lowe's

Remember that $35 tablet out of India we told you about last month? If you want to see the much-talked-about prototype in moving color, a gadget show on Indian television just featured an exclusive hands-on that could help dissipate some of the skepticism about the device.

"Everybody actually said, 'It cannot happen, a $35 tablet,' and not only does it exist, it works and it works brilliantly," said Rajiv Makhni, co-host of the show "Gadget Guru," who took the computer through its paces with show cohort Vikram Chandra and then talked all aspects of the gadget … Read more

What's with the late post today? Simple: I couldn't find a deal worth posting. So I thought I'd dip into my cheapskate bag of tricks and talk about coupons.

Specifically, eBay is home to a bonanza of coupons for stores like Home Depot, Kohl's, Lowe's, and J.C. Penney. If you're planning a major purchase (and you can put it off long enough for your coupon to arrive in the mail), you stand to save a bundle.

For example, this auction is for 10 Lowe's coupons, each good for 10 percent off your … Read more

India on Thursday unveiled a prototype tablet computer that would sell for a mere 1,500 rupees, or $35, with the price possibly dropping even further as R&D efforts continue.

Kapil Sibal, the country's Minister for Human Resource Development, showed off the super-cheap touch-screen device in New Delhi as part of a push to provide high-quality education to students across the country. The tablet also comes with a solar-power option that could make it more feasible for rural areas.

The Linux-based computer at first glance resembles an Apple iPad and features basic functions you'd expect to see in a tablet--a Web browser, multimedia player, PDF reader, Wi-Fi, and video conferencing ability. It has 2GB of RAM (but no hard disk, instead using a memory card) and USB ports and could be available to kids from primary school up to the university level as early as next year.

Students from several branches of the Indian Institute of Technology co-designed motherboards for the computer, which the ministry would like to see dropping to $20 and possibly getting as low as $10. … Read more

Unless you follow the latest trends and features of digital cameras, there's a good chance Apple's use of a backside-illuminated sensor in the iPhone 4 is the first you've heard of the technology. These sensors have been popping up in digital still cameras and camcorders since Sony rolled out its HDR-XR500V and the HDR-XR520V camcorders featuring the company's own Exmor R sensor in February 2009.

The key benefits are improved speed and dynamic range, as well as better low-light performance with lower noise.

Camera phones generally use a front-illuminated CMOS sensor because they are low power … Read more

Hey, cheapskate! No, not you, the guy who won't spend more than $100 on what is usually a bare-bones, off-brand monitor, with no warranty and a tech support service that won't return your calls, which of course you'll need since your new monitor is dead after two days. No, not you.

I'm talking to you, the guy who, maybe can do without HDMI but still wants at least a decently performing monitor with a few extras. Yes, you, come closer. No, closer...closer. Can you hear me OK? Good. It's sub-$250 monitors!

OK, the … Read more

ARM is running one of its Web sites on a cluster of ARM-based chips, part of a handful of experiments to test out the viability of using its chip architecture in servers.

The Cambridge, England-based company does not market designs for server processors, concentrating its efforts instead on chips for the mobile phone market--where it dominates--and on early forays into smartbooks and tablets. However, ARM is working on low-powered server chips in response to customer demand, marketing chief Ian Drew told ZDNet UK.

"We've been doing some testing over the past year or so," Drew said on … Read more

A new version of Bluetooth has been revealed by the industry group behind the wireless technology, which is targeting low-energy applications in the health care, fitness, and security markets.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced the adoption of Bluetooth Core Specification version 4.0 on Thursday. The new iteration follows the speed-centric version 3.0 of the Bluetooth specification by just 10 months, but the two versions are intended for different use cases.

"With today's announcement, the race is on for product designers to be the first to market," Bluetooth SIG chief Michael Foley said in a … Read more

Let's face it, Nascar driver Jimmie Johnson is a winner. This guy is never far from the top of the points rankings and damn near always a top finisher in NASCAR events, especially in races that count the most such as those that take place at the end of the Nascar season, the Chase for the Sprint Cup series. Roughly a week ago, Johnson finished in first place and ranked first in the Pepsi 500 race in California, and this past Saturday, Jimmie continued his winning ways for the second week in a row by claiming yet another victory. … Read more

I request a lot of monitors from various manufacturers without always taking into account their retail costs. Sometimes, I'm just much more excited about posting a review of the latest, greatest, coolest monitor, than I am about the cheapest.

Thing is, most users simply don't care about the latest, greatest, coolest monitor. Most simply want something that's low-priced and does what it does (shows pictures of whatever they're attempting to display) well enough that they don't notice any problems.

I've gotten plenty of feedback lately requesting such information. "What is the best monitor … Read more