AMD's "Llano" Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) find their first home in HP's Pavilion and ProBook notebook lines, which will carry the new processors later this month.

The companies claim the new processors lead to 6-8 hours of battery life, as well as enchancing graphical prowess for tasks like HD video and games.

AMD's APUs combine CPU and ATI graphics cores on the same silicon die.

In total HP will release 11 new laptop models, and offers dual-graphics options for the Pavilion dv-series Continue reading...

Touch-screen apps have limited ways to control content, so access to menu commands or secondary functions requires trips to full menus, which slows down the user.

Now there’s Ringbow, a finger-mounted 5-way controller (four compass directions plus pushing down) that speeds up your passage through accessory menus .

OK, software vendors who make graphical apps (such as Adobe) could make their products easier and faster to use for professionals by adding Ringbow shortcuts, but even without software Continue reading...

First there was the laptop. Then the notebook, and the netbook. Now Intel proposes a new category-- the "Ultrabook", debuting at Taipei's Computex 2011.

The ultrabook category should combine laptops' performance with "tablet-like features", all in ultra-thin designs reaching anorexic thickness levels of 20mm or less.

Asus already has one such ultrabook at the Taipei show-- the UX21 Ultrabook, which reaches 17mm at its thickest and has a Macbook Air-like metal finish.

Similar models from other Continue reading...

Is Microsoft too late to enter the tablet race? Citigroup suggests otherwise, in a report saying Microsoft still has a chance to take over at least a chunk-- if not the #2 position-- of the market in 2013.

The analyst predicts Microsoft could even release a tablet-optimised version of Windows 8 before a PC version, with announcements to potentially appear either later this week or the next.

Fuelling Microsoft's push towards tablet is consumer PC growth-- which, as seen in the chart (also by Citi Continue reading...