Z13
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Lenovo launches a new, AMD-only line of ultraportable ThinkPads
Lenovo and AMD collaborated on a new Ryzen 7 Pro system designed for longer life during video calls.
IBM's monster mainframe is built to handle your mobile shopping
Shopping from your phone is a big deal these days, but it requires a lot of effort behind the scenes to run smoothly -- when there are thousands of people tapping "buy" in short succession, they can easily bring a server to its knees. That crush might not be a problem for stores that have IBM's beastly new z13 mainframe, though. The system's gobs of CPU power (the "world's fastest microprocessor," IBM claims), memory and bandwidth let it handle a whopping 2.5 billion mobile shopping transactions per day, or enough that even a mad rush like Black Friday shouldn't bog it down. It's fast enough to analyze every deal in real time, too, so it's more likely to catch someone who stole your credit card info before you have to dispute any unwanted charges. You'll probably never know which specific apps and sites are using the z13, but this giant computer might just save you from inordinate waits and rude surprises the next time you're ordering online. [Image credit: IBM, Flickr]
Sony's 13-inch VAIO Z line gets updated, your wallet hurts just thinking about it
Think Apple's MacBook Air is one overpriced ultraportable? Have a gander at the build sheet for Sony's refreshed VAIO Z. The same machine that we took a peek at this February has seen a predictable fall update, right alongside legions of other Sony lappies. The 13.3-inch machine can now be ordered with a presumably lap-melting Core i5-460M (2.53GHz), Core i5-580M (2.66GHz) or Core i7-640M (2.8GHz), an optional carbon fiber colored casing, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 256GB or 512GB SSD, optional Blu-ray Disc burner, an SDXC card reader and NVIDIA's GeForce GT330M graphics card. Oh, and did we mention that there's a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution on this thing? Maybe that explains the $2,249.99 starting price.
