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What’s a flagging microprocessor company to do after an absolutely tumultuous 2007 (and start to 2008)? Why, dish out its own desktop family, of course! At least that’s what AMD is reckoning judging by the abrupt introduction of the Business Class desktop. Obviously the firm’s very first computer brand, the series is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, but it’s noted that even the “biggest corporate clients” can find something to love. The company is planning to move the units via Acer, HP, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens and Lenovo, and they’ll be available with Athlon X2 dual-core, Phenom X3 triple-core and Phenom X4 quad-core CPUs. Oh, and if you’re own outfit is totally over these “desktops,” AMD is looking to unveil Business Class laptops during the second half of 2008.

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Remember those AMD Business Class desktops we told you about, oh, just hours ago? Looks like the first of the family are starting to roll out, beginning with the HP Compaq dc5850 and dx2450 Business Desktop PCs. Both rigs support “next-generation AMD Business Class processors” (that’s the Athlon X2, Phenom X3 and Phenom X4) along with the usual complement of slots / ports, and while the former gets integrated ATI Radeon 3100 graphics, AMD’s Cool’n'Quiet 2.0 technology, up to 8GB of RAM, an optional dual-drive RAID setup and a dual-layer DVD writer, the latter boasts NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE graphics, room for 4GB of RAM and up to 500GB of SATA HDD space. Best of all, both machines come in pretty easy on the wallet, with the dc5850 hitting in early May for $599 and the dx2450 available now for $369.

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It’s far too early to come up with suitable jokes to make, so we’ll just give you the facts. According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, Police are investigating a case of corporate eavesdropping in the form of a baby monitor that was found in the hotel room of Porsche CEO, Wendelin Wiedeking. Wiedeking was in Wolfsburg, Germany visiting Volkswagen headquarters for a board meeting when a security firm found the monitor behind a sofa in the CEO’s room. An investigation is underway, however, it deserves noting that the alleged spying took place in November of last year and that Der Spiegel isn’t citing any specific sources for their story.

[Source: Forbes]

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It’s getting tough for steampunk fans to out-do one another these days, but DIYer Jake von Slatt has taken a solid shot at the crown with his latest creation, which one-ups most of the competition by going the all-in-one route. Of course, the fact that added thickness only adds extra character in this case makes things slightly easier but, as you can see in the fairly thorough how-to linked below, it’s still not something to be attempted lightly, with it even including a nail-biting encounter of a monitor with a table saw. Click on through for a video of that, and plenty more pictures of the entire process.

[Via Uber Review]

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It seems as if Dell reckoned that the Crystal’s boyish good looks would be enough to push it into the hands of style-obsessed nationals everywhere, as a scalding review over at Maximum PC asserts that little else beyond that is actually going for it. Said to have exhibited “absurd glare, low grayscale range and fussy touch-buttons” the 22-inch stunner frustrated critics beyond the point of forgiveness. More specifically, the glare was said to be so bad while watching dark scenes in a film that it “destroyed the picture.” To its credit, it did manage to present ultra-vivid colors and an accurate dynamic contrast, but those two bright spots were far from being enough to overcome the negatives. Needless to say, the unit did well to fetch the 5 out of 10 score that was bestowed upon it, and based upon what we’re hearing, we’d highly recommend checking one of these out in person before buying this thing on appearances alone.

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Look, eMachines is just here to help. The low-cost PC maker has introduced a few new desktop models, destined to sit beside your paper plates, can of beans, and tin of generic instant coffee. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. The new budget models come in two flavors, the T3646 and T5254, both featuring AMD CPUs (2.2GHz Sempron LE-1250 versus the 2.1GHz dual core Athlon BE-2350), an NVIDIA 6100 graphics chipset, 1GB or 2GB of RAM, a 160GB or 320GB hard drive, DVD+R/RW SuperMulti drive, a handful of ports, a mouse, and really nasty looking cases. Available right now, $299.99 and $399.99, respectively.

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Psystar’s offer to build off-license OSx86 OpenMac clones was apparently pretty popular – we saw a note from the company saying it was trying hard to cope with the rush of traffic, but it looks like things got overwhelming, and the site is now unavailable. People are speculating that Apple already shut things down, but that’s pretty unlikely: nothing on the Psystar site infringed any of Apple’s IP (as far as we can recall) and the company hadn’t actually sold anything yet, which means there isn’t much of anything for Apple to go to court over. On top of that, we doubt that Psystar wasn’t expecting to attract Apple’s attention, so we don’t think a cease and desist letter would scare the company into shutting things completely down. Of course, we’re still willing to bet that Apple’s legal team is licking their chops in anticipation of something actionable happening, but we’d say the most interesting thing about this so far is the incredible amount of attention a low-cost expandable minitower running OS X has gotten — maybe someone at Apple apart from the lawyers should be taking notes as well.

Update: They’re back! They’ve changed the name to “Open Computer,” which should totally throw off Apple’s lawyers. Or… probably won’t.

                                                               source:engadget

We’re smack dab in the middle of NAB week, which means a steady progression of high-end product launches for things that we can’t really afford but sure wouldn’t mind cluttering up the HQ gadget stash. Like these here workstations from HP, the xw8600 and the xw9400. The former sports up to two Quad-Core Intel Xeon X5482 processors, while the latter runs on Quad-Core AMD Opteron 2300 procs. No word on price for either of these insanely fast configurations, but with the other niceties HP is tossing in, you’re looking at a starting price above four grand.

source:engadget

If you’re not brave enough to OSx86 your own PC, psystar will sell you its OpenMac clone for $400. For that price you get 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo E4500 processor, 2GB of memory, integrated GMA 950 graphics, 250GB disk and 20x DVD burner. Add another $155 and they’ll even install Leopard on the non-Apple kit with the help of an EFI V8 emulator. Even at $555 it’s still a spec-for-spec bargain compared to the Mac mini (albeit without the mini dimensions). If interested you’d better snap one up quick. Jobs, you’ll recall, put a swift end to official Mac-clone licensing when he resumed power at Apple. No reason to think that he (or his lawyers) feel any differently now.

source:engadget

Chances are, you could think of a million and one ways to totally take advantage of having a 40Gbps internet connection installed in your abode, but for one Sigbritt Löthberg — who actually had such a setup — she chose to take advantage of it in quite a perplexing way. Reportedly, the 75-year old dame wasn’t too interested in downloading an entire HD film in two seconds or having ping times more minuscule than the brain can fathom; rather, she chose to use the excess heat emitted from all the kit shoved in her house to “dry her laundry.” Unfortunately, the poor lady has had the gear removed from her domicile for further testing in another location, but according to Hafsteinn Jonsson, who is heading up the fiber network operation for Karlstad Stadsnät, they’re considering “giving her a 100Gbps [link] in the summer — then she’ll be able to dry all her neighbors’ laundry too.”
source:engadget