Dell Studio XPS 14, 15 and 17 packing NVIDIA Optimus lunch for imminent launch?

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It would seem Dell's suffered another of its signature pre-release leaks, as the folks over atLogicbuy have a full trio of new laptops from Round Rock to tease us with. The three new Studio machines -- imaginatively titled the XPS 14, XPS 15, and XPS 17 -- are said to come with anodized aluminum shells and brushed aluminum palm rests, NVIDIA Optimus switchable graphics (up to the GeForce GTS 445M on the XPS 17) and options for Blu-ray drives, 16GB of RAM, and Core i7 CPUs. The accompanying pictures of each laptop are what leads us to believe Logicbuy has simply stumbled upon some prematurely published Dell pages, which in turn leads to the deduction that their proper launch can't be too far away. Sherlock Holmes, eat your stony heart out.

Samsung Galaxy Tab redesigned for KDDI, hitting Japan in late February as SMT-i9100

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Japan's KDDI is in the midst of its biannual hardware refresh and in among its new roster of phones is a familiar 7-inch slate device we're more familiar with as the Galaxy Tab. Samsung has stripped all branding (and 3G, boo!) from the SMT-i9100, while refashioning its exterior a little and letting KDDI throw in a bit of custom au-branded software aboard. Beyond the cosmetic changes, which include the capacitive buttons being aligned for landscape (rather than portrait) utilization, you're mostly looking at the same machine as the rest of the world, with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 512MB of RAM, MicroSD expandability, and a built-in webcam. The internal storage is quite a bit more frugal at 4GB, but you will get a handy docking cradle as a consolation prize, plus a mobile router that'll turn this into something very similar to Verizon's iPad plus MiFi offering in the US. All that said, KDDI won't have the i9100 on sale until February, by which time the Android tablet market could be somewhatbetter populated.

New Security Essentials update and more Microsoft news of the week

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This week was mostly all about Windows Phone 7. But there were a few other things happening in and around the Redmond campus. Among them:

New MSE and Forefront updates out this week: With all the Patch Tuesday madness (and Microsoft setting a new record with 49 vulnerabilities addressed), a couple of new security updates worth a separate call-out.

Those running the first version of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) —not the one that is currently in beta and due by year end — may have noticed an update pushed by Microsoft this week. “In addition to minor performance fixes (nothing noteworthy) and the inclusion of additional languages, this update includes the new EULA (end user license agreement) which allows small businesses to install Microsoft Security Essentials on up to 10 PCs,” a spokesperson said when I asked what was included.

Microsoft also delivered on October 12 its Forefront Client Security (FCS) Update1. FCS is Microsoft’s paid anti-malware client. Included in the update are a number of virus definition changes and other performance and reliability fixes. Microsoft is slated to deliver FCS’ successor, known as Forefront Endpoint Security, before the end of 2010.

New CTP available of Eclipse tools for Windows Azure: There’s a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test version of the Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse for PHP available for download this week. “This CTP update refines the new features we announced in the upcoming version 2, which should be ready next month,” according to a post on October 12 to the Microsoft Port 25 blog. The update enables one-click deployment of PHP Applications from Eclipse directly to Windows Azure; support for Windows Azure Diagnostics; the integration of theAppFabric SDK for PHP Developers and more. Now if Microsoft would just post the list of sessions for its cloud-focused PDC 2010 — which is less than two weeks away…

The real Old Spice guy (and not Steve Ballmer as Old Spice Guy) is stumping for Windows Phone 7: Around the time of Microsoft’s company meeting, a rumor/joke surfaced that Microsoft might have been working on a spoof of the “Old Spice Guy” viral videos, starring SteveB. Well, it turns out there’s no spoof. The real Isaiah Mustafa is going to be doing some WP7 spots (starting with Australia). No word on whether and when the Softies will be taking this campaign broader.

Motorola asks court to invalidate Apple patents, preempt another lawsuit

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The smartphone intellectual property wars are seriously heating up, as Motorola sided with HTC this week in an effort to cover its own rear. Remember those twenty patents Apple aimed at the Taiwanese OEM? Motorola says they're no good, and is trying to get them thrown out of court -- an important tactic, because if the patents do hold water and are successfully used against HTC, Apple might turn around and sue Motorola with them too. That's because there's more at stake here than OEM phones, but Android as a whole, and as such other manufacturers that implement Android might potentially be targets as well. Oh, and don't think this is Motorola's first salvo in the arena, either -- it's also suing Apple outright to get the point across, and is similarly being targeted by Microsoft for smartphone patents of its own. We're just two guns shy of a Mexican standoff, folks.

Limera1n and Greenpois0n iOS 4.1 jailbreaks now available for Mac, Linux

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We thought it was a wee bit ridiculous that Geohot's original iOS 4.1 jailbreak only worked on Windows, but that's a thing of the past now -- limera1n now supports Mac as well, and the Chronic Dev Team's greenpois0n variant can purportedly free your device from Apple shackles from any of OS X, Linux or Windows. Mind you, there's still no working carrier unlock for iOS 4.1, so be sure to back up your baseband and don't expect to be making calls on T-Mobile USA -- and remember kids, there are always risks to playing chicken with the Apple firmware train.