New Dell Inspiron consumer laptops leaked! (hint: thin)

Those tricky people over at Engadget have gotten their digital hands on the next crop of Dell Inspirons, and it's safe to say that thin is in. The Dell Inspiron 1435, 1535 and 1735 mid-range consumer laptops seem to share the same basic design and have, as Dell likes to say is its calling card, a wealth of customization options both aesthetic and technical. All three laptops taper in thickness from 1-inch to 1.5 inches. Notable specs are as follows: Slot-loading drives, with a Blu-ray option; Core 2 Duo T5850 2.16GHz processors; 3G across the lineup. The 'Gadg reports that the 1435 isn't due until October, but the 1735 is coming on June 9 and the 1535 on May 26th....

AMD still mum on its asset smart strategy

The wait for AMD to outline its so-called "asset smart" strategy continues. AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in his annual shareholder meeting address failed to add any more detail about its manufacturing strategy going forward. AMD outlined its new server roadmap on Wednesday. In many respects, Ruiz reiterated previous comments that boil down to this: AMD is "strategically important" to the computer industry. "I could not be more disappointed with our financial results. The Barcelona delay really hurts." But those problems are behind AMD. The future is bright. That was it. The shareholder meeting lasted 27 minutes or so and it would have been 22 minutes if the only shareholder question wasn't a rambling mess. Some folks say there's no such...

Are we all just cognitive surplus?

Clay Shirky, and his truly handsome hairline, is not into the ragehol like I am. That is, he does not anger easily. But he admits to nearly losing it recently, when after describing a Wikipedia skirmish to a TV producer, he got the question "Where do they find the time?" I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years." The cognitive surplus, all that time we waste in front of the idiot box, he estimates at 200 billion hours a year, in the U.S. alone. Shirky compares TV to gin, which...

Vonage narrows losses; Inks deal with Covad

Vonage is still losing money, but the bottom line is moving in the right direction. The company also signed a deal with Covad to offer DSL service. The VOIP provider on Thursday reported a first quarter net loss of $9 million, or 6 cents a share, compared to a loss of $72 million, or 47 cents a share, a year ago (statement). Excluding charges, Vonage had operating income of $8 million. The results topped estimates by a penny. Revenue for the quarter was in line with estimates at $225 million, up 15 percent from a year ago. For a company that was arguably about to disappear, Vonage has managed to stop the bleeding. The company is off life support, but...

Delaying a PC revolution in cell diagnosis

What if we could revolutionize medical testing, a platform as basic as a PC? Then what if every application, and every input, had to be separately inspected and approved by the FDA? That's life. Iknoisys of New Haven says it has just such a platform, which it calls CellOptics. At its heart is a robotic microscope, the Ikoniscope, to fully automate cell analysis, running through up to 175 tests in succession, tripling technician productivity. The list price is about $200,000, not bad for a sophisticated piece of lab equipment. President Paul White expects to hold that price steady for years, using technology advances to add software and capability. So what's the hold up? "We need FDA clearance on each of...