from Gizmodo by Matt Buchanan
While we sorta groaned at the Latitude XT's $2500 base-model pricetag along with everybody else (cause it's expensive!) we didn't piss and moan too much because we knew that the DuoSense technology making it the only input device on the market that combines a pressure-sensitive pen with multitouch into a single surface is new, hot shit. And that's never cheap. But Dell is a little touchy about the feedback, so they've publicly defended the price on their Direct2Dell blog, with a chart showing how much more awesome it is than other tablets and quips like "we are talking about cutting-edge technology here."
The sorta interesting claim about the price itself is that it's only "a slight premium to our competition (emphasis on the word 'slight')," which is based on the math its "non-standard features" only carry a 13 percent premium over the competition. If you're still not convinced it's worth it, they're going to be following it up with more posts explaining why you're wrong.
The problem is that however much it surpasses other tablets, when you come down to it, $2500 is still two-and-a-half grand, and that's just for the base model. You bump the processor to dual core, the RAM to 2GB and expand the hard drive to 80GB, you're talking closer to $3,000 for what's really the acceptable spec configuration. And that kind of money makes most consumers antsy, however fancy your wares. We know we'll be waiting for it to plunge to more plebian prices, though we do appreciate the tech inside, Dell. [Direct2Dell]
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There's a WiMAX shindig coming our way at CES next Monday courtesy of Intel, Sprint and Asus. From the sound of things it'll primarily be Sprint and Intel letting everyone know how very, very fast WiMAX is -- and how ahead of the curve we should know they are on deployment and chipsets -- but things will get a little extra interesting when the companies start showing off WiMAX "mobile solutions": actual devices that actually play around with the new wireless standard. Asus in particular will be one to watch, since it's showing the sequel to the Eee PC, bedecked in WiMAX garb. That's as much info as we have at this point, and we're guessing Asus won't be launching the new Eee PC in the coming months while the current model is still selling so well, but we're looking forward to a peek all the same.
[Via Notebook Italia]
Reports all over the world confirm the worst: the 
An iPod Touch developer has just created a SIP-based VoIP app (which works with Asterisk and other open source free and paid VoIP providers) that was ported from an older app called SvSIP. The upside is that iPod Touch users that have the pre-amped mic addon that plugs into the dock connector will be able to actually talk on their iPods. iPhone users won't need the addon to talk (obviously), and should be able to get in on this action soon as well. We'll update when we know more. [
Salt and pepper shaker collectors will be interested in this innovative way to dispense those table staples, looking a whole lot like nuts and bolts. They're actually constructed like a Slinky. Bend one of these bolts, and the gaps between its coils get wide enough to release your chosen seasoning. Good thing there's an "S" and a "P" inscribed on top, or we'd be totally screwed. The stainless steel variety is $55, or save some money on the black ones for around $40. [
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