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Good news: the price of those 7- to 9-inch ultra-portables are in free-fall as Dell, ASUS, HP, Everex and others race to the bottom. Bad news: your $500ish wad currently takes home a thick, boxy slab. Fortunately, MSI is looking to change all that when it ships the sleek Wind laptop in Q2. In other words, June when Intel ships the Atom processor. Prices are expected to range from $470 to $1,099 for your choice of 8.9-inch and 10-inch panels with 1,024 x 768 pixel resolutions, 2.5-inch hard disk or SSD drive, processors ranging from 1GHz to 1.6GHz, and 1GB of memory. At least that’s the last we heard. Word to the wise: wait until summer for your ultra-portable purchase — competition will be fierce and the waves will be tasty.

source:engadget

Land Rover Australia says a production version of the LRX baby-4WD coupe concept would be priced above the current entry-level Freelander 2, writes JEZ SPINKS.
Land Rover will unveil this second version of its baby 4WD coupe - the LRX Black - at March’s Geneva motor show.

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Land Rover Australia says a production version of the LRX baby-4WD concept vehicle would not become the company’s new entry-level model despite being smaller than the Freelander 2.

The LRX concept is on display at the 2008 Melbourne motor show just weeks after its global debut at the Detroit show in January, revealing a 4WD coupe not much longer than a Toyota Corolla.
 
The British 4WD company’s official line is that the LRX is a concept only at this stage, but insiders have left no doubt that this vehicle is intended to reach showrooms by about 2010.

Land Rover Australia’s general manager, Roger Jory, says the LRX would definitely be imported locally if it went into production, although it wouldn’t be a big-selling model.

“In terms of pricing, the [LRX] will be positioned pretty high,” says Jory. “It’s going to be quite an exclusive product.

“And that’s the challenge with the business case [for the LRX] because we’re not talking about a price position below Freelander 2.

“I don’t think we’re looking a huge volumes [for the LRX in Australia], but in metro-type areas I think this car could be a huge hit.”

Land Rover’s current entry-level model, the Freelander 2, is outsold comprehensively in Australia by the bigger, pricier Range Rover Sport and Discovery 3.

The LRX concept not only showcases a potential new niche – compact 4WD coupe – for Land Rover it also offers an insight into the 4WD brand’s future design language as well as technologies aimed at addressing the environment and fuel economy.

The 4.35m-long, three-door concept – 149mm shorter than a Freelander 2 – is powered by a diesel-electric hybrid drivetrain with the potential to emit just 120 grams of CO2.

That figure is nearly half the emissions of the current cleanest Land Rover (Freelander 2 TD4) and 18g/km shy of the world’s best-selling hybrid, the Toyota Prius.
 The LRX is expected to be built in both three- and five-door guises, and Land Rover Australia says the car will be all-wheel-drive but designed more for the ’burbs than the bush.

“The LRX is aimed mainly at road use, but naturally it promises breadth of capability,” says Jory. “It signals Land Rover’s exploration into a new market but while still retaining our core [4WD] values.”
source:smh

Face it, nobody has time these days to learn a real instrument with “strings” and “sevenths” and these “quarternotes” we hear tell of. That’s why all music recorded from 2002 on has been 100% sampled: it’s just better that way. The next step in this natural evolution, of course, is instrument-less instruments. Silverlit provides just such a future with the VBeat Air Guitar and Air Drums. Building upon Tomy’s groundbreaking Air Guitar Pro, the VBeat instruments include “free style” and “easy go” modes, the latter of which allows for playing you fakestrument to pre-programmed rhythms — a synergy of layered samples and a metronome, simply stunning. There’s also a step-by-step learning mode called Pop Academy, but only losers need apply. These should sell for about £29.99 ($60 US) a piece, no word on availability. Action video is after the break.

source:engadget

source:engadget

WASHINGTON - Three days after the voting ended, the race for Democratic delegates in Super Tuesday’s contests was still too close to call. With nearly 1,600 delegates from Tuesday contests awarded, Sen. Barack Obama led by two delegates Friday night, with 91 delegates still to be awarded. Obama won 796 delegates in Tuesday’s contests, to 794 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to an analysis of voting results by The Associated Press.
 
In the Republican contest, Sen. John McCain had a commanding lead in the race for delegates.

Nearly a third of the outstanding delegates are from Colorado, a state where Obama won the popular vote. California, a state that Clinton carried, had 20 Democratic delegates still to be awarded. Neither state expected to have complete results before next week.

Obama won the popular vote in 13 states Tuesday, while Clinton won in eight states and American Samoa.

In the overall race for the nomination, Clinton has 1,055 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Obama has 998.

A total of 2,025 delegates are need to secure the Democratic nomination.

Many delegates were outstanding because some states have been unable to provide all the votes in some congressional districts. The problems arose in states with counties that are split into multiple congressional districts.

The states have provided results in each county. But in some cases, they are still working to assign the votes in the appropriate congressional district.

Those votes are important because both parties award delegates based on statewide votes and on results in individual congressional districts. Democrats award them proportionally, meaning precise counts can be necessary, even when the vote is overwhelmingly in favor of one candidate.

In California, officials were still counting absentee ballots Friday. Officials had estimated that more than 1 million absentee ballots may have been submitted.

In Tuesday’s Republican contests, McCain won 617 delegates to 205 for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who suspended his campaign on Thursday. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won 155 and Rep. Ron Paul won 10. There are still 36 Republican delegates to be awarded from Tuesday’s contests.

In the overall race for the nomination, McCain leads with 719, to 198 for Huckabee and 14 for Paul. Romney’s suspended campaign still has 298 delegates.

A total of 1,191 delegates are needed to secure the Republican nomination.

The AP tracks the delegate races by projecting the number of national convention delegates won by candidates in each presidential primary or caucus, based on state and national party rules, and by interviewing unpledged delegates to obtain their preferences.

In some states, like Iowa and Nevada, local precinct caucuses are the first stage in the allocation process. The AP uses preferences expressed in those caucuses to project the number of national convention delegates each candidate will have when they are chosen at county, congressional district or state conventions.

source:news.yahoo