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|  | | Amtek revise their UMPC
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Absolute gadget reports: "AMtek has announced its second generation Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC), the T770. Ditching tired-old Windows XP, the T770 will come with Windows Vista Home Premium instead. With Media Center now part of the operating system, it should be the most-capable portable media player on the market. The 7in widescreen 16:9, 800x480 processor should certainly help here, as it’s a good size for watching movies or recorded TV on. The 1GB of RAM and 1.2GHz VIA processor should prove plenty of power, while the entry-level’s 40GB hard disk has enough room for a good selection of programmes, films and music." |   |
| New Mini and Nano cases shown off at CeBIT
Monday, March 26, 2007
EPIACenter.com have done a great job on their CeBIT coverage this year. While every website on the planet is covering the latest and greatest graphics chips, computers controlled by your mind and the latest information on overclocking memory, they're looking at things from a Mini-ITX perspective - and smaller. They spotted a few new case designs while they were there.
"mCubed is an Austrian company that's designing very interesting solutions for keeping your computer quiet. Apart from the popular t-balancer fan-controllers the company is also offering fanless enclosures ... At CebIT they're now showing their brand new HFX micro M fanless enclosure that has been designed for Flex-ATX and Mini-ITX boards." Nano-ITX cases were also on display from Germany based YANG iT. "The company already offers a range of popular Mini-ITX enclosures. Now they have added the Serener GN-L01 Nano-ITX case which allows for a 2.5" HDD and a slimline-optical to be installed." Last but not least is Thermaltake's new Mozart IX. It takes some the same design qualities as the giant Thermaltake Mozart TX (reviewed here). EPIACenter.com reports that "With the shiny aluminum front and the VFD the Mozart IX is screaming to be used as an HTPC setup. The case certainly has a very solid feel to it and the build quality was very good too." | |
| Pico-ITX even smaller than expected
Monday, March 26, 2007
EPIACenter.com have some great photos on their website of Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX boards that really show the size difference. "Even though VIA Technologies didn't have a booth at this year's CeBIT the company still had a presence at the PressExpoUSA event on Friday night. Additionally German distributor Tragant was also showing off working samples of the EPIA PX Pico-ITX and EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboards. I was very much looking forward finally seeing a Pico-ITX board in person. I have to say that it's even smaller than I had expected it to be. It's certainly very impressive!!" | |
| Tablet Kiosk eo TufTab v7112XT preview
Friday, March 23, 2007
Details are now available on the new VIA-based UMPC from TabletKiosk. Some things that the older version doesn't have but this one does include a built-in digital camera, shock protection, finger print sensor, sunlight viewable screen, media card reader and stand. The hardware inside has also been upgraded to 1GB RAM standard, a 1.2 GHZ VIA C7-M ULV processor and the VX700 single chip solution. We take a tour of the unit here. | |
| Taipei trip already over
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Well, another trip to VIA in Taiwan has almost come and gone. I have to leave the office for the airport in about 15 minutes. I've only been here since Sunday night but three days of meetings has raised a lot of questions, answered many of them and begged some more and left me with a tight schedule of things to do over the next few months. I have seen some very interesting small devices that are in their prototype stage during this trip. I wasn't even allowed to take any photos so there is no prospect of mentioning any details at this stage. But put it this way - reviewers of UMPCs have commented that they require two hands to hold them but one of the many ultra mobile devices I saw this week truely is a handheld device. | |
| Asus UMPC video
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
MobileMag.com have published quite a long video taken on the showroom floor at Cebit. An Asus rep takes them on a tour of the new device revealling that the VIA C7-M ULV CPU has a TDP of just 3.5 watts, giving the device 6-8 hours of battery life. Unlike other UMPCs that rely on a slide out qwerty keyboard or an onscreen touch keyboard, this new model's screen can swivel around and sit up at a right angle to a small but full keyboard. Check the video out here. | |
| New Linux support packages
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
New Linux support packages have been added to the driver database:- Guides for Fedora Core 5(x86&X86_64) and Fedora Core 6 on how to install the VIA V-RAID driver v2.60 and its utility on VT8237R/VT8237A/VT8237S/VT8251/CX700 (Serial ATA/RAID controller) and VT6421(L) (Serial ATA+IDE/RAID controller)
- Guides for Fedora Core 5(x86&X86_64) and Fedora Core 6 on how to install the precompiled SATA/AHCI patched driver binary, how to patch default SATA/AHCI driver source code and how to rebuild it for the VT8237R/VT8237A/VT8237S/VT8251 south bridge (Serial ATA controller) and VT6421(L) (Serial ATA/PATA controller)
- SATA/AHCI Patch Driver Disk guide for Red Flag5 and Open SuSE 10.2
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| Working and travelling with a UMPC
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The week before last, John and I traveled over 1000 miles on a rather odd business trip. The purpose of the trip was to find out more information about a VIA EPIA based system being used to control dates and manage a database at cattle stations. This blog isn't about that (you can read about that here if you're interested); this blog is about what it was like using a UMPC to continue most of my day to day work duties during the trip, as well as blogging and producing a daily journal of the trip.It certainly was a novel experience - but did the novelty wear off? Read on here. | |
| How To: Keep Your Kids Safe Online
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
"Being online is part of the world of every kid these days. For teenagers it’s the main way of communicating with friends (along with their cell phones), while younger ones use it for gaming (such things as Runescape, for example) and research. It’s an inescapable fact of life, and kids spend an average of 16 hours a week online – a figure that continues to rise. But how safe are they in cyberspace?" asks DigitalTrends.com. I asked the same question in a podcast last year. | |
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