I realize that time on the Internet is not the same as in real life but it never fails to amaze me how people seem to think that today’s new shiny toy will kill off off the shiny toy that we all were obsessing about the day before. We have seen this happen so many time that it get to the point that trying to make any serious value judgement about new technology next to pointless.

The newest ‘killer’ that everyone is salivating over is tablets and how they are going to replace everything that came before it. Desktops are history and laptops are headed to the exit door stage left, just like how netbooks were going to replace everything before it. Remember netbooks? Anyone?

Ya they were those silly looking things that anyone with real fingers couldn’t use without wanting to smash their heads against the wall after having to retype every second word, not to mention the need for some serious magnifying eye wear.

Now that we have come to our senses over the pointlessness of netbooks we are trying to get our tech killer fix by suggesting that tablets like the iPad and any one of the thousand Android tablets are hitting the market are going to replace our laptops and desktops.

To try and get a grasp on the reality of this delusion polling company Poll Position decided to conduct a survey where they asked 1,155 Americans whether they believed that tablets would replace laptops or not. They came up with some pretty interesting results from the survey which included the following:

46% believe that tablets will eventually replace laptops

35% said that devices like the iPad or Kindle Fire wouldn’t replace notebooks

20% had no opinion

It seems that the assumption that tablet adoption would be driven by youth might be wrong as well as several age related questions in the survey showed

49% of those between the ages of 18 to 29 do not believe that tablets can replace laptops

37% of those between 30 to 44 don’t believe laptops will be replaced

30% of those between 45 to 64 feel the same way

25% of those over the age of 65 don’t believe that tablets will replace laptops

On the subject when it comes to the different sexes more men believe it will happen than women who do.

53% of men believe that tablets will be able to replace laptops

39% of women think it will happen

As Don Reisinger form Cnet also found out:

If the latest research data on the topic is to be believed, however, it appears there’s no chance that tablets will replace notebooks. Just last week, research firm NPD DisplaySearch reported that 72.7 million tablets hit store shelves last year. That figure was easily overshadowed by notebook shipments, which rose to 187.5 million units. Perhaps most important to this discussion, NPD DisplaySearch also revealed that by 2017, tablet shipments will jump to 383.3 million, but still trail notebooks, which could hit 432 million units shipped that year..

Time to go looking for the next shiny object I guess eh.

Will tablets replace laptops any time soon? Some interesting numbers. is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you are reading this on a WiFi-enabled computer, please be warned that a new study published in the Fertility and Sterility journal has linked WiFi connectivity with possible sperm damage.

Researchers placed drops of healthy sperm near a laptop downloading data. Four hours later, it was observed that a quarter of the sperm stopped swimming and 9 percent showing DNA damage. In a separate controlled environment away from the computer, only 14 percent of the sperm stopped swimming.

Argentinian researchers believed that electromagnetic radiation from wireless internet caused the zapping of the sperm.

If this is any consolation to WiFi loving men, researchers said that the results were not conclusive and more research should be done.

If in case this is true, would you give up using WiFi for a healthy sperm?

WiFi May Be Nuking Your Sperm is a post from: The Inquisitr

I sure hope that this doesn’t happen to you as you play with your new Dell laptop that you got for Christmas. Unfortunately though for one woman her Dell Mini 9 started making popping sounds, then began to hiss and sizzle – not good – and the room filled with smoke.

Just to ease your mind Dell has replaced the laptop.

hat tip to Mike Elgan

Dell laptop gets all hot and bothered – burns the floor is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t get all drooly over hardware most of the time even though I have admitted in the past to a little Apple envy but when I saw this beauty from Dell show up in a review on cnet’s Crave blog I knew exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

Although I will say right off the bat the only drawback for me is the 13.3″ screen but given the prices being quotes for this little beauty I think I could forgo that one thing.

Other than that this is definitely a nice looking machine coming in at .65 inches thick and weighing around 3.5 pounds. Add to that a webcam, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an ExpressCard slot for an all round laptop that covers the bases.

Where the prices for the laptop begin to differ depends on what you are willing to pay for the guts of the machine. The base Vostro V13 comes with a single-core Celeron and Ubuntu Linux for a price of $449 (US).

Should you want to jump up a bit you can get a Core 2 Dual ULV and Windows 7 but even at $600 (US) it is definitely worth the price and one that won’t kill your wallet at the same.

Being the glutton for punishment the way I am I decided to check out the Dell Canada site and see what kind of price premium I would end up paying if I was ever able to get past the wishing upon a star part; and to be honest it wasn’t all that bad I guess at about a $200.00 increase in price.

The base laptop with the single core and Linux installed is priced at $529.00 whereas the Core 2 Solo with 2Gb of memory and a 320Gig SATA drive will set me back $699.00. There is one further upgrade beyond that but at $799 it’s not even worth teasing myself over.

The Dell Vostro V13 – I wonder if Santa is listening? is a post from: The Inquisitr

So for $400 the nonprofit low-cost laptop program will send one XO to the purchaser and another one to a school-age child in some developing country. While back in September the OLPC said it wanted to revive the program it didn’t have the infrastructure needed to support the program by itself.

While Microsoft has been making Windows available for the OPLC it doesn’t cover the countries taking part in the Get One, Give One program. For some more info on the Windows XP version of the XO you can watch the c|net video below.

OLPC’s 2 for 1 program coming back is a post from: The Inquisitr

However that could all be changing, especially if Duncan’s exclusive report last night about an upcoming model of an Apple laptop in the $800.00 range is proven to be correct. Now while everyone seems to be getting their knickers in a bunch over whether or not this is in fact true Mary Jo Foley sidesteps this and instead wonders if such a beast from Cupertino would be a threat to Microsoft. As she points out; and is backed up by the study on price differences mentioned above, you can pretty well find any number of laptops under a $1,000 running Vista. Personally I wouldn’t even think of trying to run Vista on entry level laptops but the fact is that they are out there.

In her post Mary Jo doesn’t come right out and suggest that this could hurt Microsoft but I will. Look we are living in a world where at least two generations are growing up with the iPod, which is the iconic Apple product in the general marketplace. Adding into the mix we have the iPhone which has become the newest darling of the mobile phone world – everyone seems to want one. Apple is becoming a fixture in the general marketplace. It is moving away from being a cult object and through things like the iPod and the iPhone staking out its share of the market.

For myself one of the two reasons why an Apple laptop has always been out of the question is the price of them. I know that there will be a time coming where I’ll be looking to buy a laptop and up until now my only real option – because of price – has been a Microsoft powered laptop. If Duncan is right, then that has all changed and not just for me but a whole bunch of folks as well especially considering the disaster that Vista is.

If the rumours of an $800.00 Apple laptop are true then there is going to be a radical shift in the laptop marketplace and Microsoft will have a big battle on its hands.

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Is Apple Finally Gunning for Microsoft? is a post from: The Inquisitr