Dell has announced its new Latitude E5500 15.4-inch business laptop. The Dell Latitude E5500, which belongs to the new Latitude E Series, is based on the Intel Centrino 2 mobile platform. The E5500 comes with a Core 2 Duo CPU, the GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, up to 250GB of hard drive storage, and a DVD ROM, Combo drive, or DVD burner. The E5500 is configurable with a 1280×800 or 1440×900 widescreen display.

Communication features include various wireless options, including support for 802.11 draft-n WiFi standard. There are also Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, and 56k modem connections.

The Dell Latitude E5500 laptop sports an optional fingerprint reader, optional Smart Card reader via the PC Card slot, and the Trusted Platform Module 1.2.

The Dell Latitude E5500 weighs approximately 6.6 pounds with a 6-cell battery. Dell says an extended 9-cell unit provides up to 6 hours of Dell Latitude E5500 battery life.

The Latitude E5500 runs Windows Vista and price starts at $808.

Phoenix Technologies has announced it is working with Fujitsu to enable remote disk control and disk data protection for laptops equipped with Fujitsu’s new full disk encryption (FDE) 2.5″ 7,200rpm SATA hard disk drives.

With Phoenix FailSafe technology, the laptop owner can remotely disable the Fujitsu FDE drive in the laptop, thus ensuring “failsafe” protection against data theft and personal information loss.

Phoenix FailSafe also provides the ability to locate/recover missing laptops and lost data as well as remotely ‘kill’ sensitive data or the device to avoid potential misuse.