Motorola, upset that one of its former executives might be violating a no-compete clause in his contract, has sued him for going to work at Apple with the iPhone as an executive in sales. The contention isn’t just sour grapes, states Moto, but that the exec, Michael Fenger, has intimate knowledge of Motorola’s “trade secrets and customer relationships”. But let’s be clear here: The people who settled for a free RAZR are not the people waiting in like for the iPhone. We’ll see what happen. Non-compete suits are usually pretty cut and dry, but this one could get interesting, if not humorous. [Yahoo! News]

Via [Gizmodo]

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The N810 WiMax edition might be hovering around out there, but who the hell is using WiMax? The specs on the original are not all that hot anymore, but this little world wide web tablet has never been cheaper at $300. [CompUSA]

Via [Gizmodo]

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The PS3 may be having its ups and downs, but one thing is for certain—Sony is loving the Xross Media Bar. They put it in some of their Bravia TVs, the PSP, some Cybershot cameras and now they are planning to integrate the interface into their new Vaio FW series laptops. Naturally, the goal here is to provide synergy between all sorts of devices to create that “digital living room” type experience that is all the rage these days. [Tech Radar]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Acer’s now shipping the 8920G Gemstone laptops, and they’re even more impressive than we’d thought. While not the biggest screen we’ve seen on a portable, they sport an impressive 18.2-inch LCD at 1920×1080 with a 16:9 aspect ratio, perfect for watching movies on the integrated Blu-ray R/W drives. They’re not light, tipping the scales at just over nine pounds, but their 1.6-inch thickness makes up for some of that. What’s really interesting is Acer put dual hard drives in these machines, meaning you get 640GB total, probably the highest we’ve ever seen in a shipping portable. If you’re looking for the ultimate in desktop replacements, these are a great place to begin, if you can afford the $3,000 price tag. [Trusted Reviews]

Via [Gizmodo]

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No doubt inspired by the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga that overlays scrolling comments over videos during playback, the Anobar sits on top of a Television and scrolls messages from others watching the same channel in real time, along with emails, Twitters, news headlines, or any other feed. The Anobar uses a expensive 640 x 96 FED display, which ensures zero motion blur on all of the dick jokes whizzing by. For now it’s Japan only, and the prototype cost almost $2,000 to manufacture, but I’m kind of hypnotized by this live video stream of one in action.

The interface and menus are really well done, and the FED display looks razor-sharp. Good luck to Anodos, the manufacturer, in making good on their plans to bring the price below $300 for retail. [Tech ON]

Via [Gizmodo]

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No doubt inspired by the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga that overlays scrolling comments over videos during playback, the Anobar sits on top of a TV and scrolls messages from others watching the same channel in real time, along with emails, Twitters, news headlines, or any other feed. The Anobar uses a high-priced 640 x 96 FED display, which ensures zero motion blur on all of the dick jokes whizzing by. For now it’s Japan only, and the prototype cost almost $2,000 to manufacture, but I’m kind of hypnotized by this live video stream of one in action.

The interface and menus are really well done, and the FED display looks razor-sharp. Good luck to Anodos, the manufacturer, in making good on their plans to bring the price below $300 for retail. [Tech ON]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Being a Star Wars die-hard from back in the day, everything I’ve seen or heard about the new Clone Wars series and film has made me throw up in my mouth a tiny bit. I guess this Clone Trooper “laptop” is no exception—sweet case, QWERTY keyboard, but all junior will be doing is playing educational games on its monochrome calculator-LCD screen, which looks like it could have been around for the release of A New Hope. Decent framework for an Eee Computer casemod, though. [Product Page via Shiny Shiny]

Via [Gizmodo]

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It looks like not everyone in AT&T land cares about the iPhone. When reader Dennis’ mom went to the AT&T stand in the Moorestown Mall in New Jersey to ask about iPhone insurance, they laughed in her face. They then handed her a bunch of articles written arguing for the BlackBerry over the iPhone, printed from places like Crackberry.com and Pocket PC Magazine. At the end, there was the name and number of an AT&T regional manager.

Nice. I called the manager whose name is listed at the bottom of the documents, and he told me that he had emailed the articles to his employees but in no way intended for them to duplicate them and hand them out to customers. Instead, they were meant to be used as speaking points for getting sales in stores where the iPhone wasn’t available.

It’s understandable for a retail operation to try to get sales when what the customer came in for isn’t available. What’s less understandable is laughing at customers and handing this kind of thing out to try to discourage them from buying their carrier’s flagship phone.

If there’s anything that we have the ability to learn from this, it’s this: AT&T won’t ever have the unified face that Apple store employees do if they’re going to have third celebration stands with third party phone lineups. Also, don’t buy phones from stands in malls in New Jersey.

Via [Gizmodo]

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Lenovo’s 12.1-inch X200 is the newest and smallest member of the revamped X series. More than that, this thing is actually affordable, bringing some of the X300’s sweet form factor (0.8 inches of thinness) and power down to a reasonable price, starting at just $1199. It almost sounds too good to be true. Is it? Here are the first 5 takes from reviewers.

Laptop Mag
The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 is an excellent lightweight notebook for mobile professionals who demand the business essentials: security, durability, and lengthy battery life. Even though some may prefer an optical drive or a slightly more massive display, the power of the Centrino 2 platform combined with the usual ThinkPad excellence makes this one of the best ultraportables around.

Personal computer Mag
With wider dimensions, the ThinkPad keyboard we all come to love is more massive than the previous one, and the typing experience is nothing short of spectacular, trumping the ones on both the Sony VAIO VGN-SZ791N and the Toshiba R500 (SSD). For those who adore the pointing stick, the X200 carries one over from the X61.

Notebook Review
The amazing battery life capabilities and cool and quiet running performance are real highlights. Having so much power in a small package while still maintaining a cool and quiet computing experience further adds to the impressiveness there. The ThinkPad X200 is also durable enough to last a very long time even with the most abusive of owners, shoving the X200 in a tightly packed bag and then physically forcing it under seat 21A on the plane won’t cause this laptop harm.

Channel Web
What really grabbed our attention was the X200’s 9-cell battery life. Using the Test Center’s standard test, in which all power-saving options are turned off and video is run continuously off the hard drive until the battery dies, the X200 lasted for 4 hours and 16 minutes. That’s pushing the envelope in our testing environment, and puts it at or near the head of the class this year in battery life.

Notebooks.com
One minor thing that bugs me is Lenovo’s logo, which stands on its own and looks like an afterthought. Another negative is that the X200 only has a single speaker, which isn’t good for much except for system beeps. If you’re going to listen to tunes while you work on the X200 headphones are an absolute must.

Via [Gizmodo]

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Shape Up from Fred and Friends is one of those bullying-style digital alarm clocks, designed to force you awake. It’s shaped like a mini dumbbell and won’t stop buzzing until you do 30 reps. This would not get me out of bed in the AM, nossir. But it might make me smile. Smile happily as I grip its conveniently throwable shape and fling it heartily out of the window into the garden, and slip back to sleep. There’s no info on price or availability, you may be pleased to know. [OhGizmo]

Via [Gizmodo]

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