TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

HP’s competitor to the MacBook Air isn’t lighter, thinner or more attractive than Apple’s subnotebook. But it’s significantly cheaper.

Dubbed the Pavilion DV2, HP’s 12.1-inch subnotebook weighs 3.8 pounds and measures 1.3 inches thick. It’s powered by a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo processor. Though pricing hasn’t been finalized, HP said the DV2 will cost around $500.

That’s a lot cheaper than the MacBook Air, which starts at $1,800. Granted, Apple’s subnotebook has the DV2 beat in every way.

It’s clear today why Steve Jobs dropped the word "Computer" from Apple’s company name in 2007.

The
CEO had greater ambitions for Apple. And with the phenomenal success of the iPhone, iPod, iTunes Store and App Store in 2008, Apple shook up the music, phone and software industries, ultimately proving the company is far more than a PC
manufacturer. Meanwhile, sales of its Mac desktops and notebooks continued to build momentum, getting the company’s share of the PC market to flirt with double digits for the first time in over a decade. 

Now, with Apple preparing to make its final appearance at the Macworld trade show in San Francisco this week, everyone is watching to see what the company’s next move will be.

Like Mr. Skinny (Mr. Men, 1978, pictured), LG’s upcoming LH95 TV will be almost invisible when viewed side-on (although unlike Mr. Skinny, it doesn’t have a little sticking-out belly).

The LH95 is an LCD model with an LED backlight and a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio. What is important, though, is the thickness: 24.8mm (0.98"). That’s it: a giant TV, with an almost non-existent profile.

What did you get for {insert holiday here]? Very probably it was an iPod Touch.

The graph above, from Market Share, shows the iPod Touch’s browser usage over the week including Christmas Day, where there is a sharp bump. We’ve long had a feeling that Mobile OS X – the OS run by the iPhone and the iPod Touch – was the next big thing not just for Apple but for computing in general, and this seems to prove it.

We don’t often discuss the publicity for products, but these two ads for Nikon’s Coolpix S60 are smart and funny enough to point out. Both show off the camera’s face detection technology. The one above is smart, but the one below is plain hilarious.

You’ll have to click through to see it, as it may not be safe for work if your boss doesn’t like girls in underwear cavorting on beds.

Low-power display technologies offer nice economic value and they’re good for the planet. We get it, so we encourage their growth. But let’s admit that the current language supporting green gadgetry is a bit precious. Not every product’s going to save the world.

Which is why I’m willing to get behind an illuminated walkway design that doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a cool aesthetic accessory for the home.

Orange’s exclusive iPhone deal in France is about to end — French telco regulator ARCEP has ruled that the Orange/Apple team-up stifles competition, going so far as to call it a "serious and immediate threat".

The ruling is a result of a rather obvious land-grab by rival French telco Bouygues Telecom, which filed a complaint back in September.

Quick, name at least two smartphones that you think must be part of any top five list?

Apple iPhone. T-Mobile HTC G1. Ding! Wrong Answer!

Consumer Reports has surprisingly picked Samsung Blackjack II and T-Mobile Wing as its top two smartphones, says ZDNET.

Others on the list that comes out in the January issue of the magazine include Motorola Q9c, T-Mobile Shadow and BlackBerry Pearl Flip.

We would trust Consumer Reports all the way to buy our next washer, dryer or microwave.

I’m not a golfer, so this post is framed as more of a question to our Pringle-wearing readers: Would this gyroscopic golf club work?

Here are the details: The Gyro Swing has a gyroscope inside, which from the picture looks fairly hefty. The disk spins at 20,000 rpm and is supposed to ingrain the "feel" of a proper shot into the arms of the player. It is also claimed that the club resists extraneous movement, keeping – we presume – the face of the club at the correct angle.

A gyroscope certainly provides resistance to movement. That’s the whole point of them, in fact, and something I discovered at an early age with bike wheels.

According to the USB standard, a cable should not be more than five feet long. That is, unless you are using Icron’s ThinkLogical setup, ExtremeUSB. The bridging technology will allow you to use a cable which is 25 miles long.

Imagine the convenience! You could sit at home with a keyboard in your lap but your your computer could be one town over in the office, connected via CAT5, fiber or even the powerlines. Working from home is finally a possibility.

Of course, that would be quite foolish, but one of the selling points of the system is that governments can use it to run secure connections to distant cameras.