For those of you who are still running XP because you’re waiting out your trust issues with Vista, you may not have to wait much longer… or you’ll have to come up with a new excuse. According to ZDNet, a beta build of Service Pack 2 is in the hands of some software partners. Apparently, it’s also Microsoft’s intention to deliver the Service Pack before Windows 7 hits the shelves on June 3rd of next year. A new OS coming out only two years after Vista is a little foreboding, but hopefully SP2 will fix some of the remaining issues with Vista, namely,compatibility issues. There’s very little known about the features of SP2, but we’ll be sure and keep you updated.

Tags: 7, SP2, vista, windows, ZDNet

After Steve Jobs called the Blu-Ray format a “bag of hurt”, it’s sort of surprising to find a company which is already producing Blu-Ray players for MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. The unit is external, so if you’re fine with hauling around an extra piece of hardware, not to mention the discs, you’ll have portable Blu-Ray access where ever you go. The drives come in a glossy black or white finish and they’ll burn BD-RE and -R discs at 2x. The cost isn’t too painful at $289, but we’re still hoping to see internal Blu-Ray support. So c’mon Steve! Open up that bag of hurt!

Tags: Amex Digital, blu-ray, macbook, MacBook Pro, steve jobs

It looks like touchscreen technology isn’t reserved to cellphones anymore. Apparently, HP is looking to reinvent it’s portfolio over the next 16 months and one of the improvements to be made is touchscreen for their laptops. They’ve already debuted the TouchSmart PC, but The Wall Street Journal is reporting that HP plans to have a touchscreen laptop out by the end of the year. It seems Frog Design will be helping HP get the model ready by developing the new software and hardware. Not to miss out on the cellphone bandwagon, it’s reported that HP will also release a touch screen cellphone in Europe, but currently there’s no word about a release in the US.

Tags: Frog Design, hp, laptop, Touch screen

No, you’re not being paranoid if you’re in public and surfing the internet. Computer screens are like a magnet for human eyes, whether you want people looking at what you’re looking at or not. Traditional privacy filters tend to leave your view a bit murky as well, so LG has announced the solution for the privacy vs. clarity problem. It’s new Viewing Angle Image Control display has the ability to have its viewable area cropped from just 175 down to 60, via a push of a small button. This change is not supposed to impact the brightness of the screen in any way. It’s not really the first screen which we’ve seen this ability from, but it’salready in mass production and will be showing up in laptops every where, very soon.

Tags: laptop, lg, privacy, Privacy Screen

Samsung has all eyes focused on them after announcing plans to enter the US laptop market with five different branded models. The laptops will be available in both online and traditional retail shops and the models featured will be the NC10, Q310, X360, X460, P460, and the P560. The N10 starts with a screen size of just 10 inches, while the P560 sports a nice 15.4 screen. The prices for these babies range from just $499 for the small NC10, all the way up to $1,49 for the P560. It looks like Samsung has thought this through and is hoping to target the entire laptop market by offering a wide range of laptops for a wide range of budgets.

Tags: Cheap Laptop, laptop, samsung, Widescreen

Microsoft is set to hand out pre-betas of Windows 7 to various developers, and it looks like they’ve finally found the perfect name for it’s next-gen OS. Get ready… introducing.. Windows 7. That’s right, it turns out the code name which has been used all through development has been chosen as the real name, which is a first for Windows. Apparently the company decided to stick with Windows 7 because it “just makes sense”. Seinfeld must have helped them on the set of the commercials with this idea. Whatever it’s called, I just can’t shake the feeling that Windows 7 is little more than a patch Vista.

Tags: Beta, Seven, windows 7, windows vista

As if you needed another reason to constantly check your email. This little device sits neatly on your desktop, cleverly disguised as an envelope. Whenever you receive email, the light inside the notifier will light up, either in green, blue or red. The color depends on what location you’ve received the mail from, for those of you with multiple inboxes, or you can use it to set the volume of your inbox, letting you know when its time to clean out your inbox. The device is priced at $17 and would make a great gift for the email addict you know.

Tags: Device, email, GMail, Outlook, usb

We’ve all seen the continuing “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials that have graced our TV over the past few years. Just recently, we’ve also had a chance to see Microsoft’s version of these ads, simple called “I’m a PC”. While these two big companies fight over terms that they still haven’t properly identified (see also: a Mac is a PC. Windows runs on a PC.), some new gossip has come to light.

The “I’m a PC” ad has supposedly been created on a Mac. Ironic? Sort of.  But the truth of the matter is that the entire ad campaign has been made using a Mac.

This isn’t uncommon for video production to be done on a Mac. It’s not like the studio doing the ad was based within Microsoft. That’s just how they decided to do it. Unfortunately, this is going to blow up in their faces.

I’m still stuck on the fact that nobody realizes a PC is just hardware……

Tags: apple, i'm a mac i'm a pc, i'm a pc, Mac, micorosoft, pc

The quest for the ability to properly hide that you’re looking at porn on your computer has come to a three way stand off. Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox all have active (or will by the launch of their next beta) a method that will allow users to ensure their privacy when doing private things.

Internet Explorer 8 calls their mode InPrivate.

Google Chrome calls their mode Incognito.

But as of yet, Firefox does not have a name for their privacy mode that will be launching with next months Firefox beta 3.1.

Let’s hope it’s something witty.

Tags: FireFox, firefox beta 3.1, google, google chrome, ie8, Internet Explorer, porn, privacy

AMD isn’t content with sitting back and letting Intel take over the netbook market. While it may not be something they’ve got ready to launch just yet (with their first attempt being on the desktop side), AMD had started developing the Athlon Ultra-Value Client (UVC) series. They’ve already created processors to match the single core 1.6GHz Atom and the dual core 1.5GHz Atom down to the T. But they’ve also seemed to beef up the wattage on these chips, making them a bit more powerful.

If they can get the prices right and make the laptop version available quickly, we may just see Atom get a run for its money.

Tags: AMD, athlon, atom, dual core, Intel, netbook, ultra-value client, uvc