Sony has teamed up with New York graphic artist Maya Hayuk to create two visually spectacular limited edition VAIO notebooks. The VAIO Graphic Splash Editions come in two models, “Grow” (pictured above, which suggests plants and other green living things) and “Never Stop” (the space trippy one of the pair). Regardless of which laptop you wind up purchasing the VAIO will come with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and desktop wallpaper that matches the laptop’s cover artwork. As well $25 from the sale of each laptop will be donated to a charity called “Creativity Explored”, a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.

Both models come with a Blu-ray player, 4 GB of RAM, a 200GB HDD, 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 chip set, Nvidia GeForce 8400m GT graphics card, and a 15.4″ widescreen LCD. The price for either unit is $2,499.99 and they are available beginning next week from Sony.

Improved security for your computer is all the rage these days and NEC is out to impress you (and attain your patronage) by going the facial recognition route. The company has just announced plans to bring out two new laptop lines for the Japanese market that integrate NEC’s “Face Pass” technology to keep strangers out of your files.

The LaVie C and LaVie L series use the laptop’s 2.0 megapixel camera and its NeoFace software to recognize your mug when you try and log on to the machine. NeoFace can ascertain the physical differences between your face and someone else’s by measuring the distance from your eyes to specific features on your face.

Lenovo is going eco-friendly with its latest ThinkPad notebook computer. The new ThinkPad T61p is also sporting some other impressive features, making it perhaps worth the $1,814 starting price tag.

The ThinkPad T61p sports a 15.4-inch display and a top cover roll cage for durability. Inside you’ve got enhanced wireless capabilities, Nvidia Quadro FX 57OM graphics certified to the open GL graphics GPU standard, an Intel Centrino Pro processor, extended battery life, Linux certification and a quieter cooling system.

According to the Notebook Italia website Dell is about to unveil a new series of Inspiron and a new model laptop called a Vostro. The Vostro selection will appear initially as two models, the 1500 (with a 15.4-inch display) and the 1700 (17-inch screen) with the latter unit coming out in July.

The Vostro models will only use Intel processors while the Inspirons use either the Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion 64 X2 chips. Among the new Inspirons forthcoming are the 1520, …

Today Sony unveiled a new VAIO FZ series laptop which packs a Blu-Ray disc player along with a 15.4 inch widescreen display. This combination results in a lightweight multimedia notebook that can play movies in 1080 HD resolution as well as record and play back personal content on the Blu-Ray media.

Aside from the hi-def player, this new premium model of the VAIO FZ comes with a Centrino Duo processor, a built-in 802.11n wireless LAN and Windows Vista Home Premium. The laptop also has a built-in camera and microphone and support …

Everex Systems, a maker of PC’s and notebooks, along with Via Technologies, who also has the world’s first carbon free processor, have together unveiled the energy-efficient StepNote NC1500 notebook.

The StepNote NC1500 comes with a 15.4-inch wide-screen display, built-in wireless LAN, a DVD burner, and contains the Via C7-M processor from Via Technologies to provide ultra-low power consumption, advanced security features, and does all this at a performance of 1.5GHz using only 12W peak power.

According to the two companies, the StepNote NC1500′s utilization of Via’s Enhanced PowerSaver technology along with its …