Modder TheGreatSatan recently ripped out the guts of an old PET 2001-N computer, and replaced its innards with a speedy 3.2GHz 6-core AMD Phenom CPU with 16GB of DDR3-1333 RAM. The rejuvenated PET also has a Radeon 6850 1GB graphics card, 64GB SSD drive and a 1TB secondary hard drive. The new machine has been rechristened as the “PET 2011″, which is only appropriate.

Since the PET had a tiny 9″ black and white CRT, there wasn’t much room for a proper display inside the case, so Satan opted for a 7-inch color LCD, plucked from a Kodak digital photo frame. Of course, that tiny display isn’t practical as a primary display, so he hooked up a modern display alongside the PET for getting real work done.

TheGreatSatan spent just $53 on a non-working PET computer over on eBay, but clearly put way more than that into the new hardware and his labor to build it out. You can check out the entire build log over on the Bit-Tech forums.

Under the hood there’s an integrated HP computer, powered by a 2.93GHz quad-core i7 CPU, and an nVidia Quadro 600 workstation-class video 3D card. The system also has WiFi and Bluetooth in addition to Ethernet for connectivity. It’s also got a built-in Bose sound system and the ability to mirror output via HDMI. The system runs Windows 7 Pro 64-bit edition, and comes pre-loaded with GestureWorks software for quickly building multitouch applications and integrating with Flash and Flex.

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It’s designed for use in galleries, museums, art installations and educational installations, so it’s made out of durable aluminum and steel, with a hardened, tempered glass top. It even has a battery backup and cooling unit built into the tower, so the system is definitely a turnkey way of building out a custom multitouch experience. For more information on the Ideum MT55 multitouch table, head on over to their website.

This thing runs the Windows 7 operation system, which means it can run most of the software your typical desktop or notebook can run. The 10.1″ WXGA screen of the tablet has 400nits brightness, making it ideal for brightly lit office environments. The tablet is very light and portable at a bit over 1.5 pounds.

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The Q550 runs an Intel Atom processor, has 2GB of memory, and sports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It has front and rear facing cameras along with HDMI, a USB 2.0 port, and audio output. The machine has Gobi 3000 mobile broadband with GPS as an option and is VESA mount compatible. The Q550 will ship this spring with prices starting at under $800 (USD).

MSI has previously announced the Wind Pad 100W, a tablet that runs Windows 7 Starter. Now reports are coming in that the tablet is available to purchase. If you aren’t familiar with the 100W, it has a 10.1-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600. The machine uses a special “Wind Touch” user interface over the Windows 7 OS to make it more tablet friendly. The CPU inside is an Atom Z530 at 1.6GHz and it has 2GB of RAM. Storage is provided by a 32GB SSD, and the battery promises over six hours. The tablet also has front and rear cameras, mini HDMI out, a SD card reader and WiFi.

It sells for $709 (USD) and sounds like a really expensive netbook minus the keyboard to me.

[via Wired]

The theme has a bunch of different wallpapers that are all based on Christmas lights. I really like the one with the decorated tree out in the woods. It reminds me of Rudolph and his pals trekking through the woods looking for people that will accept them.

The themes are free and you can download them now. Most geeks will be more interested in the theme tipped for next week for Halo fans. It will have concept art form the game franchise and sounds really sweet.

The company has announced that it will have 1000 of its new Windows 7 Fluid Stream tablet computers available to ship in time for Christmas. The tablet has a 10.1-inch multi touch screen, Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB of storage, and packs in WiFi as well as Bluetooth.

The machine has a 100% money back guarantee that it will ship in time for Christmas and will cost you $599 (USD). The Fluid Motion is the same tablet, but adds 3G connectivity and is priced at $699. The Motion won’t ship until February of 2011. Both machines can be pre-ordered right now.

A company I have never heard of called bModo has unveiled a nice looking tablet called the bModo12. The tablet has an 11.6-inch HD resolution screen with no mention of touch capability. Touch is sort of something we expect on a tablet today. The tablet runs Windows 7 and has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and 1GB of RAM.

The device can be used as a netbook, eReader, and for many other tasks. It supports Skype, Office, Photoshop, Flash video and just about anything else you computer or notebook can. Other features include a SIM card slot for 3G connectivity, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, a VGA webcam with mic, and a lot more. The white docking station in one of the photos is an option that will come early next year.

The bModo12 tablet itself will land in time for Christmas shopping at an undisclosed price.

Since this is the first post in the series, I thought I’d take a minute to walk you through the TouchSmart 600′s hardware. The particular configuration I had my hands on was the 600-1055. The system features a beautiful 23-inch widescreen display, powered by NextWindow’s optical multitouch technology. Since the display uses an infrared touch technology, it can only handle two points of input, but that’s enough for manipulating simple media interfaces and handling gestures like flicks, pinch and zoom with aplomb. The system also has a high quality sound system built in, and the audio is certainly as good as anything you’d find built into a good television these days. It’s no substitute for a full surround rig, but it’s fine for a small room. And of course, there is an SPDIF optical output if you really do want to hook the TouchSmart to a proper surround system.

Under the hood, there’s a serviceable Core 2 Duo P7450, running a 2.13GHz, and the system has 4GB of RAM and a speedy 7200RPM 750GB SATA hard drive, perfect for recording television programs and handling other media utility work – right in the sweet spot for this machine. The system ships with Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit edition, so they didn’t skimp on the OS, either.

My first objective with the TouchSmart was to see how well it would work as a TV/DVR. The timing for this couldn’t have been better, as my brand new 58-inch Samsung plasma died and we had no TV in our living room for the last month (eeegads!) So while I wouldn’t normally recommend using a 23-inch display as your primary television, it worked for us in a pinch. The TouchSmart’s display size is definitely better suited to a bedroom, or maybe an office or den. It’s just a little large for most kitchens, but they do offer a 20-inch model as well.

So, back to the TV/DVR thing. There are a few ways to slice and dice this on the TouchSmart, and that’s part of the beauty of this thing. You can watch live television using the computer’s built in Digital ATSC tuner, and using either the included TouchSmart software or Windows Media Center, you can view live programs, and record them for later playback. I personally preferred the Windows Media software for this, as it works with the bundled remote control, and was a bit zippier than the TouchSmart interface. That said, the TouchSmart version does work well if you plan on primarily the touch screen for input, so maybe it would be good in a small room where you will be right by the screen all the time.

I recorded several programs in both the foreground and background, and didn’t run into any problems with playback quality, even for 720p and 1080i HD broadcasts. Oddly enough, I did run into some stutter on HD content in the TouchSmart app during live TV though, but it’s possible some sort of background task (maybe anti-virus or system updates) was hogging resources. This only occurred once or twice in my experience. The recording worked fine, even in the background while other tasks were going on, although since there’s only a single tuner, you won’t be able to record two programs at the same time like you can with some DVRs. However, I couldn’t figure out a way to pause or scrub that program while the program was recording using the TouchSmart software. It works fine with a live program that you’re not currently recording, though, so go figure.

That all said, I felt that the program guide interface for the Windows Media side of the house was much easier to read from a distance and found more APG program data than the TouchSmart version managed to muster. That said, the system includes both interfaces, so its your choice. Here’s the TouchSmart running Windows Media Center Live TV for comparison:

In addition to over-the-air television, the TouchSmart software includes apps for Netflix and Hulu, both of which performed admirably, and featured touch-enhanced interfaces with bigger buttons, and nice scrub bars for jumping through content. I’ll be covering the DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming video capabilities in more detail in my next post.

But what if you’ve got a satellite or fiber-optic receiver? With most desktop PCs, you’d be out of luck. There’s an S-Video input and an IR blaster output if you want to use a set-top tuner with Windows Media Center. And while you can’t use the built-in media or touchscreen software to watch from one of these devices in high-def, the TouchSmart has a handy HDMI input on the side, which lets you flip out of computer mode, and use it just like a regular HDTV.

I tried it with both my DirecTV HD DVR and my Sony PlayStation 3, and it worked great with both. My only issue with this input is that there’s no decent cable management for it, whereas all the other ports on the computer are neatly tucked behind a cover, this cable ends up sticking out of the side of the display. That said, It’s a minor complaint. More computers need to include this feature. There’s also a component RCA and stereo audio input there too, but I’m not really looking forward to watching crappy old video signals on a beautiful 1920 x 1080 LCD, are you? On the other hand, God of War III looks mighty nice.

Overall, I’d say the TouchSmart 600 is a fine performer for watching and recording television programs, and there are numerous choices for how you get your digital content into the system. I wouldn’t say it’s an ideal living room system because of the relatively small screen size, for a bedroom or office, it’s perfect. And while the TouchSmart software itself may not be as refined as Windows Media Center for TV viewing, the hardware is quite capable, and it’s your choice which interface to use.

Over the next few days, I’ll be talking about my experiences with movies and streamed content, as well as music and audio on the system. Be sure to swing by again for more details. And if you’re really attentive, you’ve got a chance to win a TouchSmart 600 for yourself.

The Elan Smart Remote (model ESR-8020) features a pair of capacitive touch pads, which can be used to interact with any standard PC software. The remote has five modes: mouse, keyboard, joystick, presentation and handwriting recognition. While each pad appears to only sense a single finger press, the pair together can be used to produce Windows 7 multitouch gestures. Flip the remote over, and it’s a full-function AV remote for controlling Windows Media Center apps. Check out the video below to see the Elan Smart Remote in action.

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Elan plans on showing off the remote at the upcoming CES 2010 show in Las Vegas. No word on pricing or a release date yet.

Here’s a party that millions of pirates will surely be having: a Windows 7 torrenting party! As if giving out tips on how to download illegal stuff wasn’t enough, there’s some (unnecessary) f-bombs at the end of the clip, so watch out mom & dad.

Seriously though, have you or anyone you know actually set up a Windows 7 party? Was the food any good?

[via TechCrunch]

Amazingly enough, PC enthusiast Hackerman1 got his old 266 MHz Pentium II machine loaded up with Windows 7 Ultimate. The machine has a paltry 96MB of RAM, and a lowly 4MB graphic card, and it still managed to work. He tried dialing it down all the way to 64MB, but eventually ran out of memory. Sure, the Windows Experience Index is only 1.0 on this system, but isn’t that what you’ve come to expect from Windows anyhow?  At least with Windows 98 and Vista, that was the consensus.

Next up, Hackerman1 plans on dusting off his old 166MHz Pentium I machine and seeing if he can make the Windows 7 OS work on that one. However, I’m not easily impressed, so until he gets it running on an old IBM PCJr, I won’t be truly in awe.

[The Windows Club via Maximum PC]

That’s the new wallpaper; you can get the full version here. But the story doesn’t stop there;  build 7260 was also leaked yesterday, just a few hours after build 7232 came out.

No word on the difference between the two builds, but according to neowin, 7260 is an “RTM escrow build meaning vigorous testing will commence to ensure this is the final code unless there are show stopper bugs.” Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.

Although I have to ask, why is it that Win 7 has been leaked to high heavens, but I’ve only seen like 3 or 4 Snow Leopard leaks? Does that mean that Microsoft is less strict with their employees? I mean, the release dates for both systems are not that far from each other, so we can’t say that Snow Leopard is still in it’s early stages. Hmmm.

[via Maximum PC]

The netbook was able to provide decent performance, from normal web surfing while data was being transferred in the background, as well as opening 400 pictures in Bridge, and even editing in Photoshop CS3 despite the fact that the little guy only had a 1.6 Ghz Atom CPU, 1 Gb of RAM, and a couple of Hello Kitty stickers. Don’t believe me? See for yourself!

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You can skip to 5:40 for the Bridge and Photoshop action, but if you watch the start of the video you’ll see that the set-up isn’t perfect; HD and Flash HD streaming videos are basically reduced to slideshows. Can’t have everything I guess. But still, the fact that Windows 7 beta runs perfectly well on such weak specs is really good news. I’ll be bootcamping 7 for sure. Unless of course Snow Leopard is better. I think Apple should capitalize on this kind of free publicity and have a 10.6 beta version released, even if it’s just closed beta.

These links point to ISO images, so once you download them you have to burn them to a DVD or mount them using a virtualization app like DAEMON tools. Also, you’ll have to get a beta product key if you want to use Windows 7 past the 30-day limit. There are probably ways to get around that restriction without the key, but you’re on your own with that one. I’m not Google you know. I can’t just blurt out links to instructions on getting beta product keys.

[via Download Squad - pictures via Gizmodo and Lifehacker]