The objective here is to provide a number of links to different news articles which are hitting the tech headlines.

We will also look to add additional comment where relevant and where we have time.

It’s a fairly slow news day today with most of the focus on Steve Jobs of Apple and his resignation.

News:

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs resigns

No real shocker given Steve’s illness over the last few years.

Whilst he’s stepping down as CEO, he will remain with Apple as the Chairman and will remain on the board of Disney.

Many people wonder what will happen to Apple now Steve has stepped down from the CEO role.

I don’t believe much will change (certainly over the next few years) as Apple’s roadmap is fairly well laid out and the chap moving in to the CEO role (Tim Cook) has been acting CEO for a while now.

Some links below to various stories on the resignation and other stories relating to Steve Jobs:

Steve Jobs Called Google’s Vic Gundotra on a Sunday About this Icon
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/25/steve-jobs-called-googles-vic-gundotra-on-a-sunday-about-this-icon/

Steve Jobs best quotes

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/

You’ve got to find what you love

http://www.kevin-ashcroft.com/2011/03/07/youve-got-to-find-what-you-love

Steve Jobs – Resignation letter

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mixed-signals-10000051/steve-jobs-resignation-letter-as-ceo-of-apple-10024195/

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LG announce scanner mouse (Hey that rhymes…)

A mouse that’s a scanner and can scan up to A3 in size?

Looks like it is available now for circa £90 ex vat.

Video below:

You can save or drag and drop scanned images in a variety of formats — PNG, JPEG, TIFF, and PDF, are just some of the options– by swiping the mouse over it. You can also use the Optical Character Recognition facility that converts text from images into editable text for Word, Excel or whatever document you need.

Looks pretty cool!

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In case you are one of the (lucky / unlucky) people who got their hands on the HP TouchPad tablet, here’s another link to some apps that may be useful to you:

Top 10 Free Apps for Your £85 HP TouchPad Tablet via PCWorld http://j.mp/q8217e

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Mobile phones could soon be powered by walking? – A new way to get fit?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14647639

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That’s all for today folks – hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to comment.

http://www.kevin-ashcroft.com/2011/03/07/youve-got-to-find-what-you-love/

The objective here is to provide a number of links to different news articles which are hitting the tech headlines.

We will also look to add additional comment where relevant and where we have time.

News:

As we mentioned on Monday’s blog, the HP touchpad has been cancelled and the price of the device fell through the floor.

Monday evening we started to see Bestbuy /Dabs / PC World etc. drop the price (as we predicted) tocirca  £85 for the 16Gb and £115 for the 32Gb.

They weren’t there for long! Dabs sold there stock in around 15 minutes.

If you are the lucky (or unlucky depending on how you view it) owner of a Touchpad – I’ve placed some links below that may be useful to you.

HP TouchPad apps you need to have

10 Good users for the TouchPad

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HP PC business for sale?

Rumor grows each day and is changing from “will it happen” to “When will it happen” and “Who will buy it”.

The latest and strongest rumor is that Samsung is highly placed to take the business.

Tom Merrit on Tech News Today provided a run down of candidates and why they aren’t likely to be in the running for the HP PC business.

Acer – Strugling with falling PC sales

ASUS – Don’t have the cash?

MSI – Maybe a little too small?

Lenovo – Bough previous IBM PC business

Sony / Apple – don’t want to be in the low end PC business

Microsoft? – Too many anti-trust issues to even think it would be a possibility

Toshiba – No noises from them so far, however they had a PC business many years ago.

—-

As each day passes there is more comment on when the Iphone 5 and IOS 5 will ship.

The Wall Street Journal has commented (and they have a good record at guessing the correct dates) that the three main carriers in the US will be shipping the new iPhone from mid October.

It’s fairly unlikely that Apple will have a launch for IOS 5 in September then a launch for the iPhone 5 in October, so expect a combined launch in October.

There have been many stories circulating around the possibility that a cut-down version of the iPhone 5 will ship.  This seems to have taken a slight turn in that more and more comment seems to be centred around a smaller capacity iPhone 4 – an 8Gb version.

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Lenovo tablet – the ThinkPad tablet and the Sony tablet – the Tablet S are launching soon in the UK

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Learn all the Microsoft Word Keyboard shortcuts from this printable cheatsheet!

Found this article written by Melanie Pinola on the lifehacker site – hope it proves useful to you!

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That’s all for tofay folks – hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to comment.

The objective here is to provide a number of links to different news articles which are hitting the tech headlines.

We will also look to add additional comment where relevant and where we have time.

News:

Three announces UK’s first 21Mbps HSDPA+ hotspot for Septemer arrival http://j.mp/poSou4

I use the existing Three Mifi device and it works great – the additional speed will be a welcome addition.

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The Nine iPad Apps Changing Business zite.to/pfai3h

There are so many great apps out there it can be difficult to chose the right ones.

At OCD we use many different apps so if you ever need a little advice on which purchase to make or for a demo, contact the OCD sales team for iPAD advice.

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HP begins TouchPad clearance with $99 fire sale zite.to/r9Wyr5

After 7 weeks and very poor sales, HP has axed their tablet line-up and heavily discounted the remaining stock in the marketplace.

Best Buy and others started discounting the Touchpad to a starting price of $99 in Canada and the US over the weekend.

It’s rumored that the UK pricing will follow suit £89 / £115 for the 16Gb and 32G respectively.

Ohh and it’s very likely HP will stop selling PC’s….who’d have thunk it!

—-

Japanese iPhone to get earthquake alerts

9to5Mac reports that the feature will be added to the IOS 5 update which is due within the next 5 weeks.

More info from the BBC website – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14614454

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That’s all for today folks – hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to comment.

Google sued by alleged victim of Gmail snooping!

In our August 1st blog, we let you know about Microsoft’s take on Google scanning your email before you even read it (Gmailman) so that it can display ads to Gmail users that it believes are personally relevant.

Given the litigious society we live in now, I guess it was only a matter of time before someone took this to the next level.

A woman in Massachusetts has filed a class action suit against the internet giant, seeking damages of $100 per day for each infringement (or $1,000 – whichever is higher), plus punitive damages and an injunction preventing Google from further violation.

More info can be found here on the ZDnet website.

Google throws a punch and Microsoft fires back with a missile!

Apparently Google has been complaining that its competitors are trying to stifle competition (particularly in relation to their Android technology used in smartphones and tablets) by filing bogus patent claims.

One of the targets for Google’s complaint was Microsoft. Google claimed that Microsoft had teamed up with Apple to buy Novell’s old patents, thus keeping them from Google.

This was mentioned in a blog post by Google’s SVP and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond.

Later the same day Microsoft came out swinging with their response, which in essence told the Google SVP to check his facts before posting, as Microsoft has specifically invited Google to bid together with Microsoft for these patents and Google knocked them back! – Oops.

Read more about this spat in the Techcrunch article. 

The Microsoft Touch Mouse was first displayed as a prototype at CES 2011 (the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas).

Resembling a cross between a high tech animal hoof and a sleek black pebble, it’s a gesture-based mouse where you can flick your fingers or even your thumb to perform specific actions, very much as you would on your smartphone or iPad. Much of the movement is intuitive and can even be configured to suit left or right-handed users.

A full review of the Microsoft Touch Mouse is available at ZDNet.

In the latest round of Tech company spats, Apple have suceeded in banning Samsung from selling their new Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe and Australia.

Apple claim that Samsung have “slavishly” copied the design, packaging and more of the iPad with the remodelled Galaxy Tab, which only went on sale last week. The tab remains on sale in UK branches of Dixons.

Samsung will appeal the court order on the 25th August – more on the story at PC Pro Magazine.

Given the amount of time we now spend in front of computers, sitting at desks,  or on the sofa with a laptop in front of us, it’s increasingly important to make sure we are exercising properly and keeping our bodies in shape and flexible.

I found an interesting article by Ana Forrest in the Huffington Post about how to ease typical ‘desk jockey’ ailments.

Ana is an internationally-recognised pioneer in yoga and emotional healing, and the author of ‘Fierce Medicine: Breakthrough Practices to Heal the Body and Ignite the Spirit’.

There are five exercises in total which don’t require much time to complete.

Read the full “How to exercise while you sit” article here.

That’s all for this week folks – hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to comment.

Google has been issuing warnings to over two million computer owners who are at risk of infection from a virus that hijacks search results.

The malicious software produces fake results after users perform a search, with a yellow warning window informing them that their computer is at risk. Users are guided to click a link to both check that their anti-virus software is up-to-date and inform them how to remove the problem.

Google said it found “unusual search traffic” when one of its data centres was undergoing a maintenance check.

Security engineer Damian Menscher posted on the company’s blog: “The malware appears to have gotten onto users’ computers from one of roughly a hundred variants of fake antivirus, or “fake AV” software that has been in circulation for a while.

“We aren’t aware of a common name for the malware.”

Hundreds of thousands of people are thought to have already been notified.

GMailman – have you heard the story or seen the video yet?

It appears Microsoft have created a video which pokes fun at how Google’s Gmail service actually reads your emails before you do…

Allegedly the system scans your messages before they’re opened, which then enable it to serve up ads which are linked to the keywords in your email.

Microsoft used the film at its annual global conference to spur users on in the battle of Office 365 versus Google Apps.

The video now seems to have been leaked.

Basically Microsoft’s point is that Google cares more about advertising than privacy!

Read more on the story at ZDNET.

Intel Ultrabook – for those smitten with the MacBook Air but who want a Windows-based laptop!

This latest model looks set to challenge very slim and light laptops running for 5 hours on a fully-charged battery with the prospect of 8 hours or more battery power, giving you effectively a full working day without needing to plug in.

The Rapid Start Technology in these laptops is designed to switch the systems on almost instantly from a state of “deep sleep”.

Asus (their UX-21) and HP should be bringing their own versions of this to market over the next few months, which will then undoubtedly be closely followed by many others.

There is a target price of below $1,000 for these machines, however, rumours are spreading that manufacturers are finding it hard to hit that price point.

Intel describes a three phase approach to this technology over the next 12 months or so as follows:

• Phase 1: This was kicked off when Intel introduced its latest Ultra-Low Voltage 2nd Generation Intel Core processors in June that will bring new systems to store shelves this summer.
• Phase 2: Centres around the next generation of Intel micro-architecture, code-named ‘Ivy Bridge’, with processors scheduled for availability in systems during the first half of 2012. Faster I/O such as USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt technologies are also part of Intel’s ongoing work to drive the PC platform forward.
• Phase 3: In 2013 Intel micro-architecture dubbed ‘Haswell’ will be released. This claims to accelerate the Ultrabook and reinvent the capabilities of the laptop in new sleek systems.

Read more here

Are you suffering from Smartphone screen damage?

Just a little note to say I recently had to find a company to fix a shattered iPhone 4 screen for my better half.

I knew I could go to Apple, however, the cost is circa £85 and you need to make an appointment for the team at the Genius Bar.

Luckily a friend recommended a shop at 85 Commerce Street in Glasgow called Mymo – www.mymoaccessories.com

After a quick telephone quote of £50 for a replacement screen both supplied and fitted, I headed straight over there.

The staff were attentive and very helpful, and had the screen replaced in under 30 minutes.

They also offer a huge range of cases and accessories for many handsets – well worth a visit if you need your handset repaired.

A little bit of fun? (Well it might be if it wasn’t so serious…)

Apple has more money in the bank than the United States Government.

The U.S. Treasury declares that it has reserves of $73.768 billion. Apple, on the other hand, has $75.876 billion. Should Steve Jobs be brought in to solve the debt crisis? Maybe he could provide a short term loan?

Oh and finally, click to read the OCD Monthly Newsletter.

Have a great week.

We now have a sister company which specialises in Internet Marketing Services, it’s called Internet Marketing ROI.

You can find more information at the following – www.internetmarketingroi.co.uk

Internet Marketing ROI assists other businesses with the following Internet Marketing services:

• Website creation (Building professional, easy to manage and easy to update websites for you)
• Search Engine optimisation (Getting you to the top of the Google/Bing/Yahoo rankings)
• Conversation Rate optimisation (Getting people to perform the actions you want them to when they visit your website)
• Social Media – Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc. (We help you become part of the conversation that’s going on out there)
• Proofreading and copywriting service (Make sure the website reads well)

There are other services we provide which branch off the service above – you can get a high level overview by looking at the Internet Marketing mind-map on the website.

We’d be delighted to talk to you about how we could benefit your business through the services above.

In the meantime please feel free to browse through the website and let us know if you want to talk further.

You’ll find a free “Top 10 Tips on LinkedIn” when you visit our site (you’re taken through a very, very quick signup form before the link is emailed to you – you only have to enter your name and email address.) We hope you find this is of use to you.

Unfortunately many companies use their partner status as a badge rather than a reason to continue to excel so recently Microsoft itself decided that the certification programme was in need of renovation and initiated The Microsoft Partner Network (MPN).

The MPN requires current partners to re-train and re-certify but the big change is that the new certifications are ‘Competency Based’.  Partners now have to prove specific skills rather than trying to be all things to all men.

The new programme is based on the Microsoft Infrastructure Optimisation (IO) models and ensures Microsoft partners can recommend, sell, deploy, and service the latest Microsoft technology in market to meet customer demand.

In choosing to attain the new competency OCD technical, sales and licensing staff have been certified in latest Microsoft product versions in market and we are delighted to announce our new Desktop and Server Platform Competencies.

Bill Grier, OCD’s Head of Business Development said “These new competences distinguish OCD by placing us among the top 5 per cent of Microsoft partners worldwide.  They offer a clear path for OCD to showcase its skillsets in today’s competitive environment and that can only be a good thing for our clients.”

“When we earned these Server Platform competencies, we did more than develop our credentials and expertise.  These competencies are an excellent foundation for our business.  They give us the ‘mission critical’ vendor status our clients need and help us remain a strong competitor in the marketplace. “

OCD provide IT Solutions, IT Support and IT Services to businesses and charities throughout Scotland and North England.

Microsoft’s Q4 earnings for the 2011 fiscal year have been posted, with revenue quoted at a cool $17.37 billion. An 8% increase over the same period in 2010, this beats their previous record of $16.43 billion in revenue, which they posted in Q3 this year. $5.87 billion in net income is a huge 30% climb over the previous year. Microsoft’s revenue broke another record for the full year, which came in at $69.94 billion – 12% higher than the year before.

Much of the growth has come from the Entertainment and Devices Division which is responsible for the Xbox 360 and Kinect hardware – this has witnessed 30% revenue growth over that quarter and circa 45% over the year.

Another major contributor to the impressive earnings has been the online side of the business, with the search engine, bing, and Microsoft’s online services increasing revenue by around 17%.

Income from Microsoft Windows has been relatively flat over the period although possibly that will change with the release of Windows 8 sometime in 2012 (likely mid-year).

Many still believe that Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO) is the reason that the share price does not increase in the same way as it does for other companies. This is an intriguing proposition, considering the impressive performance both in revenue and profits Microsoft has achieved over the years since Balmer became CEO.

OCD is a Microsoft Gold Partner.

New entries into the ever-expanding tablet market are coming from Lenovo in the form of the ThinkPad Tablet and the IdeaPad K1.

The tablets are aimed at companies and consumers respectively.

Each model boasts some interesting features and you can find out more from the Engadget website, which includes a review:

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet

Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet

Oh… and a late arrival for your attention is the IdeaPad P1 which is a Windows 7 based tablet.

A new service for students has been launched which allows them to rent textbooks on their Kindle e-readers for as little as 30 days, and then extend the rental on a daily basis.

Users can highlight their notes, which are then stored in the cloud on Amazon’s servers. This provides a nifty benefit – if they ever re-rent the book, they will see the notes they previously highlighted.

There is a potential limit to how many notes a student can highlight and this appears to be set by the individual publisher.

Cool and useful idea, or not something that will ever take off – what do you think?

Whilst bringing the new MacBook Air to the market, Apple have discontinued the plastic MacBook which means the Air is the new entry level machine for Apple in their laptop range.

Prices start at £849 for the 11″ model and rise to £1,349 for the 13″ model, with 4Gb ram and 256Gb of flash storage.

The 11″ model weighs in at just over 1kg and is 1.7cm high at its tallest point – the 13″ is circa 1.35kg and is also only 1.7cm high.

Battery life is quoted at circa five hours for the 11″ and seven hours for the 13″.

The laptops look fantastic and come with the new OSX Lion, which is a mix of traditional Mac operating system features and that of the iPad, with its gesture-based controls (note the screen is not touchscreen – the gesture controls are completed through the large trackpad built in to the laptop).

As an aside, Apple Macs now account for over 11% of the total PC market, which marks the first time they’ve moved over the magic 10% line since the early 1990s. Their new Mac operating system OSX Lion received one million downloads on its first day of availability.

Windows users needn’t feel left out, you can use the MacBook Air with Windows should you wish and there are other alternatives to the MacBook Air here.

These are based on the Intel Ultrabook format which aims to provide laptops less than an inch thick and weighing 1-2lbs less than most standard laptops, with a mainstream price point of under $1,000.

Intel believes this type of laptop will account for over 40% of the market by the end of 2012.

Undoubtedly more and more of these models will be appearing over the coming months to challenge the look, portability and battery life of the MacBook Air.

Remember you can get all your MAC and PC hardware and software direct from OCD – give us a call or use the contact form at the bottom of the page.

According to a new book by Douglas Edwards, a former employee of Internet giant Google, the company’s founders had to be talked out of ignoring users’ emails.

I’m Feeling Lucky – The Confessions of Google Employee #59 is an interesting read on the mindset of the founders – read more here.

Just a little fun (well not for the phone)…

iPhone plunges 13,500 ft from skydiver’s pocket – and lives!

This article came from The Register – amazing how resilient a phone can be.  Read more here

Adobe Systems has acquired the online electronic-signature and signature-automation provider, EchoSign.

We use EchoSign at OCD so that clients can sign quotes and support agreements electronically.

It’s a great and highly cost-effective system that works well and means we don’t need to rely on the post or fax systems to get signed documents quickly and safely returned.

You can find more information on EchoSign here.

Hope you found something interesting in here; until next week, have a great week and if you want to talk to us call 0141 771 5069 or use the form below:

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Google+

Google launched a new service at the end of June to a limited number of people (allowing it time to iron out kinks, such as the system running out of disk space for 80 minutes earlier this week).

It’s Google’s next enterprise in social media and is made up of several different services, some of which you may already use, including:

Circles – Allows you to group your contacts together in a network, dividing people by the type of information you want to share with them. For instance, you can have groups for family, close friends, acquaintances, colleagues and so on.

Hangouts – This is basically a group video chat service where you can connect with people in your Circles groups.

Sparks – This is a little like Google Reader except it brings content to you automatically, based on your interests. Each topic (football, animals, holidays etc.) will get its own Sparks page and the service will provide links to related articles, videos and photos that it believes will be of interest to you.

Having only launched in late June, the service officially surpassed 10 million users on Thursday 14^th July.

Google+ is by invitation only at present; however, everyone with a Google account will eventually have access to the service.

Google also announced during the week that its gross revenue for the second quarter of 2011 was $9.02 billion, up 32% on the same period from 2010. Its net income was $2.51 billion, up from $1.84 billion during the same period in 2010 – pretty tasty numbers which beat analyst estimates by a fair stretch!

Microsoft – Patch Tuesday

Microsoft released four security bulletins on Tuesday as part of their regular monthly roll-out of patches and significant updates.

One fixed a critical hole relating to Bluetooth in Windows 7 and Vista, with three less important patches that fixed issues in all Windows versions and Visio 2003.

Microsoft – Annual Worldwide Partner Conference

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer encouraged the company’s partners (including OCD) to build more software and services for the web around Microsoft’s various offerings.

The use of the cloud and the next generation of cloud services will only grow.

Like we mentioned in a previous blog article, “Is the cloud right for me” the cloud is great for some businesses but not ideal for others. Depending on a company’s individual needs, a combination of the cloud and on-premise facilities may also provide the correct solution.

OCD and our partners have been providing services and solutions around Microsoft BPOS and other technologies (as well as the newly-released Office 365) for some time now, and we’re happy to help with any advice you need.

Passwords

Hotmail will now ban users from having very common passwords.

Having a common password makes your account vulnerable to attacks by automated systems that can easily guess passwords like “12345” or “password”. They will also ban phrases which are shared by millions of people, like “ilovecats” or “gogiants” etc.

As an aside, you should make sure your password for all your accounts is strong, with a mixture of upper and lowercase letters and some numbers.

It’s also advisable that your most important accounts do not share the same password, for instance your bank account should never have the same password as your Hotmail or Gmail  accounts.

Amazon – Tablets and Kindles

Within the next nine weeks or so, Amazon will be releasing their own Android device which, it’s rumoured, will compete directly with the iPad.

We don’t have details on the specification yet, however it’s likely to ship without a camera but retail at a lower price to the iPad.

Most, if not all of Apple’s competitors have so far struggled to meet or better the price point of the iPad with a device that offers a better user experience.

Amazon will also launch two new Kindle devices; a lower cost model than the present incarnation and one with a touchscreen.

Windows 8

Just a tiny update to say that Microsoft’s new operating system is due to be released sometime in 2012 – most likely around June or July.

The features of the system have remained a closely guarded secret; however, it’s likely to be suited to a variety of devices including touchscreen and standard PCs.

Microsoft has also confirmed that the new operating system will run on the same hardware specifications as Windows 7.

Fun video to watch

Lenovo have shot two videos to show how quickly their new line-up of ThinkPad T420 Windows 7 based laptops boot-up (around nine seconds).

The scene shows a laptop plummeting from an aeroplane and a skydiver switching it on – watch the video to see how it all works out.  (There are two films lasting for around one minute and three minutes respectively.)

http://rapidboot.com/us/#/videos

And to finish…

This is one of the most unusual laptops I’ve ever seen.

It’s called the GScreen’s dual-screen SpaceBook and it features (as you may have already guessed from the name) not one, but two 17” 1920×1080 screens that fold out like wings.

It certainly looks a little different, but I can see where it could potentially be useful for creative types of travel from Client to Client, and the need to work on-site.

The spec is fairly powerful; it packs the following criteria for circa $2,395 (£1,484): 2.66GHz Core i5-560M CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTS 250M (1GB), a 500GB HDD, DVD burner and a magnesium alloy frame.

For an extra $400 (£250ish) you can upgrade the CPU to a 1.73GHz Core i7-740QM.

No shipping date has been provided yet but you can read more information and marvel at more screenshots at the Windows experience blog.

Would you use it, and if so what would you use it for?

Till next time, thanks for reading (and commenting),

Kevin

It’s called the GScreen’s dual-screen SpaceBook and it features (as you may have guessed from the name) not one but two 17” 1920×1080 screens that fold out like wings.

It certainly looks a little different but I can see where it would be useful for creative types who travel from Client to Client and need to work on-site.

The kit is fairly powerful, it packs the following spec for circa $2395 (£1484) – 2.66GHz Core i5-560M CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTS 250M (1GB), a 500GB HDD, DVD burner and a magnesium alloy frame.

For an extra $400 (£250ish) you can upgrade the CPU to a 1.73GHz Core i7-740QM.

No shipping date has been provided yet and you can read a little more info and see more screenshots at the Windows experience blog.

Would you use it and if so what would you use it for?