If you’re an owner of Acer Aspire AS3410 / AS3810T / AS3810TG / AS3810TZ / AS3810TZG laptop manufactured prior to September 15, 2009 and lately if you have noticed that your lappie gets overheated then you are advised to surrender your laptop to fix the problem.

It appears lately Acer has received truck-loads of complain regarding overheating problem in above mentioned laptops.

And that’s why the firm has initialized a voluntary safety recall program.

Acer reports, “it has come to our attention that certain Acer Aspire Notebooks may overheat under specific conditions. Acer is therefore voluntarily instituting a safety recall for these products.”

The affected units are Acer Aspire models AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG manufactured prior to September 15, 2009.

In the affected units the microphone cable may overheat when extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest. As a result, the unitҳ case may become deformed and the system may malfunction.

Acer has voluntarily instituted a safety recall program to proactively replace the microphone cable in the affected units to eliminate any risk of overheating.

Check out this page to determine whether your unit is affected and requires to be serviced.

Facebook’s vision of becoming a “utility” that offers activities to keep people online for hours could set it on a collision course with the Web’s giants.

In recent days, the No.1 social networking company revamped its search engine and bought a start-up that some call a rival to hot micro-blogging service Twitter. It is also testing a stripped-down version of its service to boost growth overseas and is developing an electronic payments system.

These moves mark a new phase in Facebook’s evolution as the five-year-old company meshes the viral power of social networks and its huge member base to barge into new markets.

“When you become the site that people spend enough hours on everyday it’s very natural to take advantage of that and to become the site that tries to provide all the services that portals provide,” said Haim Mendelson, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

The site, co-founded by 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard University dorm room, could challenge Web portals like Yahoo Inc and Google in content and communications, Brigantine Advisors analyst Colin Gillis said.

Facebook, which Zuckerberg has described as a “social utility,” could take on eBay Inc’s PayPal online payments system and maybe Apple Inc’s iTunes for digital downloads, he added.

“People only do so many things on the Web,” said Jeffrey Rayport, founder of digital media consultancy firm Marketspace. “There are a lot of companies that would like to own that set of activities.”

With more than 250 million members, Facebook was the world’s fourth most visited website in June, according to comScore. It is on track to bring in more than $500 million in revenue this year, most of it from advertising sales.

The new initiatives represent the natural evolution of the service, said Facebook vice president of product Christopher Cox. He downplayed the increasing overlap between Facebook’s new search engine and Twitter’s search engine, or Google’s dominant Web search engine.

Facebook’s previous search engine was useful for finding other people on the site, but the new version lets users look up what others are saying about particular topics, from healthcare to Iran. The search results are relevant to each person, Cox said in an interview.

“When you’re trying to figure out what to eat, or what shoes to buy, or who to vote for, you don’t go ask thousands of strangers,” said Cox. “The Web should reflect that.”

Facebook’s recent acquisition of FriendFeed, which lets people share and search for content in real time across social networks and blogs, gives it another key asset as it seeks to perhaps extend its search scope beyond the site’s boundaries.

Google recently unveiled new search engine prototype, dubbed Caffeine, that promises faster, more relevant searches.

Asked about Facebook’s search efforts, a Google spokesman said, “We have many competitors, and we take them all seriously. But what we take more seriously is innovation and making search better.”

Facebook is likely not interested in going head-to-head in Internet search with Google, Stanford’s Mendelson said. But the areas of overlap between the companies are increasing, and by beefing up search, Facebook could become more competitive with Google, he added.

At the same time, Facebook could go after PayPal with the online payments system it is developing. Companies like 1-800-Flowers have already set up shop within Facebook, and e-commerce could become more popular on the site.

Software developers who sell applications on Facebook are testing the payments system, Cox said, but it is not clear whether it will handle e-commerce transactions across the Web.

“We’re really just trying to get our bearings on what the right product is here with a handful of people at this point,” said Cox.

Australian students may soon be leaving their school bags behind as the e-book industry claims to include almost all books in light, hand-held portable devices within the next three years.

These devices will not only be able to connect to the Internet, but will also store hundreds of e-textbooks loaned from school libraries or purchased from online e-book stores.

Addressing a conference of school librarians in Melbourne last week, Richard Siegersma – Executive Director, DA Direct, Australia’s largest distributor of portable reading devices and e-books – told them to get ready for the digital revolution.

“E-textbooks will be mainstream within three years,” The Age quoted him as saying.

According to Siegersma, digital technology would soon enable e-books to become affordable.

Siegersma said: “There will be just-in-time and customised delivery to flexible, full-colour screens; textbooks with audio and video components; touch screens for handwriting and margin note-taking and text highlighting.”

Siegersma added that new technology would absolutely change the way students get information today. Sherman Young, Acting Head of Cultural Studies, Macquarie University and the author of The Book Is Dead, Long Live the Book said, “The world is at the e-book tipping point and librarians will be the vanguard of the introduction of e-textbooks,” Dr Young told the conference, organised by Curriculum Corporation and the School Library Association of Victoria.

“Book culture is still confused with print culture and it is really only this year people have started to get e-books,” he said.

However, Australian Copyright Council lawyer Sneha Balakrishnan, said e-books may not make it to the classroom so easily.

“Some schools are already in the process of negotiating licences tailored to their needs…But there are still lots of issues to be worked through,” she said.

Current users of e-books in Australian schools and colleges have complained of slow data uploading, slow page turning and the availability of few titles.

Sony, in a challenge to Amazon’s Kindle, unveiled plans on Thursday to do away with the proprietary software on its electronic Sony Reader and convert its e-book store to an industry standard format.

The Japanese electronics giant said the move “allows Sony to make its e-book store compatible with multiple devices and its Reader devices open to multiple sources for content.”

Sony said it would convert its e-book store to the open ePub format by the end of the year as part of “an effort to take the confusion out of digital book formats.”

Sony said it would drop proprietary copy-protection software on the Reader in favor of a cross-platform anti-copying software solution developed by Adobe.

Sony’s move is seen as a direct challenge to Amazon, whose electronic books can only be read on the Kindle or on an Apple iPhone using Kindle software.

“Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store,” Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division, said in a statement.

“With a common format and common content protection solution they will be able to shop around for the content they want regardless of where they get it or what device they use,” he said.

The ePub format was developed by more than 60 companies and organisations and has received the support of the International Digital Publishing Forum.

Sony noted that dozens of publishers are producing e-books using the ePub standard.

The government has warned the users of social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter of a virus that is spreading through these sites targeting the members.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Department of Information Technology, the apex body that monitors Internet security threats in the country, said a new worm ‘Koobface’ is propagating through social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Bebo and Twitter.

CERT said the virus is spreading by sending spam containing a message with a link to a video to people on these sites.

The virus is particularly dangerous as it uses the infected machine to target other systems and distribute additional malware, generate ‘pay per click’ advertising revenue and steal sensitive data, CERT said on its website.

The Koobface works by taking control of social networking sites and spamming friends with messages containing links to sites that lead to malware traps.

Once the link is clicked, it redirects the user to a website designed to mimic YouTube (but is actually named YuoTube), which asks the user to install an executable (.EXE) file to be able to watch the video.

Security firm Trend Micro said social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have become prime targets of cyber criminals due to easy access of personal information on these sites.

As more and more people are communicating through social networks, they are fast becoming more viable platform for criminals to carry on with their fraudulent activities, it added.

SONY WILL BEGIN selling its first net- book computer next month and in doing so enter the only sector of the PC market showing significant growth.  The Vaio W is based around a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor, the same processor used in many other netbooks.
Like other netbooks the Vaio W has a 10-inch screen, but its display has a resolution of 1,366 by 768 pixels rath er than the more common 1,024 by 600 pixels. That means more of a Web site can be fitted onto the screen, and the user will have to scroll less, the company said at a launch event in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Sony is planning to use the higher resolution as one of the key differentia tors between the Vaio W and other computers on the market. It will also promote the machine’s touch panel, which is about the same size as that found on conventional laptops.
It will go on sale in the U.K., France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Rus sia from August, and be available via Sony’s online shop.
The PC industry witnessed a record decline in the first quarter of this year as grim economic conditions caused many consumers and compa nies to postpone nonessential pur chases. Global shipments fell by 8 percent against the same period of 2008, led by a sharp decline in demand for desktop PCs, according to iSuppli.
The mobile segment saw 10 percent growth thanks largely to demand for netbook PCs.
Sony came close to launching a net- book when it put the Vaio P on sale. The computer is smaller than many netbooks but runs Windows Vista on the more powerful of Intel’s Atom processors. The Vaio W measures 27 centimeters by 18cm by 2.7cm. It runs Windows XP, comes with 1GB of memory, a 160GB hard-disk drive, two USB ports, 802.lla/b/g wireless LAN and Blue- tooth. There’s a camera above the dis play and a built-in memory card reader.

Freescale recently displayed next- generation ‘smartbook’ form factors at Computex show in Taiwan. The new class of devices sport larger screens than traditional smartphone devices, and are cloud-computing-centric, with all-day battery life and instant-on functionality. These are powered by processors based on ARM technology, such as Freescale’s i.MX51 device. Freescale engaged with Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to explore requirements related to ergonomic issues, user interfaces, alternative form factors and even accessories for next- generation smartbook devices. This gave Freescale valuable insight into how end-users prefer to interact with smartbooks. The knowledge gained will be fed back into its chip design processes, ultimately resulting in future i.MX processors that enable compelling consumer experiences and entirely new classes of consumer devices.

Asus G50Vt, a member of the G50 series,  is a 15.4-inch gaming notebook based on Intel’s Centrino 2 platform. The G50Vt is powered by Core 2 Duo processor, up to 4GB of RAM, up to dual 320GB hard drive, and a 512MB  NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS graphics. You can also expect WiFi 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth, a 2 Megapixel webcam, a 8-in-1 card reader and Blu-ray DVD combo option.

The Asus G50Vt has been tested, you can see the test result and video at HotHardware. Here are some comments:

HOT

    * Great Gaming Performance
    * Latest Centrino 2 Technology
    * Discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS
    * Excellent Value
    * Cool Stylings and Lighting
    * Built-in Overclocking and Performance Management System

NOT

    * Battery Life 1.5 – 2.5 Hours Tops
    * 7.5lbs = 1/2 Boat Anchor

Designed for car enthusiasts and people with deep pockets, this one from Asus is another piece of art but this time in the form of a laptop. For starters, the notebook is extremely sleek and looks blazingly hot. It comes in a racing style casing in true Lamborghini yellow and black; hinges made out of Titanium alloy, genuine leather trim for resting your palms and to top it all, the charging bull Lamborghini logo sitting on top. For those who don’t know much about it, Lamborghini is an Italian manufacturer of high performance sports car and the main competitor to Ferrari. As with their
cars, even this machine runs on a power Core 2 Duo engine
coupled with 4GB RAM and a graphics card from NVIDIA which boots
with the noise of a revving Vi 2 engine. The notebook is extremely comfortable to use with sufficiently spaced keys and a friction less touch pad, big enough for a 12” laptop. The notebook scored 1668 in 3D Mark 06 and 4989 in the PC Mark 05, which is better than most laptops we have tested before. The leather finish, 4 cell battery managed to give a backup of only 56 minutes but was compensated by the 9 cell battery which comes in the box and stretches the notebook to 3 hours 25 minutes. Other accessories include a black and yellow mouse and leather carry bag.

asus lamborghini vx3 specs: Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, 320GB HDD,
4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9300M G, 12” Display,
Vista Ultimate, 1.58 Kg, webcam.