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Samsung unveils 9 Series, a thin competitor to the MacBook Air

LAS VEGAS--Samsung laptops have caught our eye for more than a year now, with an increasingly impressive design aesthetic and fairly good prices to boot. Today, its announcement of a thin, 13-inch laptop aimed squarely at the MacBook Air-loving crowd seems to indicate a direction in higher-end products, too, and we certainly can't complain.

The 9 Series comes with a second-generation Intel Core i5-2537M CPU, 4GB of DD43 RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive, along with Windows 7 Professional. The design looks great so far: its metal finish has beautiful curved edges, and Samsung boasts it's the thinnest … Read more

Rudolph no longer a radar-nosed reindeer

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he's equipped with the latest in satellite-based technology to get you your toys on time (and in one piece).

So says the Federal Aviation Administration, which announced this week that its safety inspectors had certified St. Nick's sleigh, Santa One, for its annual chimney-chasing trek around the globe.

"Children around the world will get their gifts on time, regardless of the weather, thanks to NextGen," a new air traffic control technology, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "We're proud to say NextGen … Read more

What the next Kindle will look like

After Barnes & Noble unveiled its Nook Color e-reader recently, I got a few e-mails from folks asking me what I thought Amazon.com was up to and whether Jeff Bezos had some sort of color device up his sleeve. I'd written an article a few months back about a possible Amazon Android tablet and they wanted to know whether they should opt for the Nook Color or wait for an Amazon tablet. Did I know if a Kindle Color was coming soon?

Well, for starters, I don't think we'll see a color e-reader from Amazon this year--or probably anytime soon. I think Amazon really sees the iPad as its color e-reader of the moment. A lot of people are using the Kindle app on the iPad (and iPhone), even though Apple has iBooks. Of course, Barnes & Noble also has a Nook app for the iPad, and Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo want their customers to know they can tap into one of these platforms from a variety of devices and share e-books across those devices. I can't tell you what percentage of iPad owners are using the Kindle app to shop for e-books, but I'd guess it's a fairly large number, judging from my informal poll of colleagues and friends and my own use (I rarely use iBooks and have both Kindle and Nook accounts).

Barnes & Noble has been smart enough to price its "reader's" tablet at $249, which is pretty reasonable. However, while that's half the price of the entry-level iPad, the fact is that Apple is still going to sell a ton of iPads this holiday season and Amazon will be quite content to have those buyers download the Kindle app. After all, it's much easier to deal with software than hardware, and if you have the design geniuses at Apple serving up the hardware for you, it's a win-win. Next April, Apple will have a new iPad--presumably with a better screen--and despite Steve Jobs saying the company wasn't doing an iPad Mini, there's still the distinct possibility of a smaller iPad, perhaps with a 7-inch screen.

So if Amazon appears willing to let others do much of its hardware dirty work for it, what's the road map for Amazon-branded Kindle devices? … Read more

Apple iPod Nano (sixth-gen), first impressions

Today, I played around with Apple's latest sixth-gen iPod Nano. Maybe I need some time to let it grow on me, but at first blush, I don't think I'm in love.

True to its name the sixth-generation Nano is Apple's smallest yet, measuring an inch and a half square, and 0.35 inch thick. There's a clip on the back (borrowed from the iPod Shuffle), a variety of seven colors (silver, gray, blue, orange, pink, green, and red), and two capacities, 8GB ($149) and 16GB ($179). Battery life is rated at 24 hours of music … Read more

FutureGen clean-coal project gets $1 billion from U.S.

The U.S. Energy Department on Thursday awarded $1 billion for the FutureGen clean-coal power program and carbon dioxide storage network in Illinois, aiming to cut emissions of greenhouse gases from coal-fired electric generating plants.

"This investment in the world's first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Oxy-combustion burns coal with a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide (CO2) instead of … Read more

Massive Calif. wind farm gets $1.2 billion in financing

Terra-Gen Power announced Wednesday it's garnered $1.2 billion in financing to build what could be the largest wind energy project in the U.S.

The 3,000-megawatt Alta Wind Energy Center when completed would actually be a series of several massive wind farms located near Tehachapi, Calif., a city in Kern County about 116 miles north of Los Angeles.

Terra-Gen is a renewable-energy company that develops wind, solar, and geothermal projects for producing electricity. Its first phase of this Alta Wind Energy Center, called Alta Project I, already has financing. Its construction began in March and consists of … Read more

Boeing wins $1.7 billion contract from FAA

Boeing has won a $1.7 billion contract from the Federal Aviation Administration to create the Next-Generation Air Transportation System.

One of the goals of the system, also known as NextGen, will be to update the current air traffic control system from its traditional radar-based tracking to one that uses a GPS-based technology called ADS-B, the company said Thursday. Such a move is designed to deliver greater accuracy and safety in managing the growing traffic in the skies. To help develop the new system, Boeing said it will rely on air traffic management models and simulations.

In addition, Boeing will … Read more

NoSQL goes mobile with the help of CouchDB

If there is one aspect of mobility that has yet to live up to user expectations, it's the ability for data to be accessible in near real-time across multiple devices.

Despite all the advances in technology, including a wealth of Wi-Fi and 3G networks, many devices become impotent without an Internet connection.

This issue becomes even more apparent when you are dealing with browser-based applications and smartphones that don't have multithreading functionality to maintain state across applications and data stores.

I recently had the chance to chat with Damien Katz, the creator of CouchDB and CEO of Couchio, … Read more

When will the second-gen iPad arrive?

Back when the Palm Pre came out, I wrote an article about about first-gen jitters. I said that I usually follow a simple rule when it comes to consumer electronics: I avoid buying any first-generation products. That doesn't mean I haven't ever done it, but I tend to wait for generation two or three before I plunk down my dough, particularly when it comes to heavily hyped stuff.

I know a lot of people who are looking at the iPad in the same way. They're intrigued by it--and the price isn't too bad--but they're not … Read more