Proving once again that he's still got love for the home team, Nick Negroponte has announced the impending launch of OLPC America, a division of the organization with its own director and chairman that will bring low-cost laptops to US students. According to an IDG interview with Negroponte, distributing the XO stateside has always been in the plans, arguing that "to have the United States be the only country that's not in the OLPC agenda would be kind of ridiculous." Besides helping out kids at home, NickNeg anticipates that a domestic deployment will accelerate the project to critical mass in terms of adoption, software, and developer support. OLPC America will reportedly work with individual state governments to handle the details of the disbursement, although specifics of the plan will remain under wraps until the official launch later this year.

[Via Slashdot]

As you may have read in our coverage of Hitachi's new 5K500 2.5-inch 500GB drive, Asus will be the first manufacturer to pack a pair of these capacious components into a set of upcoming widescreen models, giving the 17-inch M70S and 15-inch M50S the distinguished honor of being the world's first one terabyte laptops. Besides those oddly-sized drives (which can configured in either RAID 0 or RAID 1), these machines will also offer up to WUXGA or WSXGA+ resolutions (for the M70 and M50, respectively), 2.4GHz T7700 Core 2 Duo processors, AMD ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics, and a fingerprint reader, along with an optional hybrid TV tuner and remote. As usual, the good stuff (pictures, pricing) will be coming in a few days at the Show of Shows.

Well it missed a 2007 release by just days, but now Dell's Inspiron 1525 -- upgrade to the 15.4-inch 1521 -- is finally available for purchase in the US, starting at just $500. Of course, it'll cost quite a bit more to configure one of these colorful rigs to a power user's specifications, and even then, you're capped off at a 1,200 x 800 screen resolution being pushed by integrated graphics. Still, even the starter model provides quite a few nice features, including integrated 2 megapixel webcam, travel remote, HDMI port, and perhaps most exciting of all, built-in Wireless USB. You can hit up the Read link for more info and instructions on how to order.

We know that when it comes to a company like HP, you cats hang on its every word, waiting for a juicy tidbit of information, quietly hoping to be privy to another life-altering, ingenious decision. Well listen up folks, because we've got news. According to a report today, HP will be begin offering solid-state drives as an option for all of its professional series laptops, including the HP Compaq 2710p, 2510p, 6910p, and 8000 lines. The company's first NAND flash offering will be a whopping 64GB SSD, adding about $1000 in additional cost to the systems, though the company expects the prices to drop as solid-state proliferation increases. In all seriousness, HP isn't always on the cutting edge, but this is a smart decision, which -- luckily for us -- seems to be cropping up all over the map.

Because we know just how much you like to know exactly whose crapware you'll be removing from your next store-bought desktop or laptop, this is a just a quick heads-up that HP customers worldwide can soon expect to be confronted with portals, toolbars, and default search settings courtesy of AOL (which also happens to own Engadget parent network Weblogs Inc.). Since it was almost exactly a year ago that HP made a similar deal with Yahoo, we can only assume that AOL has pushed its rival off of HP machines altogether, extending its current agreement to provide only the co-branded portal for domestically-sold rigs. Perhaps the best news here is that for those folks who haven't bought a PC in several years, the pre-loaded AOL software may provided a much-needed connection back to the days of dial-up in this scary new world of broadband, Vista, and MySpace.

In most situations, a donation of a thousand laptops is a pretty awesome thing. But when the donation comes from Intel, a multi-billion dollar corporation with an interest in promoting its low cost laptop line, and the recipient is Vietnam, a nation of 85 million living on less than $3,500 per capita, it'd be a long shot to say that the donation came out of the goodness of the company's heart. Education minister Nguyen Thien Nhan seems to be happy enough with the deal, saying that Vietnam recognizes the value of technology in the classroom (even if America doesn't). Frankly, we don't buy the PR line: it's not sustainable for Intel to constantly "give away" their machines, so the payoff is inevitably going to be some sort of lock-in by getting there first. Even if the concept of laptops in schools isn't flawed, this isn't the way to go about getting them into the hands of students -- let alone students from a country that is listed in the mid-hundreds on the GDP rankings.

[Via The Inquirer]

While we don't have any clear word on when or if to expect Averatec's 6700 laptop we just spotted to hit the States, things are a bit more promising with the Averatec 2371, which the company is also announcing today. The ultraportable is a slight bump to the 2300 line we spotted last year, and Averatec's first laptop for the States running Vista. Along with Home Premium, the 2371 runs 1GB of RAM, a 120GB HDD, dual-layer DVD burner, 802.11b/g WiFi, an ExpressCard/54 slot and a 4-in-1 card reader -- not too bad for a 1.3-inch thick, 4 pound, 12.1-incher. The screen runs at 1280 x 800, and there's a 1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52 processor under the hood. Prices range from $900 to $950.

Just in case the recent outpouring of Santa Rosa wasn't doing enough to keep you satisfied, ASUS just announced five laptops sporting the new mobile processor. None of 'em break much ground on the design or form factor side of things, but Santa Rosa isn't the only thing these laptops have going for them. The 17-inch A7S-7S006C runs a 2GHz T7300 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1440 x 900 screen and perhaps most excitingly, the new NVIDIA GeForce 8400G mobile graphics card with 896MB of RAM. For sheer power, the ASUS F3SV (pictured) is teh win, with T7100 to T7700 procs at its disposal, up to 2GB of RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M graphics with up to 1GB of RAM. The F3SC is similar, but steps graphics down to an 8400, with 384MB of RAM -- both laptops feature 1280 x 800 15.4-inch screens. The same graphics card ends up in the A8SC, alongside a 1.8GHz T7100 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 14.1-inch 1280 x 800 screen. Finally, the W7S brings up the rear with a 1.3-inch 1280 x 800 screen, T7100-T7500 processor, 2GB of RAM and 128MB of GeForce 8400 graphics. All of the laptops feature webcams of various resolution, along with plentiful connectivity. No word on when specifically these are due to wow us with their DirectX 10 prowess, or how much those fun and games will cost.

In his second public letter in recent times, Steve Jobs has responded to high profile accusations from environmental organizations that Apple is not taking the matter of the environment seriously enough, with a point by point article that highlights Apple's record and puts forward improvements for the future. Going down the list of toxic chemicals usually found in computers, Steve highlights Apple's elimination of lead packed CRTs, compliance with strict European Union regulations regarding cadmium, hexavalent chromium and brominated flame retardants, the expectence that Apple will recycle 30% of the weight of all its products by 2010, and most interestingly, makes the announcement that Apple plans to "introduce our first Macs with LED backlight technology in 2007". There's no question that this little tidbit will be enough to satisfy the average Apple addict -- LED MacBook Pro anyone? -- but will the environmental brief be enough to placate the rather passionate Greenpeace?

[Via digg]

We got some more info today from a friendly tipster about Sony's upcoming and not-so-secretive summer laptop lineup. The FZ info we had for the most part, but it's nice to get a bit of confirmation that Sony is actually going with 2GB of RAM and Santa Rosa across the board for the Vista laptops, along with Blu-ray in the FZ11Z. The other goodness we've got here are the first pics of the 11.1-inch TZ series (shown above), some downright sexy ultraportables that are replacing the comparatively frumpy TX laptops. Sony is touting up to 9 hours of battery life, with 1GB of RAM and a 80GB hard drive in the TZ11MN/M, and 2GB / 100GB in the TZ11XN/B. Both laptops feature integrated cameras and microphones, just like the FZ series, and are running Vista Business on Core 2 Duo U7500 processors. Still no word on price, but the info we have has these hitting at least the UK in July.

There isn't quite an abundance of info about these up-and-comers from Sony, but it's better than nothing. Sony is prepping the 15.4-inch FZ series, 13.3-inch SZ5, 11.1-inch TZ11, 13.3-inch CZ and 14-inch CR for a summer launch, and is apparently having a hard time keeping the info under wraps. We've got a few shady specs on screen resolution and whatnot for a few models, but the fact that the 11-inchers on up to the 15-incher are sporting WXGA resolutions seems to cast a bit of doubt on the proceedings. Luckily, we've got the skinny on the FZ19 (pictured above), which includes the new Santa Rosa chipset from Intel, along with integrated X3100 graphics, 2GB of RAM and a 120GB HDD. Most of the laptops, including the FZ series, include built-in webcams and heaping helpings of RAM. The TZ series is a refresh to the TX line of ultraportables, and seems to be making some good strides, including a purported business-friendly redesign and an SSD option due for a later revision. Not too many specifics on launch dates, but July seems to be the general word, at least for the CZ and CR series. Hit up the read link for more detailed specs.

You've got to hand it to Acer for holding strong while lesser manufacturers folded in the face of cries over "consumer safety," but the Taiwanese giant has finally caved and issued a voluntary recall of about 27,000 Sony-made laptop batteries over eight months after Dell pulled back the first four million,and half a year following its initial consultations with Sony. Affected models include a slew of TravelMate and Aspire notebooks sold between May 2004 and November 2006, so Acer owners should hit the Read link to match up serial numbers -- and then shutdown immediately in favor of AC power if they do happen to sport one of the explosion-prone packs. As usual, the company will replace your battery for free as long as you visit the proper site or dial the toll-free blah blah blah...can we finally put this meme to bed already?

This one's not quite as clear as we would wish, but here's what we've got: Asustek is prepping to launch a series of cheap laptops based on Intel's Classmate PC platform in the second half of this year, which will go up against (what else?) the OLPC XO. What we can't quite figure is if Asustek is building these OEM-style for Intel branding (shown above), or if it's just using the design to line its own pockets -- it could really go either way. The best news is price, since we've been rather worried about that $400 tag that's been kicked around, more-or-less officially, for the Classmate PC. Apparently the 1GB SSD version of Asustek's 7-inch Classmate PC will start at $199, with price points at $249, $299, $399 and $549 for capacities all the way up to 40GB. Ah, nothing like those educational laptop warm-fuzzies on a cold Monday afternoon.

Sorry NEC, but we're just totally not feeling this look. You weren't exactly winning design awards when we saw some of these last year, but now we just feel sorry for you. Granted, this new lineup of LaVie laptops from NEC falls squarely in the budget sphere, with a good many weakling Intel and AMD processors between them, but the top-of-the-line LaVie C (pictured) is no slouch. It sports up to a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 processor, Blu-ray drive, Radeon X1600 graphics with 512MB of VRAM and HDMI out. The 15.4-inch screen comes in WXGA (1280 x 800 and WXGA+ (1440 x 900) flavors. Other members of the new lineup include the 12.1-inch LaVie J, with a 1.06GHz Core 2 Duo U7500 processor and XGA screen, the LaVie L "Advanced Type," which does the LaVie C form factor with lesser specs, and the LaVie L "Basic Type," which brings its own form factor and takes things about as basic as they get. No word on price or release date for any of these, but we're not so sure we care. The other models are pictured after the break.

Not everyone is down with latest and greatest hardware -- or they just can't afford it -- and it's definitely not the dual-core-and-SLI crowd HP is targeting with its new HP 510 laptop. The 15-incher features just about what you'd expect from a $565 notebook computer, so specs like 'Celeron M.' 'integrated graphics,' and '1GB max RAM' should come as little surprise. You're still getting all the basics here, though, including a 60GB hard drive, b/g WiFi, a passable WXGA resolution and 512MB of RAM, and a DVD combo drive. Not one we'd show off to the ladies or anything, but it'll get the job done, and it's available immediately.

[Via PC Launches]