HP and its iPAQ line of smartphones haven't exactly had the kind of earth-shaking success that some of its rivals have had so far, but that isn't stopping the consumer electronics giant from trying to pierce the US market. An FCC posting has revealed that the HP iPAQ 900 may be headed Stateside soon, and we've got some details in the full article up next.

LG Display isn't only all about expensive, ultra-slim monitors. The display manufacturer from Korea is now working on filling the demand of widescreen LCD monitors for low-cost computers. Check out the specs for three of their upcoming LCD display line-up in the full article.

A number of computer manufacturers are facing a shortage of laptop batteries because or a recent fire at the LG Chem Ochang plant in South Korea. To find out more about this, head on over to the full article by clicking on the "read more" link below.

Consumer-end computer solutions provider Hewlett-Packard seems to be pulling out all the stops in mobile computing, especially Internet connectivity as it's still limited to wireless antennae and access point availability. The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network, utilizing 3G EV-DO Revision A technology, will fulfill HP's plans to integrate a less limiting Internet connectivity on its line of business notebook PCs.

Like normal 3G technology, Sprint's 3G EV-DO Rev. A will grant subscribers of the technology the ability to surf the World Wide Web simply by being in the range of Sprint's distribution towers. That's practically coverage that ranges over miles. Just how your mobile phone would connect to the Internet via 3G anywhere and anytime, so would Sprint Mobile Broadband. Only this time, the network can pour up to 1.8 Gbps of data to designated business laptops and average at about 300 Kbps to 500 Kbps in throughput.

Of course, there are only a few HP laptops that will carry the embedded service, and HP has only lined up the HP Compaq 2710p, the 6510b, the 6910p, the 8510p, and the 8510w for this unique feature. Also, aside from laying down big bucks for purchasing these HP Compaq products, interested users will also have to subscribe to variously priced Sprint Mobile Broadband plans before the service will work.

As more and more businesses across the globe switch to paperless environments and move their data from hard copies to the web, fears that printing may soon become trivial have risen. Hewlett-Packard, however, says it can adapt to the changing times.

The printer giant has introduced an umbrella strategy called "Print 2.0" and it's touted to change the way people think about printing. At the center of the plan are two jewels: a web-based application called Cloudpoint and the Apple iPhone.

In a nutshell, the idea behind Print 2.0 is built on the fact that most of today's printed content come from the web. With the introduction of the iPhone, mobile users were given a true OS with a fully functional browser. However, the small screen of the iPhone  raises the need to print things on its browser, so a software solution must be adopted to bridge the gap from cell phone to printer.

That's where Cloudpoint comes in. By visiting the HP-powered Cloudpoint service site at cloudprint.hpl.hp.com, users will be able to register, enter their number for verification and then select any PC connected to a printer and internet anywhere in the world to print text coming in encoded in PDA form.

"The world is going to flip. We want to ride the wave of the Web," says HP Labs Internet and Computing Platforms director Patrick Seaglia.

According to numbers released by the NPD Group, the worldwide market of laptop notebooks saw a 14% rise in Apple shipments since last month. And better yet for the Cupertino-based company, 14% of all notebook computers sold last month were also Apple-branded.

Analysts believe that this may be an indication that the laptop community is embracing more and more of Apple, despite being only fourth place in the current generation laptop race in the U.S. Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, and Toshiba sit at spots above Steve Jobs' company, as reported.

Further consideration of Apple's year-on-year growth, however, may drive the company to steal the third spot. The May figures actually represent a 65% jump from Apple's figure last year, and if Apple can keep that year-on-year rate up for the next month, the numbers would spring the modest 14% to a proud 20% in just thirty days.

If you have around US$ 2000 to burn and you plan to use laptops as tools to help you "show-off" (by that we mean a portable media center) instead of nice comfy small things that you can fit on your lap and type on, then the HP HDX "Dragon" 20.1 monitor laptop could be for you.

Yes, the price may be a bit steep, and the laptop may be huge, but HP does say that their targeted group of users are comprised of folks who don't have enough space for a tower desktop, and those who need to use high-end editing/audio-video applications on the go. HP also hints that there may be some gaming applications for this laptop. Here's what CTO for HP's Global Gaming Business, Rahul Sood had to say about the laptop:

The HP 20" HDX was originally conceived by the notebook design team before the gaming business units was even setup! So to be clear, the gaming business did not design this notebook, which is pretty wild considering this notebook is perfect for gaming (I should mention that the HP 20” HDX plays games better than 98% of the gaming notebooks on the planet (with MAX MAX MAX settings) and it seems to be priced to compete). Yes, the media speculated, but the bottom line is notebooks take much longer than 8 months to complete.

Well? Did he convince you? Or would you rather go with the Alienware gaming laptops? If Rahul Sood managed to at least get you curious, a dated yet informative video on the laptop should be below, and a data-sheet is also available at the Full Article.

It's nothing new to the forefront in the high definition format wars. Samsung accomplished the same with their own BD-UP5000 - a decent marriage between Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. But it seems that hybrid drives (or combo drives as the techie world would like to put it) are the safest bet for everyone.

 

Enter Hewlett-Packard, a consumer and business computer solutions provider. They may lead in the printer camp, but they aren't any slackers in the PC camp either...well, not awful slackers, for the most part. According to a report by CNET News, HP will be sporting a HD-DVD and Blu-Ray internal drive for PCs in two models of their Pavilion line.

The Pavilion Media Center m8010y and the Pavilion d4890y will both sport a "triple writer, dual read" drive, come May 9, 2007. The drive is currently being offered as an optional drive for both systems, but there has yet to be a mention of it's model number, pricing and upgrade options for older Pavilions (including laptops) with HD-DVD drives.

The Aero Glass interface is what Vista uses to implement the pretty animated transitions and clear windows when switching between applications. Now, this could also be the reason why Vista has been draining laptop batteries faster. When Aero isn't active, it's been said that the battery consumption is comparable (if not better) than Windows XP.

A technologist from Hewlett-Packard John Wozniak has spoken about the inherent problem of the system, saying "They've really made it complex from a power management standpoint. The potential is there to do some good things, the bad thing is that it comes with the canned settings... and we didn't like any of them." This is a pretty common reaction because even Lenovo has done the same thing with their laptops.

Microsoft is unfazed by this. They are actually encouraging PC companies to customize the power settings saying "We actively encourage (PC companies) to customize the default power profiles so that users get the most out of their hardware." in their statement about the current "power draining issues" of Vista. Now, we have to remember that Vista had been marketed as being more power efficient before, unfortunately a lot of people feel that this isn't true and want more from the OS.

A lot of other distinguished people have spoken on the current problem and how they are addressing it. If you want to read more, you can see the full article via our read link.

World leader in computer manufacture Dell Computer's rough first quarter was all it took to allow competitors Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Acer to climb back into the fray and rack up some serious growth figures.

Apple Computers was the biggest gainer as it saw a whopping 30 percent increase in its worldwide shipments. Its total U.S. market share rose from four percent to five percent, sealing a fantastic initial quarter performance. Hewlett-Packard also saw sharp increases with a 28.2 rise in shipments and an ownage of 19.1 percent of the total market.

Asian computer powers Lenovo and Acer are also growing. The Chinese firm that acquired the respected IBM hardware wing has showing it can ship PCs by the truckloads to become the third largest computer vendor on the planet.  Acer posted similar figures.

Dell, on the other hand, seems unable to cope with the times. The former king had its shipments drop by a significant 14 percent while its total market share is now only second to HP. U.S. sales are down even though the market grew by a tenth this year.

The woes of the company may have started when bad press spread like wildfire regarding its notebooks with severe, and sometimes explosive problems. The company has yet to regain momentum after the hard blow to its reputation.