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With the holiday season upon us, many laptop shoppers are looking for a new system as a gift for either a lucky recipient or themselves. To assist you in this noble endeavor, we've been tracking the most promising laptops from the second half of 2010, from entry-level systems starting at well under $500 to $1,000-plus high-end multimedia and gaming rigs.

Unlike our previous review roundups, our net is cast a bit wider this time around, and includes both retail-specific systems as well as laptops you can order directly from the manufacturer. Additionally, we've decided to focus on … Read more

Dell has captured the imagination of a tablet-crazed public with a handful of recent photos and details about a new convertible tablet called the Inspiron Duo. A prerelease sample has turned up in the CNET Labs for a hands-on test drive, and we're generally impressed with the design and concept, if less so with the performance.

Unlike traditional convertible tablets, which have screens that rotate 180 degrees horizontally, the Inspiron Duo screen flips 180 degrees vertically--hinged in the middle of the lid. When the screen is flipped over and the lid closed, the system launches a touch-friendly interface for interacting with photos, videos, and music (and returns to the basic Windows desktop when the transformation is reversed).

The flipping motion worked well on our demo unit, although the hinge felt a little loose. You have to take care to turn the screen only in the correct direction, essentially pushing the top of the screen back through the lid. Also, the screen occasionally collided with the keyboard with an audible thunk if we weren't careful about opening the laptop body wide enough for proper clearance. … Read more

Intel is using its technology know-how to pave the way for safer football helmets with the goal of reducing serious injuries on the field.

Working with football equipment designer Riddell and a host of universities, the chipmaker is tapping into its own supercomputers and workstations to simulate the effects of a football collision on the brain. Data from those simulations will then be used to help design safer football helmets.

Intel recently demoed the simulation at the SC10 conference in New Orleans. Simulated collisions on the football field are processed by groups of Intel Xeon-based workstations linked together. Using real-time … Read more

Dell is expected to roll out its hybrid tablet-laptop in two phases, with the first phase coming Thursday, as the PC maker takes aim at Apple's iPad with a novel twist on the tablet concept.

Pre-sale order information for the 10-inch Inspiron Duo is expected to be disclosed this week in conjunction with a Microsoft store opening in Bellevue, Wash, said industry sources familiar with the launch plans.

Dell is also expected to make an announcement regarding the Duo early next week, possibly on November 23. At that time, it will be available for order on Dell's Web … Read more

It's hard to maintain excitement about Netbooks lately, with all the tablet and ultraportable developments of the last few months. That's not stopping manufacturers from trying to offer some valuable solutions. HP has announced the December release of the Mini 1103, a business-targeted Netbook for $299.

Based on the specs, there's nothing to get excited about: a 10-inch screen at 1,024x600-pixel resolution, single-core Intel Atom N455 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter in the entry configuration. Optional 3G mobile broadband from AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon is also available. The … Read more

Intel's chief executive, Paul Otellini, took a minute at the start of today's earnings conference call to praise Apple's iPad, but he said Intel has every intention of ultimately winning the category.

Intel executives have made many statements about the tablet category in past conference calls. But these were typically about the category being new and only "additive" to the much larger PC market. This time Otellini made a uncharacteristically strong statement, seemingly in response to investor worries that Intel is not addressing the category aggressively enough.

"I know the big question on everyone'… Read more

Google TV products from Sony and Logitech pack a potent brew of software and hardware that could animate even the most inveterate couch potatoes. But will they sit up and take notice?

TVs are quickly on the way to becoming hybrids that can switch freely between passive TV and PC-like interactive modes, according to Intel. Will consumers finally begin to lean forward more and lean back less? After all, this has been tried before.

"The reason we feel very confident this time around is it's less of a leap now because consumers are used to consuming Internet content," Wilfred Martis, general manager of Intel's Retail Consumer Electronics business, said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Intel is a key player in the Sony Internet TV and Logitech Revue set-top box, which was introduced yesterday, because it supplies the Atom CE4100 processor that powers the interactive side of the Google TV platform. And this is no ordinary Atom. It squeezes a lot of processing into a tiny system-on-a-chip.

"The CE 4100 combines dual 1080p video decoders, dual audio DSPs (digital signal processors), 3D graphics, display processing, and security infrastructure," said Martis. "That allows you to consume broadcast or Blu-ray content as well as all the content and applications on the Internet."

All very convincing on paper but some consumers, at least, may have beaten Google TV to the punch.… Read more

Netbooks don't change very much in terms of specs, at least compared with other laptops, but there has been one new wrinkle as of late: dual-core Atom CPUs.

Acer's 10.1-inch Acer Aspire AOD255 Netbook includes a new dual-core Atom N550 CPU for a very reasonable $329, along with 1GB of DDR3 RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter. A single-core AOD255 will still be sold as well, starting at $269. It comes in four colors--red, black, brown, and aquamarine--and will go on sale later this month.

Acer has a line of "premium" Netbooks … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Scientists at IBM Research say they have figured out for the first time how to record rapid changes at the level of individual atoms.

Until now, it has usually taken hours to get a picture of what is happening to a single atom. But according to IBM Research, scientists at Big Blue's $6 billion R&D unit have figured out how to use a scanning tunneling microscope to record and study very fast changes at the atomic level. It is thought that the scientists will now be able to record atoms' behavior at speeds of … Read more