DigitMemo.com

Gateway is offering approximately $44 million for Packard Bell shares while Acer is preparing its final offer to buy Gateway for $710 million.

Gateway executives had confirmed on Oct. 8 that they would move ahead with an offer to buy Packard Bell, which is based in Paris and is one of the largest PC vendors in Europe. While Acer, headquartered in Taiwan, announced last week that it will deliver its final offer for Gateway on Oct. 10, which means that the company will likely finalize the deal by the end of the month.

Click for more on Gateway Moves to Buy Packard Bell, Acer Moves to Buy Gateway »

Tests show some clear benefits–but other results were inconclusive.

When they were introduced a couple of years ago, hybrid hard drives seemed enticing. Pairing a standard hard drive with a flash component sounded like a good way to deliver on the theoretical performance boosts that flash can offer while still providing the long-standing price, capacity, and performance benefits of hard disks.

We looked at Seagate’s Momentus 5400 PSD drive, announced today, and Samsung’s SpinPoint MH80 drive, released this summer. Both models are 2.5-inch, 160GB notebook drives with 256MB of nonvolatile flash memory cache on board. The hard-drive industry concentrated on introducing the new technology in laptop drives because notebooks would be more likely to reap the benefits that hybrid tech promises, including faster boot time and power savings.

Click for more on Tested: New Hybrid Hard Drives From Samsung and Seagate »

She has been ordered to pay statutory damages of $220,000 or $9250 per song.

30-year-old Jammie Thomas lost big in the nation’s jury decision for a file sharing case.  The single mother of two was found liable in sharing 24 songs from six record companies and has been ordered to pay statutory damages of $220,000 or $9250 per song.

Click for more on Single mother loses big in music piracy case »

A summary of Windows XP power schemes as they relate to Intel processor throttling. Old topic, but one still relevant as many business notebooks still use XP.

In Windows XP, you can access the power profiles by going to Control Panel -> Power Options -> Power Schemes. There are a number of Windows XP built-in power schemes and from this user interface, it’s easy to assume that’s the only difference between each of the power schemes, but in truth there are hidden meanings to each setting when it comes to how the processor is programmed to react to different loads (computing tasks).

Click for more on Processor Throttling In Windows XP »

OLPC announces $399 “Give 1 Get 1″ holiday XO promo Starting November 12th.

you can finally fork over some cash for an XO and get one shipped to your door — as long as you’re willing pay double for some kid in a developing nation to get one as well.

Click for more on $100 Laptop, Only $400 »

With 45nm processor and integrating a memory controller, video encode/decode engine and graphics all on a single chip, Intel described this as the chip the iPhone would have wanted.

The “Moorestown” processor was revealed, not realistically about to hit the market until 2009 or 2010, Intel described this as the chip the iPhone would have wanted.
With 45nm processor and integrating a memory controller, video encode/decode engine and graphics all on a single chip it will allow concept products like the device shown, to become a reality.

Click for more on Intel demos iPhone-like MID of the future »

We’ve anticipating final production runs of the OLPC XO((previously known as the ‘$100 laptop’) for who knows how long, through the price has changed to $188, it is finally in production and soon to be landing in the laps of school children the world over.

Click for more on OLPC’s XO gets previewed in its "final" form »

“It looked like fireworks, which would have been cool had it not been in my house.” The latest in a series of laptop fires.

A computer network administrator at a Columbus, Georgia, hospital is the latest consumer to encounter the flaming laptop syndrome.

Douglas Brown said his Dell 9200 wide-screen laptop’s batteries exploded into flames, he called 911 and the fire department responded with two pumpers, a ladder truck, the HAZMAT unit, an ambulance and the battalion chief.

Click for more on Dell Laptops Still Exploding »

The Chinese hacker made it again: SLIC enabled bioses for almost all Thinkpad with PM processor or higher, include but don’t limit to X31, X32, X40, X41, R40, T40, T41, T42(p), T43(p), R50, T60(p), X60(s) and the list is still increasing, just almost all the Thinkpad models made in the last 3 years.

The SLIC(Software Licensing Description Table) table in BIOS is used by OEM versions of Windows Vista for activation by Royalty OEMs in order for the end-user to not have problems with activating, called SLP 2.0, or System-Locked Preinstallation 2.0. For activation to work, clients obtained through the OEM channels that have an ACPI_SLIC table in the system BIOS are required to have a valid Windows marker in the same ACPI_SLIC table. The appearance of the Windows marker is important for volume license customers who are planning to use Windows Vista volume-licensed media to re-image or upgrade OEM through the re-imaging rights provided in their volume license agreement. Not having the appropriate BIOS marker results in the following error or errors on these systems and prevents them from activating. However, a modified BIOS with proper SLIC table can let the client PC by-pass the Vista activation process.

Click for more on Vista SLIC Ready Bios for Old Thinkpad »