Poll: A fifth vacation with laptops
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Sun block. Beach umbrella. Laptop. One in five people toted laptop computers on their most recent vacations, an AP-Ipsos poll released Friday said. Along with the 80 percent who said they brought along their cell phones, the survey shows going on vacation no longer means being out of the electronic loop.
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Q. I have acquired from my son the laptop he used during his last year of college and for a couple years after that. He did a lot of online gaming, watching videos, downloading of stuff from the Internet, etc., that I do not do.
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The retailer trots out a bargain portable PC that packs Wi-Fi. Is it getting ready for a laptop push for the holidays?
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If the One Laptop Project keeps its promises, the small green US$100 laptop could very well revolutionize teaching in developing nations. Computerworld Denmark asked Jan Soelberg, an expert from the school of education at the University of Aarhus, to try the computer.
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Iâve recently been thinking about picking up a new laptop computer and handing off my Compaq (which has worked great over the past 3 years) to my wife for her excursion into the travel industry.
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The XO laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project is going on sale: buy two, get one. But it's still a good deal.
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In Dayton, a state employee returns to work to find a $2,000 computer stolen. In Cleveland, someone walks into an unlocked office and takes a $2,200 laptop belonging to the state auditor's office. In Ohio, these scenarios not unusual, with state-issued computers frequently stolen or missing, according to a recent review of reports of stolen equipment by The Associated Press.
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Alienware designs a laptop so slick you'll beg it to probe you; a docking station for the PSP misses the point and an all-in-one printer frees up more desk space for pictures of your cat. All in this week's Gadget Lab.
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Travellers apathetic about lost kit Two in five mobile devices left at UK airports this summer will never be reclaimed, according to a new survey by mobile security specialists Pointsec.â¦
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The One Laptop Per Child project suffered a blow this week, with Chief Technology Officer Mary Lou Jepsen quitting the nonprofit to start a for-profit company to commercialize technology she invented with OLPC.Jepsen, who joined OLPC as its first employee in 2005 after Nicholas Negroponte started the effort, will pursue an opportunity to chase after &quot;her next miracle in display technology,&quot; OLPC said in an e-mail sent on Sunday.Jepsen was responsible for hardware and display development for the rugged and power-saving&#160;XO laptop, designed for use by children in developing countries. Though the laptop has struggled to find buyers, it has been praised for its innovative hardware features and environmentally friendly design.Her last day with the organization is Dec. 31, though she will continue consulting with OLPC, according to the e-mail. Dec. 31 is also the end of OLPC&#39;s Give One Get One program, in which two XO laptops can be purchased for about $400, with a user getting one laptop and the other being donated.Satisfied that XO laptops were shipping in volume, Jepsen noted in an e-mail that she was starting a for-profit company to commercialize some of the technologies she invented at OLPC.&quot;I will continue to give OLPC product at cost, while providing commercial entities products they would like at a profit,&quot; Jepsen wrote in an e-mail.&quot;I believe that the work I led in the design of the XO laptop is just the first step in changing computing,&quot; she wrote.Powered by solar power, foot pedal or pull-string, the laptop doesn&#39;t rely on an electrical outlet to run, making it useful for situations where power is unreliable or unavailable. The laptop&#39;s specially designed lithium-ferro phosphate battery consumes between 2 watts to 8 watts depending on usage, compared to 40 watts on commercial laptops depending on usage.The laptop&#39;s battery lasts up to 21 hours because of custom-designed, efficient power-saving features implemented at the hardware and software level. Batteries in commercial laptops may explode at high temperatures, while XO&#39;s batteries can run and recharge in temperatures around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), Jepsen said in earlier interview.OLPC is also designing a cow-powered generator that works by hooking cattle up to a system of belts and pulleys.For connectivity, the laptop has mesh-networking features for Internet access.
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By James Coates  Q: I have acquired from my son the laptop he used during his last year of college and for a couple years after that. He did a lot of online gaming, watching videos, downloading of stuff from the Internet, etc., that I do not do.
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Redmond, Wash., /PRNewswire/ - As gifts for loved ones or tools for getting organized in the new year, personal computers (PCs) are always popular items during the holiday gift-giving season.
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Young men - keep that laptop off your lap if you want to have healthy progeny. That is the advice of State University of New York (at Stonybrook) researchers who found that the heat caused by portable computers
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By Bill Husted, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution  Feb. 11--QUESTION: At your recommendation, I purchased a battery backup  for my PC. Also at your suggestion, I was planning to buy one for my HDTV as  well.
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Got a Pocket PC? Then you, too, can control your PowerBook from anywhere on the globe. You travel, it stays. Just make sure you've got someone at home who can reboot. Leander Kahney reports from San Francisco.
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(InfoWorld) - Forget isolation and relaxation. For the seriously connected geek of today, vacations just aren't what they used to be. An informal and completely unscientific poll of InfoWorld readers revealed that -- although a few certified techies unplug completely when on vacation -- most elect to stay at least somewhat connected with their regular life; thanks to the ever-broadening range of cellular and wireless networks, most of them can. [See InfoWorld's Top 10 geek vacation list.] Jeff Helm witnessed the transition at one vacation spot: "I first took the family to Pigeon Forge (near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park) in October 2001. I walked across the hotel parking lot to the new public library to get on the Internet and check mail. I was told I would have to fill out a form, pay $5, let them hold on to my driver's license, and swear that I wouldn't 'conduct any business' or credit card transactions of any kind." Fast-forward to August 2006: "We went to the same hotel. I got out of the car to check in, and my PDA gave an audible report that it found a wireless signal. Yes, the same library was now beaming invitations to connect to the Internet to everyone in the area. Every hotel â¦ did the same. I checked e-mail at the outside mall, waiting for a patio table at the restaurant, and just about every place I went. I shut off the audible alert because the thing was going off constantly with all the networks." "The Outer Banks of North Carolina have a full complement of Net hotspot and cell-phone coverage capabilities," writes Peter B. Young. "I like to sit in the shade of an upper deck on our mansion-of-the-week, my sturdy old laptop plugged into an outlet in the living room or often out on the deck itself, and let 'er rip -- as gentle southern breezes caress my worn and wounded body." Rand Foster recommends cruising the San Juan Islands in northwest Washington between                                                     Vancouver Island and the mainland: "There is Wi-Fi at every marina." Brad St. Pierre found the perfect combo in Canada's Northwest Territories: "At the Bayside B and B in Yellowknife, I could watch the lakeside airplane and boat activity from the lounge or deck all day while surfing the Net. With almost 24 hours of sunshine, it's never too late to do the things you forgot to do while you were online." High-tech contractor David G. Evans found a way to have his vacation and get paid for it, too. "I was on call for production support. I spent a few weeks grooming my contacts to text me if they had an issue. That being done, I found a wonderful camp spot in Seaside, Calif., 20 seconds from pristine dunes and the ocean, 15 minutes from downtown Monterey, private, inexpensive, and well equipped. The recreation room has two hookups for Internet and a Web-mail kiosk. "Since this was an East Coast contract, I would get up at 4:30 or 5 to do a quick message check and reply as a first-thing-in-the-morning connection for them. Then we would drive to the Monterey Bay Aquarium but leave me three blocks away at the Kinko's with my laptop, where access is free, 24 hour, and comfortable. I would spend an hour or two working, then wander down to the wharf to meet them for some exhibits and lunch. If there was work, I would check back at Kinko's; if not, we had family time. Except for some mad coding from the backseat of the Volvo, plugged into the cigarette lighter for a portion of the trip home, this was the best working vacation I ever had." Edward C. Horvath had the best idea for a busman's holiday: "Buy yourself a ticket to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Live on caffeine, sugar, new technology, and the famed Jobs Reality Distortion Field for a week." The prize for the most far-out connected experience has to go to Savio Rodrigues, one of the authors of our Open Sources blog. He proudly sent us a photo from Machu Picchu -- not of himself, but of his BlackBerry, with a strong connection. A close second: April Harris Calderwood's working vacation, "going to a third-world country and helping a community project with technology; you rest and give back to the community."
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When $100 buys a pocket-sized gadget that can store decades' worth of appointments -- and $200 gets you one that also serves as a digital photo album and MP3 player -- why would anybody spend up to $500 on a new Palm or Pocket PC handheld? -Rob Pegoraro