People must like dropping their laptops, because laptop manufacturers continue to churn out ruggedized laptops, such as the ShieldPRO Tablet from NEC. This is one tough tablet: it can survive 3-foot drops onto concrete, -20C to 50C (-4F to 122F) temperatures, dust, sand, even being fully submerged in water. The ShieldPRO is encased in 48mm (1.89 inch) thick magnesium alloy, weighs 3.5kg (7.7 pounds), and is powered by a 1.2GHz Core Solo cpu. It comes with up to 2GB of memory and 60GB of hard disk space, 1024×768 12.1-inch screen, 8-hour battery life, and numerous ports. You can even order the ShieldPRO with Linux preinstalled, and/or a solid state disk for improved robustness. The ShieldPRO will be available for $2,600 in january in Japan. — Mike Payne
[via Engadget]