Jerry Shen, CEO of ASUS, noted recently that his company would release an Eee PC priced at US$200 in 2009. He also noted to a group of analysts that the 7- and 8.9 inch Eee PCs would be discontinued to make room for the 10-inch model. Shen did not clarify as to whether or not that meant the 10-inch Eee PC would be $200. He also gave the group some figures, noting that 70% of all Eee PCs now come loaded with Windows XP and hard disk drives compared to 30% that come loaded with Linux and SSDs.

Toshiba is whetting our gadget appetites with this sleek VARDIA hybrid HD DVD / HDD recorder in Japan. The 600GB RD-A600 and 300GB RD-A300 feature a pair of digital hi-vision HD tuners, Firewire, and HDMI and can write to HD DVD-R and DVD-RAM/R/RW media in addition to their respective hard disks. In fact, the HDD is the only point of divergence between the models. They’ll cost as much as $1,643 for the RD-A600 model when these start shipping later in the year.

Don’t count on a definite date though. Toshiba just released a HD-A2 HD DVD for $199 (after rebate), but their inventory is at zero, while Crutchfield had to increase the price by $100 as backlog orders come pouring in.
source: Impress

That’s right, Google’s YouTube is coming to Steve’s little AppleTV "hobby" as he described it during his gig at D. The little treat Steve left out at the show is a new build-to-order 160GB disk; 4x the original capacity offered by Apple at launch. Of course both of these hacks were already available for you DIYers. Still, it’s always good to get it via official channels, eh? The new AppleTV with beefier hard disk will be available tomorrow for $399 while the free YouTube update will be available in mid-June.

No, the laptop industry hasn’t bypassed the idea of quad-core laptops in favor of octo-core machines, since NextComputing’s 8-core flextops are machines you wouldn’t want anywhere near your lap. Based as they are around the Intel Xeon 5300 processor, the NextDimension Pro and Evo can take advantage of the relatively low power requirements of 100W for two quad-core CPUs (down from 160 Watts for its power hungrier desktop equivalent). For a sense of just how expandable the NextDimension machines are, consider that they can hold up to twelve 160GB 2.5-inch 7200RPM hard disk drives. They also manage to pack in four PCI / PCI-e slots in the Evo model, and Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, and support for 24GB of memory through four DMA channels on both models. These 20-pound desktop machines with a handle will be shown off at Interop Las Vegas later this month, but beyond that we’re not sure when or for how much you’ll be able to lug one away.