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Filed under: Cellphones Well, it looks like the aggressively priced unlimited action really didn’t come a moment too soon. We’re no economists here, but it doesn’t take rocket science, a Ph. D. , collegiate level maths, or even a fancy calculator to crunch the cold, hard numbers coming out of Sprint Nextel’s fourth quarter earnings call. For starters, the number three carrier in the US reported a net loss of nearly $29.

7 billion write-down of Nextel’s value, which as the Wall Street Journal lays out, makes the 2005 merger officially a “Deal From Hell. ” With postpaid subscribers continuing to migrate to other carriers, there’s no telling how to stop the hemorrhaging — especially if the fresh $99 unlimited plan doesn’t end up doing the trick — but something tells us the move to Kansas isn’t going to magically patch it all up.

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Filed under: Storage Our feminist theory classes in college left us in the mindset that lady-tailored devices can probably do better than pink, but hey, if you’re looking for something retractable with U3 and 8GB of storage, SanDisk just added this new $80 Cruzer Fleur to their lineup.  Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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Filed under: Laptops It’s no secret where this little bit of patented know-how ended up. Apple’s little port door for the MacBook Air is one of those design elements of legend that could one day go down next to MagSafe and the Click Wheel in the annals of Apple history — even if it’s near impossible to use without picking up the computer. So it’s a little ironic that even the dreamer that drew up this patent couldn’t imagine a mac without FireWire, Ethernet and a pair of USB ports.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home EntertainmentWe don’t know if Jeffrey Katzenberg got a text message, fax, e-mail or smoke signal indicating the format war was over, but Video Business has confirmed Paramount and Dreamworks Animation will (rather abruptly) to stop releasing HD DVDs after next week. If you were looking forward to Bee Movie on March 11, Sweeney Todd on April 1 or the just announced There Will Be Blood, those are cancelled.

Not specifically mentioned was Star Trek: TOS Season 2, but don’t hold your breath. Blu-ray release plans are still up in the air but we wouldn’t be surprised to hear something soon. As far as HD DVD movies still scheduled, that leaves two from Universal (for now) and twelve from Warner Bros, who may have been the first to leave red, but will apparently be the last major studio out the door.

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Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs Sure enough, that 100 quid laptop we heard about early last week is already making the rounds, as the BBC caught up with the ONE at The Education Show in Birmingham, England. Granted, this thing is far from stylish (okay, so it’s downright ugly), but it’s hard to expect too much more given the ultra-low price tag. Satisfy your curiosity by checking out a minute long clip of the unit in action — go on, it’s right there in the read link.

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Filed under: Robots Sure, you laughed yesterday when you heard professor Noel Sharkey warn against the impending, apocalyptic man vs. machine battle that was to come, but this news may have you singing a different tune. A pilot program in Nevada which employed robotic sentries to patrol Hawthorne Army Depot is getting an upgrade: 24 brand new drones called MDARS, or “Mobile Detection and Assessment and Response System.

” The $40 million purchase will nab the Army diesel-powered robots which operate at speeds up to 20 MPH, use RFID tags to keep track of locks and barriers, and can run for 16 hours without refueling. Though the bots have been tested with automatic weapons, these new versions will be equipped with non-lethal armaments, thus making them considerably less deadly when Skynet goes online.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptopsdigg_url = ‘http://digg. com/microsoft/Vista_prices_officially_go_down’;What’s that? You didn’t take the risk and upgrade your PC to some crappy Intel-based machine Microsoft may or may not have known wouldn’t run Vista as promised? Well, at least now you can get in on the latest version of Windows a little cheaper than yesterday: Ultimate full looks to be officially headed down to $320 from $400, and the upgrade is down to $220 from $260; Home Premium is now at $130.

Will the dip be enough to entice plenty of new OS upgraders? Perhaps, but we think most of those that haven’t already upgraded will probably just wait until their next PC so they can get Vista “free”. But if you’re looking to buy it boxed though, give it a bit for the new prices to propagate through the retail network — not even Microsoft’s site reflects the new Vista price points.

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Filed under: Desktops Okay, try not to let your mind get blown by the possible time-space paradox we’re about to illustrate, but MSI’s supposedly introducing a new ECOlution motherboard at CeBIT with an “air powered cooler” that operates on the Stirling Engine Theory to transform the thermal output of its chipset into the kinetic energy necessary to power that same chipset’s fan.

Supposedly it works at 70% efficiency, so we’ll just let the thermodynamics geeks in the audience mull over the possibility and audacity of it all — they certainly seem to have given up on Steorn at this point. Update: CG video demo posted after the break, via TweakTown. Thanks, Lin. Continue reading MSI ECOlution motherboard transforms chip heat into fan power Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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Good news and bad news. Let’s start with the good news. Firebox is giving away free stuff in collaboration with Chip Chick. For the next five weeks, they give a box full of random stuff to two lucky winners. All you have to do is send an email (address is in the source article) with “Firebox Giveaway: Week 1″ in the subject line. You can enter each week to increase your chances of winning.

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Corsair has introduced an updated version of its Flash Voyager GT drive that will bring 16GB of storage space to the masses, minus the speed sacrifice that often comes with the territory of extra capacity courtesy of an advanced memory controller and hand-picked flash chips. Corsair claims that this new release will feature a nearly quadruple speed boost over similar drives.

So far in controlled lab tests, this USB flash drive is capable of transferring a 1. 6GB movie within 98 seconds, while older designs take up to half a dozen minutes. Features include a shock- and water-resistant rubber shell and TrueCrypt software to secure your sensitive data with 256-bit AES encryption. The Corsair 16GB Flash Voyager GT retails for $170 each.

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