Gadgetory

it's laptop hunting season and the Chromebooks are coming I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update more Chromebooks are coming to a store near you Google's cheap laptops are tripling their store presence around the world and in the u.s. most of those stores are going to be Walmart's and staples walmart is selling the two hundred dollar acer c7 chromebook but before you get giddy about a two-hundred-dollar laptop remember you get what you pay for that easter model has poor battery life and a lousy touchpad staples will sell better models made by HP and Samsung but remember Chromebooks have the Chrome operating system so you can't just install any program on it it's good if you do most of your work online think of them as enhanced tablets connecting to a printer can also be a pain you might be better off with just a budget Windows laptop but if Chromebooks are coming to stores a Microsoft Surface RT tablet could be coming to your school Microsoft is targeting schools and universities by offering serious discounts on its surface RT tablet during the summer institutions can buy them for as low as 250 dollars with that detachable keyboard the retail price where the keyboard is normally six hundred dollars there's a new way to give your friend a birthday gift on Facebook Amazon birthday gift is an electronic gift card you send to a facebook friend but the twist is that you encourage your other Facebook friends to chip into the gift so you give a larger amount together friends can give one dollar or as much as 25 dollars and write a personal message for a limited time amazon even throws in three bucks as a bonus for all you eager blackberry fans out there that bought the new z10 touchscreen smartphone you better update that software blackberry just announced there's a critical security bug that needs fixing and if you don't download the latest 10.1 operating system a hacker could gain access to the phone eighteen t is testing out a new concept in new york it's called street charge it's installing these solar charging stations around new york city parks to lit passers-by plug in their mobile devices for a free recharge the stations have cords to plug in different the devices and it's completely solar-powered the batteries inside will hold several days worth of juice so it'll help recharge at night but this isn't a quick jolt of power a recharge takes the same amount of time as if you plugged it into your home outlet so you better grab a snack and plan to hang around for a bit the units will only be around for a few months in New York but 18t is testing this to see how often people use the station's or how much work is involved in taking care of them based on the test run you could see something similar coming to your town that's your tech news update you can find more details on these stories at cnet com / update from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey