Lenovo announces its first Chromebook – the ThinkPad X131e

Lenovo has announced its first ever Chrome OS running notebook. Meet the 11.6-inch ThinkPad X131e.

Lenovo’s first Chromebook is targeted at students and shares its body with the company’s 131e, which means it’s tough and solidly built.

The laptop features an undisclosed Intel processor (we reckon it’s a Celeron) and has HDMI, VGA and 3 USB ports. The company says that the battery will be good enough to last for an entire school day, meaning around 6-7 hours, while the screen packs a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.
The ThinkPad X131e Chromebook is specifically built for schools and will be available on February 26 via a special bid that US schools and institutions will have the chance to make. However, it’ll also be freely sold in the States for $429.

Foremay SC199 and TC166 2.5-inch 2TB SSD

Yes, solid state drives (SSD) are fast but most SSDs on the market provides smaller storage capacity compare to traditional hard drives. Silicon Valley-based company Foremay answers this with the introduction of the world’s first 2TB SSD with a standaard 2.5-inch form factor and a thickness of 9.5mm, following its 2.5-inch 1TB SSD introduced in May 2011.

Built for enterprise users, Foremay’s 2TB SSD is available in commerical-grade TC166 and industrial-grade SC199 product families so users can choose the one that suits their specific application. With a standard 2.5-inch 9.5mm form factor and SATA interface, the 2TB solid state drive fits well into notebooks and all-in-one computers.
Other than integrated Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T. ), Advanced Power Management (APM) and advanced error correction algorithm flash management technologies, the SC199 and TC166 also includes optional features such as fast erase, military secure erase methods, hardware based encryption and conformal coating.

Vimpelcom aims to increase cashflow by $2.9 billion for 2013-2015

 Vimpelcom, the parent company of Telenor and Orascom in Pakistan and a service provider for over 209 million subscribers via its subsidiaries worldwide (as of March 31, 2012), aims to increase cashflow by $2.9 billion over the next three years in various emerging markets. Reuters claims Vimpelcom’s operational cashflow to be around $5 billion in 2012. As Vimpelcom states, it intends to generate an increase in the annual cashflow by outsourcing its services, optimizing the workflow and possibly downsizing the human resource. With the data generation inbound, the company claims to increase $2 billion from operations and about $900 million from financial improvements by the year 2015. Vimpelcom also hopes to secure the deal with the Algerian government for “Djezzy” which it acquired as a part of the partnership deal with Orascom which is expected to further increase revenue. Vimpelcom’s stocks increased by 4.4% as a result of announcement of the 2013-2015 strategy at the Analyst & Investor Day 2013.

Pulse app adds support for Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube

Popular news aggregator application Pulse got updated yesterday, which brings with it the addition of some new services.

Now, users will be able to view their Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr as well as YouTube feeds within the app, along with all the other feeds they have subscribed to.

To add new feeds, just swipe from the left and select the ‘Add Content’ button. There you will see the newly added options for the aforementioned services. Add the ones you want in the category you want and then go there to sign into them. Once signed in, the app will start pulling recent posts from those services.
The updated Pulse app is available on the App Store and the Play Store for free.

Alleged first Tegra 4 benchmarks show promising graphics power, but not as good as A6X

It seems that someone with access to a Dalmore Tegra 4 evaluation board decided to see how it does on the GLBenchmark GPU benchmark for Android.
The results, if they turn out to be legitimate, show Nvidia’s latest mobile SoC offering as capable of some promising graphics performance, but ultimately falls short of taking the top spot away from Apple’s A6X chip.
According to the benchmark results, the display the board was attached to had a resolution of 1920 x 1128 pixels, with the Tegra 4 chip running at a clock speed of 1.8GHz on Android 4.2.1. For comparisons sake, the iPad 4 numbers can be found here.

Keep in mind that these numbers, even if they are actually a Tegra 4-running board, are not reflective of the overall performance you might get from an actual device running the Tegra 4 architecture, just its graphics prowess. With four Cortex-A15 CPU cores at hand, the Tegra 4 should be able to easily outdo its Apple-made competitor in terms processing power.