Hewlett Packard's TouchPad Tablet Computer Receives a Reprieve

Agreeably surprised by consumers' rabid desire to own one of those TouchPad tablet computers they had earlier declared dead, HP executives recently announced plans to "produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand."

Fire-sale prices made a bestseller out of the HP TouchPad.

HP cut the price of the tablet from $399 and $499 to $99 the weekend following the company's announcement it was ending its tablet PC business on August 18. The move was part of HP's decision to give up its consumer business and focus instead on the enterprise market.

The fire sale created an online feeding frenzy, with consumers seeking to get their hands on one or more of those tablets set to become a piece of IT history or consumer electronics foible.

HP loses money with every TouchPad it sells. 

HP is set to lose money on every final-production-run TouchPad. HIS iSuppli's estimates it costs $318 to produce a 32GB version of the tablet computer.

I wonder why HP would want to have this "final run?" Is the company doing it just to spite Apple?

Hmm. There must be a business model somewhere here.

Source: Reuters Technology News

Cherry Mobile Introduces the Q70, the First Quad-SIM Mobile Phone in the Philippines

Dual and triple-SIM mobile phones are so 2010.

Cherry Mobile's introduction of the Q70, a quadruple SIM phone, has made this possible. 

That is four SIM cards in one mobile phone. No need to buy two or more handsets even for those who need to get in touch using four SIM cards. (If you're one of those people, I wonder what kind of social life you have.)

The company said the Cherry Mobile Q70 is the country's first Quad-SIM-Quad Standby handset that "enables consumers to utilize four different service providers which can be all active at any given time."

Samsung NC215: Samsung Combines Solar Energy with Portable Computing

The Sun might yet have saved the netbook from an impending tablet-driven euthanasia.

While some quarters have been trumpeting the netbook's so-called inevitable doom, along comes Samsung with the NC215 solar-powered netbook.

Loaded with a solar panel on its lid, the netbook can convert two hours of sunlight into an hour of netbook operation.