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Exede: The satellite broadband service you've been waiting for?

ViaSat's Exede satellite broadband service has officially launched, with an entry-level package that starts at $50 a month and promises "feels-like-fiber" performance. Buried among the gadgets, superthin screen OLED TVs, and all the other products we saw at  CES  this year was something not terribly sexy-looking, but something that will potentially affect millions of people living in rural America. It's  Exede , a new satellite broadband service from ViaSat that just launched this week. Yes, you heard right,  satellite , those contraptions that orbit the earth, and until now a very sluggish way to receive Internet service (satellite has frequently been referred to as the Internet service of "last resort"). However, thanks to the launch of  ViaSat-1 , a next-generation satellite system that was launched in October of last year, satellite-based Internet service just got a lot more attractive, with ViaSat saying it will offer up to 12Mbps downstream a...

PCs take the lead at CES 2012: Laptops, desktops, and hardware

It's a rare  CES  for which most of the digital ink spilled is about computers and hardware, rather than giant televisions. But 2012 was just such a year, thanks to the never-ending drumbeat of Intel's ultrabook platform. Yes, ultrabooks again It seems like you couldn't walk more than a hundred steps across the velvety carpet of the CES show floor without running into a giant ULTRABOOK or WINDOWS 8 sign. The first official ultrabook-designated laptops (it's an Intel marketing term) arrived during the 2011 holiday season, but CES 2012 was a coming-out party for a host of new designs from nearly all manufacturers. Mooly Eden, the head of Intel's PC unit, shows off a concept ultrabook that has both a touch screen and keyboard at a press conference at CES. The laptops ranged from the diminutive (the  Acer Aspire S5 ) to the large and bold (the  HP Envy 14 Spectre ), and to the copycat (the MacBook-Air-alike  Dell XPS 13 ). And  14- and 15-inch models ,...

The hidden Samsung laptops of CES 2012

The Series 7 Gamer. No matter how much you prepare for a trade show like  CES , what you see on the floor never quite matches what news you get beforehand. In the case of Samsung, we had a chance to look at the new Samsung Series 9 and Series 5 Ultra ultrabook, but were surprised by quite a few intriguing laptops at Samsung's booth, which we should expect to see later this year. The Series 7 Gamer. The  Series 7 Gamer  is a big-boned, lights-and-flash gaming laptop, the antidote to ultrabooks. Units on the show floor came in bright yellow and red candy colors, and bright LED lights and strobing effects graced a number of the stylized controls. The Series 7 has a tuning wheel for game settings and a "gaming mode" button that transforms the system into an optimized gaming machine, complete with over-the-top sound effects. The LED-backlit keyboard changes color, too, highlighting the standard gaming keys in red. Samsung Series 7 Gamer laptop (photos) 1-2  of...