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China unseats U.S. in supercomputer ranking

The Jaguar has fallen from the top of the food chain.

When the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers is released today, the Cray XT5 system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and run by the University of Tennessee, called "Jaguar," will drop to No. 2 after a year of eating the lunch of every other supercomputer in the world. In its place will stand Tianhe-1A, a system built by China's National University of Defense Technology, located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin.

Tianhe-1A achieved a performance level of 2.67 petaflop/s (… Read more

Supercharge your iPod's sound at home

Matthew Moskovciak recently wrote about AV receivers that play nice with iPods, but what about stereo receivers?

Teac now offers not one, but two iPod-friendly stereo receivers, the Reference Series AG-H380 ($499) and the Reference Series CR-H500NT ($799).

The CR-H500NT is a CD player/stereo (2x40 watts) receiver, and also offers Internet radio, an Ethernet port, wired and wireless LANs, high-quality phono input, subwoofer output, and best of all, a USB iPod Digital Direct Interface.

So instead of using your iPod's good-enough internal digital-to-analog converter, you'll be listening to the CR-H500NT's higher-quality 24-bit/192-kHz converters, which will … Read more

Rumor: Chrysler adding Alfa Romeo to lineup

There hasn't been a lot of news from Chrysler lately, but rumor has it that papa Fiat will be sending a version of the Alfa Romeo Giuletta to the U.S., according to a article in the Detroit Free Press. The proposed model will be built on Fiat's C-EVO underbody and look similar to the Guiletta. The Alfa Romeo, which could begin production late next year, should replace the Dodge Caliber crossover in the beleaguered automaker's lineup, and Chrylser and Jeep could also get a version of the five-door Italian hatchback.

The 2010 Alfa Romeo Guiletta fetches … Read more

MacBook Air flash-only rivals are few, fading

Apple's new Air is the first flash-only MacBook. So, how does it stack up against the handful of laptop lines out there that offer only solid-state drives?

Well, it's actually not a very pretty picture for other laptop lines based on flash memory only, or more commonly referred to as solid-state drives (SSDs). A few previously prominent laptops have either been phased out or are languishing.

Dell Adamo: This line of 0.65-inch thick aluminum-clad ultraportables from Dell have been SSD-only from day one. So, Dell actually beat Apple to the punch in this respect. But the line has been reduced to a single $999 model with a 128GB SSD--the higher-end Adamo with a 256GB SSD and faster processor is no longer available from Dell. And the novel Adamo XPS is no longer available for sale on Dell's Web site--this was SSD only too.

Dell Latitude E4200: Announced in August 2008, this line of pricey business ultraportables is still available and comes standard with only 128GB SSDs. Prices start at $1,729.

Lenovo ThinkPad X300/X301: The venerable ThinkPad X300 was from its inception SSD only. Alas, this line has been discontinued. Lenovo still offers comparable X series Thinkpads and IdeaPads but none are SSD only.

Sony Z series: The Z line is alive and well, thank you. Z laptops come with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB options, with prices ranging from about $1,800 to well over $3,000.

Toshiba R500/R600: The Toshiba R500, now quite dated (first announced in June 2007), features only flash storage but the specs are a little long in the tooth, namely its older U7600 Intel processor and Windows Vista operating system.… Read more

Hands-on with the HP Slate 500

Even before Apple's iPad was officially announced, HP was showing off a prototype tablet on stage at CES 2010. Since then, the company and its slate have been in and out of public view, offering up tantalizing sneak peek videos, followed by rumors of delays and OS changes, further complicated by the company's merger with Palm.

At long last, an actual HP tablet is being officially released--but it may not be exactly what you'd expect. The HP Slate 500 Tablet PC is a 9-inch Windows 7 slate, aimed at business and industrial users, rather than casual consumers. In fact, it seems to be exactly the same product we obtained a series of leaked photos of several weeks ago, right down to the leather case and docking stand.

We got a chance to sit down with the HP Slate 500 recently, and found it to be a lightweight, sturdy device, with a slick industrial design and several hardware advantages over the iPad, especially when it comes to ports and connections. … Read more

Meet the HP Slate 500

Thanks to an e-mail CNET received, we have images and detailed specs for the long-awaited Windows 7 slate that Hewlett-Packard originally promised at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. We hear that it will be formally introduced on Monday.

There have been some leaks here and there, but now we know, based on this HP document, that it's officially called the HP Slate 500 Tablet PC. As HP had said before, it comes with Windows 7 and is aimed at corporate customers. We've listed all the specs below, but some of the ones that popped out at us: … Read more

Leaked: Is this the HP Slate 500?

We've gotten our hands on a handful of leaked photos of what is purportedly the upcoming HP Slate 500 tablet. Following on the hands-on video found on YouTube last week, this is the second recent appearance of a Windows version of this much-delayed tablet.

These pics, courtesy of a tip provided to our pals at Buzz Out Loud, show a tablet running Windows 7, along with a docking stand (with USB and HDMI ports), and a leather-like case with a hole cut in it for the rear-facing camera.

If anything, these recent leaks of a Win 7 version of … Read more