Lenovo release new AiO, starts under 30K

Lenovo has a new entry-level All-in-One desktop in the ThinkCenter Edge series. Going by the specs, this model seems to be designed to be a web-access terminal, or a kiosk. The ThinkCentre Edge 62Z has an 18.5-inch (1366x768px) Intel Core i3-2120 Processor, 2.0GB RAM, 500GB HDD storage, DVD drive, and Wireless N radio. The AiO appears to ship without any USB ports or keyboard, but it does include an optical mouse. The Lenovo website has the starting price of ThinkCentre 62Z listed as Rs.27,973.

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BBM service gets free VoIP calls

Research in Motion appears to be sharping its blades for the crucial Blackberry 10 release that is currently tracking launch date of January 30. The company has released an update that adds VoIP call option to its BBM service for all users. However, such voice calls can only be made over Wi-Fi networks, not the mobile carrier’s network. The update is currently available for BlackBerry v6 or higher, while v5 will get a similar update at a later date.

RIM hopes that this feature will be a welcome addition in developing markets, where the company is still making a decent buck. They appear to be doing brisk business in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Indonesia, which has helped increase the company’s overall subscribers. This bit of revelation came as a surprise during the latest earnings disclosure, and made the company’s overall situation seem that much more hopeful.

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India ranks second at requesting user data from Google

When it comes to snooping on its netizens, India ranks second after the US, according to the latest stats disclosed by Google in its Transparency Report. Google complied with 2319 user data requests out of a total of 3,467 account requests from the Indian government. Google also complies with data removal requests from the court and police - between January and June this year, there were 20 court orders and 64 requests from executive/police that resulted in 596 items being taken down from its web properties. 

Google first launched the Transparency Report initiative in early 2010. Since then, there has been a rise in government requests to hand over user data, from 12,539 requests in 2009 to 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. As Google notes, Dropbox, Twitter, and LinkedIn are other notable web properties that publish user data and removal requests

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Nokia PureView 808 now retailing under 25k

Nokia’s 41 megapixel camera smartphone called the PureView 808 has now received a major price cut. The device which has initially priced at Rs. 33,899 is now up for grabs for just Rs. 24,999.

The device was first announced at MWC 2012 earlier this year and arrived in India in the month of June. It features Nokia’s award-winning PureView technology with Carl Zeiss optics and a powerful Xenon flash. It also features rich record which helps record CD-like audio quality and full HD 1080p video recording.

Other specifications includes a 4-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display with Gorilla Glass protection, it runs Nokia Belle OS and is powered by a 1.3GHz single-core processor. The device is now up for grabs with the new pricing with online retailer Saholic.

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Acer Chromebook on sale for under $200

Chromebooks may not the hottest thing right now, but Google does not appear to give up just yet. The company has teamed up with Acer to release the C7 Chromebook that is expected to go on sale for under 200 dollars, through the Google Play store. Acer may have skimped on the central processor to keep the price under $200, but otherwise the machine has respectable specs for what it is meant to be.

The laptop has 11.6-inch, 1366x768 screen, 1.1GHz Intel Celeron 847 processor with 2MB L3 cache, 2GB of DDR3 memory, and 320GB of HDD storage. The C7 comes with 802.11 a/b/g/n, three USB 2.0 sockets, HDMI and VGA connectors, and an SD card reader. In addition to Google Play, the Acer C7 is also expected to be available through Amazon (UK).

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BlackBerry 10 set for January launch

Research in Motion has announced that the company is ready to release BlackBerry 10 on January 30, which will be followed by unveiling of two new smartphones. RIM isn’t quite ready to commit to a release date for the hardware, but the market watchers are reportedly expecting it to happen sometime in March. The company’s CEO is pitching “…a truly unique mobile computing experience”, through a design mantra of BB10 that the company has dubbed BlackBerry Flow. Market analysts see BB10 as pivotal in turning the fortunes of RIM that has already lost much of its value and market share.

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The 10 best new-style Windows 8 apps

Sure, Windows 8's new kind of applications—formerly known as Metro—aren't up with iPad apps in numbers yet, at only about 5,000 available in the Windows Store compared with 275,000 in the iTunes App Store for Apple's tablet. But there are already some prime choices among them, many with names we've become familiar with on the other platforms. I refer to these full-screen, touch-friendly apps as “new-style,” since Windows 8 (but not Windows RT devices like the Surface) still run all the millions of standard Windows applications.

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Hold the phone: Microsoft wants to buy Nokia and Nvidia?

Here's an interesting bit of speculation from Information Week's Paul McDougall—Microsoft could be in the market to acquire not just key Windows Phone partner Nokia but also chipmaker Nvidia.

There are a lot of problems with this double-barreled dealmaking approach for Redmond, which we'll talk about in a bit. First, let's look at McDougall's logic.

For all intents and purposes, it sure looks likeMicrosoft wants to "adopt the Apple model" of extreme vertical integration for its product development cycles, meaning it seeks a whole lot more control and input on what it's producing from the silicon level on up.

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