Alienware's flagship gaming laptop, the Area-51 m9750, has plenty of appeal for high-end gamers, but the alien head aesthetic seems dated, and newer components are right around the corner.

The rise and fall of muni-Fi (and rise again): Clearly, the largest story involving Wi-Fi in 2007 was the at-first continued growth in cities awarding contracts with no money involved on their part to have service providers build Wi-Fi networks--and the subsequent failure of these networks to be built. Starting quietly in late 2006, the market shifted for metro-scale Wi-Fi. During 2007, providers decided that bearing the full cost of a city-wide network without city contracts wasn't financially sensible.

The full scope of the low uptake rates in cities that had large portions of the network built out also became clear: rather than 15 to 35 percent of residents subscribing, just a few percentage points would put a network in the top tier. Revenue is apparently also pretty minimal even in cities like Taipei, Taiwan, the network provider for which was predicting 250,000 subscribers by the end of 2006, and had just 30,000 regular users each month at last public report in early 2007.

MetroFi started to tell cities that without an advance service commitment at a minimum level -- an anchor tenancy -- the company couldn't proceed on networks. In 2007, MetroFi lost half a dozen bids or saw contracts canceled due to this change. Its work in Portland, Ore., the biggest network it was building, won't be extended beyond current limited dimensions until additional capital or a city commitment is obtained; the city has said it won't commit to service fees, however.

Meanwhile, EarthLink lost its CEO Garry Betty in January due to cancer. A strong backer of new initiatives to change EarthLink's core business, his death was certainly one of the causes in a quick re-evaluation of the municipal wireless division. New CEO Rolla Huff pulled EarthLink out of new deals, suspended existing ones, laid off hundreds of employees while gutting the metro Wi-Fi division, and appears p