Samsung unveils the Series 7 Ultra, refreshes the Series 7 Chronos with a slimmer design

We’ve gotta hand it to Samsung: announcing new products before CES is a clever way of grabbing our undivided attention. With days to go before the show officially kicks off, the outfit’s already unveiled some new monitors, and put out teasers for at least three other items. Now the company’s PC division is getting a headstart as well: Samsung just added two notebooks to its high-performance Series 7 family of products. These include the Series 7 Ultra, a 13-inch Ultrabook, as well as a refreshed Series 7 Chronos with AMD graphics.

Starting with the Ultra (pictured above), this is the first Ultrabook in the Series 7 family, which emphasizes hearty performance more than other PCs in Samsung’s lineup. It’ll be available in two versions, one with a touchscreen and one without, but even then, you’ll find variants with different processors (Core i5 or i7) and different storage capacities (128GB or 256GB). Whichever configuration you choose, though, you’ll get a 350-nit, 1080p display, up to 16GB of RAM (!), a backlit keyboard, JBL speakers and a 1GB AMD HD8570M GPU. Other specs include three USB ports (two 2.0, one 3.0), HDMI, Ethernet, mini-VGA, a memory card reader and a battery rated for up to eight hours (we’re assuming that’s the non-touch model).

As for the new Series 7 Chronos, Samsung actually just teased it in a video earlier today. Based on that, we already knew the 15-inch version would be refreshed with AMD’s new AMD Radeon HD 8870M GPU, whose RAMaccelerator technology claims to increase browsing and general application speeds by up to 150 percent. At the same time, Samsung’s also given the chassis a makeover so that it’s now thinner than the last-gen model (0.82 inches thick versus 0.94). Other than that, it packs a 2.4GHz Intel Core i7 3635QM CPU, a 300-nit, 1080p display, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, an optional touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, JBL speakers and 11 hours of battery life (in theory, anyway).

Samsung hasn’t announced pricing or availability for either of these models.

Microsoft Windows 8 Launch

Event Started! 

After months of waiting, the launch of Windows 8 is imminent, and Microsoft is streaming its event in New York City. We’re there for any news, but if you want to see the whole thing yourself, you can watch on Microsoft’s site here. It’s just started, and we expect to see not only fanfare for the new touch-focused version of Windows but some new showcased apps. If you’re interested in the OS itself, it’s going to be generally available on Friday, October 26th.

In case you haven’t noticed, today is Windows 8 day! Microsoft is officially launching its newest operating system and it’s looking to make a bang as big as possible.

Not that we don’t already know quite a bit about Windows 8, but the software giant obviously wants to do this the right way – with a dedicated event in NYC, where we expect it to talk about some new details about the OS, as well as its key features which we already know. As far as devices go, we aren’t really sure if there’s going to be something new that will get unveiled, but there’s still a good chance that there will.

The event is scheduled to start at 11:15 AM EDT | 10:15 AM CDT | 08:15 AM PDT | 05:15 PM CET | 03:15 PM GMT | 06:15 Pm KSA / Beirut Time.

Apple announces ‘Special Event’ for October 23rd

Apple has just invited members of the press to attend a product launch on October 23rd, where we assume the long-rumored iPad mini will be unveiled. The event will go down merely weeks after Apple took the wraps off of the iPhone 5 (and strangely enough, the Foo Fighters played their last show for the foreseeable future).

It’s quite unlike Apple to throw two product parties in the fall, but if an entirely new iPad is being revealed, it may be a scenario that becomes more familiar in years to come. At this point, we’re left with far more questions than answers: will the iPad mini really ship with a Lightning port, while the Retina iPad — which was only introduced in March — continues to ship with the “old” Dock Connector? Will Apple really continue to refresh its two iPad products at different intervals? Will the (presumed) AT&T iPad mini actually include mobile hotspot functionality?

And while we’re at it, is Apple really going to throw a “one more thing” into the mix by bumping its 13-inch MacBook Pro into Retina territory? After all, tossing “little” into the invite could allude to a smaller iPad and an update to an already-small laptop. We’ll be there to bring you the blow-by-blow as it happens ( LIVE Blog on ECb ), so feel free to go ahead and take next Tuesday off.

Kiss Your Keyboard and Mouse Goodbye With: The Leap

Since Steven Spielberg expertly crafted it a decade ago, the world has been clamoring for a user interface similar to what was found in sci-fi thriller Minority Report. Even the inkling of flipping through applications and swiping screens in mid-air made geeks tingle all over, but aside from expertly developed hacks on the Xbox Kinect, nothing definitive seemed to break through and truly give the public that enticing functionality of the future.

That is, until now. After more than five years of development, a proprietary technology has emerged that synthesizes the shape and movement of the human hand to produce movement onto a computer. It’s called The Leap — and for an astonishingly low price of $70, you can begin to control a computer with nothing more than your hands, as early as next February.

“We really wanted to build a device that would actually be leaps and bounds better at doing a lot of things that most people want to do with their computers,” says Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald. “And in order to do that, you need to be able to track fingers, and you need to be able to do that at a deep, centimeter level.”

Mashable spoke with Buckwald about the journey his company took to develop The Leap and bring it to market, as well as an inside look on how it works and what we can expect come February.