TecCrunch is planning to create a laptop which will be used only to surf Internet and communicate with your friends using Skype. Really a nice and unique concept. I wish them luck for this.

It will take time for this custom lappy to take shape so till then you can enjoy some promotional products.

You are lucky if your already bought the Lenovo Thinkpad recently because people at lenovo are gearing up quick to get rid of the IBM logo on there machines. It is now a well know fact that in past few “Lenovo” and “Think” have earned a huge brand value.

When Lenovo purchased the PC wing of IBM, they sought out a plan where they were allowed to use the IBM brand name so that they do not loose the IBM customer base. But with the brand Lenovo gaining fame fast Lenovo will happily give up the IBM logo off there machines before the expected time. Moreover, overall high recognition of Think brand-name may actually increase the value of Lenovo own brand.

“By making substantial progress on all of our critical priorities over the past few quarters, we’re now a stronger, healthier company. One important sign of this progress is our decision to completely transition our Think products from the IBM brand to the Lenovo brand two years earlier than planned. Concurrently, we’ve recently launched our own ‘Best Engineered PCs’ advertising campaign and global sponsorship of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games to promote our brand worldwide,” said William J. Amelio, Lenovo’s president and chief executive officer.

In fact, all the software for ThinkPad notebooks is currently supplied under Lenovo and Think trademarks, whereas IBM’s brand is nowhere to be found. Modern ThinkPad laptops also carry only Lenovo name on them.

IBM is expected to continue providing services and warranty for Lenovo Think customers.

So will you buy Lenovo now?

[via]

Worldwide laptop sales are expected to surpass desktop sales by 2009, reaching the figure of 150 million. Studies show that most laptop buyers keep their hardware around for only about three years, before discarding it and buying a new one (excluding me). Here is how laptop designers plan to make laptops more eco-friendly across their entire life span, from the producer to the recycling plant.

Problem 1: Case made from plastic, plastic made from oil

Solution: Make cases from bioplastics, plant-based polymers, as this method requires less oil and energy to produce than traditional plastics do. Fujitsu made a prototype laptop with a half natural, half conventional case and now it is testing a plastic that has up to 80% bio-content.

Problem 2: Thrown away laptops go to lanfills

Solution: Upgrade your old laptop, do not buy a new one, and discard it after a few years. Soon it may be easier and cheaper to upgrade components in your laptop than completely replace it (producers should support this movement). Asus recently released a laptop that lets users upgrade most of core components like processor, video card, memory and hard drive, by simply removing one panel.

Problem 3: Power draining displays

Solution: Build laptops that use the much newer OLED( organic light-emitting diodes) technology that need only a fraction of the power used by the traditional LCD displays, as they have no backlighting.

Problem 4: Using power from the grid

Solution: Use portable solar chargers, as they already exists. The MSI Computer company developed a laptop with photovoltaic cells integrated directly into its case.

Problem 5: Laptops contain some toxic materials

Solution: Last year, the European Union enacted legal limits on toxins in electronics sold, where the U.S. introduced a similar rating system for computers.

Problem 6: Short lived hard drives

Solution: Switch to flash memories as it has no parts in motion, uses less power and it is faster. Dell produced a laptop with a 32GB solid state drive this year and Samsung appreciates that solid state drives will hold 30 times more data than they do now.

The Sony laptop battery fiasco of 2006 is stepping into 2007, as Acer has announced a recall of certain notebook computer lithium-ion batteries containing Sony-made cells. About 27,000 cells are affected, and Acer is recommending that applicable consumers should only use the notebook computer using AC power until a replacement battery pack is received.Laptops containing the affected batteries are in the TravelMate and Aspire series with model numbers starting with 242, 320, 321, 330, 422, 467, 561, C20, 556, 560, 567, 930, 941 and 980. These laptops were sold in the U.S. and Canada between May 2004 and November 2006. A special Web site has been set up for owners of Acer laptops to compare their serial numbers with those in the affected range.

Over 10 million lithium ion laptop batteries have been recalled worldwide since last year. A long list of computer manufacturers has felt the effects of the defective batteries, including Sony, Dell, Apple, Lenovo and Toshiba.

In the interest and concern of consumers, the IEEE announced last November that it will revise its laptop battery standards to improve overall performance while make systems more reliable. Meanwhile, battery engineers are hard at work to develop new, safer battery technologies. Panasonic is now producing laptops with an improved lithium ion battery technology that safeguards against overheating.

While nearly all notebook computers on the market today use lithium, Apple started shipping lithium polymer batteries with several of its MacBooks as of late October. Lithium polymer batteries are already being widely used today in some newer models of PDAs and cell phones.

Source: dailytech

Here you are. Just when it looked to have ended up, Lenovo announces that it is recalling 100,000 batteries. The batteries are actually manufactured from Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., of Japan.

Lenovo has received four reports of batteries overheating and damaging the notebook. This caused damage to the notebook computers, minor property damage and, in one case, minor eye irritation to one consumer.

Lenovo sold these extended-life batteries with new ThinkPad notebook PCs or as optional or replacement batteries for the following ThinkPad notebook models: R Series (R60 and R60e), T Series (T60 and T60p) and Z Series (Z60m, Z61e, Z61m, and Z61p). The recalled 9-cell batteries have the following part number, which can be found on the battery label: FRU P/N 92P1131.

Remedy: Consumers should stop using the recalled batteries and contact Lenovo for additional information and to receive a free replacement battery. Consumers should use only ThinkPad batteries obtained from either Lenovo or an authorized reseller.

Consumer Contact: Customers should contact Lenovo at (800) 426-7378 anytime, or log on to http://www.lenovo.com/batteryprogram to determine if the battery is part of the recall and to order a replacement battery.