UMPC

The Pandora (not to be confused with Pandora) is a handheld that is following along the path of the GP2x, open source and runs Linux.  It was designed as an ultraportable open source computer with gaming controls.  Apparently they were attempting “to make to make the ultimate open source handheld device.”  And it seems they have, but we’ll see…

Wireless USB is just starting to take off with many companies (such as Dell) offering integrated WUSB capabilities into their new laptops. However not everyone is so lucky to have a wireless USB receiver built-in. IOGear has solved this problem with their new CardBus wireless USB receiver. The card itself will use the rarely occupied CarBus slot on laptops, without having to worry about another USB dongle. Unfortunately price and availability are currently unknown. (Source)

I am sure most of you have been reading about all that awesome new gadgets that popped up at this years Consumer Electronics Show. One thing that seriously caught my eye was iRivers UNIT 2. It is an interesting concept that features about 50 gadgets in one. iRiver says the UNIT 2 is the ultimate all-in-one solution for integrating your personal digital content such as music, photos and movies with your TV and set-top box. It comes with a base unit, a portable unit, and a remote unit.

The device features phone and web functionality includes: Audio, Video, DVD player, DiVX player, CD player, FM Tuner, VoIP phone, VoIP Video Phone, SMS/MMS, Web Browsing, Web Mail. Its 7” (800 x 600) touch screen interface makes navigation easy and the built-in high-quality stereo speakers produce every nuance of your favorite music and video entertainment. UNIT 2’s communication features include Wi-Fi, a Built-in Mic and Wireless AP. Storage capabilities include both a 30BG hard disc drive and 2GB of NAND Flash.
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Thanks to Nathan Weinberg’s InsideMicrosoft blog we have been given possible screenshots of the upcoming Microsoft Windows Mobile 7. Not too much information about the actual OS is known but from the screen shots it seems that there will be several new ways of communicating with mobile devices such as Multi-touch (think iphone), options for shaking and rotating the device and even camera-based gesture based recognition. Since this is not a official Microsoft press release everything is speculation but looking at the screeshots provided they look pretty legit

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Sometimes a concept comes along and its such a fantastic idea you wonder “why the hell didn’t I think of this??” Introducing the Napkin PC Concept by designer Avery Holleman. The Napkin PC is designed to be used in a business environment to help groups collaborate on various designs or documents simultaneously. Data is sent to the multi-touch e-paper via the pen by RF and has the ability to communicate to all the various tablets. Unfortunately this is only a concept so we probably will never see an actual production unit, but it is nice to see that designers are finally starting to think outside the box for PC designs.

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UPOP, a Korean company has rolled out their latest gadget. It is a Personal Media Player (PMP) with some powerhouse specs. This Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC)-like device features a 4.8-inch touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, your choice of a 30GB/60GB hard drive, WiFi, DMB-TV tuner, SD expansion slot, and Windows CE 5.0 Pro. Based on previous Korean gadgets we most likely will not see this ever come to the United States, however we do get awesome UMPCs like the OQO:02. The price is unknown but my guess is that it will cost around $1,000 USD. [via].

Soon to be released: the GP2X-F200, the next version of the GP2X, now featuring a touch screen. Still with the same old 2 processors ( ARM920T, main processor, and ARM940T, video coprocessor). Can hold up to 32 Gb with the new SDHC technology. With linux, being completely open source, and GPL’ed it gives you the freedom to make, download, and port all sorts of games, emulators, and utilities. Yes, thats right, free games and emulators. You can also put a wifi dongle (supported by linux) on there and put in some linux driver, and you’ve got a mobile work station. Well, almost, you might need a usb keyboard, yes you can put a keyboard on it. Anyways, enough talking, heres the specs.

Bitmicro has created a 461GB Solid State Disk Drive. The E-Disk Altima flash drives are standard 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA), and are engineered to be very reliable. They can operate in temperatures of -40 to +85 degrees Celsius, and withstand substantial shock. Based on current flash memory prices, these things are going to be pretty pricey and will be built specifically for industrial and military applications. The 461GB Bitmicro E-Disk Altima is said to be available March of 2008. [via] Read more specs.

Lately we have seen a new segment in portable computing starting to emerge. VIA introduced the NanoBook Ultra Mobile Device, Palm introduced the Foleo and several other companies are also planning to release smaller more portable designs as well. Well this new concept is by far the best design for a small UMPC / PDA type computer that I have ever seen. The new concept is called the Compenion and was designed by Felix Schmidberger. Since this is a concept there are no spec’s but the laptop does make uses a pair of sliding OLED touch screens. However the really cool part is the second OLED touchscreen underneath, which allows you can have a keyboard or anything of you choice to be displayed, basically its dual monitor laptop. In addition there is a a laser projector embedded in the bottom side and in conjunction with a home station they allow you to project images or movies onto the wall while using the pen as a remote controlPhotos - Read the rest of this entry.

This beautiful laptop is a prototype developed by Intel dubbed the Metro. It is the worlds thinnest laptop 0.7 inches thick and weighing 2.2lbs, however is not for sale. It travels with Intel to various trade shows to show developers what can be done with todays technology. This laptop has two displays; the main one is a LED-backlit LCD, and the outer display is made from e-ink and can be used to view your email, calendar, and other information even when the laptop’s off. Hopefully more laptops like this actually come to production. Read the rest of this entry.

Well just the other day Palm announced the interesting Foleo ultra-portable laptop and now it seems that other company’s are starting to unveil more laptops based on this new style of computing. Today VIA introduced the NanoBook Ultra Mobile Device and to be honest this editor was excited to use Palm’s new Foleo but now i cant wait to get my hands on one of VIA’s new Ultra Mobile Device. The NanoBook simply adds a significant amount of hardware to the device and allows for a much broader range of uses as opposed to the Foleo’s strictly business approach. The NanoBook runs on either Windows XP or Vista (I’ll believe it runs Vista when i see it), weighing in at just under two pounds it features a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M processor with up to 1GB of RAM Also included is a 30GB hard drive, 7-inch WVGA display, 802.11g WiFi , Bluetooth, and a DVI-out port and even comes in at a price of $600. Along side the 7-inch screen is a secondary slot to add the function of GPS, VoIP, or even WWAN which grealy increases the capabilities of this tiny laptop as opposed to the non-upgradeable Palm Foleo. Currently this is only a reference design but with Packard Bell and another unknown company already signed on, the prospects of bringing his incredibly versatile laptop to the US market seems to be fairly good.

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So you want a lightweight laptop but dont want to sacrifice playing computer games (or any other 3D rendering you may do). ASUS has a solution for you! They are about to release an external graphics processor for laptops that connects via Express Card slot. It includes a Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS which is upgradeable to any PCIe graphics card. The device displays the current GPU temperature, current frames per second and GPU fan speed. Not only does this guy accelerate video, it also has a sound card to deliver Dolby® 5.1 channel surround sound. There is price yet but we should know soon. Expect to see these things in stores soon ASUS reports that they will be releasing it in the beginning of Q2 2007.

[Source: ASUS News]