TPM
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Microsoft is easing some of the system requirements for the Windows 11 preview
You don't need a specific CPU or TPM 2.0 chip to test the OS.
HP Folio 13 Ultrabook official: starts at $900 with a 128GB SSD and backlit keyboard (hands-on)
And just like that, HP joined the Ultrabook party. After announcing the Folio in Australia yesterday, the company went and made it official here in the states too. And man, do we get the feeling the outfit's been watching the competition very closely: this guy starts at $900 and comes standard with a 128GB mSATA SSD and a backlit keyboard. Provided it comes close to matching its promise of nine hours of battery life, it could give the identically priced Toshiba Portege Z830 a run for its money. Not to mention, it undercuts the MacBook Air ($1,299 and up), along with the ASUS Zenbook UX31 and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, both of which start at $1,100 with a 128GB SSD and no backlit keyboard. Good on ya, HP. What's that, you say? You want more specs? Rounding out the list, the Folio has a 13.3-inch (1366 x 768) display, optional TPM circuitry and comes standard with a Core i5-2467M processor, 4GB of RAM, a six-cell battery and HP's CoolSense technology. Additionally, it offers a fairly robust selection of ports, including HDMI, Ethernet, USB 2.0 and 3.0, a memory card reader and a combined headphone / mic socket. The trade-off, though, is a slightly thicker chassis than what other Ultrabooks are offering: 3.3 pounds and 18mm (0.7 inches) thick. It'll be available in the US starting December 7th, but we've already managed to snag a few minutes with it, which means we've got photos, video and impressions for you to peek now. So what are you waiting for? Meet us after the break for our hands-on preview. %Gallery-139515% %Gallery-137707%
Fujitsu's Stylistic Q550 business slate up for US pre-orders, starting at $729
We're still not sure what's stylistic about Smart Card readers, fingerprint scanners and TPM modules, but you won't find them in many slates, so if you've been considering the Fujitsu Q550 -- which has one of each -- today's your lucky day. The Oak Trail-powered Windows 7 tablet with a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS screen is ready for US pre-orders today, with $729 bringing you the base model with a 30GB solid state drive and a two-cell rechargeable battery. $849 upgrades the slate to 62GB of storage and four cells worth of swappable Lithium-ion joy, while both sport front and rear cameras, HDMI out, a bootable USB 2.0 port, a full-size SD slot and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi. Let's just hope the UI is a tad more optimized than last time. [Thanks, Manish]
Samsung P580 business laptop hands-on
Boy, Samsung's been keeping us busy today -- in addition to the Q330 and Q530, the company was also showing the P580 business laptop at the British Museum today. The particular unit we played with had a vibrant 15.6-inch 1,366 x 768 matte screen, although a higher resolution and greater viewing angle would've made it a prettier package. To our further disappointment, the keyboard was nowhere as good as the Q-series' chiclet offering -- we kept pressing neighboring keys by accident, and the spacebar's right-hand side often failed to pick up our input. An isolated issue? Only time will tell -- you guys might have better luck when this bad boy eventually arrives in the stores.%Gallery-92795%
Samsung announces P580 business notebook with Core i3 / i5 and matte screen
Laptops with anti-glare screens are hard to come by these days, so it's nice to see Samsung adding a new option for us all. What you're looking at here is the P580 notebook, sporting a 15.6-inch 1,366 x 768 LED-lit screen and keyboard with numeric keypad. Underneath the hood you'll find a Core i3 or i5 CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M (1GB GDDR3) graphics, Trusted Platform Module security, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and 2GB to 4GB of RAM. If you feel that the four chargeable USB 2.0 jacks (one of which is also eSATA) aren't adequate, then there's always the docking port that offers plenty more for your socket fetish. Not bad for a 2.5kg (5.51 pounds) package, and let's hope this workhorse trots in before long with appropriately alluring pricing. Full PR after the break.%Gallery-92739%
Christopher Tarnovsky hacks Infineon's 'unhackable' chip, we prepare for false-advertising litigation
As it turns out, Infineon may have been a little bit... optimistic when it said its SLE66 CL PE was "unhackable" -- but only a little. The company should have put an asterisk next to the word, pointing to a disclaimer indicating something to the effect of: "Unless you have an electron microscope, small conductive needles to intercept the chip's internal circuitry, and the acid necessary to expose it." Those are some of the tools available to researcher Christopher Tarnovsky, who perpetrated the hack and presented his findings at the Black Hat DC Conference earlier this month. Initially, Infineon claimed what he'd done was impossible, but now has taken a step back and said "the risk is manageable, and you are just attacking one computer." We would tend to agree in this case, but Tarnovsky still deserves serious respect for this one. Nice work, Big Gun.
Atari founder cries wolf about piracy-ending chip
So news is making its way around the internets that at the Wedbush Morgan Securities Management Access Conference, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell proclaimed the end of PC gaming piracy as we know it, thanks to a "stealth encryption chip." The magic chip he's referring to that "will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay"? The TPM chip -- what's been on motherboards for years, that apparently Bushnell just found out about. While the tinfoil hats in the house will likely attribute TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and other onboard crypto-chips to the eventual downfall of privacy and personal computing, to date we've yet to see piracy stunted or civil liberties breached because of the little bugger. FUD you later, Nolan.[Thanks, Carl]
Bushnell: New encryption chip to effectively end PC gaming piracy
As much as we enjoy not paying for things, we here at Joystiq HQ are vehemently opposed to piracy. Partly because we think cheating music, film, and gaming companies out of their hard-earned recompense is a despicable act, but mostly because we don't like equating paltry key-cracking to the visceral thrill of high seas swashbuckling. Apparently, Nolan Bushnell shares our disdain for modern-day "pirates" as well -- in a recent speech to a Wedbush Morgan Securities conference, the Atari founder discussed a new encryption chip which will "absolutely stop piracy of gameplay."The stealth encryption chip known as TPM will appear on the motherboards of many computers currently being produced, according to Bushnell, and will allow game developers to imbue their future titles with completely uncrackable, unsharable activation passwords. We've found that e-pirates are a resourceful lot, so the prolonged effectiveness of this measure is questionable -- still, it could rejuvenate PC gaming in areas of the world where piracy runs rampant. Lord knows the industry could use a booster shot in Tortuga.
Dell gets official with Latitude D430, Precision M4300 laptops
At long last, Dell's ultraportable Latitude D430 is getting official, and just so it doesn't have to brave the new world alone, the Precision M4300 mobile workstation is tagging along. The 12-inch D430 will of course boast a widescreen WXGA display, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Intel's GMA 950 integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 Duo (or Solo) processor, an optional 32GB SSD, 802.11n WiFi, optional fingerprint reader, magnesium alloy casing, Strike Zone hard drive protection, and a slew of ports to boot. The beefier M4300 comes stocked with up to 2.4GHz of Intel Core 2 Duo power, a 15.4-inch display, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA's 512MB Quadro FX 360M graphics, up to 160GB of hard drive space, and 802.11n WiFi. Both units are available to configure as we speak, and while the 12-incher starts at $1,509 sans many luxuries, the M4300 rings up at $1,750 before you start bumping up the specs.
Asus intros SideShow-ready motherboards
While CES graced us with laptops aplenty touting SideShow capabilities, Asus is bringing the secondary display love over to the desktop realm with its latest lineup of motherboards. The M2N32-SLI Premium Vista Edition and P5B Premium Vista Edition each come Vista-ready and support Asus' own ScreenDUO technology, which "provides a second display panel to enable the user to conveniently view important information without having to start up the PC." Users purchasing the boards actually get the secondary display in a bundled package, but there's no word on if (or how) you can connect your own screen in the future. Nevertheless, the boards also feature AI Remote, AP Trigger, TPM support, and the firm's Accelerated Propeller to reportedly "shorten boot times and program initiation" while in Vista. Asus is lookin' out for both the Intel and AMD camps, as the M2N32-SLI provides socket support for AMD Athlon 64 FX processors, while the P5B plays nice with Intel's Core 2 Quad chips, and although pricing information isn't readily available, these mobos should be hitting shelves shortly to coincide with the Vista release.[Via 64-Bit-Computers]
Asus U5F goes Core 2 Duo, gets Splendid
It appears Asus' long-standing U5 series is finally getting an entirely overdue refresh, but late is indeed better than never. The freshened up U5F sports a layout and enclosure quite similar to its W7J sibling, and is built around the Sonoma platform. Beneath the hood you'll find an Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor, 12.1-inch XGA monitor, 512MB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, Windows XP Home, built-in WiFi / Bluetooth, a dual-layer DVD burner, and Intel's 945GM integrated graphics set. Aside from the VGA output, audio in / out, couple of USB 2.0 ports, and gigabit Ethernet jack, you just might notice Asus' own "Splendid video intelligence technology" kicking out "improved contrast, brightness, and color saturation," and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) should keep the snoopers at least somewhat at bay. This 3.1-pound ultraportable machine doesn't yet carry a pricetag, but should be making its way to Chinese retailers real soon, but be sure you're really down with those intimidating palm rest stickers before throwing down your loot.
Apple Drops Trusted Computing
When Apple announced the move to Intel processors, there was a good deal of talk regarding whether the company would make use of the content protection offered through Intel's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to ensure OSx86 could only be run on Apple's own hardware. Although Apple did eventually include the Trusted Computing chips in the machines, it seems that they never actually used them. For some however, the mere presence of the chip without a a statement from Apple as to what it was being used for was enough to make them switch away from Macs. Amit Singh brings news that with the introduction of the Mac Pro, the TPM is absent from the motherboards of Apple's new machines; something that should lay to rest any remaining conspiratorial fears. Singh had previously released a piece of software that allowed users of machines containing the TPM to use Trusted Computing to protect their own data. [via BoingBoing]
IBM to start marketing SecureBlue on-chip crypto
Not a fan of hardware DRM enforcement and trusted computing models? Well, you might want to plug your ears (or pay close attention, depending on how you treat this kind of news), because IBM announced that they'll be marketing future chipset solutions with SecureBlue -- their new take on secure computing hardware (with a specific bend toward locking down DRM for the end user). But SecureBlue's not only necessarily for computers; they also seem to want to launch the technology on "low-cost, relatively low performance electronics." In other words, you might start seeing SecureBlue "protecting" your computer from viruses and malevolent (or unsigned / unapproved) software just like it might also be powering the next wave of lower-power consumptive DRM-enabled portable audio players. Honestly we don't really know exactly what and how, though, since IBM didn't really seem to want to get incredibly verbose or specific on the matter. But you know how these things work, so expect to be hearing the SecureBlue name -- at least a little -- in the coming months.
