Gibson's rants might not be used in custody case

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A series of Mel Gibson's racist and sexist rants might not be used as evidence during an ongoing child custody dispute, an attorney for his ex-girlfriend told a judge Thursday.

The disclosure comes a week after Oksana Grigorieva's attorney, Daniel Horowitz, told the court that his client was dropping her claims that Gibson physically abused her. That stems from a case over the custody and care of their infant daughter.

Horowitz's comments came after Gibson attorney Stephen Kolodny complained that he had been trying to get access to the Russian musician's laptop for nearly a year to find out more about the recordings.

Horowitz noted that Grigorieva is no longer seeking a domestic violence restraining order against Gibson and the rants were more important to those allegations than any other aspects of the case.

The recordings, which were leaked to the celebrity website RadarOnline.com, included misogynistic statements about Grigorieva by the Oscar-winner and also several racial slurs. The tapes were reviewed by authorities who eventually charged Gibson with misdemeanor domestic violence battery such as Sony PCGA-BP1N battery, Sony PCGA-BP2NX battery, Sony PCGA-BP2NY battery, Sony PCGA-BP2R battery, Sony PCGA-BP2S battery, Sony PCGA-BP2T battery, Sony PCGA-BP2V battery, Sony PCGA-BP4V battery, Sony PCGA-BP71 battery, Sony VGP-BPL2 battery but have never been played in open court.

The "Braveheart" and "Lethal Weapon" star pleaded no contest to the battery charge and was placed on probation and ordered to undergo counseling.

"It should be noted that the sheriff's department did a thorough investigation of Ms. Grigorieva's laptop and turned over their findings to the district attorney, who concluded there was no evidence of any crime whatsoever by Ms. Grigorieva," her spokesman Stephen Jaffe said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon on Thursday agreed to halt the case for a month to give Horowitz a chance to appeal a ruling rejecting a motion by Grigorieva to disqualify the actor-director's attorneys from the case.

She based the disqualification request on the fact that she had consulted and met with one of Kolodny's partners before the current case was filed.

Gordon rejected her motion, saying Grigorieva waited too long to raise the issue. He said the case, which has been heard largely in closed sessions, had already spanned 65 hearings and he had issued more than 100 rulings. There were thousands of pages of pleadings in the case, and most of Gibson's filings were handled by Kolodny's firm, Gordon said.

In all, Gordon estimated attorneys have billed more than $1 million for the case so far.

Horowitz said he thought there were enough issues involved with Grigorieva's consultation with Kolodny's partner, Ronald Anteau, that the appeals court may consider reviewing the case.

Gordon agreed to a brief delay, but ordered a proceeding scheduled for June 23 to remain on calendar. The remaining issues, the judge said, relate to child support and specific custody arrangements.

A battery of questions about lithium ion

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PC components have grown more efficient, but then powerful graphics chips eat up the energy savings. Hard drives with moving parts are gradually handing over tasks to flash memory, but then faster Wi-Fi chips cause the battery meter to plunge.

After years of addressing the demand to lower power consumption in notebooks, it's time to point fingers at the supply: the lithium ion battery such as Hp pavilion dv6000 battery(Hp dv6000 battery), Hp Pavilion dv8000 battery(Hp dv8000 battery), Hp HSTNN-DB20 battery, Hp 395789-001 battery, Hp 396008-001 battery, Hp Pavilion dv9000 battery(Hp dv9000 battery), Hp EV087AA battery.

Manufacturers have been pushing lithium ion to its limits in recent years. The result of that push has included slightly longer battery charges--and safety disasters, such as the massive recall of Sony batteries in 2006.

"Some of the problems you see in the industry are (partly from) the need to over-engineer the system and having huge cost pressure," said Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power, a battery developer.

Lithium ion technology was considered a fantastic solution when it was introduced commercially in the early 1990s. But there's no more room for improvement without pushing the envelope of cost and safety, Lampe-Onnerud said.

New materials

As a result, battery manufacturers have been experimenting with new materials, which could offer major breakthroughs--and lead to the unintended consequence of making life a little more difficult for notebook vendors.

For example, Panasonic, one of the three major battery vendors along with Sanyo and Sony, has developed a new battery cell that can hold more of a charge than the standard cell. (A standard lithium ion battery holds six cells.)

Panasonic doesn't discuss the materials being used to build that cell, but it is one of many companies investigating the use of metals other than lithium, such as nickel and manganese, on the cathode of the battery, said Andy Keaths, power sources enabling manager at Intel.

CEO, Boston Power Right now, Panasonic is using those new cells in batteries only for its own notebooks. But one day, it could license that technology to other manufacturers, which might also come up with their own new materials for both the cathode and anode of a battery. Intel is also looking at alternative metals and power sources over time, with investments in companies such as Zinc Matrix Power.

Those alternative metals present problems of their own, however, because they can require slightly different charging voltages and can add cost to the battery, said John Wozniak, who holds the title of distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard's notebook engineering group. It can also take awhile to introduce new, unproven materials.

"Right now, when I see road maps that say we're going to have this capacity at this time, I plan for something like six months after that," Wozniak said.

Working with what's there

Barry Huret, president of battery consulting firm Huret Associates, isn't quite so pessimistic about the future of lithium ion battery technology.

"They just have to get what they are using under the best control," he said.

In that vein, instead of focusing on extending battery life, Boston Power is working on designs that improve reliability, performance and safety of lithium ion technology. For example, the company wants to create a battery that doesn't lose its charge capacity over time, as opposed to current batteries that become more impotent as time passes.

This could be a big selling point for HP's enterprise customers, which currently buy three-year warranties on notebooks but are only entitled to one-year warranties on batteries, Wozniak said. If customers must live with small increases in battery life, perhaps they'll respond to other selling points when it comes to batteries.

"If I can't get all-day runtime, maybe I can do a fast charge at lunch," he said.

New HP laptop ready

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Hewlett-Packard next week will take the wraps off one of the smallest, lightest wireless-capable notebooks available.

But wireless-capable is all the OmniBook 500--to be unveiled at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas--will be for the time being. HP has decided not to include the necessary antenna inside the box, according to sources close to the PC maker.

The decision to ship without the component demonstrates the difficulties PC companies face in embracing emerging technologies. To fully offer wireless networking, the company would have had to make compromises that could limit the modem's functionality. That, said sources familiar with the decision, was not an acceptable trade-off.

Even without wireless networking, the OmniBook has much to offer. At 1 inch thick and about the size of a hardcover book, the new portable will go head-to-head with other ultralight models, such as IBM's ThinkPad X series or the Armada M300 from Compaq Computer.

Features include a 12.1-inch display, battery life up to 10 hours when using the multimedia expansion base, two USB slots, integrated 56K modem and network adapter. HP has not finalized pricing, but sources said the entry-level 500-MHz Celeron model, without expansion base, is expected to be around $1,900.

A top-of-the-line 700-MHz Pentium III model is expected to sell for around $3,500. The expansion base, which adds room for a DVD drive, extra battery such as Hp pavilion dv6000 battery(Hp dv6000 battery), Hp Pavilion dv8000 battery(Hp dv8000 battery), Hp HSTNN-DB20 battery, Hp 395789-001 battery, Hp 396008-001 battery, Hp Pavilion dv9000 battery(Hp dv9000 battery), Hp EV087AA battery and other niceties, is tentatively priced around $240. But HP expects to offer the component in the base price of some models.

The OmniBook 500 weighs 3.4 pounds without the expansion base and just over 6 pounds with the attachment.

To accommodate businesses using larger OmniBook 6000 portables, the new notebook uses the same accessories, such as CD-RW, DVD and Zip drives, memory chips and power adapters. In a new move for HP, the OmniBook 500 sheds legacy parallel and serial connectors in favor of two USB ports.

Gateway took a similar approach to the Solo 1150, its low-end notebook.

While HP has left room inside the unit for a wireless antenna, the company does not plan to offer the feature until at least the first quarter of next year, said sources close to the company.

HP Promises Faster Charging Notebook Battery

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In the last few years we have seen notebooks get smaller and more powerful, but there has been little change in the batteries that power them.

Now HP has partnered with battery innovation startup Boston-Power to offer the latter’s faster charging, lower degrade lithium-ion battery cells as an upgrade option to HP customers in early 2009. The cells charge faster than current Li-ion batteries, and don’t lose capacity over time, Boston-Power claims.

"The value proposition that we offer is a product that shows four to five times the run time of any other Li-ion battery in the industry," says Christina Lampe-Önnerud, founder and CEO of Boston-Power. "It doesn’t fade and you can have it for three years instead of the six months that batteries today start fading at."

Boston-Power’s battery such as Hp Pavilion dv9000 battery, Hp EV087AA battery, Hp EX942AA battery, Hp Pavilion ZT3000 battery, Hp 337607-001 battery, Hp 337607-003 battery, Hp dg103a battery, Hp 336962-001 battery, Hp 398876-001 battery, Hp PB992A battery, Hp PB994A battery, Hp PB991A battery, called Sonata, charges up to 80% in 30 minutes compared to the nearly two hours current laptop batteries take to get to that level.

Better batteries could also help major PC manufacturers avoid some of the battery-related fires and recall issues they have faced in the last few months.

Two months ago, reports of batteries overheating prompted Sony to recall thousands of batteries it had manufactured. The move affected HP, Dell and Toshiba among others.

Boston-Power’s battery technology prevents those overheating problems, says company’s CEO Lampe-Önnerud.

"If the notebook feeds wrong voltage, our cell detects that within four to six minutes and just shuts down at 60 or 70 degrees," she says. "With current technology batteries will take about 20 minutes to detect the wrong voltage and reach temperatures over 100 degrees centigrade."

With Boston-Power’s batteries, HP says it will offer a three-year warranty for the product, or what it claims will be the longest battery warranty available today.

The Sonata batteries can be used with existing notebook computers, says HP. HP customers with "compatible" PCs can replace their existing batteries with the Sonata or use it is a backup.

Boston-Power and HP did not disclose how much the Sonata battery upgrade will cost customers.

New HP Notebook Is Hearty Helping of Fast and Cheap

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There’s so much to like in HP’s new Pavilion dm3 that it’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps with the looks: The aluminum and magnesium case looks cool, totally modern, and though it’s got some plastic components (most notably the underside), it feels quite durable. The Mac-style keyboard is spacious and comfortable, even though the unit’s got a 13.3-inch screen to keep things portable and svelte.

But looks aren’t everything. Outfitted with a poky 1.3-GHz Core 2 Duo microchip, the dm3 doesn’t win any benchmark contests, but performance is at least acceptable, somewhat bogged down only by HP’s add-on dock software that does nothing but get in the way. The machine could use more than the 2 GB of RAM it includes, but the 500-GB hard drive is generous and the screen quality (1366 x 768 pixel resolution) is good.

But the dm3 really earns its stripes with top-notch life of the battery such as Hp Pavilion dv9000 battery, Hp EV087AA battery, Hp EX942AA battery, Hp Pavilion ZT3000 battery, Hp 337607-001 battery, Hp 337607-003 battery, Hp dg103a battery, Hp 336962-001 battery, Hp 398876-001 battery, Hp PB992A battery, Hp PB994A battery, Hp PB991A battery. With well over five hours of running time under load, it runs circles around other machines in this class — and all without the eyesore of a mammoth battery pack jutting from the bottom or out the back of the laptop.

If there’s one serious failure on this notebook it’s the touchpad. While the multitouch features are appreciated, the material the pad is made from is decidedly not. Under the fingers of this reviewer, the glasslike pad exhibited a strong, tacky grip, causing fingertips to stick to it under even the lightest of pressure. It’s not just hard to use this touchpad accurately; it’s actually painful, as your fingers experience massively increased friction from the surface.

But all is not lost — especially for the cash-strapped. The price is just $815 as configured, so you’ll have plenty of cash left over to afford a killer external mouse.

WIRED Slim, stylish and sturdy. Outstanding keyboard. Four USB ports (plus HDMI and an SD card slot) is a rarity in a machine this portable. Battery is graced with amazing life.

TIRED Awful, awful touchpad (it’s an ongoing problem with HP Pavilion notebooks.) At 4.2 pounds, heavy for this category. Careful you don’t step in the shovelware.

HP laptops to sport long-lasting 'Enviro' batteries

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Hewlett-Packard early next year will begin offering a new line of "Enviro" batteries for laptop users who want to upgrade to longer-lasting and more sustainably designed batteries.

HP and Boston Power have been testing the Sonata lithium-ion batteries for three years. The batteries were designed specifically for laptop use. After three years of use, the batteries will be able to keep 80 percent of their initial charge.

Laptop battery time typically starts to drop significantly after 150 or so charges, or cycles. Boston Power says that its batteries can be charged 1,000 times and get "like new" performance.

An HP representative on Tuesday said that the Sonata batteries will cost between $20 and $30 more than traditional batteries and will be available on some consumer laptop machines. There will be a three-year warranty, and no system changes are required.

The Enviro batteries are marketed as more environmentally friendly for a number of reasons, according to Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power.

The company chose not to use any PVC plastic or heavy metals--cadmium, arsenic, or mercury--in the manufacturing process. The batteries can also be recycled, said Lampe-Onnerud, adding that the battery has received a number of "green" certifications.

More simply, Lampe-Onnerud argued that purchasing one product that lasts for at least three years, rather than buying multiple batteries such as Hp CGR-B1870AE battery, Hp Pavilion ZD7000 battery, Hp PP2182D battery, Hp 338794-001 battery, Hp PP2182L battery, Hp 345027-001 battery, Hp 342661-001 battery, pb995a, Hp pavilion dv6000 battery (Hp dv6000 battery), is more environmentally sustainable and economical.

"Our tests found that 40 percent of consumers over three years have replaced laptop batteries up to five times. If each is $150, that's almost the cost of the whole system," she said. "I think this will change the appetite for sustainable products. Instead of purchasing something expendable, they can have something that lasts."

Boston Power is in discussions with other computer manufacturers, she added without disclosing any names.

The company also plans to release a portable lithium-ion battery for adding charge to cell phones or other gadgets and intends to enter the auto battery market, Lampe-Onnerud said.

Managing black screens on laptops

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Every now and then, people report that their MacBook or MacBook Pro's screen has turned blank. Sometimes this happens in the middle of working, but other times when the screen will not turn on after a restart or when waking from sleep. There are several reasons as to why this can happen, some of which are software-related, and others that have to do with the hardware.

Software issues

The display going out could be a matter of a software configuration problem, either with the display drivers or with one of the active processes that interacts with them, such as the window server. There are a few ways you can overcome this. The first is to change the display configuration by either plugging in or unplugging an external monitor. This will cause the drivers to refresh the display output and desktop configuration; hopefully, this will reset the error. The second way is to try sleeping the system again by closing the lid and opening it. When you close the lid, you should see the battery such as Hp CGR-B1870AE battery, Hp Pavilion ZD7000 battery, Hp PP2182D battery, Hp 338794-001 battery, Hp PP2182L battery, Hp 345027-001 battery, Hp 342661-001 battery, pb995a, Hp pavilion dv6000 battery (Hp dv6000 battery) and sleep indicator lights (green and white, respectively) turn on.

You can also use a key sequence to force the display to sleep and reset, which, hopefull, will force the display to reset properly and turn on. To do this, press and hold the Control and Shift keys, followed by the Eject key.

Lastly, if the display will not work even after rebooting, try loading into Safe Mode, especially if the display turns off after properly showing an initial gray screen. If safe mode works, you will need to troubleshoot the software setup by first uninstalling any recently installed drivers or utilities, and then by creating a new user account for testing purposes, since sometimes display problems can happen from an account-specific configuration problem. This will tell you if the problem is account-related or has to do with more global resources. If the problem persists in a new account, the next best step would be to boot off your Mac OS X installation DVD to see if the display works under a completely bare and fresh installation.

If the installation DVD works, then you will need to reinstall your OS by first reapplying the latest "Combo" update for your version of OS X (this is best applied when in Safe Mode), and then by run the installer from your OS X DVD and ensure that you have "Archive and Install" selected with the option to save user accounts and data (this is done by default in Snow Leopard).

If the display problems occur when booting from the installation DVD, it is likely you are suffering from a hardware malfunction and will need to troubleshoot the hardware setup.

Hardware issue

Hardware issues that can affect the display output include firmware settings as well as the display hardware and controllers themselves. Many people have tried to reset the PRAM when they have issues such as the screen being blank when the computer is woken from sleep; however, many display settings are stored in the System Management Controller. Therefore, in addition to resetting the PRAM you may benefit from resetting the SMC on your machine. On most MacBooks you can do this by removing the power and battery, and pressing the power button for 15 seconds, but some models vary so look up how to do this for your particular machine.

Beyond firmware settings, you may have a problem with the display inverter or LED driver board, which is what runs the backlight on LDC displays. When this happens, the display should still be working, but will not be easily visible because of the lack of lighting. You can test this by shining a flashlight on the display at different angles, or preferably through the Apple logo on the back of the display. If you see graphics showing on the display, then your backlight is not working. If a restart or SMC/PRAM reset do not help, you will need to take the computer in for servicing.

Lastly, if you have recently had the computer serviced (especially if done by yourself), some of the display-related circuits may have been improperly connected or insulated upon assembly. Apple has foam and plastic insulation around circuits and connectors that can be shorted out by touching other components, so if you forget to put these back on when assembling the system, you can easily cause a component like the inverter to fail. Luckily this usually can be fixed by replacing the insulation, but you will need to have it serviced again to fix.

Small-scale solar power comes to electronics

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If you're sick of buying those alkaline batteries and tossing them every couple months, you can get rechargeables and juice them up in a green way.

The low-end solar chargers do the job but take several hours in the sun to charge up a few batteries such as Hp pavillion zx5000 battery(Hp zx5000 battery), Hp PP2200 battery, Hp Pavilion dv2000 battery(Hp dv2000 battery), Hp Pavilion dv2700 battery, Hp HSTNN-LB31 battery, Hp EV088AA battery, Hp 417066-001 battery, Hp F4486B battery. That's OK, if you have plenty of spare batteries and time.

But I was eager to get something a little more powerful, so I could get rechargeables filled up within a few hours. And, I figured that a larger panel could also power up my phone, and maybe portable DVD player.

I wasn't able to find a whole lot of products that fit this requirement. But if you're willing to pay somewhere between $100 and $300, you have options. You can either buy a single charger for batteries and gadgets, or you could buy a small panel with the right cables to do the job.

Choices among the panels themselves are growing as well. Most panels are made from silicon and often have that cobalt blue look.

But the emergence of flexible thin-film solar cells are a great option for portable applications, although you'll pay more per watt for the convenience.

There are rollable or foldable panels sold under the PowerFilm or Sunlinq brand names that let you pack up a panel into a small package. They range from 5 watts, which would be good for batteries and gadgets, up to 25 watts, which could even be used to power a laptop.

Laptops: Wondering whether I could find a simple way to power my laptop took a sizable chunk of my holiday vacation time and, in the end, I didn't get what I wanted.

The problem with laptops is that, unlike music players, newer models consume more and more energy, according to Ed Bender, the president of Sundance Solar, which sells solar goods for portable applications or educational purposes.

"Laptops are tricky," he said. "In general, electronics power usage is going down. That's not true of laptops. People are getting bigger monitors, like with the new Macs, especially if they use them to play DVDs."

Sundance used to recommend that people buy a 10- or 20-watt panel and a cord (in the style of a car adapter) to plug into their laptop. But for many applications, that approach simply doesn't produce enough electricity, Bender said.

Instead, you need a panel and a back-up battery that your laptop plugs into.

Global Solar, which makes the Sunlinq foldable solar panels for military and mobile applications, lays out different options (click here for PDF), which includes an $89 Xantrex small back-up battery or a smaller lithium polymer battery from Tekkeon.

I priced out a setup with a relatively small 12-watt foldable panel, the Tekkeon MyPower All battery. Add a necessary cable, and it was about $350. A larger 25-watt foldable panel adds about $200 more to the setup.

If you were serious about having a solar-powered laptop, a larger panel makes sense, says Sundance Solar's Bender who said his company equipped a team of people who went to Antarctica using a 40-watt rigid panel, which costs about $300, to power their computers.

And now I'm eagerly awaiting NRG Dock's laptop charger. Wattenmaker said it can charge in an hour and provide several hours of laptop time. The price will be about $800 before rebates, he says.

So, in short, solar-powered laptops are doable but you're going to pay for the portability (or the fun of your science experiment).

For gadgets and batteries, though, affordable pocket-size solar power is already here.

Troubleshoot notebook hardware disasters

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On Saturday afternoon, my Hewlett-Packard notebook computer was working fine. On Sunday morning, the machine wouldn't start. The power would blink on and go off just as quickly.

If I held the power button in the on position, I could keep the power indicator and other of the machine's LEDs lit, but nothing would happen: no power-on self-test, no BIOS message, and definitely no Windows.

My first thought was that it was a power glitch. I unplugged the machine and tried starting it on battery power such as Hp pavillion zx5000 battery(Hp zx5000 battery), Hp PP2200 battery, Hp Pavilion dv2000 battery(Hp dv2000 battery), Hp Pavilion dv2700 battery, Hp HSTNN-LB31 battery, Hp EV088AA battery, Hp 417066-001 battery, Hp F4486B battery, but no go. I removed the battery and tried using just AC power, but that didn't help. I replaced the battery and tried again. Still nothing.

Next on my list of suspects was a bad memory module. The machine was only 18 months old, but it has been on a couple dozen road trips already, so it has been jostled and exposed to temperature changes quite a bit. Installing a new memory module had no effect.

I turned my attention to the hard drive. I was unable to boot from my system CD, nor from a Windows installation DVD. I went so far as to order a replacement drive, but unfortunately, the notebook remained inert, even with a new drive in place.

I wasn't quite ready to accept the fact that this machine was toast, though that conclusion was becoming more and more difficult to deny. I took the laptop to my local PC repair shop--definitely a last resort for me. The repair person disassembled the machine and concluded that the system board was fried.

It doesn't help to learn that HP tablets are prone to motherboard failures. My machine is well out of warranty, and at 18 months old it's probably not worth spending $350 for a new system board. I travel quite a bit for my job, so I rely on my notebook. That's why I bit the bullet and bought a new machine (a Sony).

What bugs me more than seeing a year-and-a-half old laptop turn into a doorstop is how difficult notebooks have become to repair. In fact, I'm beginning to think of the machines as closed-box systems. In the past, I've replaced several notebook hard drives, memory modules, and other components, but troubleshooting this HP tablet was a real challenge.

Ultimately, I needed the assistance of a PC professional to diagnose the problem. That doesn't mean you should throw in the towel when you experience technical difficulties with your laptop, though.

You'll find a great notebook-troubleshooting guide on the Developer Shed site. The InformIT site has a useful section on troubleshooting portable PCs. Finally, there's a tremendous amount of technical detail on laptop problems in this excerpt from the Laptop Repair Workbook by Morris Rosenthal.

I just hope your search for a solution to your notebook woes has a better outcome than mine did.