Acer has officially unveiled a new Aspire One netbook, the Happy. This dual-boot computer uses both Windows 7 and Android and has a pastel color palette that includes blue, green, pink and purple. The 10.1-inch, 1024×600 display is complemented by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom with 1GB of RAM.

A dual-core 1.5GHz Atom is optional, as well as 2GB of RAM with that CPU only. A 160GB hard drive is standard, and a 250GB unit is optional. There’s also a six-cell battery …

Storage breakthroughs are exploding all over the place and TDK has now introduced the new 1TB or 1000GB optical disk at CEATEC. The new 1TB disc has the same diameter as a standard Blu-ray disc, but has 16 layers, storing 32GB per side of each layer (32 layers each storing 32GB = 1TB).

TDK had already created a 200GB disk in 2006, but sadly it never entered the mass market. One day soon maybe we will be able to store 5TB on these discs.

Western Digital has introduced the My Passport Essential portable hard drive, My Passport Essential SE portable hard drive and My Book Essential external hard drive. These storage devices come in variety of storage capacities and deliver superfast USB 3.0 connectivity.

The My Passport Essential is the smallest with a 500GB storage capacity, while the My Passport Essential SE is available in 750GB and 1TB sizes. The My Book Essential ranges from 1TB up to 3TB. The My Passport Essential portable is $99.99, the My Passport Essential SE drives range from $129.99 to $169.99, and the My Book Essential drives are from $129.99 to $249.99.

The latest rumor regarding Acer says that Acer is planning to make dual OS netbooks a standard choice for all of its netbooks that have a dual-core processor. Google’s Android OS on the Aspire One D255 isn’t available to everyone, but it will become a standard feature in the future. There’s no reason not to offer it since the OS is cheap and can be easily added.

Android has been seen by notebook manufacturers as a way of providing a near-instant boot solution, though there were previously some issues getting the OS to work right since it wasn’t designed to support a mouse and supported ARM chipsets instead of Intel Atom chips.

Acer has been in the netbook business for years now. Sales of netbooks are slumping as tablets and full notebooks are doing better now that the worst of the economic slump is behinds us. Acer has announced the addition of a new netbook to its line.

The new machine is called the Aspire One AOD255. Acer will offer the machine with either an Atom N450 single-core CPU or a N550 dual-core CPU inside. The machines will both support DDR3 and get 1GB of memory standard. Storage for the machine is to a 250GB HDD.

Hitachi has unveiled a new family of HDDs that are aimed at use in mobile devices like netbooks and notebooks. The new drives have 750GB capacity and they will be offered in 5400-rpm and 7200-rpm versions. Each of the versions has the same platters inside.

Those new platters have 375GB per platter and allow the high capacity HDDs to fit into a standard 9.5mm form factor. The drives are also resistant to shock that mobile devices will encounter. The new drives are also the first from Hitachi to use Advanced Format with larger physical sector sizes to help use the storage area more efficiently.

Seems like just yesterday that an entire network attached storage box held just 3TB all told, but now Seagate boasts that capacity with a single five-platter drive, and so the NAS are getting larger as well. Seagate has added its 3TB drive to the 2- and 4-slot BlackArmor NAS boxes, taking capacity up to 12TB.

Both systems will come pre-populated with 3TB drives in each bay. The BlackArmor NAS 440 is configured with RAID 5 and ships with 10 backup software licenses right out-of-the-box, while the NAS 220 ships with RAID 1 configuration for automatic data mirroring and five backup software licenses.

Looks like we now have the first clear press shots of the HTC Mondrian smartphone, thanks to German site BestBoyz. The Windows Phone 7-powered device had previously only been seen in a Microsoft TV ad before now. The source of the images claims that the Mondrian will be available at a major German provider. Who knows which one.

Some early specs of the Mondrian, which also went by some other alias’ like Schubert and possibly HD7, include a 4.3-inch, 800×480 touchscreen, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a five-megapixel camera with 720p video recording capability and 8GB of built-in storage.

I really love these space saving all-in-ones, most look pretty stylish as well. And now Lenovo has introduced their latest all-in-one desktop PC, the IdeaPad B310 for the Russian market. It is powered by an Intel Core i3/i5 processor.

This machine packs in a 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 Full HD multitouch display, up to 4GB DDR3 RAM, up to 1TB hard drive, a webcam, DVD drive, a card reader, TV tuner and WiFi.

The desktop computer market has pretty much cooled off with most consumers looking to notebooks and netbooks for their computing needs today. The all in one computer is one of the most popular types of desktops and Gateway has announced a couple new AIO machines. The new AIOs include the Gateway One ZX4951 and ZX6951.

The two machines both share the same new design with a curved bottom that has lighting to make the keyboard glow in dark rooms. The main difference between the two is the 4951 has a 21.5-inch HD screen and the 6951 has a 23-inch screen. Both of the PCs can be fitted with Pentium or Core i3 processors.

Times are tough, so it’s nice when companies give you a break and help your dollar go further. Best Buy is doing just that with a new promotion that will involve sales of smartphones from each US carrier without having to pay a penny, each Friday in October.

The phones do come with the mandatory 2-year contract. It all kicks off on October 1st, with the first free phones on sale being the Samsung Fascinate from Verizon Wireless, the BlackBerry Curve from Sprint, the HTC Aria from AT&T, and the Samsung Gravity 3 from T-Mobile.

Kno has announced a single screen version of its tablet textbook for the education sector. The Kno is a learning platform that combines a touch-screen tablet, digital textbooks, course materials, note-taking, web access, educational applications, digital media, sharing and more into one powerful educational experience. It’s got everything.

Sort of a big-time leapfrog learning tool for big boys if you will. The company will release both the single and two-screen tablet textbooks by the end of 2010.

Lenovo’s latest ThinkPad Edge 11 is an ultraportable but it packs in the performance. It will ship with AMD’s single and dual-core Nile platform, and Intel’s Core i3/i5 processor options. Sadly Lenovo has no plans of releasing this one in the states.

So the X100e will still be the champion in the US, with the Edge 11 becoming its counterpart overseas. The AMD version is cheaper, with prices that start at $450, while the Intel-powered model is more about $550.

Here’s more great news for PS3 and Xbox 360 owners. Disney, Sony and Warner are close to testing a system that would give Internet access to movies before they’ve reached Blu-ray or DVD. Disney would be the most aggressive and would allow viewers watch movies on any web-connected device and possibly the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well. Disney would likely be cautious at first, trying one movie under the plan in an early 2011 trial.

We aren’t sure if Apple would be involved, but Steve Jobs sits on Disney’s board of directors. In Demand, a partnership between Comcast, Cox and Time Warner, said through CEO Bob Benya that the collective is in talks for a similar option through cable TV and maybe online.

Sony has upgraded PC lineup with some speed and option upgrades across some models. The VAIO E series gets most of the updates: options for the faster 2.66GHz Core i5 580M and 2.53GHz Core i5 460M, and a new 2GHz Pentium dual-core option for build-to-order models.

The EA and EB now have options for Mobility Radeon HD 5650 video and 1080p displays, while every E series gets purple as a color choice. The VAIO F gets a visual performance upgrade with the newer GeForce GT 425M and a single USB 3.0 port.