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Sony Vaio, Walkman, Reader get OLED treatment

CHIBA, Japan--Perhaps to distract from the fact that it has no organic light-emitting diode TV on display here at Ceatec 2009, Sony is instead showing off conceptual uses for its flexible OLED technology.

Mind you, these are just prototypes, nothing even close to a real product, like the XEL-1 TV that Sony actually sells but is notably absent from its booth here. But the ways the company is thinking of perhaps using its flexible display tech are certainly cool.

Take the dual OLED screen Vaio notebook. It features the 0.2 mm OLED on both the screen and keyboard area. … Read more

Up close with the ultrathin Sony Vaio X

Giving the MacBook Air and the Dell Adamo a run for their money in the thin/coffee-shop sexy department, the Sony Vaio X Series notebook previewed at IFA Berlin definitely has the looks to rise to the top. At less than half an inch thick and weighing 1.5 pounds, it certainly could be one of the thinnest thin-and-lights out there, and a carbon fiber exterior should help with durability. Internal 3G and an "all day and into the night" battery also sound nice.

As to price and specs beyond an 11.1-inch screen, we're as curious … Read more

Gadgettes 153: The Gun Show Episode

How on earth are you going to install that gun rack in your track if you don't have properly buffed guns on your arms? That's right, it's all about fitness tech. Now, Jason has to take a run around the block to catch a cab.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 153

Wii Fit Bulks Up

Sandisk Sansa Clip+ mp3 player looks pretty, plays awesome

Vivian Tam MP3 Player

Ultra-thin Sony VAIO X laptop weighs just 1.5 lb

Webcycle doles out internet speeds as fast as you’re pedaling (thanks, Morely!)

What would James Bond use? The Japanese pistol camera

What the hell!? Really Snowing Picture Frame Makes It Winter Anytime

Pink Watch Barbie’s gadgets

PRETTY (Bugatti Edition!) Tea kettle of the future from Bugatti

Swarovski crystals and Italian leather for your Bugatti Diva

Why Didn’t I Think Of That? Buttcam makes jeans shopping easy… Read more

Sony unveils X Series Vaio, Xperia 2 smartphone at IFA

BERLIN--Sony introduced a digital camera and a smartphone, and gave a brief glimpse of an ultrathin laptop, as well as a new look for its global advertising, at IFA Berlin Wednesday.

At the tail end of the company's press conference here, the head of Sony Europe, Fujio Nishida, briefly showed off a new laptop, the Sony Vaio X Series, which has yet to be officially announced. It has a black carbon fiber exterior, will weigh less than 1.5 pounds, have an 11.1-inch screen, and be less than half an inch thick. Beyond saying that it will have built-in wireless 3G and an "all day and into the night" battery, Nishida gave no internal specifications or a price for the PC.

Earlier in the day, Sony revealed the new Xperia 2 smartphone. It's the first phone with Windows Mobile 6.5, which was unveiled by Microsoft on Tuesday. Though Nishida did not give a price, he said it will be for sale during the fourth quarter of this year. … Read more

Sony shipping Chrome on Vaios

Google promised earlier this year that a major computer maker would start to ship its Chrome browser.

Sony's the one.

Sony's Vaio line has begun carrying the browser in the U.S., the Financial Times reported late Monday.

According to a Dow Jones report, all Vaio-branded PCs are now using Chrome as their default browser. A Sony representative told Dow Jones that there are no plans to add Chrome to Vaios outside the U.S.

Vaios will continue to come with Microsoft's Internet Explorer in tandem.

The Financial Times also reported that other companies are in talks … Read more

Sony nixes Windows 7's XP virtualization mode for current Vaio laptops

A small but vocal group of tech enthusiasts is raising a fuss over Sony's plans to disable the hardware virtualization required to run Microsoft's Windows 7 XP virtualization technology.

Answering reader questions on the official Windows Partner Blog, Sony exec Xavier Lauwaert says security issues are to blame (the explanation comes in the comments section of the post):

Our engineers and QA people were very concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code that could go very deep in the Operating System structure of the PC and completely disable the latter.

However, all is not … Read more

Blu-ray laptop for under $1000: Sony Vaio NW160J

Is Blu-ray the future of laptops? If Sony had its way, that would certainly be the case. And if all Blu-ray-playing laptops were as well-executed as Sony's Vaio NW160J, that wouldn't be the most daunting consideration. Sony has been packaging its Vaio laptops as design-centric, relatively expensive multimedia machines with a Blu-ray-playing focus for a while now, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the company's new line of slightly higher than midrange laptops, the NW series, culminates with a 15.4-inch Blu-ray version.

This model, the NW160J, comes in at $929. There are even more … Read more

Sony promises touch-screen Vaio

A Sony Vaio notebook with a touch-screen interface is on its way, a company executive said Thursday.

In an interview with Laptop Mag, Sony executive Mike Abary confirmed that an upcoming notebook will have a touch screen that will take advantage of that feature in the upcoming Windows 7 release this fall.

Here's what Abary said when asked about the possibility of a touch-screen notebook before the end of 2009:

There are certain things that will be native on Windows 7 that we are certainly going to take advantage of. Without giving too much away, we think touch on … Read more