The future of the laptop and the tablet PC has been rolled up into one. German designer Evgeny Orkin has developed a concept design for The Rolltop. The Rolltop is constructed of a flexible OLED display that wraps around the removable power supply stand. Tucked into the power stand is a webcam, speaker sound bar, USB ports, and the power supply and power cord.

The screen can either be formed into a 13-inch conventional laptop (well sort of) or rolled flat for a 17-inch tablet with stylus. Another great feature is you can stand it upright with a fold out support leg and watch videos like a flat screen TV. And with multi-touch technology you don’t need a separate mouse and keyboard because everything is right on the screen. It might be hard to type on a digital QWERTY keyboard but it might be like a large iPhone.

I know its just in the concept form but it would really be cool to see one in person and maybe use one some day. To really appreciate the capabilities and possibilities of The Rolltop check out this video from Orkin Design.
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Popularity: 8% [?]

While Mac users bob and gasp in the wake of the release of Apple’s new operating system, Snow Leopard, Windows users are gloating (a bit preemptively). As Microsoft gears up to unleash its long-awaited operating system, Windows 7, friends and foes alike are hailing its amazing security. One industry publication declares that “the new version of Windows is stacking up to be the most secure to date.”

That’s a high and mighty claim for an operating system that has historically had more bugs, viruses, glitches, malfunctions, spyware, malware, and problems than all the other operating systems combined. Ok, that sounds a little harsh, but when you’re a household name in computing and founded by the erstwhile richest man in the world, people will throw rocks at you. Those rocks came in the form of a veritable torrent of hack-happy engineers unleashing their twistedness to deconstruct Windows versions from the system BIOS up. It’s been going on for a long time.
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Popularity: 6% [?]

Out with the Old Zune, In With the New Zune HD

The Zune is joining the ranks of cast-off technology as Microsoft rearranges its product line to keep pace with morphing media consumption. Paul Thurott recently blogged, “I met with the Zune folks today and one bit of information than I can discuss immediately is that the Zune HD will be the only device type going forward.”

Microsoft currently produces several models of the Zune: 4GB Zune, 8GB Zune, 16GB Zune, 80GB Zune, and the 120GB Zune. All models wil effectively be discontinued. A backward glance at Zune’s history reveals a rocky three years of difficult competition with other media producers. Launched in an unsuccessful attempt to dethrone Apple’s domination of the mobile media market (still unsuccessful), the Zune somehow managed to gain a sizeable following.
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Popularity: 6% [?]

Upon first sight, Vista Premium looks like a dazzling graphical interface. If you compare the translucent windows and animated icons to how windows 98 used to look, clearly the design has come a long way – though at a price. Even with a higher end spec machine – lots of RAM, high-speed dual core processor – performance differences are generally noticed. Is this a small price to pay for gaining a beautiful desktop?

If you recently bought Vista Premium, Business, Ultimate or Enterprise, you may have decided to stick with the new desktop visual experience. It’s called Windows Aero, and unlike its predecessor called Luna, it carries some graphical delights at the expense of some processing power. The word Aero is an acronym derived from Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. Many windows users (which are most of us) will love the smooth look and feel now adopted.

Aero is also present in the new Windows 7 OS system no doubt to further push Microsoft’s attempt to clasp the market on user interfaces by offering an aesthetic mix of color and content. There are a large number of graphical changes with Aero. There are live thumbnails, and improved display boxes attached offering better information regarding the purpose of a particular button or menu item.
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Popularity: 6% [?]

Whether or not you were expecting it (and you weren’t), Kindle slashed the price of the new Kindle 2 by sixty dollars, bringing the price down to a manageable $299. Still pricey, but not as pricey as buying 1,500 paper books.

The new Kindle, after only two months on the market, is bigger than its predecessor and has a few extra bells and whistles. When it originally came out with a price of $359, customers gobbled it up, making it an instant Amazon bestseller. Now, Amazon hopes it will become an even bigger seller. With an appreciated dip below the three hundred mark, the Kindle is available to a broader market base.

The question is, “why?”
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Popularity: 6% [?]

Even if you forgot your laptop at work or your PC crashes just as you’re about to print a coupon for a late night trip to the store, you can forget your worries if you’re going to print using the new HP TouchSmart Printer.

Today in San Francisco, HP shared the news of a new addition coming to their TouchSmart technology family. Finally, a printer made for the tech-savvy generation. And it’s just a little bulky.

The TouchSmart technology has already been used in HP’s TouchSmart computers. Used in this line of printers, it will allow users to access and print from the web using only the 4.3-inch LCD touchscreen on the printer. The main web-printer relationship will stem from the HP Apps Studio, which will be built into all printers of this line. Various apps will allow users to print maps, news updates, photos from online storage sites, printable coupons, movie tickets, and more. Current partners include Google, USA Today, Coupons.com, Dreamworks, Web Sudoku, Weathernews, and Nickelodeon.
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Popularity: 7% [?]

The gaming industry is not winning at its own game, as the recession took its toll over the month of April. After months of weathering the storm, the video game industry saw a sharp dip during the month of April—to the tune of 17%.

The balancing news is that the 17% slide may be a mere hiccup, since it is a decline only when compared to the April 2008 revenue when the market rose a whopping 50% from April 2007 quotes. From an alternate statistical perspective, sale records for all gaming units have gone down by only 5%. The scary 17% drop reflects a general slump in sales for the month.

The good news for Nintendo is that the popular DSi broke the trend by selling 1-million+ units over April. These sales outstripped the Wii, Xbox, Playstaion, and other gaming consoles by incredible margins. In fact, DSi sales were up by 84.7 percent, while every single other gaming unit was in a slump for the month.
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Popularity: 4% [?]

Anti-piracy technology is important—even if it can be annoying. For Microsoft, it has always been known as Windows Genuine Advantage—WGA. Its bad rap in the past is not due to the fact that it foils piracy. We would all agree piracy-busting is a good thing.

The bad thing is that it has often foiled honest users, too. In fact, 500,000 Windows users in early 2007 were understandably enraged when the oh-so-protective WGA software mistakenly identified their copies as pirated. Later in 2007, the over-eager WGA coughed again, once more enraging legitimate users who were consigned to use a humbler version of their Windows software for the duration of the glitch.

Microsoft is trying to dismiss all of that as a bad dream.
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Popularity: 4% [?]

The Apple rumor mill is churning out fresh rumors at an alarming pace. The latest round, as reported by Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman, centers on MacBooks and the supposedly coming soon Apple tablet.

According to a report a “favorite” source of the Web site 9to5Mac, Apple is working on netbook or tablet with a 10″ screen. This would seem to verify other speculation that’s been making the rounds lately, but the project is apparently being kept “under lock and key” (probably literally, in this case) so no other details are included.

Also according to 9to5Mac, speed bumps are coming to the entire MacBook line, including internal 3G wireless networking hardware and non-removable batteries on the 13″ MacBook and 15″ MacBook Pro to match the ones already installed on the 17″ MacBook Pro. According to the rumors, Apple will release these new MacBooks along with their tablet at WWDC in June.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

This Chinavision emulator handheld is like an iPod for retro console games. It plays Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance, and Neo-Geo games and has 4GB of onboard memory — probably enough to hold the entire library of one of those systems. If that’s not enough you can also stick a mini-SD card in a slot on the bottom for more space.

It looks like it came from an alternate reality, Steve Jobs decided to hell with copyright law and created an iPod for playing retro video game ROMs. In our universe, Jobs plays nice with copyright, so it’s up to a Chinese gadget manufacturer to create the device and sell it to the public for the low price of $87.31 — three for $83.82 each!
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Popularity: 6% [?]