Aw, aren't these two just as cute as a button together? We can almost see Dell gushing at the thought of rolling Ubuntu out in a pair of new machines early next month. Nah, we didn't just fabricate that -- the Ubuntu 8.04-powered XPS M1530N and Studio 15N should be available in a matter of weeks, and in the meantime, you open source aficionados can enjoy Hardy Heron as a pre-installed option on the XPS M1330N, Inspiron 1525N and Inspiron 530N. Hit the read link for purchase options in your country.

[Via TG Daily]

AMD has been hinting at its plans to take on Intel's processor du jour, the Atom, for some time now, but brand new CEO Dirk Meyer is now getting slightly more official about it than the company has been previously, and he's promising that AMD will reveal all come November. As the folks at Register Hardware point out, all indications point to that Atom-challenging processor being the "Bobcat," which has been talked about for nearly a full year now. If that past information is correct, it looks like we can expect the chip to debut with a 1GHz clock speed, along with 128KB of L1 cache, 256KB of L2 cache an 800MHz HyperTransport link, support for 400MHz DDR 2 RAM, and a power consumption 8W. No word on how AMD plans to compete with Intel in terms of price just yet, but that'll no doubt be revealed in November, if not sooner.

Happy 40th birthday, Intel! Now that you're over the hill, we'd suggest buying a Porsche, building completely custom one-off chips for Apple, or in some other way jeopardizing your financial well being in order to actualize pent-up childhood dreams, but we'd say AMD's recent struggles are just about the best present you could've asked for. Sure, the EU is trying its best to put a damper on things, but don't let that get you down, your best years are still to come. Maybe.

[Thanks, Kevin]

So it seems that NVIDIA has been sneaking its 9700M / 9800M GPUs into potent gaming laptops for a little while now, but we're finally getting some official-ish verbiage on the new-ish families. The GeForce 9700M GT, 9700M GTS, 9800M GT, 9800M GTS and 9800M GTX should all be available as we speak in some of your favorite portable LAN machines, with the latter capable of a mind-melting 420 gigaflops. For more on the graphical powerhouse that could be sitting within your machine right now, check the read link.

At this point, it's pretty hard to figure out which netbook is better than another, but if you've been keyed in on Acer's version for whatever reason, Laptop has a review sure to pique your interest. The Aspire One was praised just as soon as it left the box for its classy styling and super portable design. After getting down to business, however, reviewers felt that the typing experience was only "decent" and the touchpad was "cramped" -- two things we actually would expect from a device of this stature. Nevertheless, the port selection was tolerable, the performance was passable and the battery life left a bit to be desired. As you can tell, this one seemed perfectly average on the whole, though it was deemed a "pretty good bargain" at $379. Huzzah?

We can definitely see where this is headed, but shortly after Skooba came clean with actual images of its TSA-approved laptop case, along comes Mobile Edge with a trio of alternatives. The new ScanFast lineup features that oh-so-coveted TSA stamp of approval, meaning that you won't have to remove your precious lappie from any of these cases when passing through airport security here in the US. The entire collection is set to land later this summer for undisclosed amounts, though we'd plan on paying a steep premium for the integrated convenience.

[Via Gadling]

Sony really likes the Xross Media Bar. So much, in fact, that the PS3-like interface has appeared in its Bravia LCD TVs for some time, and now it's putting that same interface theme in its new Vaio FW laptops. The Vaio Media+ software uses the same left/right, up/down scrolling UI to help extend its "digital living room" all the way to your, um, lap. This all makes sense, and we welcome a consolidated UI theme, but this means, of course, that Sony is pretty much locked into this theme for some time, and we won't be seeing any major interface changed to the PS3 like we have on the Xbox 360 Dash, for better or worse.

Don't say the writing wasn't already littering the walls, because it was. Just months after AMD hacked its workforce by 10% and let its CTO walk away without being replaced, the company's second CEO after Jerry Sanders has spent his last day in AMD's biggest corner office. Hector Ruiz has decided to walk away from his role in the flagging outfit, leaving his right hand man (that would be Dirk Meyer) to take over whatever there is to take over. Of note, Mr. Ruiz will still have ties with the company as he remains on its board of directors as "executive chairman," though it's hard to say how much influence he'll have from there. Really though, what's next?

[Thanks, nehemoth]

The folks over at Maximum PC have gotten themselves a chance to go face-to-face (and tongue-to-laptop) with Voodoo's newest show-off -- the Envy 133 -- and they've shared with the rest of the world. There's not much to say based on these pictures, save that they clearly were stoked to be getting this close to the sexed-up excuse for maxing out a credit card. If you hit the read link, you'll catch a slew of pictures, some size comparisons with a MacBook Pro, and first impressions of what Voodoo's instant-on OS looks and feels like. What are you waiting for? Get!

As if it wasn't already clear that ASUS has descended into self-parody, the company's Chinese website has now revealed yet another Eee PC model which, by our estimation, brings the total number of variations to about on par with the number of Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors. This latest model, dubbed the Eee PC 900 30G, boasts a 30GB hard drive in place of the usual 12GB or 20GB SSD drive, and is apparently set to be available in both black and white Linux versions, and a black-only Windows XP model. No word on a price or release date just yet, but it seems safe to bet that it'll come in under the flash-based models. Given the saturation of Eee PCs 'round these parts, it also seems entirely possible that these'll only be available in China, although we certainly wouldn't put anything past ASUS at this point.

[Via Electronista]

HP is adding to its Pavilion Puma-based offerings with the dv7z, a 17-inch version of the AMD-centric laptops. The new model features a variety of configurations, starting with an Athlon X2 dual core CPU (1.9GHz up to 2.2GHz), up to 4GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon HD 3200 or 3450 graphics chipset, storage options from 160GB to 500GB, and a vast array of screen resolutions, optical drives, and networking add-ons. The systems start at $949.99, and are available for customization and ordering right now.

[Via Computer Monger]

According to our friends at AVING, HP is set to launch a business-themed tablet PC with Intel's Centrino 2 on-board. The device -- dubbed the Compaq 2730p -- will be an update to the 2710p, and will feature a 12.1-inch WXGA display, a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo L9400 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, a GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics chipset, and Windows Vista... of course. No word on a price or release date, but plenty of handsome pictures if you hit the read link.

[Thanks, Elais]

We're beginning to wonder if Panny's long-standing CF-52 and CF-74 will ever be replaced, but so long as folks keep biting, we suppose there's nothing wrong with perpetual makeovers. As with nearly every other laptop manufacturer, Panasonic has also decided it prudent to freshen up the aforesaid pair of Toughbooks with larger hard drives, 802.11n WiFi, expanded graphics capabilities and Intel's Centrino 2 platform. Aside from that, you can still expect the same rugged exterior, shock-mounted HDD and spill-resistant keyboard, but you'll pay dearly for those safeguards. Both the 15.4-inch CF-52 and 13.3-inch CF-74 will be available next month starting at $1,949 and $3,199, respectively.

Also, he says he found Intel's diary and is totally telling everybody about that one thing. But seriously, we think Kris Kaspersky is being a bit of a tease here. He claims to have found a flaw in Intel's processors that would allow a hacker to bust up on a computer using JavaScript or TCP/IP, with no regard for what operating system the computer is running... only he won't say what it is. He's planning on unveiling the attack at the Hack In The Box conference in Malaysia this October, where he says he'll show working code that can take control of computers, all of which he plans to release publicly. The attack takes advantage of known errata in chips, which most vendors have a workaround for in BIOS, but not all. XP, Vista, Linux, BSD and Mac operating systems are all vulnerable, so we all get to run around panicking until October -- unless somebody figures it out first.