Filed under: Tablet PCs

Earlier this month, Mr. Khalil Zaidan of Portland, Oregon, sued Acer, Gateway, Toshiba, HP, IBM, and Fujitsu for violating his 1996 patent “Hinge Assembly for Electronic Devices.” A closer reading of the patent indicates that Zaidan seems to have patented the basic principle behind a tablet PC, allowing a computer to perform “rotational adjustment.” Still, the case — filed in United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division — seems like a pretty easy way to milk these big companies for some cash, given that tablet PCs have been around well before November 2006. Nevertheless, while Zaidan is asking the court for damages on patent infringement be decided in a jury trial, we’re betting that this gets settled out-of-court pretty quick. We’re pretty sure that if Zaidan could actually build a Commodore 64-esque tablet (that’s what his diagram is supposed to represent, right?), he could just make money from that instead of going through all this legal nonsense.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Displays

Looks like Gateway’s jumping into the 24-inch monitor arena as well, getting its hands dirty with a few other contenders (namely Dell and Apple). Their new 24-inch HD Widescreen FPD2485W — mentioned with their FX530 desktop lineup and appearing on their support site — gives you another three inches on top of that FPD2185W 21-incher of theirs, and features a 1920 x 1200 resolution panel with 450cd/m² brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 6ms pixel response, 178° viewing angle, DVI with HDCP, two component, composite, S-Video, and VGA inputs, a four port USB 2.0 hub, touch sensitive controls, picture-in-picture, and Faroudja DCDi. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be an integrated media reader like the Dell 2407WFP has, but it’s still a way better than Apple’s stripped down 23-incher, and at $679 the FPD2485W’s MSRP is lowest as well. (Tack on another $70 for their add-on speaker accessory.) We’ll be sure to let you know when this guy becomes available. [Warning: PDF link]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Desktops

Not to be left out of the latest in nu-industry megahertz wars, Gateway’s got a new line of tweakable performance PCs just announced, the FX530 series. These new Viiv BTX boxes are available with options including a Core 2 Duo E6700 (FX530XG) or Core 2 Extreme X6800 (FX530XT and FX530XL), up to 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, Creative X-Fi audio, 9-in-1 media reader, 8x dual layer DVD-RW burner, dual ATI Radeon x1950 and x1900 graphics, and even an Intel quad-core processor upgrade path on the two higher end models. Prices range from $2500 for the FX530XG up to $5000 for the FX530XL. A decent chunk of change for what we might be used to paying for a Gateway box, but we all know raw power don’t come cheap.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Laptops

Sorry to kick y’all laptop owners when you’re down, but Sony announced that it’s initiating another recall of 340,000 batteries, this time adding Gateway to the list of the affected, in addition to already-affected Fujitsu, Toshiba, and its own batteries. (It’s not immediately apparent if this also includes the 300,000 batteries of their own that they recalled earlier this month.) There are a ton of models being recalled for each company, so we’d ask you visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission for full details; also, if you haven’t already checked your battery, please note the following companies are now initiating recalls:

• Apple
• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Gateway
• Hitachi
• IBM / Lenovo
• Panasonic
• Sharp
• Sony
• Toshiba

Kind of scary, but at this rate it’s probably just safest to assume that no matter what your notebook, your battery is or will be recalled — so be wary, and keep an eye out for battery recall pages.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Desktops, Media PCs

These new DX420 boxes from Gateway aren’t going to be breathing down Alienware’s neck anytime soon, but the prices sure aren’t bad for what you get, and the units shouldn’t do too bad of a job as a media hub or for a bit of casual fragging. Starting at $599, the desktops all feature Core 2 Duo processors, WMCE ‘05, Viiv 1.6 chipsets, 9-in-1 media readers, DVD burners and plenty of expansion slots. For the base unit you get a 1.86GHz E6300 chip, 512MB of RAM, a 160GB 7200 RPM HDD and a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE graphics card. Luckily, Gateway lets you outfit one of these with most of the relevant trimmings, including 4GB of RAM, a 256MB GeForce 7600GS graphics card, dual 750GB drives and a TV tuner, with a bit of room left for expansions of your own. Gateway should be shipping these now, though you’ll have to wait until October 19th to get one of those 750 giggers.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Some of our older readers may remember using Packard Bell gear all the way back when the consumer electronics industry consisted of just radios and TV sets, and even the younger crowd probably played on a PB or two after the name was sold to a budget computer manufacturer in the mid-80's. Well even though the company withdrew from the US market back in 2000 after being plagued with quality and compatibility issues, it has actually been quite successful overseas under the guidance of NEC as Packard Bell Europe, where it's consistently been one of the top-selling PC manufacturers and even begun branching out to other product lines. Still, NEC seems to think that the tide has turned on old Packard Bell once again, as sources in Asia indicate that the Japanese corporation is looking to sell the Dutch Packard Bell BV PC subsidiary, and that eMachines founder Lap Shun Hui is looking to buy. Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun is claiming that Hui offered around $87 million for the division, probably hoping that he can use his skills to transform the 'Bell into the same type of property that convinced Gateway to shell out over $200 million worth of cash and stock for eMachines a few years back.

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Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

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Filed under: Laptops

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Filed under: Desktops, Media PCs

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