating a more violent culture? While the debate rages on, and ratings become more important the issue has really taken off in Venezuela. The lawmakers in the South American country are looking to pass a law that would ban violent video games in the country.

In the capital city of Caracas, crimes occur in droves. Sometimes for something as small as a cell phone. The figures of how many murders there are have been under debate. Many believe that Hugo Chavez has exaggerated the figures so that he can rush laws he deems important into conception.

The ban against video games is a perfect example of Chavez using these statistics. The bill hasn’t been passed yet but there’s a good chance that it will. In order for it to become law, it has to pass two votes in the National Assembly. If it makes it through that step, then all that is left is for Hugo Chavez to sign it.

[via: Reuters]

The title isn’t so much a thought-provoking conundrum as it is the query of a confused mind. Where is mobile going? Laptops are now thinner than my wallet (which is pretty thin), netbooks are cheaper than ever, and smartphones can do everything short of fly me to the moon. But do I need all three? What’s the future of mobile?

As I sit here, typing on my now-oversized laptop, I realize that notebook computers are a lot more mobile than they were just a few years ago. As yesterday’s laptops became more and more powerful, they were advertised as “desktop replacements” because they could do everything that your desktop computer could do. Now, desktops are found less and less frequently on the tops of desks. The notebook is the machine of choice. There is something comforting about having your entire office in your hands as you exit the office for the weekend, but it is still not as mobile as the up-and-comers in the tech world.

The most up-and-comer of them all is the netbook. It’s a notebook for the ‘Net. In other words, you don’t buy it to watch DVDs or do high-power video editing. The only video editing you’ll do is to turn up the volume on a YouTube clip. That’s because the netbook’s primary purpose is to surf the Internet—affordably and portably. Recession means less spending, and with the netbook average price dropping to a projected $399 this year, less spending is easy to do on a netbook. Admittedly, you compromise some of a traditional laptop’s power, but you gain more mobility, flexibility, and even connectivity. Beta versions of netbooks are now rolling out, where users can get online via the 3G network, for example, rather than the local WiFi signal.

Most mobile of all are smartphones. These powerful little devices are highly concentrated packets of power. For a device that plays videos, maintains our audio library, finds the closest Chinese restaurant, manages our finances, regulates our schedules, keeps us in touch with friends, and everything in between, it comes in a very convenient size. When was the last time you tried to stuff your laptop into your pocket?

But how many devices do we really need? Is a day coming when all three devices can be replaced by a single piece of technology? What is the future of mobile?

If you’ve been looking for a chance to try out Sugar Labs’ fresh new take on the user interface — without mucking about in your machine’s internals — the project has a new option for you: Sugar on a Stick.

Sugar on a Stick is based on a custom build of Fedora Linux with Sugar layered on top. It works with Windows, Mac, or Linux computers, although Macs (and some PCs with and older BIOS) will need to boot first from a “helper CD.” After that, it’s all Sugar all the time. The USB stick holds a persistent copy of the filesystem, so unlike a LiveCD any documents created or changed settings will still be around the next time you fire up Sugar.

Most famous for its inclusion on One Laptop Per Child’s XO computer, Sugar is a task- and collaboration-based user interface that dispenses with common computing concepts like file management, windows, and menus. Instead, the user interface consists of full screen applications, ubiquitous collaboration features, and a unique “journal” metaphor for file tracking.

It’s a bold new concept in UI design, and perhaps a way for us to move away from computer conventions like file system management and the desktop interface metaphor that, while revolutionary in their time, have gotten increasingly clunky with age. While the UI was designed for use by schoolchildren, many have praised it for offering a fresh computing experience.

Sugar has been praised by some bloggers for its no-nonsense, easy UI, and its journaling features, task-based UI, and stripped-down application loadout might make it an attractive option for writers or other users looking for an alternative OS that helps them focus more closely on the task at hand. Sugar might also be an intriguing alternative UI for the emerging netbook computer category.

The link above will take you to the Sugar Labs Wiki, which contains all the instructions you’ll need to get Sugar on a Stick up and running.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Mega-ouch: Gizmodo reports that 0% of teens want to get a Zune in the next year, while 100% of teens want an iPod.

Though numbers this dramatic should be taken with a grain of salt, they don’t offer much hope to Microsoft, Sansa, or any of the thousand other hardware manufacturers who have been trying for years, with varying degrees of success, to craft the perfect “iPod killer.” Clearly, they need to go back to the drawing board — like a Stephanie Meyer vampire, the iPod seems extremely difficult to kill.

These numbers come from Piper Jaffray’s biannual Teen Survey (in its eighth year) and show that the iPod has 100% of teens’ attention. It’s worth noting that previous iterations of the survey showed single- or (occasionally) double-digit interest in other devices. Not so anymore. It’s flabbergasting, but 0% of teens wanted anything else as their next player — even those who already owned an iPod competitor.

It’s unfathomable that Apple will stay number one forever. However, at this point it seems the only way for them to lose their market-leader position will be for the PMP market to transform so dramatically that the iPod no longer fulfills customers core needs. Until that happens, Apple will be sitting pretty — on top of a giant pile of money.