Skrhak | Skrhak.net

No more classic-style keyboard with the new Lenovo T-Series ThinkPads.

(Credit:
Lenovo)

Those of you who loved Lenovo’s classic-style laptop keyboards can wave bye-bye to them.

With the new 2012 T-series ThinkPads, Lenovo has put the final nail in the coffin of the classic keyboard once made popular by IBM.

Lenovo stuck with the classic keyboard for the current T420, T420S, and T520. But the new ThinkPad T430, T430s, and T530 due to launch early next month have been overhauled with the island-style keyboards that seem to be hitting almost every laptop these days.

The company had already switched to the island-style keyboards for all of its other laptop, so the change was probably inevitable. I have yet to try out the new ThinkPad keyboards, so I can’t weigh in on their user-friendliness. But I have to shed a tear for the loss of the classic keyboard.

Among laptop makers, Lenovo was virtually the one holdout to retain the classic keyboard, a carryover from the IBM lineup that the company bought from Big Blue in 2004.

The classic keyboard was built to last – strong, solid, responsive, easy on the fingers. And you could feel it when you pressed a key. In contrast, most of the chiclet, or island-style, keyboards I’ve tried seem soft and flimsy. They don’t deliver the same tactile feel or response I get from a classic keyboard.

I have to confess that I am a heavy typist. I tend to really pound away at the keys. Co-workers with whom I’ve shared offices have been driven mad by the sound of my typing. So I’ve always preferred the strong mechanical tactile-feel keyboards to the mushier membrane-style keyboards.

On a desktop, it’s easy enough to substitute the vendor’s soft keyboard with a nice mechanical keyboard. I recently bought a Das Keyboard to replace my old Avant Prime keyboard, which is no longer sold.

On a laptop, you’re obviously stuck.

I currently own an
HP Envy laptop. I like the machine overall, but typing on its island-style keyboard is a frustrating chore, one that inevitably triggers a string of typos that don’t occur when I use a classic keyboard. I’ve been searching for a new laptop and had seriously considered a 2012 Lenovo, hoping the new ThinkPads would carry on the classic keyboard tradition. Now the search may be back on.

So why did Lenovo pull the plug on the classic keyboard and switch to the new style?

Dilip Bhatia, Vice President and General Manager for Lenovo’s ThinkPad Business Unit, answered that question and more in an e-mail sent to me today.

In Bhatia’s and Lenovo’s opinion, the ThinkPad’s new Precision Keyboard offers a better experience and enhanced usability over the classic-style keyboard.

“The new keyboard is based on the current ThinkPad X1, which some of the media have hailed as the best keyboard ever and even Stradivarius like experience,” Bhatia said.

Asked what advantages are offered by the island-style keyboards, Bhati said Lenovo incorporated a simple and more modern design but kept the focus on comfort and accuracy.

“Our patent pending keys offer a larger key top for a bigger target, a curved surface aligns your fingers with the intended key for greater accuracy,” he explained. “We also have a backlit keyboard option which gives users better visibility in dark situations.”

Sticking with the classic-style keyboard was apparently not even an option. Bhati said Lenovo wanted to use the same new keyboard design and typing experience across its entire lineup.

I also asked him if Lenovo is concerned about losing customers who may have chosen a ThinkPad because they wanted a laptop with the traditional style keyboard.

He said that the company is confident the new keyboard will please its customers.

“We considered both what our loyal ThinkPad customers and new potential customers would think about the design change,” Bhati added. “The improved design was tested over and over with many customers to include their feedback and they were very much a part of this improvement.”

Of course, I can’t honestly say I won’t like the new ThinkPad keyboards until I actually try one. If they’re better than most of the island-style ones I’ve used, the new keyboards could grow on me. But I think I’ll always long for the classic-style keyboard that proved strong enough to withstand the pounding of even this heavy-handed typist.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/pRza/~3/cAowR-Sdp7E/

Share/Bookmark

Even when used with the included double-capacity battery, the MiFi 4620L mobile router is still very compact.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo/CNET)

I can’t count anymore how many mobile routers I have reviewed, but that also means that I know the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4620L by Novatel Wireless is different.

And it’s not because of its crazy long name. Instead, it’s partly because of its craz,y long battery life. The router is the first I’ve seen that comes with two batteries. The standard one offers about 5.5 hours of continuous usage on a charge, and the second one offers about twice that. Combine the two, you have about two days’ worth of charge, if you only use it during working hours that is.

Chances are, however, that you will use it all the time since it also offers one of the fastest 4G connection speeds I’ve seen. Throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, I was able to consistently get a solid 4G signal and download speeds of around 10Mbps, and upload speeds of around 9Mbps. That’s comparable to, if not faster than, many high-end home broadband services.

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use the router as much as you want since it comes with two expensive and limited data plans of $50 and $80 per month with data caps of just 5GB and 10GB, respectively. After that, you’d have to pay another $10 per gigabyte. Not a very good deal.

The router itself, however, is quite reasonable if you’re willing to sign up for a two-year contract. In this case it costs just around $50. If you’re not, it will cost around $260.

For more information on how this new, compact router will make a great travel companion, check out the full review of the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4620L by Novatel Wireless.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/pRza/~3/UULj9FfKJFc/

Share/Bookmark

(Credit:
Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern)

I have so much to say to aliens, I really doubt I could keep it to 140 characters. But if I’m going to go the “Tweets in Space” route to speak to potential life forms on GJ667Cc, I’ll need to keep it short.

The experimental art project will beam real-time tweets toward the exoplanet 22 light years away during performance events at the 2012 International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in New Mexico.

Tweets will be streamed as animated Twitter spaceships towing messages.

(Credit:
Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern)

“Simply tag your Twitter messages with #tweetsinspace, and your phones, laptops, mobile devices — anything with an Internet connection — will be transformed into an alien communicator,” says San Francisco new-media artist and Exploratorium worker Scott Kildall, who’s collaborating on the networked performance project with Nathaniel Stern, an associate professor in the Department of Art+Design at the University of Wisconsin’s Peck School of the Arts.

Scientists from Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University of California at Santa Cruz discovered GJ667Cc orbiting a triple-star system in February and say its conditions might support Earth-like biological life.

Kildall and Stern can’t promise your tweets will be read by a little green creature (or even a little water droplet) wielding a Samsung Galaxy S III. They can tell you, however, that your musings will be part of an exploration of “our spectacular need to connect, perform, and network with others. [The project] creates a tension between the depth and shallowness of sharing 140 characters at a time with the entire Internet world, in all its complexity, richness and absurdity, by transmitting our passing thoughts and responses to everywhere and nowhere.”

The pair is currently seeking financial support for their endeavor on Kickstarter-like crowdfunding site Rockethub and say they’ll use the donations for either a “home-built or borrowed communication system” for shooting the tweets into space. They’ve raised more than $2,200 so far, and tell Crave that if they reach their minimum goal of $8,500, they’ll work with a team that can guarantee at least five light years of travel for the messages toward GJ667Cc. “We’re hoping the alien listening devices are more advanced than our own, so they can pick it up,” they say.

Apparently, not everyone appreciates the philosophical intent behind the project. “Expect FBI van in front of your house really soon,” one YouTube commenter threatens. Still, close to 1,000 #tweetsinspace messages have already come in (favorite example: “No YOU hang up. (giggle) No, you hang up”).

In addition to getting beamed upward at ISEA in September, all #tweetsinspace messages will be streamed to a live public Web site, where they’ll be permanently archived. They’ll also be projected — as animated tweet-towing spaceships like the one pictured above — at the Balloon Museum and planetarium-like digital dome in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Rockethub donations, meanwhile, will yield contributor rewards ranging from an acrylic Tweets in Space spaceship stencil and handmade Tweets in Space spaceship soap to (on the high end) a working, small-scale satellite model. Promise me a retweet by ET, guys, and I’m in.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/pRza/~3/Hpx_2lIaCYA/

Share/Bookmark