Large pools of drooling saliva formed around our mouse mats this morning when we caught sight of Sony’s new range of slimline laptops, the Sony T.
Slicker than the Torey Canyon in a sea storm, these wafer-thin laptops makes Kate Moss look like a pie-scoffing lardbucket, measuring just 272mm x 195mm x21mm and weighing a gravity-untroubling 1.25kg.
Despite their sylph-like dimensions, Sony have managed to wedge in the gubbins for a fully spec’ed machine, powered by a pokey Celeron 1Ghz / Pentium M 753 at 1.2Ghz CPU supported by a 915GMS graphics chipset.
There’s also healthy 512Mb of RAM (upgradeable up to 1.5Gb) onboard, 40 to 60Gb HDD space and a DVD burner
Connectivity is taken care of with Wireless LAN and Bluetooth, USB 2.0 and a MS/SD/MMC port, and there’s also support for Sony’s new Felica contactless smart card technology.
The 1366×768 resolution display boasts a Backlight LED which is claimed to produce a screen 30% brighter than Sony’s current laptops.
As ever, it’s the lucky Japanese who get to play with the cool toys first, with the Sony T going on sale in Japan from September 10th onwards.
Sony Japan’s Website carries extensive information about the new T range, but seeing as our command of Japanese is on a par with our harp playing abilities, we can’t tell you much past the fact that Skype comes preloaded and that the units will be available in a range of three colours – slate grey, charcoal black and white silver. All look fabulous.
No further details have been released yet (at least not in a language that we could understand) and there’s been no comment on pricing or UK availability.
But we’d like one please. Two, if you’re asking.
Sir Richard Branson will be slamming the virtual champagne against the good ship Virgin Digital UK as another digital music service slides down the slipway on September 2nd.
Virgin Digital UK is set to serve up a mix of digital music store, music club subscription service, streaming radio, powerful digital music and portable device management tools, along with a collection of music-discovery gizmos. 
Samsung will be debuting the world’s first 19″ notebook, the Samsung M70, on 2 September at the IFA Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin. 
This lets users detach the laptop’s screen and place it in a dock to give the appearance of a conventional desktop.
Despite the added complexity and enormous screen size, Samsung have claimed that the laptop will weigh no more than their current 17-inch notebook so it should be vaguely portable (if you work out at the gym).
The acceptance of VoIP into the mainstream moved up a gear today with the release of a DECT VoIP handset, the plain-badly-named EV5203-C, from Thomson, the _huge_ French all-encompassing media company. The product is the first fruit from Thomson’s purchase of Inventel, earlier this year.
Set Top Box (STB) and PVR company NDS have today announced that they have reached an agreement with Frontier Silicon, a fabless manufacturer of digital media semiconductors based in the UK, to work together on technology to protect digital TV and DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) content on mobile devices.
Many readers, especially the non-UK massive, may be thinking ‘So what? Who and who have signed a deal?’ Well the significance of NDS moving this way is that it may signal where Sky is moving. Sky, as I’m sure you know, is the satellite TV company who own the UK in satellite delivered TV, and who’s parent company News International now owns US satellite giant DirecTV.
Bluetooth enabled billboards may soon be bothering passers-by with wireless advertisements blasted to mobile phones, according to the New Scientist magazine.
Trials took place recently at six London railway stations in partnership with the advertising company Maiden Group, with Bluetooth-equipped posters offering to beam promotional material and song clips from Coldplay’s new album to passers-by.
This beams the adverts to anyone within 100m of the billboard with Simon O’Regan, Filter UK’s Technical Officer insisting that, “only people who can see the billboard are offered the additional promotion.”
After our clapped out Sony mini-system refused to play one track too many and the usual thump on the side failed to yield the required result, we realised it was time to find a new stereo system for the office.
After several trudges up London’s hi-fi Mecca, Tottenham Court Road, and long periods scanning the minutiae of online spec sheets, we decided that the Onkyo looked like the one for us.
Unlike many other all-in units in the same bracket, this puppy offers a ‘proper’ amplifier with high-quality Wolfson DACs delivering accurate digital-to-analogue conversion and discrete output stage circuitry for a clean output signal.
Admittedly, most of the channels sounded absolute rubbish, but it was a revelation to find so much content available.
The FM and AM tuners were equally straightforward enough to sort out, with the auto scan quickly scooping up a list of available radio stations.
The system would make a great bedroom, kitchen or study stereo system, offering a huge range of radio channels and enough poke to accompany the occasional air guitar wig out or party. 
Fujitsu LifeBook T4020
The Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005-powered convertible Tablet PC comes fitted with a 56K V.90 modem, Ethernet and Atheros Super AG or Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Wi-Fi connectivity, with the option to add Bluetooth.
Running on Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, the Stylistic ST5032 tablet PC comes in two sizes, with customers able to choose between the 12.1″ XGA and 10.4″ indoor/outdoor displays.
Cranking up his PR offensive to eleven, Moore continued, “Fujitsu offers a broad array of mobile solutions with the features, security, flexibility, reliability and ease of integration these companies need – all at competitive prices”.
Following 
We think that Blu-Ray’s dogged pursuit for high capacity (possibly in the face of Unified DVD), and the fact that Sony are driving Blu-Ray is no coincidence. 
Cover layer thickness difference
Nokia has risen to become King Of The Hill of 3G phones with a market share of 17%, with its attractive range of 3G phones trouncing products from rivals NEC and LG.
Previous 3G front-runners Motorola and LG have been overtaken by Nokia, with the report warning the manufacturers that they “have significant work to do to match up in the next battle for WCDMA phones priced below US$200 (~£111, €164~) wholesale, which will present significant mass-market opportunities in 2006 to 2010”.