ASUS has been riding the Eee wave pretty high lately, and although things seem going pretty well for the powerhouse company, there might be some storm clouds in the distance — Tweaktown’s got a long piece translated from the Taiwan-only Business Today which hints at some exec-level infighting going on at the top. It’s pretty in-depth stuff, but the main takeaway seems to be that ASUS’s spinoff of its OEM manufacturing business as Pegatron ruffled a few feathers, leading Pegatron chairman Tung Tsu Hsien to apparently start thinking about launching his own consumer brand called PEGA Design to take on ASUS — especially interesting since we just saw some Pegatron-branded netbooks and nettops. We’ll see if any of this comes to pass — we’d be pretty into another huge company cranking out wild ideas like the Eee keyboard.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

ASUS execs said to be infighting, potentially launching competing brand originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Check it, Pacific Northwest — Seattle, Washington was just named Forbes‘ most wired city for 2009, followed closely by Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Orlando and Boston. Of course, having Amazon and Microsoft within spitting distance probably didn’t hurt matters, and the eleventy billion Starbucks WiFi hotspots likely pushed it over the edge. There are 25 other locales in the top 30 that we’ve yet to mention here, so head on down to the read link to see if your hometown made the cut. Oh, and way to represent, Raleigh — numero fifteen ain’t too shabby.

[Via cnmoody]

Filed under: Networking

Seattle crowned most wired city in America: where’s your town? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Can you say “oops?” That so-called Mini 10, which curiously emerged at Tesco before anywhere else, is actually not a Mini 10. As the story goes, folks across the pond who plunked down £349 for their very own 10-inch Dell netbook have started receiving shipments only to find a perfectly average Mini 9 within. Furthermore, Tesco’s Mini 10 order page is now completely nonexistent, further signaling that a serious mishap occurred somewhere along the line. Hate to burst your bubble, but if you ordered one of these pups from this vendor, you should probably expect to hit the return to sender option and eagerly await a refund.

[Via PortableMonkey, thanks Peter]

Filed under: Laptops

Tesco’s £349 Mini 10 actually a £349 Mini 9 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seems the good people at Expansys are up to their shenanigans again, but this time we’re seeing a few Samsung sets dribbling out of the leaky tap — mind you, we won’t holler legitimate ’til we hear it from Samsung. The Samsung B2100 — apparently a follow up to the M110 and B2700 — which actually appeared back in October 2008, The Samsung Louve (perhaps a typo of Louvre? It’ll make sense in a minute) and the Samsung Pivot. The Pivot is apparently set to be one of Samsung’s first handsets with Windows Mobile 6.5 and will come loaded with a 5 megapixel camera, QWERTY keypad, LED flash, aGPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and is touted as coming in a package similar to the Samsung i780. Samsung’s Louve is said to be designed like the TyTN II and shares its sliding and tilting screen — see where the Louvre name fits in? — runs Windows Mobile 6.1, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and shares the i900 Omnia’s tweak-ready interface. The Expansys “Insider” mentioned filling in the details and posting some pics soon, we’ll get those up if we see them or fill you in when we hear more.

[Via Cellpassion]

Filed under: Cellphones

Leak sauce: Expansys rides again, three Samsung sets outed? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news for those of you who haven’t yet snagged a copy of the Windows 7 beta — Microsoft’s decided to extend the beta download period to February 10th. That’s the second extension we’ve gotten from Redmond — the company says that interest is so high in 7 that it doesn’t want anyone to miss out. So what are you waiting for? Hit the read link for the download and then snuggle up with our detailed install round-up and hands-on impressions while your bits tumble in.

[Via Computerworld]

Read - Post on Windows Team Blog
Read - Windows 7 download page

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Microsoft extends Windows 7 beta downloads to February 10 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bioware has once again graced us with a glimpse into its highly anticipated MMO that is sure to make a huge splash in the industry when it arrives, or when it’s (as Blizzard famously says) “done.”

Hardwarecanucks.com:

Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT CPU cooler

BFG GTX 285 OCX 1GB Video Card review

Bit-tech.net:

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 video card review

G.Skill Titan 256GB SSD review

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB IceQ4+ Turbo video card review