To pair nicely alongside that beastly Let’s Note B11 we showed you last week, Panasonic’s now also selling its J10 netbook series in Japan. Aesthetically speaking, the new Let’s Note J10 isn’t much different than its predecessor, the J9, though it has changed a bit (as expected) in the specs department. The entry level 10.1-inch (1366 x 768) J10 gets you Intel’s Core i3-2350M CPU with 320GB of hard drive storage as well as 4GB of RAM, while the higher-end model sports an i7-2640M chip (sorry, no Ivy Bridge here), up to 8GB of memory and you can choose between a 256GB SSD or a 1TB HDD. Additionally, each unit’s packing a hefty amount of ports, including two USB 2.0, one USB three-dot-oh and an HDMI out. Those looking to grab one of these J10s best have deep wallets, as pricing ranges from 120,000 yen (about $1,500) all the way up to around 267,000 yen.

SOURCE via Panasonic

Google first teased live tab syncing in Chrome 19 beta, and it’s now available for all of us who tread the safer path of Stable releases. If you weren’t living on the bleeding edge for long enough to try the syncing early, you’ll be glad to know that it lets you see and quickly sync all the tabs that are open on any device signed into your Google account. That includes your phone or tablet, if you’ve got Android 4.0 and the Chrome for Android beta loaded up. Like with the beta, though, you’ll have to cool your jets if you were hoping to get live syncing right away: Chrome 19 Stable is pushing automatically over the next few days, but tab syncing will take weeks to be ready for everybody. Read more…

With court-ordered ISP blockades popping up all over Europe, The Pirate Bay is no stranger to being silenced. However, for the last 24 hours the site has been largely inaccessible worldwide due to a completely different type of censorship. After the site openly criticized Anonymous last week for DDoS’ing UK ISP Virgin Media, The Pirate Bay itself is now under attack.

Although Pirate Bay downtime happens a handful of times each month, it rarely persists for more than a few hours. When it goes beyond that the steady flow of reader emails to TorrentFreak quickly transforms itself into a torrent.

At the time of writing The Pirate Bay has been inaccessible to most of the world for nearly 24 hours and our ‘inbox’ is suffering. But it appears to be the timing of the downtime that has caused more people than usual to panic.

The root lies in the recent court-ordered censorship of The Pirate Bay in the UK. The country’s leading ISPs are required to block the site so millions of people were already expecting to have trouble accessing the domain. What they didn’t anticipate was the failure of the many published workarounds to resupply access to the site.

For those to work the site itself has to be working properly and currently it is not. While TPB is used to being censored by courts and ISPs, it is a little less used to being blacked-out by other means. TorrentFreak is informed by a Pirate Bay insider that the site is currently being subjected to a DDoS attack rendering it unavailable in many parts of the world.

Now, while we’re informed that the problem might be mitigated during the next few hours, the timing of this attack against the site is either ironic, ‘interesting’ or at the very least coincidental, depending on your viewpoint.

Just last week, The Pirate Bay openly criticized elements of the ‘Anonymous’ collective for carrying out a DDoS attack on Virgin Media, the first UK ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay.

“We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us,” said TPB in response to the DDoS attack against Virgin.

“So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.”

Right now, whoever is attacking The Pirate Bay has achieved what no copyright or governmental authority anywhere in the world has – an almost complete disruption of the site’s operations on a global basis with no court order required.

But despite the DDoS there are still ways for people to access the site. A handful of the proxies set up to circumvent the ISP blockades still appear to work and, when all else fails, the crazy methods still work too.

According to reports out of South Korea, some of the country’s most talented (and fastest) players finished Diablo III in record time.

While Western players have also completed the game, in the race to finish it first (and fastest), Korean clan EHG defeated the final Diablo III boss only 5 and a half hours after the server opened.

Even though the clan defeated the final boss, it apparently could not obtain the in-game items due to, well, a server problem.

Warning: The source link shows what’s reportedly the final boss.

SOURCE via MT Korea

The US Patent and Trademark Office has handed Apple’s legal team what may turn out to be a powerful weapon in their ongoing battles against anyone with the temerity to launch products competitive with the iPhone and iPad: a patent on soft keyboards that modify their keys with the tap of an on-screen button.

Granted on Tuesday, US Patent 8,179,731, “Method, system, and graphical user interface for selecting a soft keyboard”, describes the soft keyboard familiar to any iOS or Android tablet or smartphone user, in which letter keys are replaced by number keys or symbol keys when the appropriate layout-changing button is tapped.

There is, however, a subtle but important distinction between this newly granted patent and the tablet or smartphone keyboards that users have come to love or loathe: Apple’s patent describes a system in which a user chooses his or her desired keyboard by tapping either buttons with such identifiers as “A B C” or “1 2 3″, or buttons in the form of what the patent describes as “demagnified” images of the various soft keyboards from which the user can choose.

The buttons described in the patent, however, are separate from the keyboards themselves, and can even “float” above the keyboard or text area being displayed. As anyone who has used current iOS or Android soft keyboards knows, their soft keyboards are accessed by tapping keys with letter number or symbol identifiers that are part of the displayed keyboard.

One example provided in Apple’s patent shows ‘demagnified’ keyboard images floating above the display
From our wrestling with the 5,600 words of convoluted patentese that comprises US Patent 8,179,731, it would appear to our layman’s eye that the “embodiments” described therein are sufficiently different from current soft-keyboard designs and layouts, and that there should be little for Cupertino’s competitors to worry about.

We hasten to admit, however, that we are not patent lawyers.

After all, Apple’s legal team found it perfectly reasonable to go after Samsung in a look-and-feel lawsuit based on an Apple design patent that included, among other assertions, the complaint that Samsung’s Galaxy S smart phone used icons that had “rounded corners”. Head-of-pin choreography is a highly prized specialty in the intellectual property professions.

There may not be enough in Monday’s patent for Apple to claim full ownership of the concept of “making operational … the plurality of soft keyboards”, but we’re willing to bet that there are sufficient inferences of implied ownership to keep legal teams busy far into the future, should Apple find that doing so might be in its interest.

SOURCE via The Register

Lately talk of an Apple-branded HDTV and the iPhone 5 has dominated as far as Apple rumors are concerned. However, today brings us an Apple rumor of a different breed, one that speaks of an Apple MacBook Pro with a 15-inch retina display.

9to5Mac cites ‘trusted sources’ from Apple’s supply chain in reporting that contrary to previous rumors, Apple’s next 15-inch MacBook Pro will not feature a MacBook Air-like design. According to the site, Apple is instead opting for a slimmed down, more robust version of the current MacBook Pro. Aside from a slimmed down design, this new MacBook Pro will feature a dedicated power button key on the keyboard (similar to the MacBook Air), USB 3.0, a distinct lack of optical drive, two USB 2.0 ports, two Thunderbolt-sized ports, and an SD card slot. However, the most interesting feature is the rumored presence of a Retina display.

Already present on Apple’s iPhone 4 and iPad 3, the 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina Display is said to boast multiple resolution modes that allow the user to adjust the sharpness and image sizes to their liking via presets with names such as ‘big,’ ‘small’ or ‘optimal.’ This represents a huge departure from the usual numbered resolution modes that computers users are used to seeing but will no doubt make changing the resolution a lot more user-friendly for the less tech-savvy of users.

Along with the Retina display and support for USB 3.0, expect Intel’s newest line of Core processors under the hood. Apple’s OS X Mountain Line is scheduled for this coming summer, and, considering the iPhone 5 likely won’t launch ’til September, we’re wondering if Apple is going to have a MacBook Pro announcement fill the gap at WWDC. If that’s the case, we don’t have long to wait until we see this new MacBook Pro make a debut.

SOURCE via 9to5mac

The Lenovo ThinkPad has always been quite a sturdy, dependable notebook. We have already seen one of their best, the X1 last year, but since Ivy Bridge has rolled into town, the X1 has gotten quite a kick ass refresh. First of all, the new X1 has grown 1inch into a 14inch ultraportable laptop and is being marketed as an Ultrabook. Even though it’s gained an inch, it hasn’t beome thicker, instead it has been trimmed down. What’s the secret you may ask? Carbon Fibre.

Lenovo have gone all out with the new Thinkpad X1 Carbon, bumping up the resolution to 1600 x 900, tweaked the backlit, spill-resistant keyboard and added 3G connectivity as an optional extra. Under the hood you will also get Intel’s new ivy Bridge processor with the new vPro management technology and integrated graphics.

What do you think? While the specs are still quite up in the air, we can’t wait to actually try one out!

SOURCE via Engadget

It seems that ever since humankind grew legs and climbed out of the ocean, we’ve been trying to figure out ways to avoid using said appendages. While many of these efforts have been wildly successful – think Roman chariots, Pony Express, and the Ford Model T – the recent spate of personal mobility devices hasn’t quite taken off.

The poster child for this failure is, of course, the Segway. Though completely awesome, its greatest success has come in comedic appearances on television (Arrested Development) and in the movies (Paul Blart: Mall Cop). But manufacturers have forged ahead, undaunted in their desire to bring human-like mobility to humans. The latest: The Honda Uni-Cub.

Read more…