After the Switchblade concept at last year’s CES, we’re excited to see that Razer has another interesting device on the show floor at CES 2012.

However, the Atom-powered handheld Switchblade is yet to actually launch, so despite rumours that we may see this Project Fiona gaming tablet this year. we’d bet against it.

brightcove : 1387093883001

So here it is. To be honest it’s waaay more like an-old school Windows tablet than something thin and light. Weight must be an issue, and we’d certainly question if you’d want to carry it around.

It has interesting-looking Hydra controllers, though sadly we weren’t actually able to actually play with the touch tab – it was locked inside a glass case.

Specs include an Intel Core i7 processor and a 1,280 x 800 display, while there are also magnetometer and accelerometers too. Judging by the size of the unit and heat vent on the back of the unit, this is a full-blown laptop processor rather than the lower voltage variants found in thinner devices like Ultrabooks.

Graphics presumably comes courtesy of the Core chip itself and, although current-gen Cores aren’t DirectX11, the new Ivy Bridge series will be.

We like the prospect of being able to play full-blown PC games on the go, but wouldn’t you rather have a PS Vita for on-the go gaming? Or an iPad?

Pricing is rumoured to be around the £600 mark.

After the Switchblade concept at last year’s CES, we’re excited to see that Razer has another interesting device on the show floor at CES 2012.

However, the Atom-powered handheld Switchblade is yet to actually launch, so despite rumours that we may see this Project Fiona gaming tablet this year. we’d bet against it.

So here it is. To be honest it’s waaay more like an-old school Windows tablet than something thin and light. Weight must be an issue, and we’d certainly question if you’d want to carry it around.

It has interesting-looking Hydra controllers, though sadly we weren’t actually able to actually play with the touch tab – it was locked inside a glass case.

Specs include an Intel Core i7 processor and a 1,280 x 800 display, while there are also magnetometer and accelerometers too. Judging by the size of the unit and heat vent on the back of the unit, this is a full-blown laptop processor rather than the lower voltage variants found in thinner devices like Ultrabooks.

Graphics presumably comes courtesy of the Core chip itself and, although current-gen Cores aren’t DirectX11, the new Ivy Bridge series will be.

We like the prospect of being able to play full-blown PC games on the go, but wouldn’t you rather have a PS Vita for on-the go gaming? Or an iPad?

Pricing is rumoured to be around the £600 mark.

Acer has kicked off CES 2012 with the announcement that it has created the world’s thinnest laptop – the Acer Aspire S5 ultrabook.

The Acer Aspire S5 is only 15mm from its thickest point, is made of magnesium alloy and brushed metal and has a screen size of 13.3-inches.

Acer announced it at its press conference in Las Vegas, with TechRadar in attendance, explaining that the ultrabook can be ‘woken up’ in just 1.5 seconds and includes a number of interesting features, such as Acer Always Connect. This handy little service allows those who are using it to manage the data on their computer without having to take it out of sleep mode.

There is also a feature where you can turn the computer on from a smartphone and log into such things as your emails and social networks.

Thunderbolt and lightning

Like the laptop it rivals, the MacBook Air, the Acer Aspire S5 has been given Thunderbolt technology so you should be able to manage transfer speeds of up to 20Gbps.

There’s also USB 3.0 ports on board, an as-yet-unspecified Intel Core processor, SSD storage and audio functionality in the form of Dolby Home Theatre Audio.

When it comes to how well the battery works, Intel didn’t actually show off the technology but did note that it will be up to three times as powerful as batteries on similar specced machines.

As this is the first the world has heard of this new ultrabook, the Acer Aspire S5 UK release date is still unknown but expect it to be in shops by the summer.

CES 2012 is set to be the year ultrabooks hit the mainstream, with the CEA predicting at least 50 new models to be released at the show this year.

TechRadar is in Las Vegas for CES 2012, so expect to see our Hands on: Acer Aspire S5 review shortly.

Acer’s CEO JT Wang has told Dow Jones that the Taiwanese company is focused on higher end ultrabooks for 2012.

Acer has been battling it out in the laptop market with the likes of HP and Dell, but the market is tough at the moment for the manufacturer.

Wang believes that thinner lighter ultrabooks are key to a turnaround, with the CEO looking for a 10 per cent hike in laptop sales.

Strategy shift

“We will shift our strategy to improving profitability from pursuing market share blindly with cheap and unprofitable products,” Wang told Dow Jones.

“Ultrabooks will become our key growth driver next year as customers want a lighter, thinner notebook with longer battery life.

Selling more ultrabooks will also help improve our profit margins as they command higher prices.”

Ultrabooks use Intel’s chipsets, and are emerging as key competitors to the likes of Apple’s hugely popular MacBook Air.

Given Wang’s quotes, some may well be questioning if Acer will now look to move away from the lower end of the market, given that it is not providing the profit that the company is seeking.

How to track a stolen laptop

You don’t have to be overly careless to lose your laptop – it can happen to the best of us – but that doesn’t mean you should just accept the fact that you your beloved machine is gone forever.

With the open source package Prey, you can pull a fast one on the thief. You can keep an eye on the perp’s whereabouts and see how he or she is using your device – information that will come in handy when you’re reporting the theft to the authorities.

Prey works on several operating systems, including recent releases of Windows, Mac OS X, and even Linux distributions. It also works on Android devices, and the developers are working on an iPhone version. Best of all, it’s free for tracking up to three devices.

You control Prey via a web console, which covers all your devices. When one of them goes missing, you can mark it as such in the control panel from any computer, after which Prey will keep an eye out for it. As soon as it sees that the device is online, Prey will send you lots of information about the device, and more importantly, its location.

Set up a device

Prey can only track devices if you install it before they go missing. This isn’t a retroactive tool, sadly – you have to be organised. However, installing Prey is a walk in the park as long as you have administrative privileges under the OS you’re installing it on.

It’s a good idea to lock your Prey administrator account with a strong password, which will prevent the program from being removed from the system if a thief realises what it is. Prey runs in the background without the thief’s knowledge, so lure them with a Windows user account with no admin privileges and no password. As soon as they log in, they’re all yours!

Once it’s installed, Prey asks you to set up a reporting method. The reporting method controls how the tracking software communicates with the devices and reports back to you. The recommended method is to use Prey’s web-based control panel, which can be used from any machine. Before the control panel was developed, Prey could only run in standalone mode and required you to set up your own mail server – an awkward process.

Once that’s taken care of, you’ll need to set up a user account. The Prey setup process asks you for your name, email address and a password. It also picks up the name of the device and its type from the OS, which you can edit either in this screen, or later from Prey’s control panel.

For subsequent installations on other devices, select the option to link the device with your existing account. That’s all there is to it – you’re now ready to set up Prey’s behaviour.

Start by launching the Prey configuration tool, and selecting the ‘Manage Prey Settings’ option. This lets you enable a password-free guest user account under Windows to lure whoever is using your stolen device. You should also activate the ‘Wi-Fi auto-connection’ option which discreetly connects to the nearest open Wi-Fi hotspot and starts sending you reports.

After you’ve set up your device, you can configure its behaviour via Prey’s web-based control panel. The control panel is broken into various sections that control different aspects of the device.

Lay your trap

First, head to the ‘Configuration’ section, from which you can alter the name of the device, as well as its operating system. The default values in this section vary from machine to machine, and are the ones automatically detected by Prey.

Besides the configuration options, there’s the Hardware section, which gives you detailed information about the hardware on a particular device, including its serial number and that of its motherboard. If you have a feeling the thief has scavenged your machine for its hardware, you can perform a manual hardware scan via the configuration settings.

You can also ask Prey to notify you with an email when it detects any changes to the hardware of the device. This is especially useful for desktop computers in a public place like a cyber cafe or a public library. The chances of somebody making off with a desktop tower without anybody noticing are remote, but stealing a memory chip from a public desktop computer doesn’t take very much effort.

The various options under the ‘Main’ configuration section are separated into two groups. ‘Actions to perform’ lists actions Prey will take on your device. Although these actions will be performed irrespective of whether the device is marked as missing, it’s best to keep them turned off until the device is actually lost.

There are a couple of options to dissuade the thief. The first is the alarm option, which sounds a loud noise from your missing device to help you find it if it’s nearby. Then there’s the Alert Message option, which changes the wallpaper of the device and displays a warning that tells the thief the device is being tracked by Prey.

Lock your phone

If these don’t work to discourage the thief, you can use the Lock option to prevent the computer from being used until a password is entered. The best thing about this option is that you can activate it, set a password and lock the device with the password remotely after it has been stolen.

Alternatively, instead of locking the computer, you can let Prey discreetly gather information about the miscreant. As soon as the device is brought online, Prey can use nearby Wi-Fi access points to interpolate the location on your device and mark it on Google maps. Along with this, it gathers other network-related information like the public and private IP address of the network the device is connected to.

You can also ask Prey to run a trace-route (to www.google.com) from the missing machine through the thief’s router. If you’re interested, you can ask Prey to gather lots of information about the desktop session – a list of running apps, which files have been modified in a particular directory, along with a screenshot. Over time, you can build quite a repository of the sites that the swindler frequents, the apps they like to run regularly, and the files they have created on your machine.

Sooner or later you will also get a screenshot of them logging into their webmail account or some other website. While you won’t get their password, you’ll be able to clearly see their username, which you can use to contact them.

If your device has a built-in webcam (most laptops and netbooks do these days), Prey will also secretly take snapshots of whatever the webcam sees. It won’t take long before you catch the crook in front of your stolen device.

On some machines though, like my Lenovo netbook, there’s a small LED that lights up when the camera is on. If the crook sees this, they might cover the webcam.

You can set the interval after which Prey wakes up and collects the information you’ve asked for. In the free version, this can be between 10 minutes to 40 minutes. The Pro version lets you to create a persistent connection with the device.

Although you should still take every precaution to ensure you don’t lose your device, in case you do, you are now fully prepared to take on the perp who’s got it, and either force them to return your device or build a strong case for the authorities to act upon.

How to set up Prey on your devices

Prepare your phone and PC in case the worst happens

1. Download the software

The Prey anti-theft software is available for Linux, Windows, Mac and Android devices. Your first step is to download it from its website (or from the Android Market) and run the installer. This requires administrator privileges.

2. Register

When you’re installing Prey for the first time, you’ll be prompted to create a new user account. If you device to install Prey on other devices later on, you should select the option to register the new device with your existing user account.

3. On dual-boot

If you’re running Prey under multiple operating systems on the same machine, first register as an existing user. Next, copy the device key created by the first install, and replace the ‘device_key’ field in the config file under the second operating system.

4. Configure behaviour

With the device registered, you can log into the web-based control panel. Here, you can configure the device to perform particular actions and gather specific information if it goes missing. Follow the instructions for an explanation of the various options.

5. Activate Prey

When you lose a device, you should head to the control panel and mark it as missing. Prey will then gather information about the device based on your config file, and will send you reports at regular intervals (or instantly if you have a Pro account).

6. Prey on the thief

When reporting a missing device, you need to provide various identification features including its serial number and UUID. Thanks to Prey, you can also include screenshots, and the thief’s geo-location and increase your chances of getting it back.