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One of the added benefits to the next generation of Intel Ivy Bridge processors coming later this year is its native support of Thunderbolt. The newly announced high-end ThinkPad Edge S430 will feature Thunderbolt as one of a bevy of extra features aimed at taking this middle-range small business line of laptops up a notch.

It's unclear whether it will feature Ivy Bridge, but considering that the new CPUs will release in June, coinciding with the S430's release, we can guess that it's likely that the S430 will feature the new Intel processors.

The Edge S430 doesn't look particularly striking, but Lenovo promises metal accents and a soft-touch finish that might make holding it more impressive. Besides having "the latest Intel Core processors," additional options will include an optical drive or, alternatively, a second hard drive, and Nvidia Optimus graphics. The Edge S430 will start at $749. … Read more

2012 promises to be a watershed year for laptops. Really thin will be in and internal optical drives out, while some designs venture into hybrid territory.

Apple: Apple is expected to incorporate the MacBook Air design theme into more models, including a 15-incher sans optical drive. And since Apple popularized the really-thin aesthetic with the January 2008 introduction of the MacBook Air, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the company will continue to be a trendsetter.

Trendsetting may include a rumored 2,880-by-1,800-pixel display. That would be a remarkable feat as workstation-class 15-inch Windows laptops, such as … Read more

USB 3.0 has gotten the green light for becoming a standard offering on Intel-based Windows PCs next year.

The USB Implementers Forum announced this week that the upcoming "Ivy Bridge" 7 Series Chipset and other Intel chipsets have achieved USB 3.0 certification. Chipsets are support silicon that work in tandem with the main processor.

USB 3.0, aka SuperSpeed USB, delivers up to 10 times the data transfer rate of USB 2.0, as well as improved power efficiency.

Intel's Ivy Bridge silicon, due to ship in Windows PCs in the April-June time frame, will … Read more

Sick of living in the cloud?

The new Pogoplug Series 4 is a device that looks to take the best of cloud computing and home network-attached storage and combine the two into a seamless experience. Available today, it certainly seems like a perfectly timed idea in the wake of seemingly daily frustrations with services like Apple's own iCloud and iTunes Match.

Maybe the fourth time's a charm: I've reviewed multiple Pogoplugs before, but none of them came close to what this new version offers. The Pogoplug is a NAS drive without the complications, and it's finally hit a sweet spot for price, size, and feature set. The newly released Pogoplug Series 4 is a latecomer to the holiday shopping season, but if you're getting fed up with iCloud and what other cloud services have to offer, then this $99 device might be what you're looking for.… Read more

The Hipstamatic D-Series camera app announced today offers a new way to tie photos and social networking together.

Synthetic, developer of the popular retro-image iPhone app Hipstamatic, have enjoyed plenty of success in the iTunes App Store since the app was released two years ago. Now, the company aims to make the retro-image-taking experience more social with its new D-Series camera app, available December 15.

The Hipstamatic D-Series app lets you connect with a group of friends via Facebook and snap pictures that all go to a common "film roll." Made for parties, concerts, and any other event, … Read more

Cisco Systems released the original Linksys E4200 in January, which turned out to be a formidable wireless router.

Now as the year is ending, the company announced today the second version of the same router. And the Linksys E4200 v2 Maximum Performance Dual-Band N900 turns out to be one of the best, if not the best, router of the year.

The new E4200 v2 looks exactly the same as the original on the outside, with a sleek-looking design that looks more like an expensive jewelry box than a router. On the inside, however, it packs much more power than the … Read more

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.--After years of hearing that its cars are smooth and tech-rich while lacking the passion and fun that appeal to devoted drivers, Lexus might be getting it.

To prove it's headed in a new direction branded by "emotion" and "passion," Lexus gathered journalists at the Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel along the Pacific coastline between Los Angeles and San Diego to test-drive the 2013 Lexus GS on a route across the SoCal freeways, along the coast, and over mountain roads. The six-cylinder midrange luxury sedan will greet showrooms in three primary setups--the standard 350, the 450h hybrid version, and a tuned F Sport for the biggest performance fans. … Read more

The University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has contracted with Cray to provide the supercomputer for the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. That computer will tap AMD's new 16-core processor.

Blue Waters will be composed of more than 235 Cray XE6 cabinets based on the AMD's Opteron 6200 Series processor (formerly code-named "Interlagos") and more than 30 cabinets of a future version of the recently announced Cray XK6 supercomputer with Nvidia Tesla graphics processing units (GPUs), Cray said. All of this will be combined into a single, powerful hybrid supercomputer.

The … Read more

In the CNET Labscast this week, Scott reports back from the Nook Tablet launch event; we check out Samsung's new Series 7 laptops and slates; and the great debate on video game subtitles gets a little heated.

Note that CNET Gotham, our NYC-based pop-up store, opens this week, and you can catch all of us there at various times. Check gotham.cnet.com for a schedule of events.

… Read more