Nov. 29, 2008 PR Newswire reports that PriceGrabber.Com has announced its "Black Friday" stats.
The top 10 categories were: Women's Boots, Watches, Blu-ray/HD-DVD Players, Women's Sleep & Lounge Wear, Games & Puzzles, Music, Headphones, Woemen's Dresses and Women's Casual Shoes.
The most popular products were: Nintendo Wii Console, Ugg Autrialia
"Classic Short" Boot, Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player, Samsung
LN52A650 52" LCD TV, Nintendo Wii Fit, Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42" Plasma
TV, Sennheiser HD 555 Headphones, Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR Digital
Camera Kit, Acer Aspire One AOA110-1295 computer, Canon
PowerShot A590 IS Black Digital Camera.
[On the one hand, this store is a general merchandiser, but on the
other hand, it is an Internet store, thus being accessed only by computer
users. I wonder about the significance of the Acer Aspire One sales. -- JO]
2008/11/30]
Nov. 24, 2008, Business Wire reports that EMG Technology, LLC has sued Apple
Inc. in the "District Court of the the Eastern District of Texas in the Tyler
Division" accusing Apple of infringing U.S. Patent No. 7,441,196 regarding the
way the iPhone navigates the Internet.
[2008/11/26]
Nov. 21, 2008, Business Wire reports that Samsung has announced that it
has begun production of 256GB solid state drives, and that the new drives
feature "sequential read reates of 220MB/s (megabytes per second) . . . [and]
sequential write rates of 200MB/s. . . . [and] erase cycles [of] 100GBs
per minute." [Pricing and availability were not provided in the announcement.
-- JO]
[2008/11/23]
Nov. 19, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Kingston Technology Company, Inc.
has announced that its DataTraveler(R) 150 (DT150) USB Flash drives are
available in 32GB and 64GB capacities. The feature 5 year warranties and
24/7 tech support. The US MSRPs for these products are $177 for the DT150/64GB
and $115 for the DT150/32GB.
[2008/11/19]
Nov. 18, 2008 PR Newswire reports that Tekkeon has announced that its
myPowerTM) ALL Plus MP3700 external laptop battery features automatic
voltage detection and 50 Watt-hour (Lithium polymer technology)
capacity, and weighs 15.4 oz. The MSRP is $179.95 US, including a
1 year warranty.
Tekkeon, Inc. mobile computing accessories
http://www.tekkeon.com/
[2008/11/19]
Nov. 17, 2008, PR Newswire reports that the PCMCIA has announced its
release of the ExpressCard(R) 2.0 standard which supports 5Gbps data
transfers, doubling the speed of the 1.2 standard, and "SuperSpeed USB"
(3.0) transfers at 10x the speed of "Hi-Speed USB" (2.0).
[2008/11/19]
Nov. 17, 2008, Business Wire reports that the "USB 3.0 Promoter Group"
has announced the completion and release of the USB 3.0 standard.
[Note: This specification is free, unlike some others. -- JO]
USB 3.0 Specification
http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/
[2008/11/19]
Nov. 11, 2008, PR Newswire reports that SiliconSystems, Inc. has announced
that its latest SiliconDrive II 1.8" PATA SSDs feature read/write speeds
up to 34 MB/s and come in sizes up to 32 GB. [Pricing and availability
were not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
SiliconSystems, Inc.
http://www.siliconsystems.com/ solidstate drives
[2008/11/16]
Nov. 16, 2008, Toshiba has entered the Netbook field in Canada with
a surprisingly unique product. This should come as no surprise since
Toshiba has had small computers of this type for many years in Japan,
and on occasion, even in North America. What makes the Netbook
NB100-01G unique is that it is the only current product using a
"taller" format screen. Toshiba has gone back to an 800 x 600 pixel
display, allowing for a form factor closer to the ASUS EeePC 701, but
with greater usability. It is available now at prices starting at
$479.00 Cdn.
[2008/11/16]
I have used standard settings on many applications, on many computers over the years, but occasionally I will make a change. Fairly recently I decided to change my font settings for Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3 (On OpenSuSE 10.3 and 11.0). So far, these settings are on my desk computer, which is displayed on a 17" 1280 * 1024 LCD screen. If they work out well, I expect to switch my laptops over to the same settings:
- Advanced Settings:
- Fonts for "Western":
- Proportional: "Serif", 16 point [was 15 point]
- Serif: "URW Bookman L"
- Sans-Serif: "Lucida Sans"
- Monospace: "monospace" 12 [no change]
[I found that the smaller mobile displays worked much better with
16 point than 15 point, and it was still a reasonable size for my desk
computers. So I have consolidated all my OpenSuSE computers to these
settings.]
[2008/11/12] revised [2008/11/16]
My very good friend Emru Townsend passed away peacefully 10:00 PM
yesterday, in the company of his family, whom he loved. We are all
poorer for his passing, but those of us who were fortunate enough
to have known him, have our memories. The rest of you would wish
you were as fortunate. . . .
[2008/11/12]
Nov. 12, 2008, PR Newswire reports that LG, Sharp and Chunghwa have pleaded
guilty to charges of price fixing in regard to certain LCD panels and will
pay $585 million US in fines.
[2008/11/12]
Nov. 6, 2008, PR Newswire, nVidia has announced that Toshiba's
latest Qosmio X305-Q708 and X305-Q706 laptop computers use
two GeForce 9800M GTS GPUs connected through SLI for high performance
computing and also a GeForce 9400M GPU for low power graphics with
the high powered GPUs shut down to save power. Both are now
available from Toshiba's online store, at prices starting at
$1,999 US.
[2008/11/09]
With the election in the US, I was not surprised to see that there
was little in the way of announcements, and really, none that I felt
worth reporting. Congratulations to the United States of America on
the occasion of a significant step in its history. The common
notation is that Mr. Obama is the first African-American President
Elect. May he also be remembered for acts of real significance
which will make that a minor footnote in his resume.
[2008/11/05]
Nov. 2, 2008, I have been contacted by McKesson Corp. regarding their being added to the list of sources. I do not usually do this on a request basis. I have a set procedure for adding information which ensures some degree of reliability -- at least when it is added. Unfortunately, as you are probably aware, I have not had the time to keep up with subsequent changes. However, I performed a brief background check on McKesson and am satisfied that they provide products in the mobile field, particularly in the health care industry. I will place them under PDAs for now, however, they appear to be a comprehensive hardware/software provider.
McKesson Corp. Health care products
PDAs http://www.mckesson.com/
[2008/11/02]
Oct. 30, 2008, Business Wire reports that eMachines(R) has announced that
its model "eMD620-5777" laptop is a minimum "notebook" computer priced
at $429.99. It features an AMD Athlon(TM) 2650e processor (1.6 GHz, 512KB L2
cache, 800 MHz FSB), ATi Radeon X1200 graphics, 1 GB of DDR2 memory, a 14.1"
widescreen 1280 x 800 display, 802.11b/g WiFi, a 160 GB HD, and Windows
Vista Home Basic software.
[I expect there will be other computers similarly priced. But it is
noteworthy that, what appears to be a fairly comprehensive specification low
end mobile computer -- not just a "netbook" has come out below $450 US. --
JO]
eMachines (Acer) laptops
http://www.emachines.com/
[2008/11/02]
Oct. 30, 2008, Business Wire reports that Dell has revised its recall of
batteries provided with certain mobile computers. The batteries were
manufactured from Nov. 9, 2004 to April 11, 2005. Check Dell's website
for more details.
[2008/11/02]
I had to take time to chase down the culprit of my bad Internet response. It got so bad that I was considering using dial-up on a daily basis. After a lot of testing on a number of computer setups, it became apparent that even Firefox 3.0.3 was not the problem. It appears to be Computer Associates Anti-Virus ("ca Anti-Virus"). I only use this on the one computer. It has a different technology for live anti-virus protection. It is hard for me to say whether it is actually superior protection because I really do not explore the Internet like some people do. I mainly look at business related websites, which tend to be the safest on the Internet. However, because the software works in "real-time" analyzing every file that is received, it does tend to slow things down. I had not realized how much this was affecting things lately. But combined with the slowness on Rogers, and on certain sites, and the (needless) complexity of some web pages, the computer must have been overwhelmed. The odd thing is that it was disc accesses more than actual CPU work.
Unfortunately, during all this thrashing around in my system, I managed
to mess things up badly, and I will have to re-load the OS on that
computer and start re-building the software on it from scratch. I will
not go into details, but the only positive thing I can say about this is I
learned something. . . .
[2008/11/02]
Oct. 29, 2008, Business Wire reports that HP has announced that its
new Mini 1000 line. A number of configurations will be available
featuring the Intel(R) Atom N270 1.6 GHz CPU. Available screens
will be 8.9" and 10.2" (all 1024 x 600 LCD with LED backlighting).
A Linux version will feature a new interface called "Mobile Internet
Experience". Connectivity announced is LAN, 2 USB ports, Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth. It is immediately available in the US at prices
starting from $399 US.
[Note: According to the HP webpage, there is only support for
SD-Card/MMC. There is no mention of card expansions such as
ExpressCard. Also, the first versions only seem to have a
60 GB hard drive, though SSDs and other options will be available.
This is a far less capable device than the Mini-Note 2133,
leaving room for both products, at least for now. -- JO]
[2008/10/29]
Oct. 28, 2008, Business Wire reports that Lenovo has introduced its
"IdeaPad S10e" which is the educational market version.
[From the description, it does not sound different from the
S10, but is available "to order" instead of in fixed configurations,
and is bought through the educational channel. -- JO]
[2008/10/29]
Oct. 27, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Atheros Communications, Inc.
has annouced that its Align(TM) product family supports the IEEE
802.11n 1-stream specification which brings some of the advantages
of full multi-stream "11n" to a lower cost and lower power consumption
model. Atheros is claiming up to 5x the throughput of "11g". A
specifically mentioned market is the low cost "netbook" market.
[They also mention full compatibility with future "11n" products, but
that is a somewhat misleading statement since it seems to imply that
"11g" might not be compatible, which is wrong because it is part of
the "11n" specification to be compatible with "11g". -- JO]
[2008/10/29]
Oct. 27, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Microsoft Corp. has announced
its Windows Azure Services Platform. This is their platform for the
"cloud computing" model.
[2008/10/29]
I have been investigating the problems I have had with the Internet
lately. I do not have the time nor the resources to do such a
study thoroughly, but it appear that although Rogers was certainly
part of the problem, it was probably exacerbated by a flaw in the
latest Firefox 3.0.3 Web Browser. Apparently, if the Internet is
performing badly, Firefox might add to the problem, at least for
some Websites. I am still investigating this, as best as I can.
we will see. . . .
[2008/10/29]
My last message changed course while I was writing it because I was undecided about what netbooks I am going to have right now. When I bought my first ASUS EeePC 701 I thought that that would be my netbook for the year. Then my Nokia N800 has stolen and I decided that I might want to replace it with another netbook, so I bought the Acer Aspire One. However, the Acer Aspire One turned out to be disappointing, and the one feature that I felt would make up for the disappointments was that I thought it had a 64-bit processor, which it did not. And then the direction that HP is taking for future versions of the Mini-Note 2133 did not seem to be in the direction I had hoped. So, based on what I said in my last message, I decided to spend the money now and buy an HP Mini-Note 2133 with the current specifications -- particularly the 1280 x 768 screen.
I have overspent my computer budget for the year now, which does not
make me happy, but I felt it was better than missing out on an
acceptable product whereas it may take years for the industry to
equal it again. I have had it for a few days now, and I am just
setting up the software and testing everything. It seems to be
pretty much as I expected, and I think I will be satisfied with it
for quite a while. I will keep the Acer Aspire One for testing
purposes. I actually do use the ASUS EeePC 701 quite regularly for
quick "on and off" Internet browsing. However, I will probably
eventually be using a Nokia N810, which would likely replace the
ASUS EeePC. I would prefer the N800, but it is no longer made.
Again, that is the problem I am seeing. Better products are in
some cases being replaced by inferior products due to market trends.
Oh well.
[2008/10/29]
Oct. 26, 2008, Business Wire reports that Dell has introduced its
"Inspiron(TM) Mini 12." It is currently available only in Japan
and will launch globally online by "late November". Prices start
at $600 US. It features a 12.1" WXGA display, Windows Vista(R)
Home Basic (with Ubuntu and XP available later), 1 GB RAM and
60 GB or 80 GB HD.
[2008/10/26]
First, I have to say that I am sorry for people who rely solely on Rogers High Speed Internet. Their poor service has continued for this past week and today I had to use dial-up to post a message on a Forum. Pathetic. The only bright spot was that I did not get around to preparing this update till around 21:00, and by then Rogers performance was picking up.
As I noted recently, we are in "refresh season". A lot of new products are being announced. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that the current direction for HP's netbook products is, perhaps, not so auspicious. The latest versions of the 2133 series have been downgraded to 1024 X 600 screens (though with pretty good 300x contrast, which I think is probably better than some of the competition). Rumour has it that the Atom processor will be showing up in this line fairly soon. The Atom is certainly not a terrible processor, but the 945 chipset that Intel has teamed it up with has resulted in preformance that is really not that much better than the earlier Celeron versions of ASUS products, or the VIA based machines.
In all, I was hoping for the refresh to see the new VIA VX800U chipset, with or without the VIA NANO 64-bit processor. However, the salient point is that the 1280 x 768 screen might become hard to find, or even disappear in the near future. It is my opinion that I like the 1024 x 600 screens in the 9" size range, but I would have liked a 1280 x 768 screen in the 10" size range. But it currently does not seem like the latter is going to happen in the near term. So if you want a 1280 screen in this general size, I suggest that you look around for a sale now and pick up a 2133 with this resolution while you can.
Then again, it is expected that HP will introduce an "Mini-Note
1000" product which will be closer to the MSI Wind or perhaps
the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. This might happen in the next month.
We will see soon enough.
[2008/10/26]
Oct. 22, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Atmel(R) Corporation has
announced that its latest capacitive touchscreen controllers can
support "Two Touch(TM)" gestures for more complex controls.
[2008/10/22]
Oct. 21, 2008, Business Wire reports that Toshiba America IS, Inc. has announced that its A605 laptop features a 12.1" screen and weighs as little as 3.3 pounds. It is now available at prices starting at $1,399.99 (estimated single unit price).
[The reason I have included this announcement is due to
this statement: "The Portege A605 was uniquely designed,
engineered and manufactured by Toshiba. . . ." This is very
interesting since the bulk of laptops today are produced by a
small handful of Chinese companies like FIC, ASUS, and others.
-- JO]
[2008/10/22]
For the last week, my Rogers' High Speed Internet connection has been terrible. I confirmed that it was in fact Rogers that was giving me problems by "tracert" and "ping". Getting, in some cases, 2 "time-out" returns from the front door server at Rogers tells me that at least part of the problem is "last mile" to "front door" and cannot be blamed on outside performance. There were some other problems too, beyond Rogers.
There are a couple of points that occur to me. First, Rogers has recently put a series of rather annoying commercials on their 680 News radio depicting their High Speed Internet as a better way to access audio media than their competition. In fact, in some instances, even my dial-up account was giving better performance than Rogers this week. And this is not the first time Rogers' performance has not lived up to their advertising.
Coming up to this report I was wondering if I would need to use my dial up to complete it. I am starting my report using Rogers. If I feel the need to switch, I will mention it. Now it will be interesting to see if "680 News" reports anything about this problem.
The other point is one which I have raised before: One cannot rely
entirely on the Internet for critical information. This is true even
for fixed computer usage. The problem is generally worse for mobile
usage. The only way in which mobile Internet is better than a fixed
location connection is that if there is a problem with a particular
access point, one might be able to solve the problem by simply moving
to another. In every other way, mobile worse, being less secure, less
stable, slower and sometimes non-existing. As such, one must seek a
good balance between carrying critical data and accessing freshest
data through available connectivity.
[2008/10/22]
There was nothing worth reporting in the usual release distributions. However, there are a few interesting issues of which I am aware:
The Sylvania Netbook G Meso that I mentioned on October 5 is available in Canada through TigerDirect.ca for $463.99 Cdn. (+ shipping and taxes) featuring an 80 GB HD and Ubuntu Netbook Remix software.
I do not think that I mentioned previously whether the Intel Atom
N270 which is used in many of the Netbooks is 64-bit or 32-bit.
I had the mistaken impression that it was a 64-bit processor.
This was due to items that I had read that only mentioned that
it would be "Core 2" compatible. In fact, not all Atom series
processors are 64-bit, and the N270 is only a 32-bit processor.
This was quite disappointing for me because the primary reason
I bought the Acer Aspire One was for the processor. Otherwise,
I might have waited for the HP Mini-Note 2133. I am again
re-thinking my set of computer equipment.
[2008/10/19]
[This file previously only included my short pieces on the Acer
Aspire One. I included my previous comment on the ASUS EeePC.
If you have read the file before, and my August 3, 2008 comments
on the EeePC, there is no point in re-reading it.]
Netbook Summary nwa_aspireone.html
[2008/10/19], [2008/10/08] and [2008/10/01]
Oct. 15, 2008, PR Newswire reports that nVidia(R) has announced that
its GeForce(R) 9400M GPU features 16 parallel processor cores which
provide up to 54 GFLOPs of processing power, resulting in 5x faster
graphics than Intel Centrino 2. And that Apple has used it in its
latest refresh of its MacBook product line.
[2008/10/15]
There were a number of announcements over the last few days regarding
new laptop products by Toshiba, Lenovo and others. If you have a
favorite manufacturer, and are in the market, you should do some
browsing. Even if there was not announcement, sometimes you will find
new products.
[2008/10/15]
Oct. 8, 2008, PR Newswire reports that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission has announced a voluntary recall by Coby Electronics for certain
rechargeable batteries sold with DVD, CD and MP3 players. About 13,000
batteries are affected, which were sold between May 2007 and July 2008.
"The rechargeable batteries can overheat, posing a fire hazard to
consumers."
[2008/10/12]
Oct. 7, 2008, PR Newswire reports that NETGEAR(R), Inc. claims that
its "ProSafe(R) Wireless-N VPN Firewall" is "the first product to
combine dual-band Wireless-N with SSL and IPsec VPN." It is
available for $485 US. [This announcement annoys me for the usual
reason. They do bury an acknowledgement that it complies with
"Draft-N" deep within the text, but the title and early part of
the announcement makes it sound like it is "Wireless-N", which of
course is false, because "N" does not exist yet. -- JO]
[2008/10/12]
Oct. 8, 2008, Business Wire reports that Toshiba AIS, Inc. unveiled
its Satellite(R) E105 laptop computer which will be sold exclusively
at Best Buy stores in the US. It features a 14.1", an Intel processor,
and a long 5.5 hour battery life. It is now available at prices
starting from $1,249.99 US.
[Is someone reading this Website? I think I have been saying that
computers with 14.1" screens are generally preferable over 15.4" screens
for about 3 years now. It looks like someone has finally listened. -- JO]
[2008/10/08]
Oct. 8, 2008, Business Wire reports that Acer has announced that its
4930-6862 and 6930-6771 laptop computers feature WiMAX connectivity.
The 4930-6862 in particular features a 14" widescreen display and is
currently available at an MSRP of $899.99 US.
[There were also a similar announcement by Lenovo and Toshiba
regarding immediate availability of WiMAX enabled laptops. There
may be other brands also available. -- JO]
[2008/10/08]
Oct. 8, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that Underwriters Laboratories (UL)
is notifying consumers that an AC adapter is being sold with a UL Mark that
has not been tested by UL. See the UL website for information. The
following is part of the markings on the product:
"AC Adapter, Model HF-01, Input: AC 100-240 V 0.07A 50-60Hz, Output:
DC 5.0V. 600Ma, Made in China"
[2008/10/08]
Oct. 2, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that Sony has announced that its
3rd generation digital book, the "PRS-700" will be available in November
for about $400 Cdn. The PRS-505 will still be available as well.
[2008/10/05]
With the current interest in the netbook field, I thought that I might post a couple of recent developments which occurred without announcements. Also, it is clear that Linux and Netbook markets have, at least for the moment become strongly associated, I thought I would also provide some information on the current state of some key Linux distributions.
Lenovo has begun shipping its IdeaPad(TM) S10 (4231) Netbook. The only announcement I have seen so far was in the US, but they are in stores as of today in Canada. The announced price is $439.00 US, which is a bit higher than originally intended (previously estimated at $399 US). It is shipping with Windows XP Home Edition and a 10.2" screen.
Although I did not see a formal announcement, I have seen the Sylvania "Netbook G MESO" advertised for sale in Canada. I believe the first shipment has sold out already. The price was around $400 Cdn. The MESO features an 8.9" screen, and it came with Ubuntu Netbook Remix software.
Most of the latest Netbooks are being built with the Intel Atom N270 CPU and the Intel 945GSE Express Chipset. These, along with new wireless support are included in the Linux 2.6.27 Kernel. So the distributions based on the "27" Kernel will be the ones that one would expect to work best on most Netbooks. Put simply, they are not ready yet. In fact, the expected delivery dates are, for Ubuntu 8.10, probably the end of October. For Fedora 10, probably late December, and OpenSuSE, also probably late December. My current expectation is that all will be a bit later. Or, if they are not late, then I probably would recommend waiting a week or two before trying them anyway.
I do NOT recommend trying out Beta versions of any of these future distributions. If you do not know what a Beta version is like, then you do not know enough to use one safely. However, if you are familiar with such development project, then the following will give you an idea of their current state.
Fedora 10 Beta was released a few days ago. I am not sure of the distribution, but I believe a CD ISO is available.
Ubuntu 8.10 Beta was release, apparently on the same day. Again, I am not sure of the distribution, but I believe a CD ISO is available.
OpenSuSE 11.1 Beta 1 was actually release a while back. This past Friday saw the launch of Beta 2 on DVD ISO. They plan to release the first LiveCD ISO on Monday October 6.
[2008/10/05]
Sept. 29, 2008, PR Newswire reports that NETGEAR(R), Inc. has announced
that its latest generation WiFi Draft-N products are now available.
The WNR2000 Wireless-N-Router, along with other new products, features
"green" thinking with power switches to easily turn off the router or
just the WiFi section. The WNR2000 is priced at $89 US.
[2008/10/01]
Sept. 25, 2008, PR Newswire reports that according to MetaFacts, Inc.,
53% of adult computer users use a "notebook or tablet PC". Of the
mobile PCs used 40 hours or more per week, 44% are owned by households,
31% are owned by large businesses, and 25% by small or medium businesses,
education or government. ". . . 43% are used in only one location,
13% are used in two locations, and 44% are used in three or more
locations." [NOTE: The definition for a "location" was not provided
in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/09/28]
Sept. 23, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Motorola, Inc. has announced
that its WiMAX USB adaptor "USBw 100" will be available in 3 versions
each to cover one of the 3 bands approved around the world (2.3 GHz.,
2.5 GHz. and 3.5 GHz.). They are expected to be available in 2008
Q4. [Prices were not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/09/28]
Sept. 24, 2008, Business Wire reports that Dell has projected its
transition to LED backlighted computer screens, expecting to complete
its laptop computers transition within the next year. Dell
estimates that power savings for customers will be about 43% at
maximum brightness for a 15" screen. Specific projections were that
80% of its laptops would be delivered with LED screens as standard
equipment by the end of 2009 and 100% in 2010.
[This was a strangely internally contradictory announcement which
claimed at the top that the displays would be changed "in the next
12 months" and then specifically saying later that this was not
so. Very odd. -- JO]
[2008/09/24]
Sept. 23, 2008, Business Wire reports that USRobotics has announced that
its USR2980-OEM and USR802981-OEM embedded dial-up modems are now
compatible with Linux 2.4 and 2.6 Kernels as well as Microsoft(TM) Windows.
[Note: The announcement specifically mentions 64-bit operating systems,
but does not clearly say Linux 64-bit operating systems. However, I believe
that supporting 64-bit Linux was part of the point of the announcement. -- JO.]
[2008/09/24]
Sept. 19, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Trapeze Networks' has
commented on the upcoming IEEE 802.11v standard, which will
have new energy saving features. The work on the standard began
in 2004 and is expected to finish in 2010.
[IEEE is still working on "n". However, if the standards are
compatible, which one would expect that they should be, there may
be "v" features showing up even before "n" is done. -- JO]
[2008/09/21]
Sept. 19, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Trigem USA has announced that
its "Averatec Buddy" netbook will feature an Intel(R) Atom(TM) N270,
1.6 GHz CPU, 10.2" LCD screen, 160 GB storage, and Windows XP Home
software. Price and availability were not clearly provided, but the
announcement seemed to imply that it is now available.
[2008/09/21]
Sept. 18, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that Best Buy Canada has announced
that its first Best Buy Mobile store opened. on Sept. 19, 2008 at
Vaughan Mills. Other stores will follow later this Fall.
[2008/09/21]
On the one hand, I found nothing announced for the first part of this week worth reporting. However, that does not mean that there is no news:
On the one hand, apparently Lenovo has removed pre-loaded Linux from its offerings on directly purchased laptop computers for the US. I have not checked if this is also true of Canada. Apparently, they feel that it is enough if pre-loaded Linux is available through their channel partners. It appears that their coming Netbook product will not have Linux pre-loaded either.
On the other hand, I have just seen reports in Forums that some people
have recently bought MSI's Wind with pre-loaded Novell SuSE 10.0 desktop.
I double checked MSI's US Website and there is no announcement of such a
product -- only the same old announcements of their Windows XP versions.
[2008/09/17]
Sept. 14, 2008, Business Wire reports that "Shalov Stone Bonner & Rocco LLP"
have announced that they "filed a securities fraud class action on behalf of
all investors who purchased . . . common stock of NVIDIA Corp. . . . between
November 8, 2007, and July 2, 2008, inclusive. . . .
that the defendants "made a series of misrepresentations and omissions that
actively concealed and failed to disclose the unusually high failure rates
of NVIDIA's mobile video adapters. . . ."
[2008/09/14]
Sept. 12, 2008, Business Wire reports that Acer America announced its
participation Chicago Elementary Schools' United Nations Foundation's
"Nothing But Nets" fundraising campaign. They will supply prizes of
Acer Aspire One computers.
[2008/09/14]
Sept. 11, 2008, PR Newswire reports that nVidia is claiming to
have "pioneered" the ability to switch between integrated graphics
and descrete graphics in laptop computers, for the sake of power
optimizing.
[I try not to editorialize directly in my news reports, but in this
case, I find this announcement embarassing. This idea came from ATi/AMD,
I think last year. It can be a good idea. No doubt nVidia and Intel and
the various companies worked hard to accomplish this. But it is still
little more than a copy of ATi/AMD technological thinking and achievements.
It is hard to decide whether to congratulate them or censure them for
trying to claim originality. -- JO]
[2008/09/14]
If I seem a bit testy in my postings today, it is because I seem to be faced with a number is issues which show this industry at its worst. Actually, there is usually some good and some bad going on all the time. And generally on balance, I feel things are getting better. But there are times when a number of issues arise that combine to bring out the cynical side of me. Here goes:
On April 16, 2008, I wrote that I had heard that Microsoft had extended support for XP Home beyond Jan. 31, 2009. But I did not see it on their Webpage. Looking at the page again, it seems that on April 3, 2008, it was modified with the addition of a footnote (superscript 3) which mentions that support had been extended ONLY for "XP Home OEM", to June 30, 2010. Why did they do it in fine print? Because it is embarrassing for them to admit that Vista was already being seen as a failure, and that Linux was becoming a major challenger, particularly in the "very small system" market, embodied by the "XO" laptop of "OLPC" and the "ASUS EeePC", and with more coming.
I apologize to you readers for my inaccurate earlier report. I make no apology
to Microsoft. They wanted it to be hard for us to read, and by golly, it was.
If they wanted us to "miss it", then why should I apologize to them for having
done so?
[2008/09/14]
Sept. 10, 2008, PRNewswire reports that Texas Instruments has announced
that the ARCHOS Internet tablets ARCHOS 5, 5G and 7, are based on its
OMAP 3 processors, which are, in turn, based on ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-A8
processors, rated for 600 MHz. The devices are "Internet" tablets.
[The announcement is interesting because Nokia's N810 has not become
available in Canada, which is unfortunate. It appears that most people
in the industry feel that that Intel-like processors are going to
dominate in the Internet device field. Having used the most current
products, I do not see any real advantage to them. But then again,
"real" advantage is not the only basis for success. -- JO]
[2008/09/10]
Sept. 8, 2008, Business Wire reports that Intel has announced that it has
begun shipping its "intel(R) X18-M and X24-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State
Drives (SSDs). The price for 80 GB versions is $595 each in quantities of
1,000.
[2008/09/10]
Sept. 8, 2008, Business Wire reports that HP announced that its
"EliteBook 6930p", in a configuration that will be available October, 2008,
using an optional "ultra-capacity" battery had delivered a 24 hour battery
runtime on a single charge, in an industry standard test.
[Finally, a company that is getting the message. Ok, well, one of the
messages. -- JO]
[2008/09/10]
[I have somewhat conflicting information about the upcoming Everex CloudBook
MAX. If you look at the Everex website, it is announced as a product expected
to be shipped in Q1 or Q2 in 2009. I had previously heard that it might be
released in September 2008 -- right about now. However, for some companies,
Q1 2009 can actually mean "right about now". So until I have some clarification,
I do not really know what is going on. What I can say is that it appears, that
with its 8.9", 1024 x 600 screen, and general size and features, it seems to
be aimed at the Acer Aspire One, ASUS EeePC 1000H range of products. Also, it
features a 1.6 GHz VIA C7(R)-M Processor ULV, like the upper priced HP's, but
with the VIA VX800 Chipset. This is a new chipset, and might make this a
competitive product. -- JO]
[2008/09/10]
Sept. 4, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Sony has recalled about
73,000 CAIO TZ-series laptop computers due to a possible "burn
hazard to consumers." Recalled computers are certain units from
the VAIO VGN-TZ100, VGN-TZ200, VGN-TZ300 and VGN-TZ2000 series.
Check Sony's Website for more information.
[2008/09/07]
Sept. 4, 2008, Business Wire reports that Dell has announced that its
"Inspiron Mini 9" is now available with Windows XP at prices starting
at $399.00 US. A version using Ubuntu (Linux) 8.04 (Hardy Heron) will
be available "in a few weeks" at prices starting at $349.00 US. This
computer features a 1024 * 600, 8.9" "glossy LED display" and weighs
2.28 lbs.
[Dell's webpage for this device refers to the screen as LCD and LED.
It is probably an LCD screen with LED backlighting, which is typical
these days, but it is not clearly stated. The CPU is an Intel(R) Atom(TM)
1.6 GHz, and it appears that it can only handle up to 1 GB of RAM, of which
some will be used for the integrated graphics. All current systems use
SSD's. -- JO]
[2008/09/07]
Sept. 3, 2008, Business Wire reports that its ultra low-latency
modules are now available in 4GB memory kits. The "HyperX(R)
PC2-6400 CL4 SO-DIMMs" include "Serial Presence Detect" (SPD)
to support a wider array of computers. Part number
KHX6400S2ULK2/4G is a kit of 2 DDR2 modules which can be
used for 800MHz CL4-4-4-12 @ 1.8V and 667MHz CL3-4-4-10 @
1.8V (a 533MHz-CL3 configuration is also supported). The
current MSRP is $257 US.
[2008/09/03]
Sept. 3, 2008, Business Wire reports that the CompactFlash Association
has announced that its new CFast specification revision 1.0 is now
available for downloading at its website. The new specification includes
SATA interfacing for faster data transfers. The download is free for
CFA members (there is a cost of $100 US for non-members).
CompactFlash Association
http://www.compactflash.org/
[2008/09/03]
It will not make any difference to the content of this Website, but today marks the first day that I am editing this page on OpenSuSE 10.3 64-bit -- but not on a laptop computer. I use a laptop to do the actual research, but the page is still written on a desk computer. However, I have been running OpenSuSE 10.3 64-bit on a laptop for quite a while now, testing it for stability. I must report that it has not been quite up to a really acceptable level of stability quite yet on the laptop, but it I felt it would be probably be acceptable for my desk computer. I already rejected the newer 11.0 which was even less stable, and there was probably just enough time to test another operating system before making the final upgrade, if it had been necessary.
The interesting issue, however, is that I have recently been saying that really, there is no inherent need for 64-bit software on laptops at this time. However, the reason that most people will want to use a 64-bit OS on a laptop is "consistency of code." What I mean by this is that it can be helpful if you can run the same software on your laptop that you run on a desk computer. In big organizations, this consistency can mean that dozens or even hundreds of computers run the same programs, which makes it simply for their IT departments.
In my case, having the ability to run the 64-bit OS testing on one of my laptop computers meant that I was able to pre-approve the software before loading it onto my main computer. In fact, I have already submitted bug reports for this software, and the eventual debugging should be done sooner than if I had only begun running this software on my main computer first. I have noted before that 64-bit Vista is now being deployed on laptop computers in most local stores.
It is expected that, eventually, most laptops, as well as most desk computers will be running 64-bit operating systems. Having used OpenSuSE Linux 10.2 64-bit for over a year now, I can say that it has been slowly progressing through that grey area between bad and good, and can be classed in either way, depending on your needs and preferences.
I have said that I expected that by the end of this calendar year, all my computers that are capable of 64-bit software would be running a 64-bit OS. The only exception to this expectation is that my new Acer Aspire One should be capable of running a 64-bit OS, but since that computer is new, and its use will probably be so limited that it will not warrant any change in software at all this year.
In at least one case, I will be running a dual-boot computer (two
operating systems on the same computer) and one of the operating
systems will be a 32-bit OS. This will make it possible for me to
continue testing 32-bit software on that computer, as well as on
computers which are limited to 32-bit software. However, for most
people such a wide array of systems is unnecessary, and really,
just annoying.
[2008/09/03]
While I have never said that I would keep a firm schedule for these reports, I
expect that most people expect me to do so. As such, I should say that I am
sorry for being a day later than usual. I did not take a holiday yesterday. Quite
the contrary, I just ended up so busy in the later part of the day that I did not
get around to doing it. However, because today is a common holiday, it did not
make any difference. It turns out that there was nothing to report anyway.
[2008/09/01]
I am actually a bit surprised to say that I did not find anything worth
reporting in the early part of this week. We are coming up on the start
of school and there should be a lot of stuff to report "right about now."
I know that the retail stores are already converting their shelves to
Fall line-ups.
[2008/08/27]
Aug. 22, 2008, Business Wire reports that Acer America has announced immediate
price drops for its still-new Aspire One. The AOA150-1570 Windows XP Home(R)
version with 1 GB RAM and 120GB HD is now priced at $349.00 US and the AOA110-1722
with Linpus(TM) Lite is now priced at $329.00 US.
[Acer seems to have a handle on why these products are selling. To paraphase
the first Clinton presidential campaign "It's the PRICE stupid!" Then again,
it is also wise to remember that as of today, the "end of life" for Windows
XP Home is still expected January 2009, which means that the software has only
about 5 months left before you will want to replace it. If you will replace
it with Vista, you will have to expand from 1 GB (which has proven to be
just a bit too small) to 1.5 GB, and you will pay for the usual upgrade price
for Vista. This is true for ALL computers currently being sold with any version
of XP (and less than 1.5 GB of RAM). -- JO]
[2008/08/24]
Aug. 21, 2008, Canada NewsWire reports that Best Buy Canada has announced
that it plans to open new "Best Buy Mobile" stores which will be located
in shopping centers and limited to mobile phones. The first will open
in Toronto "before the end of 2008."
[2008/08/24]
Aug. 19, 2008, PR Newswire reports that RealNetworks(R), Inc. has
announced that "Real plans to publish a standard API in the Helix
Community to provide third-party Linux application developers . . .
[to use] the functionality available in the RealPlayer."
[2008/08/20]
Aug. 18, 2008, PR Newswire reports that MPC Computers has announced the
availability of its TXTbook(TM) PC designed for the K-6 educational
market. Based on an Intel(R) Atom(TM) 1.6 GHx processor, it features
battery life up to 5 hours and a highly reliable hard drive. Prices
start at $499 US.
MPC Computers http://www.mpccorp.com/
[2008/08/20]
Aug. 14, 2008, Business Wire reports that Indilinx, a faabless
semicon company has unveiled its "Barefoot(TM)" solid state
drive (SSD) controller, which uses 90 nm technology which
features read speeds up to 230MB/s.
[2008/08/17]
Aug. 12, 2008, PR Newswire reports that nVidia has announced that its
new Quadro(R) FX 3700M GPU for mobile computers features 128 CUDA
Parallel Computing Processor cores and supports 1 GB of dedicated
graphics memory. The new Quadro FX370M GPU (8 cores) and Quadro FX 770M
GPU (32 cores) will be more commonly found in popular laptops.
[2008/08/13]
As you might have expected, there was nothing to report in the later
part of last week. In fact, with the attention on the Olympics, I have
some doubts about whether there will be much for the next week or so.
[2008/08/10]
Aug. 6, 2008, Business Wire reports that "Good OS" (gOS) has announced
"details" of its upcoming "gOS 3 Gadgts" operating system.
[A beta version of this new OS is currently downloadable from its Website.
-- JO]
The new OS features Google Gadgets, WINE 1.0 and LXDE.
Good OS (LINUX based)
http://www.thinkgos.com/
[2008/08/06]
Aug. 4, 2008, Business Wire reports that Lenovo has announced that its
IdeaPad S10 netbook PC will feature a 10.2" and a keyboard 85% size of
a full size keyboard. Prices will start at $399 US with availability
in early October.
[2008/08/06]
It appears that this is a holiday weekend in the US as well as in
Canada. I have not seen anything worth reporting. However, I did
revise and expand my earlier comments about the RBC giveaway of the
ASUS EeePC, which follows this comment:
[2008/08/03]
On May 6, 2008, RBC announced that it would give away a free ASUS Eee PC to new clients in Canada "who sign up for a Signature No Limit Banking account." . . . "To qualify for an Eee PC, individuals have from May 1, 2008 until September 12, 2008 to switch their non-RBC personal chequing account to an RBC Signature No Limit Banking account using RBC's CustomSwitch service."
There is a lot that can be said about the confidence expressed
by RBC in this product. I have checked their web pages (see below)
and the giveaway product is the lowest cost version -- the 2GB "Surf"
versions of the EeePC. Having used an Eee PC for a few months now,
I can say that I think their confidence is justified. Although my
own experience is on a 4 GB full Webcam version, the software will
clearly do the job of basic Web use, including secure connectivity,
expected by today's computer users -- yet not running Windows.
RBC Promo EeePC Giveaway
http://www.rbc.com/bankbetter/
[2008/07/23] revised [2008/08/03]
July 30, 2008, PR Newswire reports that NETGEAR(R) has announced that
its "Wireless-N Upgrade Kit" (WNEB3100) consists of its NETGEAR(R)
5GHz Wireless-N HD Access Point (WNHDE111) and a RangeMax(TM) Dual-Band
Wireless-N USB Adapter (WNDA3100). The cost retail price is $149 US.
[NOTE: Netgear does not state the speed of the Ethernet connection
supporting this product. Since it is called an "Ethernet" connection,
then you can only assume 10 Mb/sec. If it were 100 Mb/sec, then it
should have been called "Fast Ethernet". -- JO]
[2008/07/30]
July 29, 2008, Business Wire reports that IEEE has approved the
"1394-2008" standard which "updates and revises all prior 1394
standards . . . [and] also incorporates the complete specifications
for S1600 (1.6 Gigabit/second bandwidth) and for S3200, which
provides 3.2 Gigabit/second speeds.
The standard is expected to be available this October."
[2008/07/30]
My usual research turned up no news worth reporting. Check back
later in the week.
[2008/07/27]
I have lately been interested in buying a new wireless router. There is some irony in this. The reason for the new router is because I am preparing to build a new desk computer. I already have a desk computer with a 1 Gb LAN. If I make another with a 1 Gb LAN and connect them to my current router, I will be restricting them to 100 Mb data transfers between them. As such, it is the switch that I am interested in more than the wireless router capabilities.
In fact, I do not have a computer or device that can use 802.11n yet, and I probably not have one before the end of the year. I could buy a free standing 1 Gb switch cheaply enough, but that would add more clutter, and would waste energy, which is becoming more of an issue with me.
Regarding timing, I do not feel this is a bad time for me to buy a new wireless router. The reason is actually odd. The fact is that "Wi-Fi Draft N 2.0" has become a reasonable standard on its own. This was borne out of necessity of the industry. The manufacturers had rushed ahead with product anticipating good profits, but "hit the wall" of the IEEE working group (who are mainly the very people in the industry that rush ahead into production) who, for their own reasons have resisted finalizing "n" until they each got their own pet technology accepted.
"Draft N (2.0)" has enough interoperability and improvement in throughput, that if you can get it at a good price, then it can be worth it. And in fact that is the case, though care must be taken. I have already seen early "Draft N" devices which have been abandonned even before complying with "2.0". The most surprising "big name" product is Linksys' WRT150N. The last firmwware update for this device was "1.01.9" which Linksys claimed was Draft 2.0 compliant, and though it was tested and certified, it is well known that it fails to default to 20 Mhz bandwidth, which is actually a failure to comply. Linksys has no intention of providing a further firmware update. And of course there are others, but I will not canvas them here.
There is another more important point. If the "Wi-Fi Alliance" were truly interested in following IEEE, then consider this:
On March 2008 Draft 3.0 was approved and May 2008, Draft 4.0 was approved. The current work of "Task Group N" is on Draft 5.0, and final acceptance for "n" is loosely projected as December 2009.
So why is the "Wi-Fi Alliance" not catching up? Why are we not seeing testing for, at the least, 3.0? The answer is simply that the "Wi-Fi Alliance" is not as interested in the welfare of the end user as it is in its member companies who produce the hardware.
But looking at the work of the IEEE, do I feel safe enough
buying a product today, knowing that it might also fall into
the category of abandoned products which will never make the
grade of "full N"? Well that is where price comes into play
again. If you look at the products in the $100 - $150 price
range, I think that if one includes the Gigabit Switch, then
yes, for me, it is worth it.
[2008/07/27]
July 23, 2008, PR Newswire reports that WD(R) has announced that
its VelociRaptor(TM) 2.5" SATA hard drive is intended for enterprise
blade servies in 1U and 2U rack mountings, and features 10,000 RPM
speed, up to 300 GB capacity and 1.4 million hours MTBF. They will
be available through commercial distributors by the end of the
month.
[Pricing was not provided in this announcement. I report this
annoucement for two reasons. First, the 10,000 RPM mechanism is
new to this size product. Second, I see reason to doubt whether
one would want to use it in a mobile computer. The design
characteristics might be inappropriate -- particularly in
regard to temperature range and impact resistance. It might
be wise to avoid them for mobile appications. -- JO]
July 21, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that "Spiro Lab Telecom" has
announced that Toshiba Corporation has joined the G.729 Consortium
which controls patents related to this ITU-T standard for digital
voice encoding.
[2008/07/23]
July 18, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Hagens Berman has announced
that the "Marco Zaldivar v. T-Mobile USA, Inc." case has been allowed
to proceed. The action filed Oct. 19, 2007 in a US District Court
claims that the company forces them to pay for unsolicited text
messages.
[2008/07/20]
I am writing this on a Compaq V2000 series laptop computer running OpenSuSE 10.3 -- not very well.
The first computer I ran 64-bit on was my MSI K9A Platinum (based on the AMD 580 chipset) which is running a 1.6 GHz Sempron 64 CPU with ATi X1600 Pro graphics card, a Sony DVD writer. That was OpenSuSE 10.2 64-bit from around March 2007. It is still running that OS and apart from the graphics driver which I find barely acceptable for now, it has been quite reliable. It started off well and I think it has improved a bit. The workload is mainly text editing and Internet with Flash and RealPlayer. However, come the end of November, support for 10.2 is scheduled to end, so I decided to pre-test 10.3 and 11.0 to see what I will use next.
My pre-testing has been done on this upgraded Compaq V2570ca laptop. On the one hand, one expects some added issues on laptops (such as the support of Trackpointers and Touchpads, Wireless LAN support, modem etc.), but this chipset is ATi 480, which is about 2 years older than the 580 used by my desk computer, so given the extra time I felt it was a fair testbed.
I was disappointed to find that the 64-bit versions of 10.3 and 11.0 have fallen down badly in terms of reliability. I do not know exactly what happened, but particularly in 11.0, there are many bugs "right up front" that you could see within the first hour of use. I opened a couple of bug reports within the first week and watched as almost nothing happened to address the problems -- not necessarily because of any lack of effort, but from what I can tell, the guys are probably swamped with some very serious issued. MANY applications were, and still are, losing configuration settings across re-boots, including the Touchpad adjustment program, the clock/calendar and sound system. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Ironically, as I have said elsewhere, when 11.0 gets reliable it will be a very nice system. As expected, a lot of issues have been addressed, and particularly, there is a very good driver for ATi video cards. Unfortunately, the "Pulse Audio" packages, which in the long run will make OpenSuSE a nice home entertainment system with audio stream redirection, has, for now, only added to the difficulty of debugging the poorly written sound system.
On a rough estimate, I felt that it would take them too long to get 11.0 into shape for me to start preparing for migrating my 10.2 box to 11.0, so I dropped this computer back to 10.3. And that is when I found that quite a few bugs I saw in 11.0 actually had started in 10.3. The sound system in particular has been flakey across reboots, and I suspect that there is a fairly serious problem with what exactly happens during "shutdown".
Considering that most of the code is shared between Linux systems, I expect that the same situation is occuring in the other 64-bit systems. I have not checked, but that is my current guess. I would be interested in hearing whether my guess is right.
NOTE: Within the last week or so, 10.2 had a fairly large number of updates, all labelled "security". Most "security" updates have to do with bug fixes which allow "root access" in the case of crashes, so in fact, most of the patches will probably add to overall system stability. So it is quite nice right now. Unfortunately, as I said, support will be ending in a few months, so I cannot recommend people start using it at this late date. However, since 10.2 got its updates recently, I expect to see a batch of updates come out for 10.3 fairly soon, so that might result in some of the problems getting fixed.
Still, I will have to revise my estimate and project now that even
10.3 will not be ready to use before the end of August, and 11.0
will probably be suspect till at least the end of September.
[2008/07/20]
July 15, 2008, Business Wire reports that Toshiba DPD has announced
that its Qosmio(R) G55-Q802 laptop computer features a Quad Core HD
Cell Processor along with Intel's Core(TM) 2 Duo processor and
nVidia GeForce(R) 9600M(2) GT graphics. Prices start at $1,299.99 US.
[2008/07/16]
July 14, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Sony has announced that
their VAIO(R) BZ Series laptop computers are intended for
business use and will be available through value added resellers.
and direct market resellers at prices starting as low as $1,000 US.
[2008/07/16]
July 10, 2008, Business Wire reports that Belkin has announced that
its Wireless Travel Mouse (F5L017-USB) and Retractable Mouse (F5L016-USB)
are currently available at $19.99 US and $14.99 US respectively, and
3 cases will be available in September 2008 for the Eee PC and
other 7-inch slze laptops. The Mini Laptop Quilted Case (F8N085)
will cost $19.99 US, the Mini Laptop Carrying Case (F8N084) will cost
$24.99 US and the Neoprene Sleeve (F8N082) will cost $12.99 US.
[2008/07/13]
July 10, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Apple(R) announced that its
iPhone(TM) 3G, using iPhone 2.0 software, would be available on July 11,
2008. Suggested retail prices were $199 US for the 8GB version and
$299 US for the 16GB version.
[2008/07/13]
July 10, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that Seagate has unveiled
half-terabyte 2.5" disc size hard drives for laptop computers.
The Momentus(R) 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 drives are 5400 RPM
and 7200 RPM drives respectively are available in up to 500 GB
capacities and SATA interfacing. Shipping is expected in 2008 Q4.
[Pricing was not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/07/13]
July 9, 2008, Business Wire reports that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.,
has announced that it has begun mass production of its 1.8" and 2.5"
form factor multi-level cell based SSDs in 128 GB capacity, following
closely the recent start of mass production of its 64 GB SSD.
[Pricing and availability were not provided in this announcement. -- JO]
[2008/07/09]
July 3, 2008, PRNewswire reports that Cisco's Linksys division has
announced that its Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router WRT6010N
allows use of both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz bands at the same time
at full speed. It is available now at an estimated street price
of $199.99 US.
[2008/07/06]
July 2, 2008, PR Newswire reports that in a Dell sponsored study
conducted by the Ponemon Institute, there are more than 12,000
laptop comptuers lost in large US airports each week, and nearly
70% are never reclaimed.
[2008/07/02]
June 30, 2008, PR Newswire reports that the Wi-Fi Alliance has announced
that it has developed a "certification program for voice-enabled
Wi-Fi devices in home and small office environments."
[2008/07/02]
If you have followed this website for long you might have been surprised
that I did not post an update yesterday. So was I. Put simply, I got
so busy that I did not have time to complete my usual review of announcements.
Then again, the more useful report is the one covering the early part of
the week, so I think the late report today will not have been sorely
missed.
[2008/06/30]
To continue my remarks about operating systems, I have found that
Microsoft Vista 64-bit is already being pre-loaded on laptop and
desk computers for general (home and business) use. Two of the
earliest were the "HP Pavilion dv2808ca", KP005UA, which currently
costs $999.99 Cdn. on HP's Canadian website (Vista Home Premium
64-bit with SP1, AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 2 GHz, nVidia GeForce Go
7150M, 14.1" WXGA screen), and also the "HP Pavilion dv2854ca",
KP040UA -- available via retailers (Vista Home Premium 64-bit with
SP1, Intel Core2 Duo T5750 2 GHz, Intel X3100 graphics, 14.1" WXGA
screen).
[Note: I believe these were the first products in Canada, but I
am not certain. There have been others announced, and perhaps some
not announced. -- JO]
[2008/06/30]
June 30, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Netgear(R), Inc. has announced
that its "Open Source Wireless-G Router" (WGR614L) is intended "to
support a wide variety of applications created by the open source
community." It features a 240 MHz MIPS32(R) CPU, 4 MB of flash
memory and 16 MB of RAM, a 10/100 WAN prot and a 4-port 10/100 WAN
switch. Support is via "http://www.myopenrouter.com/". It is
now available at a retail price of $69.00 US.
[2008/06/30]
This is anti-climatic for me. For weeks now, I have been working on a report about the current state of new operating systems for laptops, and particularly the current state of 64-bit operating systems. Unfortunately, due to my lack of time, each time I get moving on it, I have to put it off. Then the situation changes and I have to re-think what I am writing.
I do not know if I will ever finish my report. So here are some of
the key points:
1. Vista 32-bit has been a surprising failure. While you can be
sure that if you buy a new computer with it pre-loaded, with SP1,
it will generally work, upgrading XP generation laptops to Vista,
even those which were advertised as "Vista Ready" has only recently
become a reality. And there may still be "Vista Ready" laptops which
are not properly supported.
2. Vista 64-bit is even worse for driver support than 32-bit.
3. Linux, is generally working in 32-bit and even in 64-bit. However,
if you look specifically at OpenSuSE, I would have to suggest that
rather than the latest version 11.0, which has just been released on
June 21, 2008, you should load version 10.3 right now. Version 11.0
will probably be a better bet in about a month.
[2008/06/25]
June 25, 2008, Business Wire reports that Panasonic has unveiled its handheld
"Toughbook CF-U1" rugged Ultra Mobile PC. Powered by an Intel(R) Atom(TM)
it features a 5.6" WSVGA sunlight viewable 1024 x 600 touchscreen using LED
backlighting and MIL-STD-810F and IP54 compliance. It is expected to be
available August 2008 at a US estimated street price of $2,499 US.
[2008/06/25]
June 24, 2008, Business Wire reports that Toshiba DPD has annouced that
its latest Satellite laptops (including P300D, A300D, M300D, U400D, L300D and
L350D series) are offered with various AMD processors.
[Note: The announcement implies that these new products are immediately
available and researchable, however, 1 day after the announcement, I have
checked the provided links to their web pages, and no further information
has been provided. This is a case of the left hand not co-ordinating with
the right hand. -- JO]
[Also Note: The M300D series probably features a 14.1" Widescreen display,
which combined with a fairly typical form factor and features for laptops
that size is what I generally recommend for most people. Unfortunately,
this is only a guess at this point, since there is no such information on
Toshiba's Webpage. -- JO]
[2008/06/25]
As happens frequently over the summer, there was nothing worth reporting
in the later part of last week. Check back later this week.
[2008/06/22]
June 18, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Novell(R) has announced that Micro-Star
International (MSI) is pre-installing SuSE(R) Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on
its new "Wind Notebook". Running a 1.6 GHz Intel(R) "Atom(TM)" processor,
it features a 10" screen and weighs 2.6 lbs. A Microsoft Windows version will
be sold from June 16, 2008 for $499 US and the SuSE Enterprise Linux version
will be available later this summer for $399 US.
[Information was also taken from MSI's website. It will be interesting to
see whether the low cost (comparing inital announcements) and more capable
features of this device is more important to purchasers than the smaller
size and lighter weight of the ASUS 901 EeePC. -- JO]
[2008/06/18]
June 12, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Hop-on, Inc. unveiled a
new series of phones including its HOP1809, which the company
claims is a true 3G phone for under $125 which is capable of
"facilitating true video conference calls" which the company
claims is better than Apples iPhone(TM).
[2008/06/15]
June 10, 2008, Business Wire reports that HP has announced new laptop
computers, most of which will arrive in July, depending on the region.
[The main reason I am mentioning this "roll-out" is because I was
interested in seeing if HP would start pre-loading 64-bit Vista yet.
It appears that these are still coming with 32-bit software. Also,
it will be interesting to see if HP tries to re-focus on 14.1"
screens instead of 15.4" screens, and lower pricing. -- JO]
[2008/06/11]
June 9, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Apple(R) has introduced its
new iPhone(TM) 3G. It claims that its 3G networking is "twice as
fast" (if you have EDGE support). Cost is as low as $199 US for an
8GB version. [NOTE: Availability is dependent on your service
provider. -- JO]
[2008/06/11]
As is common this time of the year, there was nothing to report
for the latter part of last week. Check back later this week.
[2008/06/08]
June 4, 2008, Business Wire reports that AMD has announced that its
ATI XGP(TM) (External Graphics Platform) technology is based on
a new external PCI Express(R) 2.0 link providing 4.0 GB/sec in each
direction.
[2008/06/04]
June 2, 2008, PR Newswire reports that NVIDIA Corporation has
introduced its Tegra family of processors including its
Tegra APX2500 processor being used in Windows Mobile smartphones
and Tegra 650 which features HD video playback capability.
The primary processor is an 800 MHz ARM CPU, but the architecture
features multiple processor capability to offload functions.
[2008/06/04]
If this is a bit redundant please accept my apology, but
PR Newswire has, again, failed to provide news releases upon
my search request. However, there was nothing worth reporting
from my other two sources, and indications are that there was
probably nothing to report at PRN either. Anyway, check back
later this week.
[2008/06/01]
May 28, 2008, Business Wire reports that 3K Computers, LLC has announced the
release of its "3K RazorBook 400 Mini Notebook Ultra Mobile PC". The MSRP is
now $299 US. Resellers can purchase them through Ingram Micro. [This
product was previously referred to as the "Longitude". -- JO]
[2008/05/28]
May 25, 2008, BusinessWire reports that Samsung Electronics has
announced that it has developed a SATA II interfaced 2.5", 256 GB
SSD based on "multi-level cell" technology with a 200 MB/s sequential
read speed and 160 MB/s sequential write speed, and power
consumption of 0.9 W in active mode. Samples will be available
in September with mass production by the end of the year.
[Prices was not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/05/25]
May 20, 2008, Business Wire reports that One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
has announced its future plans. The first overall goal is to reduced
the production cost of its units from the current $188 US down to $75 US.
In the spring of 2009, the "XO-1.5" will be released, which will have
the same design as the "XO" but by using fewer parts, will cost
less. In 2010, the "XO-2" will introduce a smaller form factor with
more appropriate specifications.
[2008/05/21]
May 20, 2008, PRNewswire reports that AVerMedia(R) Technologies, Inc. has
announced the release of its "AverTV Hybrid NanoExpress" ExpressCard
TV tuner. The card can receive HDTV (both ATSC and "Clear" QAM Digital
Cable TV), analog TV and FM radio., running under Windows XP or Vista.
The 54mm card is now available at a suggested retail price of $89.99 US.
[2008/05/21]
May 15, 2008, PRNewswire reports that Microsoft Corp. and One Laptop
per Child (OLPC) have announced that they have agreed to make Microsoft
Windows available on the OLPC XO computer from around June 2008.
[The interesting thing about this announcement is that it does not
name the version of Windows which will run on the XO laptop. It was
my understanding or belief that this would be a version of Windows XP.
I thought that was what I read before, but I should check again sometime.
If it is to be XP, then why not say so? -- JO]
[2008/05/18]
May 14, 2008, Business Wire reports that OCZ Technology Group, Inc. has
announced that their "Do-It-Youself(DIY) Gaming Notebook Program" will
allow a purchaser to buy "an unconfigured notebook and . . . customize
the system . . . with the help of guides and direct support."
The first platform is an Intel(R) based laptop with nVidia(R) GeForce(TM)
8600M GT graphics.
OCZ Technology Group, Inc.
(laptop computers) http://www.ocztechnology.com/
[2008/05/14]
As I write this, late in the evening of "a hard day," I have to admit
that I have not had time to think about how to present this request.
A friend of mine, who works in my field (writing about computers), has
been diagnosed with Lukemia and to state this shortly, he will need a
bone marrow transplant. However, as a Black Canadian, living in
Montreal, his odds of finding a compatible doner are not really
great. All I can say right now is that if you volunteer to be a
bone marrow doner, his family will thank you. This is particularly
true of you are Black, and I think, fairly young. You may not realize
that in general, bone marrow must be very specifically genetically
compatible. So all the "non-Black" doners generally do not help
him. It is likely that you will not be compatible with him
specifically anyway, but there are others who you might end up
giving bone marrow too. So please give this your consideration.
[2008/05/14]
May 6, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Super Talent Technology has
announced that its new line of "MasterDrive" SSDs use a SATA-II (3Gbps)
interface and a standard 2.5" form factor are now available. The
lowest price version is FTM30GK25H (30GB MLC 120/40 MB/sec) at MSRP
$299 US.
[2008/05/11]
May 6, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that Microsoft Corp. has announced that
its Zune music player will be released in Canada as follows:
May 6, 2008 Zune software will be available at "www.zune.ca"
June 13, 2008 the Zune players will become available
Prices start at $139.99 Cdn for 4GB.
[2008/05/07]
May 5, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
claims that its "PowerBlock(TM)50 system can provide over 100
GFLOPS in a computer 4" x 5" x 6" and weighing less than 10 pounds.
It is immediately available. [Price was not provided in the
announcement. -- JO]
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
[PowerBlock(TM)50 Embedded Computer] http://www.mc.com/
[2008/05/07]
I have again found nothing worth reporting in the latter part of
the past week. Unfortunately, I had hoped to have a special report
completed for today, but time did not allow for that project.
I expect to have something to report later this week.
[2008/05/04]
Apr. 30, 2008, Business Wire reports that HP has announced that its
HP Labs has "proven the existance of . . . . [the] theorized . . .
"memristor" -- a blend of "memory resistor" -- which has the
unique property of retaining a history of the information it has
acquired." The company calls it "the fourth fundamental circuit
element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor. . . ."
[I apologize for the extensive quoting, but I saw no way to
put it into my own words. -- JO]
[2008/04/30]
Apr. 28, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Netgear, Inc. has claimed that
its "ProSafe 802.11n Dual Band Wireless Access Point (WNDAP330)" is the
first to provide full 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz support of a/b/g and draft 2.0
n 802.11 specifications, based on a Gigabit Ethernet port. It is
now available at a list price of $475 US.
[2008/04/30]
I completed all my usual research, and there was nothing worth reporting
at this time. I expect something later this week -- which I suppose is
no surprise.
[2008/04/27]
3k Computers Longitude 400-Mini-Notebook PC
Apr. 22, 2008, Business Wire reports that 3K Computers, LLC has announced
that its "Longitude 400 Mini Notebook Ultra Mobile PC" computer weighs
under 2 lbs. and includes a 7" LCD TFT display, a "Windows-friendly Linux
Operating System" and a 400MHz CPU at an MSRP of $399 US. It will be
in stock "late May."
[I did not recognize this company, and the announcement had some odd claims,
so I looked at the Website. What they are calling a "full size keyboard" is
not. The pictures show a keyboard about the same as the ASUS EeePC. In
fact, the whole outer case resembles the EeePC, which is no surprise. But
the CPU is a "Low Power Consumption Ingenic 400 MHz 32-bit Single Core
Mobile Process." I do not know this processor, so I have no opinion
about its significance. Oddly, the Website quotes the MSRP as $499 US.
-- JO]
3K Computers, LLC [mini-laptop]
http://www.3kcomputers.com/
[2008/04/23]
As the title says, nothing came through from PR Newswire on me latest
research. Perhaps later this week. . . .
[2008/04/20]
Apr. 17, 2008, Business Wire reports that Kingston Technology Company,
Inc. has announced that it is the first company in the world "to offer
high-performance, low-latency 667 MHz DDR2 SO-DIMM . . ." memory
modules. Their "HyperX(R) 667MHz CL4 SO-DIMM kits will first be
available in paired kits of 2GB and 4GB as follows:
KHX5300S2LLK2/2G 2GB 667MHz Low-Latency DDR2 (CL4-4-4-12 @ 1.8v) SO-DIMMs, kit of 2 MSRP $84.00 US.
KHX5300S2LLK2/4G 4GB 667MHz Low-Latency DDR2 (CL4-4-4-12 @ 1.8v) SO-DIMMs, kit of 2 MSRP $132.00 US.
[2008/04/20]
Apr. 15, 2008, CompactFlash Association will display CFast(TM) cards
and connectors at the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley.
The CFast(TM) card spec defines a CompactFlash card with a SATA
interface capable of supporting up to 3Gb/sec data rates, compared
to current PATA 133MB/sec. data rates.
[2008/04/16]
Apr. 15, 2008, PR Newswire reports that NextComputing has introduced
its "Vigor Evo HD" which gives the versatility and power of workstation
style computers in a portable form factor. About the size of a
briefcase it can weigh as little as 13.5 lbs. [NOTE: These are
basically custom ordered systems, so delivery and prices are quoted
on negotiation. -- JO]
NextComputing http://www.nextcomputing.com/
[2008/04/16]
Apr. 14, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Renaissance Learning, Inc. has announced
that it has collected nearly 5,000 of its devices in its "AlphaSmarts for
Africa" campaign which concluded on March 31. Returning an older AlphaSmart
device resulted in a $50 US discount towards a new AlphaSmart NEO or NEO2.
The returned devices were donated to "Generation for Change and Growth" to
be distributed in Kenya. [NOTE: "One Laptop per Child" did not invent
the idea of the cheap portable computer for education. There have been
a few, and still are others. AlphaSmart's Dana devices are based on Palm
software. I do not know what the NEO devices are based on, though I expect
they are the same technology. -- JO]
Renaissence Learning, Inc. (AlphaSmart)
http://renlearn.com/
[2008/04/16]
Apr. 14, 2008, Canada Newswire reports that Sony will offer its
"Reader Digital Book (PRS-505)" for sale in Canada at the end of
April for MSRP $299 Cdn.
[2008/04/16]
According to websites I have read reviewing the latest small laptops (the
ASUS EeePC etc.), Microsoft has extended its support for Windows XP to
some time in 2010. However, as of today, I checked Microsoft's website
and the last extension date for support for all versions of Windows XP
is January 31, 2009. See
Microsoft Windows Life-Cycle Policy page http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx.
Maybe by the time you read it, a change will have been posted.
[2008/04/16]
Apr. 12, 2008, Business Wire reports that Gateway has announced a number of
new laptop computers, and some of them come with Microsoft Windows Vista Home
Premium 64-bit Edition with SP1. The least expensive will be the Gateway
T-Series (5.55 pound, 14.1" display) T-1628 which has a manufacturer's
suggested retail price of $749.99 US (AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, ATI Radeon
x1270 graphics, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, etc.).
[NOTE: I believe this is the first time any major laptop company has
announced a standard installation of 64-bit Vista. It makes me feel
just a bit cheated that I have 2 Vista laptops, both which came with the
32-bit version. As far as I know, I will have to pay extra to upgrade
them. -- JO]
[2008/04/13]
Apr. 10, 2008, Business Wire reports that according to One Laptop per Child,
more than 100,000 XO laptops were delivered in 2007.
[On Apr. 6, 2008, I announced my award to OLPC for their XO computer
having been the "Most Significant Mobile Device of 2007." I did not
have a firm number of delivered units, so I was interested in this
particular number. -- JO]
[2008/04/13]
Apr. 9, 2008, Business Wire reports that DenneD, LLC has begun
distribution of Zepto laptop computers in Canada and the US.
DenneD, LLC (Zepto laptops)
http://www.zeptousa.com/
[2008/04/09]
Apr. 8, 2008, Business Wire reports that Toshiba DPD has announced that
its new Satellite(R) P300 series laptops have begun shipping. Featuring
both Intel and AMD versions, they are built on a 17" wide-screen diplay
chassis for a 1440 * 900 WXGA+ display. Prices start at $949.99 for
the Satellite P305D-S8818 (AMD Turion(TM) X2, 2.1 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache,
DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash(TM).
[I was particularly interested in seeing what kind of drives these
laptops would have. I am a bit disappointed that they are not coming
out with HD-DVD reading drives, since there is no particular reason not
to have them, even knowing that the future is somewhat limited. -- JO]
[2008/04/09]
Apr. 8, 2008, Business Wire reports that HP has announced that its
"HP 2133 Mini-Note PC" will be a "full-function" computer
with prices starting under $500 US. Features include an anodized
aluminum shell, hard drive guard to shut down the drive upon
accelerometer detected shock or sudden move, an 8.9" diagonal
WXGA display and a delivery date "later this month."
[This is almost surreal. The product looks quite good, and I
might end up getting one, but if you look at the brochure on
their website, they are trying to make this an "edu" product.
But then you look at the software options and they are mainly
business. The processor is a Via C7(R)-M ULV with clocking up
to 1.6 GHz and 128 KB L2 cache. -- JO]
[2008/04/08]
As the title states, I did not find any announcements worth reporting
in the later part of the week. I find this sad because I expected more
in the wake of CTIA. Anyway, check back later this week.
[2008/04/06]
After long consideration, there was only one award I felt I could name for 2007. It was not a "best" award because nothing stood out in my mind that I could call clearly "best" in any category I felt that was worth having an award. However, there was little doubt in my mind what was the most significant release in that year. See if you agree. Sorry if it does not format properly in your browser. I hope to convert it to HTML later.
The 2007 Most Significant Mobile Device Award
Apr. 2, 2008, PR Newswire reports that UTStarcom has announced new GSM
handsets for Latin America and the Caribbean. The GSM1218 covers 850 and
1900 MHz and the GSM1219 covers the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands.
Pricing and availability are subject to the carriers. [There was also a
CDMA announcement. Actually, I just wanted to give UTStarcom a mention
because they are often ignored, but have a long history of providing
good products. -- JO]
UTStarcom Personal Communications
[Cell Phone Handsets] http://www.utstar.com/
[2008/04/02]
Apr. 1, 2008, USRobotics introduced its Model 5637 controller based
56K USB Modem. In the announcement, USR's Bruce Swail noted that
"the truth is that 35 percent of U.S. Internet users alone still
rely on dial-up for either their primary or secondary Internet
connection." The modem is currently available for $49.99 U.S.,
MSRP. [I believe the accuracy of his number. I use dial-up
myself to connect to the Internet on a regular basis. In fact,
my "high speed" is "Ultra-light" which is only about twice as
fast as dial-up. -- JO]
[2008/04/01]
I debated this quite a bit. There have been a number of
announcements regarding the wireless industry, however, they
were primarily industrial. Instead of summarizing them, I
will suggest that if you are interested, search for "CTIA",
"Wireless", "2008". The show is held April 1, (which is
unfortunate if you want your announcements to be taken
seriously).
[2008/03/30]
I have said this before, but due in part to the coming CTIA show, and advertising I have seen in the industry, I think it bears repeating at this time. The only Wi-Fi (wireless LAN networking) standards are "a", "b" and "g". There is NO SUCH THING as a "Certified Wi-Fi n" product because the current state of the standard is still a draft. As of January, 2008, the current IEEE Draft standard was 3.02 and work had begun on Draft 4.0.
The current "Certified Draft n" testing is a set of tests based on Draft 2.0 (which is thus, already outdated). It is hoped that devices that are passing the current tests will be upgradeable to "Wi-Fi n" standards with a software upgrade later. However, there is no guarantee of this. In fact, it appears that some companies have already abandoned upgrades for some early "Draft N" (pre-certification) products because, as the standard has evolved, some of the early hardware was not sufficient.
Personally, I have bought a very very cheap "Draft n" router, which I hope to run some tests on. It is cheap enough for me to throw away later if it does not meet the eventual standard. Let me say that clearly. I has considered and accepted that this product might end up in the garbage can, perhaps within a year or so, before I paid for it. If you cannot accept such a contingency, then you should not bother to buy such a product yet. "Wi-Fi g" products are even cheaper, and are now "bullet proof". That should be your choice.
As for companies that advertise having "n" products and not being
clear that they are only "Draft n" products. I think they should
be charged with business fraud.
[2008/03/30] edited [2008/03/31] re-edited [2008/04/02]
Mar. 24, 2008, PR Newswire reports that ECTACO Inc. has announced the "release"
of its jetBook(R) "e-book Reader". According to the company it has a 5" screen
and weighs 7 ounces.
[If the above seems very short it is because very little detail was provided in
the announcement. In particular, there was no mention of cost or delivery.
Moreover, I do not look favorably when I see a company that I have never heard
of call itself "the NY-based electronics giant." The product may be good and the
company respectable, but this announcement was poorly conceived. -- JO]
ECTACO Inc. [jetBook(R) e-book reader]
http://www.ectaco.com/
[2008/03/26]
Unfortunately, Business Wire's Website was not completely working, so
research was truncated. I hope to try to re-do my research later this
week.
[2008/03/26]
Mar. 20, 2008, Business Wire reports that HTC Corp. has announced that its
"HTC Shift(TM)" computer is a Windows Vista portable computer with CDMA-EVDO
connectivity with a 7" touch screen and 40 GB HD, and weighing about 1.8 lbs.,
can now be pre-ordered for shipping beginning Mar. 24, 2008 at a retail cost
of about $1,499 US.
HTC Corp. UM computer
[2008/03/23]
Mar. 20, 2008, Business Wire reports that Lexar Media has anounced that some
of its premium JumpDrive USB drive products will be protected by RedCannon
Security management technologies.
[2008/03/23]
Mar 19, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Iridium(R) Satellite has announced
that it has agreed with 3 companies to begin "concept development" for its
"NEXT" satellite communications system. There are a few goals in this
development, but the most obvious and I think, most significant, is that it
will integrate Internet Protocol (though IP will not replace its current
system).
[2008/03/19]
Mar 17, 2008, PR Newswire reports that General Dynamics C4 Systems has
announced the availability of its Tadpole M1400 mobile ultra-thin client
computer. This is essentially a laptop-like terminal which does not
run programs locally, which is easier to keep secure, and updated, and
also is cheaper. [Cost was not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/03/19]
As I said last week, this is "March break" season, so I was
not surprised to find that there was nothing to report this week.
Check back later this week.
[2008/03/16]
Mar. 12, 2008, Business Wire reports that Acer has announced that its
8920G "notebook PC" will feature an 18.4" 1920 x 1080 display powered
by either an nVidia GeForce 9650M GS or 9500M GS graphics processor, and
Intel PM965 Express chipset.
[Note: Price and availability were not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/03/12]
I had no expectations whether there would be much to report at this
time, and so am not particularly surprised to find that there was
nothing of interest. This being the "March break" season, I think
that next week will probably be more fruitful. Anyway, for those
in the Northern US and Eastern Canada, you have my sympathy for having
to dig out of "the white stuff".
[2008/03/09]
Mar. 5, 2008, PR Newswire reports that the PCMCIA has announced that
the current ExpressCard 1.2 Standard is being updated to version 2.0
which will be 2 - 10 times faster than the current ExpressCard Standard
1.2. The main force behind the upgrade is to support the new 5Gbps
data rate of the PCI Express 2.0 bus -- double the data rate of
the previous PCI Express standard. It will also support SuperSpeed
USB which is expected to be released this year as USB 3.0 (which is
up to 10 times faster than Hi-Speed USB).
[2008/03/05]
Mar. 4, 2008, Business Wire reports that AMD has announced that its
AMD 780 chipsets for desk and laptop computers are now available.
Produced on a 55nm process they support DirectX 10.
[2008/03/05]
Mar. 02, 2008, Business Wire reports that Intel has announced that
its new "Atom(TM)" brand processors are a new family of low-power
processor specifically designed for "mobile internet devices" (MIDs).
They support the "Core(TM) 2 Duo" instruction set and will be made
on Intel's 45nm process with hi-k metal gate technology. The thermal
design power (TDP) range is 0.6-2.5 watts running up to 1.8GHz.
[2008/03/02]
Feb. 26, 2008, Business Wire reports that Lenovo has unveiled its
"ThinkPad X300" laptop computer, which comes in configurations weighing
as little as 2.9 lbs. Unlike the Apple Airbook, this product includes
a DVD burner. It is now available at prices starting at $2,799 US.
[If you are interested in reading some background about how the X300
was developed, see the cover story in Business Week for February 25, 2008.
-- JO]
[2008/02/27]
There was nothing of significance announced in the latter part of this
past week. Check back later in the week.
[2008/02/24]
When I dropped into a computer store on Feb. 15, 2008, I was surprised to be "informed" by a generally knowledgeable salesman that support for Windows XP had "ended" and that only Vista was being supported. I assure you, that this much is certainly not true. In fact, the latest update that I had seen up until that day was released Feb. 14, 2008. Vista SP 1 is entering its release cycle. It is past "Beta" and is in the early part of distribution. Manufacturers in particular have it and should be installing it on new computers at this minute. It will become part of the regular update system shortly. However, Windows XP "SP 3" is "on its way". It is currently still in what I would call "late Beta" stage. When it comes out, we should see support for XP for at least another year (to cover some debugging).
I have not done proper research enough to say how long XP support will last.
I believe the last announcement had said something like mid-2009 would be
the cut-off date. Do not quote this as an official position either for
Microsoft, or even for me. But the point is, that support for XP has
certainly not ended yet. If you are planning on buying an XP computer
and are concerned about this, I suggest you do further research.
[2008/02/24]
Feb. 19, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Toshiba America
Consumer Products, L.L.C. has announced that the company has
stopped sales and marketing of HD DVD players.
[The implications for the mobile computer field are interesting.
HD-DVD disc format could still be used in computers as a data
storage format. I do not know whether Blue Ray is better or
worse in such applications. A number of laptops have been sold
including HD-DVD drives, including, of course, upper end Toshiba
laptops, and some of the Acer Ferrari line products. The full
story is not quite over yet. -- JO]
[2008/02/20]
Feb. 17, 2008, Business Wire reports that Mtronstorage Technology
Co., Ltd. has announced that it has developed a "1.8 Inch ZIF-type
SSD for [laptops] . . . and will begin production in April."
[NOTE: Price was not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
Mtronstorage Technology Co., Ltd.
http://www.mtron.net/
[2008/02/17]
Feb. 14, 2008, Business Wire reports that Samsung Electronics Co.
has announced that it has begun mass producing 64 GB SATA II
solid state drives and that they will be an option on some
Dell and Alienware laptop computers. [NOTE: Price was not
provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/02/17]
Feb. 13, 2008, Business Wire reports that Samsung has introduced its
"See'N'Search" technology which they believe will bring integration
of TV and Internet. By using channel guide and closed caption text
content and natural language technology to create search keys which
can be used for Internet searches without the use of keyboards, related
Internet material can be searched automatically. A set top box using
this technology could then link the search capabilities to mobile
devices.
[2008/02/13]
Feb. 11, 2008, Business Wire reports that Tangent Inc. has begun selling
its "ePC" ultra-mini computer for $299 US and are warrantied by ASUS.
[NOTE: These units appear to be variations of the ASUS EEE-PC, which
is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the processor is not clearly
identified in the advertising, making the deal somewhat risky. -- JO]
Tangent Inc. Ultra-Mini Computers
http://www.tangent.com/
[2008/02/13]
To start with, as mentioned in the above title, PR Newswire did not respond at all to my Web search attempts. Hopefully, I will have time to repeat my search of their site again later in the week.
I am a bit surprised to say that despite the GSM world conference and
trade show, I found nothing worth reporting at this time. Oddly, the
most important announcement I found was that Sony has begun marketing
their first 11" OLED TV set in North America. The significance being
that OLED has the potential to take over, at the very least, a chunk
of the small laptop display market in the computer field.
[2008/02/10]
I am a bit surprised that I found nothing worth reporting this week.
Then again, it gives me a chance to expand on what I began writing
in my last report.
[2008/02/06]
You will notice that I make no pretense of having any respect for these
computers at all. Put simply, most of the common 15" laptops sold in
2007 (and in fact going back to before 2006) had equivalent models in
14" versions. Those equivalent versions general had the same number of
exactly the same ports as the 15" versions (ie. if the 14" version only
had 3 USB 2.0 connectors, the manufacturer still only supplied 3 on
the 15" version, despite the fact that the chipset supported more,
and despite the fact that there was extra room on the 15" laptop to
put an extra port). The circuitry was so similar that I expect they
were probably the same motherboards etc., simply repackaged.
But aren't the 15" screens better because they are bigger? Of course
not. Your laptop screen is going to be about 2'-3' from your eyes. Unless
you are legally blind, you will be able to see every pixel. So there is
no more detail to see just because the screen is bigger. In fact, if
you want to see exactly the same picture, just move your face about
an inch closer to a 14" screen. Yes, that is all the visual difference
there is. You can do the math and prove it to yourself. A 15" screen
may look more impressive in the store, but unless you are going to
buy both and carry the 14" computer around as well, just to sit
them side by side to compare them every day, you will forget the
difference the first time you actually use your computer. Moreover,
for the rest of your days, you will carry around the extra weight,
and pay for the gas when you carry it in your car. You will be
annoyed every time you sit in an armchair and accidentally bang
the computer on the chair's arms. Silly. No other word for it.
And you will also pay extra for the privilege. The only reason I
bought a 15" Toshiba laptop last year was because they did not make
an equivalent 14" laptop at the time. This year, it is becoming more
difficult to actually buy the 14" version equivalent products. This
is because the 15" versions have been selling.
I mentioned the Compaq optional WSXGA+ 15" screens available for about
$50 more (which some other vendor probably also have available), and
the resolution for this screen is 1680 x 1050, which is enough to show
the same image as some of the lower end (26" range) HDTV sets. The
17" laptops, however, still have a reason to exist because they support
a keyboard closer to what one uses on a desk computer.
But the coming year, so far, appears to be heading in another
direction. Toshiba, rather than bringing out 14" screen laptops,
seems to be testing the market acceptance of 13" screen laptops.
I have also seen brochures for 12" laptops from ASUS. So this year
might be a year of somewhat greater variety in terms of configurations.
[2008/02/06]
Jan. 31, 2008, Business Wire reports that SanDisk Corporation has announced
that its Ultra(R) II line now contains 32 GB and 16 GB SDHC(TM) cards,
and an 8 GB SDHC Plus card. These latest cards have read and write
speeds of 15 MB/sec. which is up from 10 MB/sec read and 9 MB/sec write
speeds. The 32GB card, including USB 2.0 Reader has and MSRP of $349.99
US, the 16 GB card with reader has an MSRP of $179.99 US and the 8 GB
Ultra II SDHC Plus card has an MSRP of $99.99 US.
[2008/02/03]
Jan. 31, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Kingston has announced that their
Line of SDHC memory cards has been expanded with a 16 GB SDHC Flash memory
card with 4 GB/sec ("Class 4") minimum data transfer rate (DTR). Availability
was not made clear in the announcement, but the MSRP is $231 US.
[2008/02/03]
I was hoping to make some comments on 2007 in January, but I have been too busy. And in fact, I am still too busy, but I thought I would at least get a start into it:
I was disappointed to see that the majority of laptop computers in the "15-inch Wide screen" size were still 1280 x 800 resolution. I felt that 14-inch screens worked well with 1280 x 800, but really, 15-inch screens, and the resulting computers were just silly. Compaq currently prices their WSXGA+ screen only $50 Cdn. more on 15" screen size computers (not available on all such computers, but when they are available, that is the price). Moreover, they also offer WXGA+ on 14" laptops for only $30 Cdn. more. I am not certain how people would feel about the 14" screen versions, but I think if they were to put the WXGA+ screens on their higher priced 15" models as a general feature, they would get a positive response.
Hopefully, I will say more in the future.
[2008/02/03] corrected [2008/02/06]
Jan. 30, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Apple(R) has announced that its
MacBook Air(TM) is now shipping. The first versions will use 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHx
Intel Core 2 Duo processors with 4MB L2 cache. Prices start at $1,799 US.
[2008/01/30]
Jan. 24, 2008, Busines Wire reports that HP has introduced its first
mobile "Thin Client" product, its HP 6720t. This laptop-like device
has a 15" screen and will be available "later this month" at a list
price of $725 US.
[I like laptops and I like think clients, but I am not certain that
they go together well -- at least not such a pure form of "thin client"
where the apps are even remote. -- JO]
[2008/01/27]
Jan. 22, 2008, Business Wire reports that Hynix Semiconductor, Inc.
has announced "the validation per Intel procedures and specifications,
of the 1 GB (HMP112U6DFR8C), and 2GB (HMP125U6DFR8C), DDR2, 800MHz Un-buffered
DIMMs (UDIMM) both assembled with 54nm 1 Gb DRAM components." Hynix claims
a 40% die size reduction from 60nm-class process technology resulting in
"significantly" improved power and speed characteristics.
[I apologize for the largely quoted text but there was not much point
in re-wording it. I am not currently tracking the technology for DRAM
closely, but I expect that this is will result in further improvement in
the performance/cost ratio for all using DDR2 memory, particularly where
reduction in energy consumption is part of the performance calculation. -- JO]
[2008/01/23]
Because this is the "week after" ICES I am not surprised that there is
nothing to report. Most of the significant announcements were made early
in ICES. However, there is likely to be more later in the week.
[2008/01/20]
I am starting to accumulate some basic information regarding video on
mobile devices, and for now, specifically on laptops. There has been a
substantial divide between non-graphics oriented laptops and graphics
oriented laptops. The presumption is that the graphics oriented laptops
are primarily used by "gamers". However, even the most seriously business
oriented laptops sold today support video rendering capabilities
sufficient to cover most video DVDs.
On the Toshiba Satellite A210 series with AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, the
combination of the 2 GHz cores with the ATi X1200 graphics covers DVD
display on its 1280 * 800 screen with power to spare. "X-Men III"
("Last Stand") chapters 5 and 6 is a particularly demanding test piece
which is sometimes beyond the capabilities of some early dedicated
consumer DVD players. When viewed under 32-bit Vista Home, all the
good and bad characteristics of using a laptop for DVD viewing, are
visible.
First, for RAM my test unit is fully expanded to 4 GB of best quality
Kingston RAM. Under 32-bit Vista Home, with wireless Internet
connected, RAM in use was around 1.2 - 1.3 GB (Note: I presume that
this does not include the shared graphics RAM), or about 30%. According
to Vista, both cores were fairly evenly used, with observed CPU usage
peaks of 66% in chapter 5 and 58% in chapter 6, and generally around 31 -
40% CPU usage through most of the viewing. However, when background
tasks ran, these numbers could jump. During one run of this test, the
CPU usage jumped as high as 87% (actually observed) in chapter 5.
Although DVD playing has been done with far less powerful processors,
XP and Vista usage also presume the usage of preset timed processing,
which may even include Internet accessing, and some newer DVDs simply
tax the CPU more than older discs. So ironically, a 2 GHz single core
version of this setup would probably be the least power system that
one could reliably view this DVD on -- and even then one would expect
some frame droppage depending on the current background tasks.
[2008/01/20]
Jan. 16, 2008, Business Wire reports that DivX, Inc. and AMD have
agreed that AMD will be allowed "to include DivX(R) video technology
with specific AMD Xilleon(TM) processors. . . ."
[At this time it is unclear whether this will include mobile devices,
however, so far, DivX has not had good penetration into such mobile
devices, and these were mentioned in the announcement. -- JO]
[2008/01/16]
I have been using a Nokia N800 with the new 2008 software for about a
week now and I have a few early comments. First, I was disappointed to
find that although Real Media is supported for Internet Radio, there is
still no browser plug-in. This was last included on the Nokia 770.
This is unfortunate since I have found that for low bandwidth use, Real
Media works better than Macromedia Flash format. Also, I was using
the Gnumeric Spreadsheet on the N800 for a while under the 2007 software
and it was quite good. Unfortunately, this is an independent port
and I can only hope that whomever ported it before will provide a
new version.
Regarding the difference between the N800 and N810, I do not
find the N810 GPS particularly attractive. I am rarely lost while in
my own city, and I can buy a good street map set for about $20 every
year, which in itself is not really necessary. Moreover, for out-of-
town trips, I can print out Google maps in advance. On the other
hand, I like the N800 FM radio because it does not interfere with
Internet usage. In fact, from a processor usage standpoint, it is
a "freebee". That is to say, it should require no processor power
at all while in normal use -- only during channel changes and other
usage of controls. Even in regard to electrical usage it is very
low power compared to the Internet Radio.
I am undecided about the built in camera in the N800. Apparently,
some people think such cameras are really good. Personally, I
usually carry a better camera anyway.
PR Newswire failed to provide releases for my search. I hope to
re-try my search later in the week.
[2008/01/13]
Jan. 8, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Everex has announced that its
"CloudBook CE1200V" Ultra-Mobile PC features an open source "gOS V2
Rocket" operating system. It is 9" long, with a 7" WVGA TFT Widescreen,
and weighs 2 lbs., and is powered by a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M ULV mobile
processor. It will be available from Walmart.com for $399 US.
[2008/01/09]
Jan. 07, 2008, Business Wire reports that Intel Corporation has unveiled
16 products, including its first 45 nanometer (NM) Intel(R) Centrino(R)
processors.
[Note: In a remarkable display of silliness, just about
nothing is made clear in this announcement. Not even the names of the
processors or their speeds, let alone prices or dates of availability.
I almost decided to omit any mention of it. It is disgusting. -- JO]
[2008/01/09]
Jan. 6, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Netgear has announced that its
latest WNDR3300 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Router features new
patented technology internal "metamaterial" antenna arrays for superior
performance. It is available now at an MSRP of $129.99 US. The WNR3500
Gigabit Ethernet version is $159.99.
[2008/01/06]
Jan. 6, 2008, Business Wire reports that Amiga, Inc. has announced the
availability of "AmigaAnywhere(TM) version 2. It claims "a device-independent,
single, ubiquitous Virtual Environment (VEN)".
Amiga, Inc. http://www.amiga.com/
[2008/01/06]
Jan. 6, 2008, PR Newswire reports that Panasonic has announced that its
"Link to Cell KX-TH1211" integrates a Bluetooth enabled cell phone to
cordless phone handsets. It will be available March, 2008 at an MSRP of
$99.95 US with additional handsets at $39.95 US.
[2008/01/06]
Jan. 2, 2008, Business Wire reports that "Research and Markets" claims that
their survey information Symbian and Linux based OSes dominate the Japanese
smartphone market. Moreover, although 3/4 of respondents had multimedia
capabilities, most do not use them, and only 10% would be willing to pay for
the capabilities in their next phone.
[2008/01/02]
As is typical for time of year, there was nothing worth reporting this past few days. So all I have to say is . . . .
Dec. 25, 2007, Business Wire reports that Canon Inc., Hitachi, Ltd. and Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. have reached a "basic agreement" to partner
in the LCD panel businesses. Canon and Matsushita will each own 24.9% of
Hitachi Displays Co, Ltd. leaving Hitachi, Ltd. with 50.2%.
[2007/12/26]
Dec. 20, 2007, Business Wire reports that Acer America Corporation has announced
that its Extensa 4620 series laptop computers are now available in the North
America commercial channel. These Intel powered laptops are based on the
TravelMate "Acer Profile" chassis in 14.1" form factor, in the lower cost
business computer segment. The Extensa series have been available in North
America since October of this year. Prices start at $699 US for the Extensa
4620-4054 (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T2310).
[2007/12/23]
Dec. 19. 2007, PR Newswire reports that WidowPC(R) has announced
that its Sting 517D2 laptop which features an nVidia 8800M GTX
graphics card is now in stock. Prices start at $2,799 US.
[2007/12/19]
Dec. 18, 2007, Nokia released a firmware image file upgrade
for their N800 Internet tablet giving it essentially the same
software as their new N810 Internet tablet. The file is freely
downloadable, and means that the two products can now share
future 3rd party software.
[When Nokia replaced their 770 Internet tablet with the N800
they made no real attempt to provide the same software for the older
770. They only released an essentially "empty" port of the basic
system level programs. This time, the N800 is being brought up
to date which increases the user base for software developers.
Still, I do not know of any attempt to bring the software to the
770, which is still only a 2 year old product. -- JO]
[2007/12/19]
Dec. 13, 2007, Business Wire reports that the 1394 Trade Association has
announced that a new specification for FireWire (IEEE 1394b) has been
drafted which extends throughput to 3.2 gigabits per second, which is
4x the speed of FireWire 800. The new specification, called S3200, is
expected to be used for such applications as external hard drives (in
place of eSATA). The new standard is expected to be ratified in early
February, 2008.
[Note: My latest laptop computer, like many others, has a FireWire 800
port. I had thought that a future laptop might be better off with an
eSATA port, but if S3200 is supported for external drives, then I agree
that I would prefer to have FireWire S3200, because that would reduce
the number of different types of cables I would have to keep. -- JO]
[2007/12/16]
Dec. 13, 2007, PR Newswire reports that Telsima has announced that its
lower frequency 450/700MHz WiMAX will have superior propagation
characteristic, saving infrastructure cost when compared to greater
than 1 GHz systems.
[Prices and availability were not provided in the announcement. -- JO]
[2007/12/16]
Dec. 12, 2007, Micron Technology, Inc. has announced that it has
achieved "production sampling" of 68-nanometer (nm) technology
1 Gb DDR2 DRAM chips. Micron claims that the 56mm^2 chip is the
world's smallest production 1 Gb DDR2 memory device. Mass
production is expected early in 2008, and the new technology
is expected to give about 20% less power consumption compared
to the previous generation.
[2007/12/12]
Dec. 12, 2007, Business Wire reports that Kingston Technology Company,
Inc. has announced that its "Kingston(R) Media Reader" is "an external
hi-speed reader designed to support 19 popular types of Flash memory
cards, is now shipping." Speed is rated as up to 480 Mbps (USB 2.0).
The Kingston part number is "FCR-HS219/1" and the MSRP is $17.00 US.
[Note: The main reason I am including this is not because it is
necessarily the best product of its type, or particularly innovative,
but because it provides a good baseline for comparison. -- JO]
[2007/12/12]
It has been an uneventful week from the technology side of the mobile
info tech industry. All I can say is that it will probably be slow now
till next year, though there might be some late announcements by
companies trying to make the records books. For example, Intel likes
to make end of year announcements so they can top AMD.
[2007/12/09]
As long time readers of this Website will know, I have avoided giving "product of the year" awards. Sometimes I have named products in classes but deliberately left commonly awarded classes without awards because I did not feel there were any outstanding products.
This year, I am considering naming the "Acer Travelmate 5520" series
laptops a "Laptop of the year" and specifically the "5424" version.
I am looking at its balance of leading edge features such as Draft N
Wi-Fi and 1 Gb LAN and 2GB DDR2 RAM, and particularly because I expect
that it is likely superior in power efficiency due to its AMD chipset,
I have not made a final decision about this yet, but this is my
current front-runner.
[2007/11/05]
Aside from the above, I have nothing to report that looked significant.
Nokia announced a firmware upgrade for their N95 phone, but I feel that
smartphones are overrated in overall significance, so by definition, a
firmware upgrade to an low significance product is what? PR Newswire
provided a full listing from Dec. 1, so I only missed the releases
from the last couple of days of November. That is not good in itself,
but it could have been worse.
[2007/11/05
Nov. 29, 2007, Business Wire reports that Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd.
has announced that new LED backlighted LCD screens in 40" up to 57"
are available for the HD TV market. [I expect this technology to
eventually become common in many LCD type screen applications,
particularly for upper end laptop computers. -- JO]
[2007/12/02]
As has been typical for PR Newswire, today's search resulted in no
reported press releases. This bug in their search system has been there
for years now and is disappointing. It is unlikely I will be able do a
corrective search later -- JO.
[2007/12/02]
Nov. 28, 2007, Business Wire reports that Micron Technology, Inc. has
announced its line of "RealSSD" solid state drives based on NAND
technology. Samples are now available for 32 GB and 64 GB devices
with mass production expected in 2008 Q1. Prices were not provided
in the announcement.
[2007/11/28]
Unfortunately, PR Newswire failed at about 21:30 eastern time, while I was
updating my searches. I will probably not be able to complete them later
in the week. A trace indicated that this was probably a problem at
PR Newswire's server. The Internet seems ok.
[2007/11/28]
I have just recently found out that Reuters will not longer be
supplying news releases to the "Addit" program on Palm device.
I am not sure when it stopped, but it is no longer being
updated.
[2007/11/25]
Nov. 22, 2007, Business Wire reports that "One Laptop per Child" has
extended its gifting program to Dec. 31, 2007. For $399 US, the
foundation will give 1 laptop to the buyer and 1 laptop (as a gift)
to a child in a developing country.
[2007/11/25]
Nov. 19, 2007, PR Newswire reports that Nokia has announced that its
Nokia N810 Internet Tablet has begun shipping in the US. Current
capacity is 2GB internal memory and up to 8GB on memory card.
The MSRP is $479 US. [NOTE: I have been using the Nokia N800 for
some time now and it has been quite nice. The only significant missing
feature for me is a "RealPlayer" plug-in for the Opera browser, which
was previously available on the Nokia 770. Hopefully it will reappear
someday on the N800 and N810. -- JO]
[2007/11/21]
It is possible that the lack of significant announcements were due
in part by the up-coming US Thanksgivings Day. At any rate, check back later in the week.
[2007/11/18]
Nov. 13, 2007, PR News