HP has launched a new tablet-like screen, called DreamScreen 100 and 130. The DreamScreen is priced at $250 and eatures a 10.2″ 800×480 (16:9) display, 2GB of storage (1.5GB useable), 2 USB ports, a 6-in-2 card reader, 10/100 LAN and 802.11 b/g connectivity, built-in speakers and a headphone jack. Meanwhile, the 130 model will ship with a 13.3″ screen for $300 later this month

The DreamScreen supports a variety of popular media formats, including MPEG 1, 2 and 4, AVI, M-Jpeg, H.264, MP4, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, MP3, WMA, AAC, and WAV.

It is ideal for the use as digital picture frame with media streaming. It allows you to stream photos, music and videos as well as connect to Pandora, Facebook and Snapfish.

The HP Envy 13 ultra thin laptop is the Windows 7 running laptop that competes with the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Notebook Italia’s website uploaded few pics of HP Envy 13, the 13.1-inch laptop fueled by Windows and packing two USB ports along with HDMI.

As it is going to carry Windows 7, we can expect HP Envy 13 ito be available for buying until late October.

Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 is a lightweight laptop that runs on a Windows PC . Inspiron Mini is essentially a mini laptop or can be  in netbook spectrum, roughly the same size and weight as the Asus Eee PC 900 and smaller than HP’s rival 2133 Mini-Note PC..

The Inspiron Mini 9 is based on Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom processor and comes with 1Gb of memory and can hold a 16GB Flash solid state drive (SSD) with Windows, or an 8GB Flash SSD for the Linux version. It has a four-cell 32WHr lithium-ion battery pack.

It also have two USB ports and a Flash memory slot that would take SD Card, Memory Stick Pro and Multimedia Card Flash storage. It also includes an Ethernet port, VGA output, a third USB port and audio jack socket.

Looking at the Inspiron’s keyboard, it looks like reasonably good for typing, although many of the keys are smaller than on a standard laptop, such as the right hand shift key, the cursor (arrow) keys and the return key. It do not have rows of function keys at the top.

It consists of 8.9inches display with 1024 x 600 resolution. Dell is shipping the machine over loaded with tools and utilities. It also includes McAfee Security Center, Dell’s WebCam Central, Dell Video Chat and Google Desktop Search adding unnecessary load at boot-time.
The product is available for purchase only in retail counters for now

MPC has re branded Intel’s Classmate PC to a wider audience terming it now the TXTbook, the first North American version available for individuals.

The design is not changed much from the second-generation Classmate PC model and is small enough with its 8.9-inch screen to be used comfortably school goers and also is made durable enough to handle jerks, bumping and drops.

The system boasts a speed improvement over the original by switching to a 1.6GHz Atom that also gives the small notebook up to five hours of battery runtime on an expanded capacity battery.

This version also has all the standard configuration of the reference design, including 1GB of memory, a 30GB hard drive, a webcam and 802.11g Wi-Fi that supports automatic mesh networks for users and schools.

MPC is selling this with Windows XP Home for $499.

The VAIO FW notebook comes in multiple configurations, including a premium and a standard model. The premium model plays Blu-ray Disc high-definition content like movies in full 1080 HD resolution when connected to a compatible HDTV. It can also record, store and play back personal content on high-capacity BD media.Weighing a little over six pounds, the FW notebook features the world’s first 16.4-inch display, which combines the benefits of a slightly larger17-inch widescreen with the smaller “footprint” of a 15.4-inch model. These notebooks will have a 16:9 aspect ratio and comes with a HDMI output connector. These run on Intel Centrino 2 processor and the wireless is 802.11n.

Sony VAIO FW Notebooks will have plenty of slots, ports and jacks, including a Memory Stick media/SD card slot, three USB ports, an i.LINK IEEE-1394 port, microphone and headphone jack, and a 34mm ExpressCard slot.

These are going to be available in titanium gray and powder white, the VAIO FW standard model is priced at about $1,000, while the FW premium one will be priced for approx $1,750.

In an educational conference HP have released a quad-core workstation which is inexpensive considering the power packed into it, it starts at just $579, the HP xw4550 uses a latest-generation 2GHz AMD Opteron.

This Quad-core workstation can handle video editing and other heavy-duty tasks and is gonna be durable and tamper-proof. In addition to the more advanced processor, the HP xw4550 is also unique among budget pro systems in having dedicated graphics with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 290 both giving a boost to Windows Vista (XP Professional is preinstalled) and to any 3D. At least 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive are included.

HP is going to sell the system immediately and gives the base model a price of $579. Prices increase up to $1,349 for a model with a 2.8GHz quad-core Opteron, 4GB of memory, a 250GB disk, and an upgraded Quadro FX 570 video card.

ASUS Eee PC 1000 has more than a larger display to its attraction, when it gets showcased tomorrow. One of their model is likely to support up to 2GB memory, the model name is EEE PC 1000H, this will also hold 80GB hard drive in Windows XP form, this has led to removing the flash used in smaller models and providing four times the space of the 8.9-inch model’s 20GB of flash storage.

With the provision for 802.11n Wi-Fi and a relatively long 3.2 to 5 hours of battery life the new versions are improved substantially.

Eee PC 1000 also has a 1.3-megapixel camera, Intel Atom processor, and a card reader. These will be available with Linux.

MSI is going to launch Wind, an ultralow-cost laptop that runs on Intel Corp.’s Atom microprocessor, this June in America. The U.S. edition of Wind will come in two different versions. One will cost $549 and run Windows XP. A few things set Wind apart from competitors, including the 1.6-GHz Atom microprocessor, a larger screen size and a six-cell battery that gives it around six hours of power, according to MSI.

Wind also carries an 80GB hard disk drive instead of a flash memory-based solid-state drive. The second type of Wind will have Novell Inc.’s SUSE Linux operating system and will be priced at $399.

The Linux device shares the same screen size, hard drive and microprocessor as the first version. But it carries a three-cell battery that allows only around 2.5 hours of power and does not offer wireless data transfer using Bluetooth, which the XP device does. The Linux version also comes with less dynamic RAM and 512MB compared with 1GB for the XP laptop.Wind laptops will have many color option. Both can access the Internet via Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and sport 1.3-megapixel Webcams and three Universal Serial Bus ports.

Believe it or not Toshiba is going to ship below $800 dual-core, DVD-R notebook.  The Satellite® A135 Series is economically priced with technology you’ll value. Systems feature the latest in Intel® processors* for optimal performance. There’s big memory* for all your mp3s, work, picture and video files.

All systems feature an 15.4″ diagonal WXGA TruBrite® display* adding the WOW factor to games and movies!

Toshiba’s DVD SuperMulti optical drive* (select models) reads and writes up to 11 formats, including DVD-RAM which acts like an optical HDD! (DVD-RAM media required). High speed wireless LAN* (802.11b/g) lets you work cable free. No more searching for phone jacks, network cables, or plugging in special cards. Connect easily to networks in your home, office, and in wireless LAN hotspots at airports, hotels and coffee shops.

The S4527 is destined for retail stores and doesn’t have a firm price as with many of the company’s online-only systems.

However, expect the system to arrive in larger retailers this week at under $800.

The security and reliability of electronic voting systems continues to worry many election experts and security researchers. During the 2006 midterm elections, a combination of ballot problems and the lack, on e-voting machines, of an obvious warning for voters who failed to vote in a race led to massive undervoting in Sarasota County, Florida, and likely gave the election to Vern Buchanan, a Republican representative. According to Securityfocus.com today
The U.S. federal agency in charge of government technology standards approved on Thursday the accreditation of two laboratories to perform certification of election computers.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended that iBeta Quality Assurance and SysTest Labs be allowed to test election equipment under the current guidelines, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) said on Thursday. If the EAC approves the recommendations, the two companies will be the first to receive credentials under the new Voting System Certification and Laboratory Accreditation Program.

“EAC’s Voting System Certification and Laboratory Accreditation Program represents the first time the federal government will accredit test laboratories and certify voting equipment,” the EAC stated in a press release on Thursday. “In the past, these functions were performed on a volunteer basis by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), which did not receive any federal funds.”

The current accreditation program uses the 2002 Voting System Standards and the 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. The latest guidelines–dubbed the 2007 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines– will likely include a requirement that a software independent audit trail be implemented by voting machines. Those guidelines will not be considered by the EAC until July 2007.

NIST made the recommendations in a letter sent to the EAC on Thursday. Four other companies–including InfoGuard Laboratories, BKP Security Labs, Wyle Laboratories and Ciber Labs–have not received a recommendation from NIST. As reported earlier this month, Ciber Labs lost its accreditation after failing to follow quality-control guidelines