LG heads to Las Vegas with a 980 gram laptop

LG Electronics is expanding its line-up of Windows PCs with a number of new products, including the 13Z940 Ultra PC laptop, which has a 13.3-inch full HD screen and weighs 980 grams.

The laptop along with the Tab-Book 2 family and an all-in-one PC will be on display at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas between Jan. 7 and 10.

The 13Z940 is powered by a Haswell-based Core i5 processor and has up to 256GB of SSD storage. The laptop is 13.6 millimeters at its thickest point and the screen has a 4.4 millimeter bezel. It also has what LG calls a reader mode, allowing users to "alter the background of any on-screen image to resemble paper, reducing eye-strain and energy consumption," the company said.

IDG News Service - LG Electronics is expanding its line-up of Windows PCs with a number of new products, including the 13Z940 Ultra PC laptop, which has a 13.3-inch full HD screen and weighs 980 grams.

The laptop along with the Tab-Book 2 family and an all-in-one PC will be on display at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas between Jan. 7 and 10.

The 13Z940 is powered by a Haswell-based Core i5 processor and has up to 256GB of SSD storage. The laptop is 13.6 millimeters at its thickest point and the screen has a 4.4 millimeter bezel. It also has what LG calls a reader mode, allowing users to "alter the background of any on-screen image to resemble paper, reducing eye-strain and energy consumption," the company said.

The two new Tab-Book 2 models have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard hidden under an 11.6-inch touchscreen. The 11T740 flagship model is also powered Core i5 Haswell processor. It has a full HD display and weighs 1.05 kilograms. The simpler 11T540 is a bit lighter at 930 grams, but it remains to be seen what LG has done to the hardware specification to get there.

The new all-in-one PC has a 27-inch full HD screen and a GeForce GT 740M graphics card from Nvidia. LG hopes consumers will use the unit as both a computer and a TV. Users can switch from computer to TV mode using the included remote without having to reboot the PC, according to LG.

LG didn't offer any details on the pricing or when the new products will become available, but that will likely be announced at CES. Other products LG has said it will show in Las Vegas include an all-in-one PC running Google's Chrome OS and a curved 105-inch 4K TV with a 21:9 aspect ratio, which makes it wider than traditional widescreen TVs.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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US judge dismisses challenge to border laptop searches

U.S. Customs and Border Protection can search travelers' laptops and other electronic devices without a show of reasonable suspicion, according to a federal judge's dismissal of a 2010 lawsuit on Tuesday.

In its suit, the American Civil Liberties Union had argued that having border officials search the contents of a laptop violated the U.S Constitution unless the officials had a reasonable suspicion that the contents related to a crime. Judge Edward Korman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, disagreed and threw out the suit. The ACLU said an appeal is being considered.

"We're disappointed in today's decision, which allows the government to conduct intrusive searches of Americans' laptops and other electronics at the border without any suspicion that those devices contain evidence of wrongdoing," ACLU attorney Catherine Crump said in a press release from the organization. Crump argued the case in 2011.

IDG News Service - U.S. Customs and Border Protection can search travelers' laptops and other electronic devices without a show of reasonable suspicion, according to a federal judge's dismissal of a 2010 lawsuit on Tuesday.

In its suit, the American Civil Liberties Union had argued that having border officials search the contents of a laptop violated the U.S Constitution unless the officials had a reasonable suspicion that the contents related to a crime. Judge Edward Korman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, disagreed and threw out the suit. The ACLU said an appeal is being considered.

"We're disappointed in today's decision, which allows the government to conduct intrusive searches of Americans' laptops and other electronics at the border without any suspicion that those devices contain evidence of wrongdoing," ACLU attorney Catherine Crump said in a press release from the organization. Crump argued the case in 2011.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the suit on behalf of Pascal Abidor, a student with dual French and U.S. citizenship, and of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Press Photographers Association. In 2010, customs officials confiscated Abidor's laptop as he entered the country from Canada on a train trip from Montreal to New York. They searched the computer while detaining Abidor for several hours, then released him without charges.

Abidor, who said he was studying the modern history of Shiites in Lebanon, had downloaded photos of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah on his computer. He let CBP conduct the search and provided his computer password. The government searched private material, including messages between Abidor and his girlfriend, and kept his data for further searches after giving back his laptop, the suit alleged.

Such searches are a particular concern for defense lawyers and journalists because they rely on the confidentiality of information to represent clients and to protect sources, the suit said.

In dismissing the suit, Judge Korman said CBP already has special procedures for those types of privileged content that require a show of suspicion. Border searches of electronic devices are rare, and many of them already are done with a show of reasonable suspicion, Judge Korman said.

"In sum, declaratory relief is not appropriate because it is unlikely that a member of the association plaintiffs will have his electronic device searched at the border, and it is far less likely that a forensic search would occur without reasonable suspicion," Korman wrote, according to a copy of the decision posted by the ACLU.

Though the suit had alleged 6,500 people's electronic devices were searched at U.S. borders between October 2008 and June 2010, that's out of 1.1 million people processed daily, according to CBP, the judge wrote. "Stated another way, there is less than a one in a million chance that a computer carried by an inbound international traveler will be detained," Korman wrote.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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