Apple Tablet Ready by Xmas, Served with Multimedia 'Cocktail,' Says Report

Apple is racing to launch a tablet-sized device in time for the Christmas shopping season, according to a report from the Financial Times (FT). Featuring a 10-inch touch screen display, Apple's tablet is also said to launch alongside "Cocktail," a project designed to increase sales of CD-length music.

The Apple tablet, rumored for more than a year now, has finally gained some credibility with FT's report today. The publication also quotes "executives familiar with the plans" saying that Apple could be planning a simultaneous launch of the tablet with a new service that is "all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music."

What we know about the Apple tablet

FT is scarce on details about Apple's upcoming tablet device. The report describes device as a "full-featured, tablet-sized computer" which will be out just in time for the Christmas shopping season. The tablet's screen is reported to be up to 10 inches in diagonal but it won't have phone capabilities like the iPhone.


The FT says the Apple tablet will have Wi-Fi, allowing it to access to Apple's online stores. Besides Amazon Kindle-like capabilities, the Apple tablet is reported to be great for watching movies, according to an entertainment executive quoted by the FT. No word on pricing, but previous speculation points to an $800 price point.

What's in Apple's "Cocktail"

The FT is also reporting that Apple is working on a project code-named "Cocktail," a collaboration between the Cupertino company and record labels, namely EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group, which will bundle liner notes and video clips with the music sold on the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The initiative is reportedly expected to be a reality as early as September.

The FT says Cocktail is a new type of interactive album, which will combine photos, lyrics sheets, video clips, and liner notes, all gathered into an interactive booklet. This new breed of album booklet will also play songs directly, without having to go back to iTunes, the report adds.

Myth or Reality?

Convinced by the Apple tablet? Judging by the expected screen size and rumored capabilities, the Apple tablet will not only be an oversized iPod Touch, ready for prime-time movies and music, but also a direct competitor to Amazon's Kindle if Apple will start selling books in the iTunes music store.

Although so far the "Cocktail" news would put multimedia at the heart of the Apple tablet, Internet connectivity is the key to delivering the content to the device. And this is where last week's rumors and today's FT report conflict: Apple Insider said the tablet would feature 3G connectivity, same as the iPhone, while the FT reported today that no such capability will be present.

So while this intricate detail is up for debate, the question to users remains whether they would want a 3G tablet that would be chained to a wireless carrier (be it AT&T or Verizon) or the somehow limited freedom to use any Wi-Fi access point they have handy?

Daniel Ionescu, PC World

Imarah Islam Afghanistan Keluarkan Peraturan Baru Untuk Mujahidnya

AFGHANISTAN (Arrahmah.com) - Imarah Islam Afghanistan telah menerbitkan sebuah buku yang menjelaskan peraturan untuk para pejuangnya. Al-Jazeera memberitakan bahwa mereka telah mendapatkan salinan buku tersebut dan menyebutkan bahwa Mullah Umar, Amir Imarah Islam Afghanistan ingin memusatkan operasinya.

Buku dengan 13 Bab dan 67 artikel, memaparkan rahasia Taliban, apa yang boleh dan tidak boleh dilakukan.

Buku tersebut juga berbicara mengenai operasi syahid, menghindari kecelakaan di kubu sipil dan memenangkan pertempuran untuk hati dan pikiran penduduk lokal Afghan.

James Bays, salah satu koresponden Al-Jazeera di Afghanistan mengatakan setiap pejuang memiliki buku tersebut yang berjudul "Peraturan Imarah Islam Afghanistan untuk Mujahidin".

Secara gamblang dapat dilihat struktur, sistem organisasi dan tujuan dari kelompok yang merilis buku tersebut.

Mullah Umar di dalam buku ini melarang pembentukan kelompok mujahidin baru atau batalion baru. Ia menyatakan seharusnya mereka bergabung dengan struktur yang telah ada dan lebih kuat.

Sejauh ini, kepemimpinan Taliban telah sangat mengerti bagaimana mereka harus menjalankan operasi yang mereka susun juga mengatur kehidupan di wilayah yang berada dalam kontrol mereka.

Peraturan Operasi Syahid

Di dalam buku dikatakan bahwa Imarah Islam Afghanistan hanya menggunakan aksi syahid untuk target yang sangat penting.

"Seorang pemuda Islam yang sangat berani tidak digunakan untuk target biasa dan kecil. Usaha sepenuhnya dikerahkan untuk menghindari kecelakaan dikalangan sipil."

Di sana juga sangat jelas dijabarkan bagaimana Taliban menjamu tahanannya dengan sangat baik.

"Para pejabat, tentara, kontraktor atau pekerja yang menjadi budak pemerintah yang ditangkap Taliban, para tahanan ini tidak diserang atau dianiaya."

"Tujuan ditahannya mereka untuk ditukar dengan jaminan berharga yang diberikan oleh pemimpin provinsi."

"Menukar tahanan dengan uang sangat dilarang keras," lanjut buku tersebut.

Memenangkan Hati

Buku ini sangat jelas memerintahkan bahwa kewajiban setiap pejuang untuk mendapatkan hati penduduk lokal.

"Mujahidin harus bertindak sangat baik dan menunjukkan bahwa apa yang dilakukan semata-mata untuk mencari jalan keluar atas permasalahan yang menimpa Afghanistan dan membawa para Muslim sipil semakin dekat dengan mujahidin."

"Mujahidin harus menghindari diskriminasi, sukuisme, bahasa atau latar belakang geografis." (haninmazaya/arrahmah.com)

Rumored Apple Tablet is a Train Wreck

Given the rumor mill chatter, it sounds like the mythical Apple tablet is all but a done deal. People seem to be talking with certainty about how, either later this year or early next year, Apple will unveil a multitouch tablet with a 10-inch screen, 3G wireless broadband, and iPhone OS possibly subsidized by a Verizon Wireless contract. It would basically be a big iPod Touch.

I’m no Apple hater, and I welcome an Apple device to the (don’t call it a) netbook market, but I've got to think this device would be a flop. This concept is such a train wreck from start to finish that I don’t know where to begin.

The tablet form-factor in general is good only for a few things. It’s great for artists and for specialized applications like taking orders. Note-taking in class is debatable since many people are better at typing than handwriting. There are lots of things that tablets are not good at. Take watching movies, for example. Since a tablet is designed for lying flat, you have to be looking straight down to view the computer. Actually, that makes it suck for most things. I guess Apple could build in some sort of stand, but that detracts away from the sort of sexy minimalism that it is famous for.


While I think a multi-touch display is a great idea, using it to host a virtual keyboard takes too much real estate on a petite 10-inch display. Eliminating the physical keyboard would make the device very thin, but at the expense of the screen protection a closed laptop offers.

The iPhone and iPod Touch work as keyboard-less devices because they are designed to be hand-held—something which would be difficult and clumsy with a 10-inch tablet.

While the iPhone OS might seem like an obvious choice due to its small footprint and contribution toward long battery life, it has glaring limitations on a larger device. A huge audience for a tablet is the artist community, and they need full-fledged OS X to run the apps they’re accustomed to. While Apple certainly has reason to want to build on the success of its App Store, those apps are designed to run on a 3.5-inch screen and most won’t translate very well to something larger.

Bundling it with wireless broadband service would find a limited audience. In recessionary times, subsidizing the initial price has its appeal, but how many people are going to want another monthly bill, especially when they already pay for home and mobile internet, and Wi-Fi is freely available in many locations?

I think there are a number of things Apple can do to successfully compete with the netbook market. It could launch a 10-inch touch screen version of the MacBook Pro and have a hit. If Apple wants to release something mind-blowing, it could release a clamshell device with two displays and have the bottom one double as a virtual keyboard and multi-touch input device. If Apple does release a device that resembles the rumored tablet, it will need some killer twist that nobody saw coming. It wouldn’t be the first time Apple pulled something like that off.

Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.

Browser Speed Tests: Latest Firefox Is Faster, but Not as Fast as Google Chrome In our page-loading tests, Firefox 3.5 speeds past Internet Explorer a

When Mozilla released a new version of Firefox a couple of weeks ago, its developers promised a faster browser, and Firefox 3.5 delivers, racing past IE and Safari in our latest set of page-loading speed tests. But its page load times are still about two-tenths of a second slower than Google Chrome.

Google Chrome showed the fastest page load time in five of the eight sites we tested it against, with an average page loading time of 1.699 seconds. However, Firefox 3.5 also put on a strong showing, coming in a close second with an average page-loading time of 1.762 seconds. For the most part, the difference between Chrome's page-loading times and those of Firefox is approximately two-tenths of a second. In our previous testing, Firefox 3.0.7 came in fourth in a four-browser field.

Internet Explorer 8 and Safari 4 both did a decent job loading pages, but fell behind Chrome and Firefox with average page-loading times of 1.833 and 1.964 seconds, respectively. Opera 10 Beta came in last, roughly a half second behind its nearest competitor.

Browser speed test results--click for full-size image.By far the most inconsistent results involved loading PC World's Twitter feed page. We saw load times ranging from about 1 second to over 20 seconds. Since Twitter has a history of server issues, we think this has less to do with the browsers themselves, and more to do with Twitter, although we were surprised by the wildly inconsistent results. For this reason, even though we list the loading times for the Twitter page in our results chart (click on the thumbnail image above), these loading times are not taken into account for the overall average loading time.

Some browser vendors, such as Apple and Mozilla, have touted big improvements in JavaScript performance. That has made some browsers shine in benchmark results. For example, Safari 4 earned the highest scores in both the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark and the Peacekeeper browser benchmark. But Apple's browser was at the back of the pack in our real-world page- loading tests. Browser benchmarks typically take elements that impact page-loading speed out of context, so while they'll give you a feel for how well a browser handles JavaScript or HTML rendering, for example, they won't tell you how fast a browser feels when you're clicking around from site to site. By comparison, our tests use real, popular sites to get a better idea of what you'll experience with any one of these browsers.
How We Test

In our browser speed comparison, we pitted Internet Explorer 8 against Firefox 3.5, Chrome 2, Safari 4, and the public beta of Opera 10. We used pages from a set of eight popular Web sites in our testing: PC World (of course), Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, YouTube, The New York Times, eBay, and Wikipedia's English-language home page. To ensure that we measured the page-loading times as accurately as possible, we recorded our testing on video for review later on.

We performed all of our testing on a Gateway P-7808U notebook running a clean installation of Windows Vista Service Pack 1; we reinstalled the operating system before testing each browser. For each browser, we cleared the browser's cache and then loaded each page in our test suite. We repeated the process ten times per site per browser to ensure accurate results, to factor out fluctuations in network traffic, and to build a sufficiently large sample size to identify trends. In addition, we threw out the two best and the two worst scores for each page load test to further reduce the influence of fluctuations and to produce more consistent results.

Some browsers will report that a page has finished loading even though parts of the page haven’t yet appeared. We didn’t base our determination of when a page was loaded on the browser's opinion. Instead, we relied on whether all visual elements of the page were loaded and ready to use. For example, on Yahoo's home page, we judged the page to be ready when all of its graphics and images were loaded.
A Grain of Salt Required

Measuring browser performance is not an exact science. Many, many variables are in play, such as a site's server load at the time of testing, when you consider a page to have finished loading, human error, and so forth. Testing methodologies vary as well, and range from the browser benchmarks mentioned above to stopwatch testing. Each testing methodology could yield dramatically different results from others.

Still, at least in our tests, Chrome and Firefox 3.5 impressed us with their overall snappy feel. And, of course, speed isn't all that matters in a browser; each browser we tested is certainly "fast enough," and each has its own special set of features, so if you're looking on switching to a different browser, take a look at all of them, and go with whichever one best fits your needs.

Nick Mediati, PC World

Dalam Perang Afghan, Inggris Memboyong Helikopter Rusia

LONDON - Perdana Menteri Inggris kini tengah berada di bawah tekanan terkait tuntutan untuk memenuhi perlengkapan tentaranya di Afghanistan, sebuah laporan mengatakan bahwa Inggris menggunakan helikopter Rusia untuk menghadapi perang melawan Taliban.

Laporan yang dikeluarkan The Mail pada Minggu (19/7) mengklaim Menteri Pertahanan Inggris menggunakan helikopter sipil buatan Rusia, Mi-8 dan Mi-26 sebagai alat transportasi yang membawa suplai dan logistik serta tentara ke Afghanistan dengan menggunakan pilot Rusia dan Ukraina.

Perdana Menteri Inggris terus ditekan untuk memenuhi perlengkapan dan persenjataan yang dapat mendukung tentaranya berperang di Afghanistan mengingat akhir-akhir ini jumlah kematian tentara Inggris terus meningkat di Afghanistan, khususnya di wilayah selatan. Para tentara tersebut menuntut disediakannya pesawat-pesawat tempur tambahan untuk mendukung operasi militer mereka.

Perdana menteri Inggris, membela diri dengan mengatakan "Bagaimanapun, saat ini tentara Inggris telah difasilitasi dengan perlengkapan dan persenjataan yang sangat baik daripada di waktu-waktu yang lalu."

Saat ini AS dilaporkan memiliki 120 helikopter di Afghanistan sedang tentara Inggris hanya memiliki kurang dari 30.

The Mail juga menambahkan bahwa Inggris menggunakan pesawat komersial Rusia Antonov untuk membawa kendaraan militer dan perlengkapan berat milik Inggris untuk perang di Afghanistan. (haninmazaya/prtv/arrahmah.com)

Corsair Launching New 'Extreme' Solid State Drives

Memory maker Corsair has announced additions to its range of solid-state hard drives. The new 'Extreme Series' is a collection of three high performance drives which are perfect as primary drives in notebooks and desktop systems and come in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities.

The drives have been designed with speed in mind and can offer read speeds of up to 240MB per second with write speeds reaching up to 170MB per second, perfect for the handling of large files. The speed increase is significantly faster than previous SSD drives from Corsair and competitors Western Digital.

These new drives have more than just speed on there side, as they can also be upgraded. End-users can upgrade the drives' firmware via the Corsair website in order to add more functionality and ensure optimal performance from the device over time.

Corsair is yet to reveal pricing for the drives, but the usual SSD premium is expected.

* See more like this:
* solid-state drive,
* memory,
* hard drives
Chris Brandrick, PC World

Toshiba Will Sell Blu-ray Player This Year

Exactly a year and five months after Toshiba brought an end to the high-definition disc format war, the Japanese consumer electronics company confirmed its plans to produce its own Blu-ray Disc player. Previously, rumors trickled in about Toshiba considering such a move; Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun this weekend reported that Toshiba will adopt the format it once battled against.

The format war was vigorously fought, as Toshiba and Microsoft backed HD DVD, and Sony, Panasonic, and a consortium of consumer electronics companies promoted Blu-ray Disc. The winner of this battle would control over the lucrative, high-definition successor to the quarter-of-a-billion dollar standard-definition DVD business.

Toshiba withdrew HD DVD from the market in February 2008 after a series of crippling blows gave rival Blu-ray a clear edge. At the time, Toshiba indicated that, in the absence of HD DVD, it would instead pursue "a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies."

Toshiba has certainly made strides with its video processing and cell processor. But none of the aforementioned technologies have yet to replace DVD players for home entertainment.

In light of all of this, the news that Toshiba will produce its own Blu-ray player is actually unsurprising. Still, it is appropriate to wonder aloud why Toshiba would swallow its pride and enter into the competitive Blu-ray Disc player market?

The answer comes down to one word: Business. Toshiba couldn't beat Blu-ray, and the company has realized there was money to be made by joining them. Just last week, the Digital Entertainment Group released its mid-year report, and Blu-ray Disc was clearly doing well in spite of the weak economy: Both disc sales and hardware sales are up as compared with last year.

When Toshiba abandoned HD DVD, I noted that, although the company did not announce any plans to produce its own Blu-ray drives, I found it impossible to imagine that Toshiba would completely abandon the market for movie disc players. After all, this was a market that Toshiba helped pioneer with the original DVD, and a market that Toshiba historically did well in (second only to Sony).

Pride aside, Toshiba had other, competitive reasons to turn to Blu-ray. The DVD player is an integral part of home theater systems. HDTV makers love to provide multiple entertainment components to consumers-and without a Blu-ray Disc player, Toshiba has had an obvious gap in its lineup. And the company has forfeited sales and market share to those companies producing Blu-ray Disc players.

It's about more than just Blu-ray Disc players: Already, Blu-ray can be found integrated into HDTVs for convenient, all-in-one entertainment systems. As this feature becomes more common, Toshiba's HDTV lineup will be at a disadvantage without a comparable offering.

The timing of Toshiba's plans actually makes perfect sense. Blu-ray has entered its mass market phase, says Blu-ray Disc Association chairman Andy Parsons.

The format is at a point of growth; Blu-ray players aren't an Aisle 4 commodity in drug stores just yet. Player manufacturing costs have fallen off dramatically as compared with a year ago. And the street prices for players are also lower-you can now easily find a player for under $200.

All of these factors were, apparently, too great for Toshiba to ignore. That said, whether the company jumped into the fray because of Blu-ray's worldwide popularity, or just its dominance in Japan remains unclear from what little news released today. But it's worth noting that as of winter 2008, the Blu-ray Disc Association noted that Blu-ray had achieved over 50 percent market share in Japan-clearly, that means Toshiba has been leaving potential revenue on the table for its competitors to grab.

Early word is that the first device would be a Blu-ray Disc player that could ship by year's end. However, given that Japanese consumers favor Blu-ray recorders (which command more than 70 percent of the market share) as opposed to players, I can't help but imagine that Toshiba will be developing a recorder, too.

The idea of a recorder leads to some interesting possibilities. We here in the U.S. have, sadly, yet to be graced with Blu-ray Disc recorders. Most manufacturers are concerned about a perceived lack of interest in such a device in the DVR-friendly United States. Nonetheless, a consumer can dream: Perhaps Toshiba will be the company with the vision to bring recorders to our shores.
Melissa J. Perenson, PC World

Apple Bans Palm Pre from iTunes: Get the Work-Around

The latest iTunes update, version 8.2.1, may offer up a few bug fixes, but its real purpose is to prevent the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes. The move isn't a surprise. Last month, Apple warned that future versions of iTunes probably wouldn't support syncing with non-Apple media players. Today, Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesperson, reinforced that position:

"iTunes 8.2.1 is a free software update that provides a number of important bug fixes. It also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. As we've said before, newer versions of iTunes may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players."

Palm had figured out a way to sync the Pre with earlier versions of iTunes, the one caveat being that the Pre couldn't handle copy-protected songs. Despite this shortcoming, iTunes integration was a big plus for Pre fans, particularly those migrating from an iPhone or iPod.

For a while Apple didn't seem to mind, only hinting that the functionality could go away saying:

"Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple's iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players."

Now the music is over.

Here is the Work-Around

So what's a Palm Pre user to do? The easiest option is to avoid upgrading to iTunes version 8.2.1, since the sync feature should still work with older versions of iTunes.

Another option is to trying a third-party app like Salling Media Sync, a utility that synchronizes iTunes playlists, music, and podcasts with your mobile device, and it's free for basic use.

Apple's decision to play hardball with third-party media players may provide ammunition to critics who consider the iTunes/iPod ecosystem a monopoly that needs to be broken up. If a worthy iTunes competitor doesn't appear in the near future, we can expect to hear more grumblings about Apple's dominance of the online music marketplace.
Jeff Bertolucci, PC World

The IdeaPad Y450 all-purpose laptop offers good looks and a surprising number of features at an attractive price.

Though Lenovo's ThinkPad business laptops have a reputation for no-nonsense design, the company also produces low-priced, consumer all-purpose laptops that look as good as they feel. Just take a look at the IdeaPad Y450, a 14-inch multimedia laptop that's visually striking yet carries a price tag of just $800 (price as of 7/13/09). In some respects the Y450 is a leaner, meaner version of the IdeaPad Y530, which we reviewed a few months back.
Powering the Y450 are an Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 CPU (2GHz, 800MHz frontside bus, 2MB Level 2 cache), 3GB of RAM, and Intel's GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics chip (a discrete nVidia GeForce 105M GPU is available as an option--which we recommend if you want even a glimmer of hope for playing games on the Y450). Earning a respectable WorldBench 6 score of 86, the Y450 has more than enough juice for handling everyday tasks and playing high-def video content. The score puts it in the middle of the pack. Its battery life is also quite good, as it lasted a comfortable 4 hours, 28 minutes in our stress tests.

Though the Y450 is only a 14-inch laptop, its port and communications selection is comparable to that of larger machines. Included are two USB ports, one eSATA/USB combo port, a four-pin FireWire port, an ExpressCard/34 slot, a five-in-one flash reader, headphone and microphone jacks, HDMI- and VGA-out, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, ethernet, a 1.3-megapixel Webcam, a DVD burner, and an infrared port compatible with Lenovo remote controls.

But even with that dizzying assortment of jacks, ports, and drives, the Y450 doesn't look or feel cramped at all, thanks to clever design and color choices. The overall build quality is excellent, as well, with the only weak area being the flimsy plastic lid, which flexes quite a bit under light pressure. Considering the sturdiness of the rest of the body, it's a shame that Lenovo chose not to use a harder, thicker plastic to protect the back side of the screen. A couple other minor quibbles: The right side of the palm rest can get really warm even when the machine has a light workload, and the power brick's L-shaped connector can block the DVD drive from opening if it's facing the wrong way.

Since Lenovo is marketing the Y450 as a multimedia machine, I was glad to see a crisp and colorful, 720p-friendly screen with a native resolution of 1366 by 768. While I would've preferred a slightly higher resolution, given the screen's 14-inch size and the low cost of the laptop itself, I can't complain too much. Though the screen features a glossy coating, surprisingly the reflections on the plastic cover are fairly subdued. Horizontal viewing angles are excellent, but the shallow vertical viewing angles make it difficult to have color and contrast look even across the screen; that isn't a deal-breaker by any means, but worth mentioning.

Also worth noting is the keyboard. Though the full-size keys here feel a little cheaper than those of the gold-standard ThinkPad keyboard, they have just the right amount of travel and their placement is standard. There's very little flex when you're typing, too. Above the keyboard is a touch-sensitive area with volume buttons, a unique strip for switching applications, a button that activates a "movie" mode (warming the screen colors), and a button that opens the included Dolby Control Center application (more on that in a minute). The touch response is great, though Lenovo made a quirky design decision: A Wi-Fi status LED that looks exactly like a button--but isn't one--sits in the same row as the touch controls. Yes, it's very confusing.

The textured touchpad works reasonably well; because it feels slick to the touch, however, it sometimes seems less responsive than it is. The pad also supports multitouch gestures for actions such as zooming in on pictures and changing text size, but since that works only in some applications it feels more like a novelty than a real feature. The plastic buttons are definitely the weakest link--I'm a little concerned about their long-term durability.

Given that the Y450 has a Dolby-specific shortcut button above the keyboard, a Dolby Home Theater badge recessed into the case, and speakers made by JBL, I had some pretty high expectations for its sound. While the speakers definitely get loud enough, they lack even a modicum of low end. Activating the Dolby bass boost via software helps considerably, but at the expense of a little distortion, even at lower volumes. To get the most out of the laptop, a good set of headphones is the way to go, allowing you to enjoy the substantial benefit of Dolby's software, sans distortion. Overall, though, the system has more than enough power and volume for daily use.

Unfortunately, the Windows Home Premium-powered Y450 also has more than enough bloatware to drive you up a wall. Some of the software seems useful at first, but the implementation is poor. The unintuitive but good-looking MediaShow media organizer, for instance, bogs down system performance and defeats its own purpose. And don't get me started on the VeriFace facial-recognition system--its inability to recognize my face in anything but the most ideal situations renders it as irritating as the antivirus, Microsoft Office, and online-backup trials. Regrettably, the worst software comes from Lenovo itself, the prime example being Idea Central, a confusing application that attempts to meld RSS feeds, online videos, an online store, and paid-for links into one unified interface. The results are not pretty.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y450 is a well-built all-purpose laptop whose only serious drawback lies in the graphics department. With a price that starts below $600 and tops out at about $900, this is a great-looking and full-featured laptop for everyday home, school, and work use. Just don't expect much more.

Acer Timeline 3810T

This Intel-powered portable, which camps between netbook and notebook, delivers decent performance and style in spades.

The Acer Aspire 3810T, aka the Acer Timeline, has two things going for it: This model is one of the first laptops out the gate to use an Intel CULV processor (in this case, the 1.4GHz U9400). The 3810T also has a sharp style that's sure to grab attention. How does this laptop stand up to the MSI X340 or to the HP Pavilion dv2 (which uses the first-gen Athlon Neo CPU)? Pretty well.
In WorldBench 6, the Timeline trounced the Pavilion dv2 (which scored a 46) and outpaced the MSI X340 (which earned a 56), notching a mark of 68. That's the kind of score we've seen from some typically expensive ultraportables--but in this case, you're paying only $799. While this machine manages to outrun similar competitors for the price with a U9400 CPU and 4GB of RAM, it lacks a discrete graphics card. As a result, though the Timeline surprisingly sails through 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium, you shouldn't expect it to be a multimedia marvel. It does, however, hang in for a ridiculously long stretch of time--it lasted about 8 hours, 21 minutes on a single charge in our tests. That's a pretty solid run, and that battery life was one of the things that helped push the Timeline ahead of the X340 in our evaluations.

But where do you peg a portable like this? Is it a high-powered tweener, or is it a low-performance ultraportable on the cheap? That depends on whom you ask. The dv2 stretches the definition of a netbook. The X340 is a slim, plasticky, poor-man's MacBook Air. The Timeline is a sleek, solid notebook, but it's the size of a conventional ultraportable. Measuring 12.67 by 1.13 by 8.97 inches and weighing 3.5 pounds, this system could be easily confused with a traditional laptop.

Now, the layout of the Timeline--namely, the keyboard--might prompt some love-hate reactions. For an advanced hunt-and-peck specialist like myself, the keys feel springy and good to the touch. But the flat, seemingly floating, psuedo cut-out keys aren't suitable for everyone. Say you're munching on snacks while typing (this review brought to you by Cheetos)--grit and debris will quickly, easily, and frequently fall between the buttons. And my editorial partner in crime, Melissa Perenson, was quick to point out that anyone with long fingernails will find their fingertips catching underneath the keys. Does that mean you'll break a nail every time you type or try to wedge up a key? I don't know, but folks in need of a manicure should consider themselves warned.

Among the Timeline's handy and unique features are a couple of touch-inducive shortcuts. A Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n toggle sits next to a shortcut to Acer Backup Manager (an easy-to-use software utility) and a quick toggle for a battery-saving mod.

Camping below all that is a good-sized touchpad. It has the same texture as the wrist rest, and the only indicator that you're in the strike zone is a slight speed bump surrounding the area. The mouse-button bar has an odd lip that your finger can slip into so that your thumb can rest while you navigate. I'm not particularly crazy about the cheap plastic feel of both the wrist rest and the button, but the setup certainly gets the job done. I know it's an entirely different class, but I wish that more portable makers would take a cue from the Asus Eee PC 1008HA, which has golf-ball-like dimples dotting the active touchpad area. And metallic buttons on the Timeline wouldn't hurt, either.

The screen is nice--provided that you use the Timeline only indoors. The glossy 1366-by-768-pixel panel has colors that pop. If you saw this system on a store shelf, you'd be drawn in by the rich reds and blues that don't drown each other out. Try typing on it outside, however, and you're looking into a fairly expensive mirror. It's not exactly unusable--I wrote half this review outdoors. But the display is extremely dim, and making out much more than black text on a white background under broad daylight is hard. In short, it's just the continuing curse of the glossy screen coating.

Judging from its size and shape, the Timeline seems capable of accommodating an internal optical drive. But it doesn't. What it does have, however, are a reasonable number of ports. VGA and HDMI video-outs complement three USB plugs, an RJ-45 ethernet port, a Webcam, and headphone and microphone jacks.

As for the software, yes, you get some of the usual trialware (Microsoft Office, for instance). However, Acer has also thrown some helpful applications into the mix, ones that might be worth your while to try. Beyond Office, you get Microsoft Works, the eSobi news reader, the aforementioned backup utility, MyWinLocker for safely stowing files, and Orion, a soup-to-nuts IM/communication client. Oh, yeah--you'll also find a host of obnoxious casual-game demos in the "Acer GameZone" that you'll probably want to uninstall the second you power the Timeline up.

Overall, the Acer Aspire 3810T is a handsome-looking portable masquerading as something more powerful than it truly is--and that could be a bit of a problem for this slightly oversized netbook. The large, comfortable keys and the 13.3-inch screen could lull you into thinking that this portable is mighty. It is, by netbook standards--but that's about it. That said, the Timeline is a pretty solid deal, and a decent-looking machine.

Windows 7: Not Done Yet, but Close

Microsoft gave an update on Windows 7 this week, outlining a timeline for the release of the upcoming operating system to manufacturers. The company noted that you shouldn't "believe everything you read on the Internet" and proceeded to set the record straight.

Microsoft's Windows Communications Manager Brandon LeBlanc yesterday took to the official Windows 7 blog, in an attempt to quell rumors that the company has already sent off the finished Windows 7 code to its manufacturing team.



Release to Manufacturing, or RTM, means that the code is oh-so-close to being finished for product release and moves on to the next step - which includes testing and building images for new PCs, according to LeBlanc. "RTM is essentially the final ‘stage' of engineering for Windows 7 before it hits the market at General Availability (GA)," he wrote.

While RTM hasn't happened yet, Microsoft is getting very close to manufacturing and packing millions of its highly anticipated Windows 7 disks for shipment to stores near you, where it will land on October 22.

So what's next as Windows 7 approaches?

One other key step to be completed is getting Windows 7 ready for use in nations around the globe by finishing its availability in many other languages besides English.

For the RTM to move to the next step, Microsoft wants to have those other versions that support different languages completely finished, LeBlanc said.

Another stepping stone to RTM, according to the blog, is getting all of its business partners up to speed, or what LeBlanc calls "global readiness," before the official launch of Windows 7 happens.

That way computer makers, retailers, IT consultants and the rest are all ready with what they need to know to sell, install, service and support computers with the new operating system.

Also still to come is the point where the last stage of final testing and step-by-step validation can be done before the actual Windows 7 DVD installation disks and images are readied for shipment to retailers and PC makers before October 22's release date.

When an earlier pre-release version of Windows 7 was recently leaked online, many tech-watchers thought that meant that Windows 7 was already at the RTM stage, LeBlanc wrote. But that's not the case, he explains.

"This process takes time," LeBlanc wrote. "Just because a single build may have ‘leaked' it does not signal the completion of a milestone such as RTM. As always, don't believe everything that you read on the Internet - except this post ;-)."

When Windows 7 does finally reach the RTM stage, that milestone will be announced on the Windows 7 blog right away, LeBlanc wrote. "Until that happens, any builds you are likely to see on the Web are either not the final bits or are laced with malicious code."

You have been warned.

So are you ready?

While you're waiting, there's plenty for you to do.

You can check out the look of the new Windows 7 packaging that will be on store shelves Oct. 22, and you can start going over your PCs with Microsoft's online tools to check if your PC hardware is up to the task of the new Windows 7.

Can't wait to see more?

Then take the online Microsoft tour of Windows 7 to see many of the new features that you'll soon be using.

In the meantime, relax, go out for a walk, hear the birds and visit with your friends and families.

Because when Oct. 22 rolls around, you'll likely be sitting for hours in front of your PC, backing up data files, cleaning out the crud, upgrading some hardware, then installing Windows 7 and all of your applications.

Take advantage of the free time you have today and enjoy it. It's going to be a long autumn of upgrading!
Todd R. Weiss

Office Web Apps: Five Questions Releasing its paid software onto the Web for free is a bold move for Microsoft. Here's what we want to know.

Microsoft's upcoming Office 2010 is news alone, but what really excited the tech world was the announcement of a free online version of the software, called Office Web Apps. The company already offers a bundle of cloud software over Windows Live -- including mail, storage, and blogging tools -- but taking its paid software onto the free, online world is a bold move. That raises some questions:
How, exactly, will Office Web Apps differ from Office 2010?

Microsoft is fuzzy on what will be different about Office Web Apps. The offline software will be more robust by comparison, but it's not clear how it'll be better, aside from the obvious advantage of not needing the Net. Using Word as an example, basic editing and spell check are enough for many tasks, and they'll be included. What about more advanced features like tables and track changes? Microsoft could very well clip one or two crucial features as a lure to the paid software, but we won't know for sure until a side-by-side comparison emerges.

How free is free?

The idea behind free Office Web Apps is to drive users toward Microsoft's money-making online services, such as Bing, but are there other strategies at work? What are we looking at for advertisements, and will Microsoft ever suggest that users "upgrade" to the paid software? Will people who pay for Office 2010 get additional features online? Inevitably, some cannibalization of the paid software will occur. Microsoft's response should be interesting.

Is there an App for that?

We heard rumblings of a Microsoft Office iPhone App back in April, but so far, nothing's coming. That makes me curious how Office Web Apps will function on a smartphone, or whether Microsoft will instead opt for a paid app. Keep in mind that Google Docs already offers mobile access, so if Microsoft wants to be competitive on all fronts, it'll follow suit.

Will full compatibility ever happen?

The Web version of Office 2010 will be compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. That leaves Opera and, more notably, Google's Chrome out in the cold. As a tactic, that's understandable, given that Chrome drives more people to Google searches and Microsoft is trying to pull them away. But it's not clear whether that's the intent. If not, will we see Chrome support in the future?

Will Office 2010 play well with Windows Live?

If you have a Windows Live account, do us a favor and check out the home page right now. It's not the cleanest site around -- so how clean and friendly will Windows Live become when hundreds of millions of users storm the gates, looking to process words? It's pleasing to know that Office Web Apps will integrate with Microsoft's SkyDrive online storage, but will users be able to import photo albums or e-mail documents directly from the Word processor? Microsoft has the opportunity to create a seamless service across all of Windows Live. Here's hoping the company doesn't blow it.

British scientists claim to create human sperm

LONDON – British scientists claimed Wednesday to have created human sperm from embryonic stem cells for the first time, an accomplishment they say may someday help infertile men father children.

The technique could in 10 years allow researchers to use the basic knowledge of how sperm develop to design treatments to enable infertile men the chance to have biological children, said lead researcher Karim Nayernia, of Newcastle University, whose team earlier produced baby mice from sperm derived in a similar way.

The research, published in the journal Stem Cells and Development, was conducted by scientists at Newcastle and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute.

Stem cells can become any cell in the body, and scientists have previously turned them into a variety of new entities, including cells from the brain, pancreas, heart and blood vessels.

Some experts challenged the research, saying they weren't convinced Nayernia and his colleagues had actually produced sperm cells. Several critics also said the sperm cells they created were clearly abnormal.

"I am unconvinced from the data presented in this paper that the cells produced by Professor Nayernia's group from embryonic stem cells can be accurately called 'spermatazoa," said Allan Pacey, a senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield.

Pacey said in a statement that the sperm created by Nayernia did not have the specific shape, movement and function of real sperm.

Azim Surani, a professor of physiology and reproduction at the University of Cambridge said the sperm produced by the Newcastle team were "a long way from being authentic sperm cells."

Nayernia said the cells "showed all the characteristics of sperm," but his group's intention was simply to "open up new avenues of research" with their early findings, rather than using the sperm to fertilize eggs.

Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at the National Institute of Medical Research said that despite the questions raised, Nayernia and colleagues may have made some progress in obtaining human sperm from embryonic cells.

Nayernia said creating embryos from lab-manufactured sperm is banned by British law.

He said they only plan to produce sperm to study the reasons behind infertility, and will not fertilize any eggs.

Some lawmakers said provisions should be made to allow sperm derived from stem cells to be tested as part of potential fertility treatments.

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AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter contributed to this report from New York.

Bombings in Mosul, Baghdad kill at least 41

BAGHDAD – Two suicide bombers on Thursday killed at least 34 people and injured 70 in an attack on the home of an anti-terrorism officer in northern Iraq, while three roadside bombs in Baghdad killed seven others, authorities said.

The attacks came one day after car bombs in two Shiite villages near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killed 16 civilians and injured more than two dozen, in a surge of violence in Iraq's troubled north following the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from cities to bases outside urban centers at the end of June.


Iraq is trying to build on security gains made in the past two years, though political reconciliation among the country's factions remains a troubled process and there is concern that insurgent attacks could trigger a slide back into sectarian violence.

Maj. Gen. Khalid al-Hamadani, the police chief of the northern Ninevah province, said the first bomber, wearing a police uniform and carrying a radio and a pistol, knocked on the door of a police officer who works as an investigator in the anti-terrorism police department in Tal Afar city.

When the officer opened the door around 6:30 a.m., the bomber detonated his explosive belt, killing the officer, his wife and son, al-Hamadani said. As people gathered near the scene, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt.

At about 7:30 a.m. in Baghdad, two roadside bombs exploded near an outdoor market in the Shiite district of Sadr City, killing six and injuring 31, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city's operations command center. Explosives experts defused a third bomb in the area.

Hassan Abdullah, a 32-year-old vegetable salesman, said he heard the first blast and went to see what was happening when a second bomb hidden in trash about 100 meters away exploded. He said he fell to the ground and was taken to a hospital with hand and leg injuries.

In the Karrada district of central Baghdad, one civilian was killed and five were injured in a roadside bomb attack on the convoy of Central Bank Gov. Sinan al-Shibibi, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Three of the injured were guards of the governor, who himself was unharmed.

The bomb hit a vehicle carrying guards at the rear of the convoy as well as a nearby civilian car.

Also in Baghdad, a bomb concealed in a bicycle parked at a market in the Shiite-dominated area of Shurta al-Rabeaa exploded, wounding two people and damaging three shops, police said. Three other people were wounded, when a bomb exploded in a minibus in southwestern Baghdad.

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Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this report.