Lenovo's American CEO steps down, Chinese leadership returns

After leaving Dell to become chief executive of Lenovo, Bill Amelio is stepping down from his post as CEO. Amelio joined Lenovo to help with the integration of IBM's PC business. The so-called "amicable" departure comes with the announcement of a quarterly loss three-times higher than expected. The US executive has been replaced by Lenovo's Chairman Yang Yuanqing who will continue to live and work from Lenovo's North Carolina office -- Yang's board leadership duties will now be assumed by Lenovo's co-founder, Liu Chuanzhi. That puts Lenovo back into the hands of executive Chinese leadership as it attempts to recapture ground given up to HP and Acer in corporate sales. And with IT bugdets slashed in a bid to keep corporations afloat, the executive changes are meant to accelerate Lenovo's strategy to dominate China's PC market, grow its business into emerging markets (specifically India and Russia), and expand upon its burgeoning sales to individual consumers. Seems like a reasonable move to us.


Thanks: Bloomberg

• Google Latitude coming to other devices, iPhone included
• Affixa integrates webmail with Windows

PowerBook G4 Titanium inelegantly modded into desktop

We're all for taking lemons and making lemonade, but at least clean up the mess before you showcase it to the world. All kidding aside (sort of...), Sir Bibin and Nick Lee found something better to do with their jacked up PowerBook G4 Titanium than fetch a few pennies on eBay. When the hinges finally cracked, they decided to just fold 'er on over, epoxy a pair of totally lackluster speakers on the side and add a wired Apple keyboard in to create a makeshift PowerMac (er, iMac, we suppose). Truthfully, we'd be way more into this if not for that very apparent spitball and the circa 1991 telephone cluttering up the masterpiece, but you know what they say about an artist and his / her studio.

Thanks: Engadget

Quanta demos Optical Touch system with Windows 7

It's no secret that multi-touch support is one of the stand-out features of Windows 7, and it's also no surprise that plenty of companies seem eager to get in on the action, one of the latest which is uber-manufacturer Quanta Computer. Somewhat uniquely, however, Quanta is ditching the usual capacitive and resistive touch panels in favor of its new Optical Touch system, which simply uses two cameras placed at the top corners of the screen. That, Quanta says, still lets you perform all the usual multi-touch gestures in the same manner and, depending on the size of the display, could be significantly cheaper than a traditional touchscreen. Details on any actual products using the technology are expectedly a bit light at the moment, but Quanta says it plans to start mass production "soon," with some releases presumably planned to coincide with windows 7's debut.

Thanks: jkOnTheRun

Fedora 10 goes live: your download awaits

Just six short months after Fedora 9 hit the tubes, in flies Fedora 10 to give you something new to tinker with over Thanksgiving break. The latest iteration of the Linux-based Os S bundles in OpenOffice 3.0 and touts a "wide range of improvements in areas such as virtualization management, networking, boot time and security." Don't mind us, though -- you can delve as deep as you like in the release notes while your download progresses.

Thanks: PC World

• The Only Wii Homebrew Guide You Will Ever Need [ How-to ]

MacBook innards crammed into makeshift mini Mac Pro tower

When we first laid eyes upon the slick box pictured above, we were struck with an eerie feeling of deja vu. Now, it all makes sense. After receiving an all-but-completely-dead MacBook, one particular modder decided to rip the motherboard out, break out the soldering iron, throw in a few replacement parts and shove everything into a Macally G-S350SUA aluminum hard drive enclosure. Wanna know why? Because he had a peek k at this -- a Mac Pro Mini mod that popped up here in March. Talk about taking inspiration and improving upon it.

Thanks: Hack-A-Day

• Run: Addictive Flash game asks you to do one thing - run
• XP Syspad centralizes access to Windows XP functions
• FlickrDown: bulk photostream downloader
• Facebook Exporter for iPhoto
• Microsoft launches Windows Azure: Cloud operating system
• Intelligently resize images with Seam Carving GUI

Laptop shipments exceed desktops in US for the not-exactly-first time

Hope you're eager to break into that Halloween candy early, because you've got some (re)celebrating to do. If you'll recall, we first heard that laptops accounted for over half of US retail computer sales back in 2003, and in June of 2005, we found that it was somehow worth getting jazzed over once more when it happened again. Here we are in the latter half of 2008 shaking our heads in disappointment, as IDC has amazingly discovered that notebook shipments into the US market have exceeded the 50% threshold for the first time evar. Go ahead and stock up on rave supplies early -- we get this weird feeling that we'll be doing this same song and dance in 2010 or so.


Thanks: Engadget

Dell preloading music mixes, CinemaNow movies, world again asks "Why?"

When Dell started pre-loading digital copies of Iron Man in new systems for $19, we didn't think that was very enticing, but at least it was a pretty good movie, right? Quite possibly encouraged by thousands of accidental purchases (we kid, sort of), Dell's announced two new content pre-loading partnerships -- Universal Music Group and CinemaNow. The music comes in 50 and 100 song bundles starting at $25, but at least it's DRM-free, so if you don't mind a mega mix chosen entirely by Dell it's not all evil. CinemaNow, though, offers $25 and up bundles including (among other flicks) world-renown classics like The Fast and the Furious and the Matrix sequels. Fear.


Via: Engadget