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|  | VIA Ultra Mobile Platform Wins “Best of COMPUTEX” Award for its Power Efficient Design
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
The "VIA Ultra Mobile Platform has won the prestigious “Best of COMPUTEX Award” for Best IC design at this year’s Computex Taipei 2007. Comprising the 1GHz VIA C7-M ULV processor and VIA VX700 mobile system media processor, the all-in-one digital media IGP chipset, the VIA Ultra Mobile Platform won the honor due to its ultra power efficient design, rich media integration and significant platform size reduction. The VIA Ultra Mobile Platform for Ultra Mobile Devices (UMDs) can be found inside many ultra mobile products on display at this year’s show." Read the rest of the Press Release here. |   |
| NanoBook reference design shown at Computex
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
I wouldn't say that it's the year of the UMPC at Computex, but it's certainly more widespread than last year - and there is more of a variety of styles and designs. There are some that are designed for vertical markets (not mainstream consumers), some with slide out qwerty keyboards and still others that are a little more like a really, really small notebook than the UMPC designs I have seen before. 
One such design is featured on VIA's booths, with an identical model on FIC's booth. I first saw a prototype for this unit in the VIA offices back in March. The design is similar to an ultra-portable notebook, with a full keyboard (although smaller than normal size of course). Next to the screen is an area for different modules to clip in. So far there is a clock/date sort of module (not my personal favorite) that seems to be the default option. There is also a little VOIP phone and a GPS module - both very useful indeed. VIA has now issued a Press Release about this design. It's called the VIA NanoBook. 
"The VIA NanoBook is powered by the ultra low voltage 1.2GHz VIA C7-M processor and delivers up to 5 hours of battery life. Powered by a choice of Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista Basic operating systems, it comes with host of advanced features, including a full keyboard, a crisp 7” WVGA screen with touch panel, up to 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, and a minimum 30GB HDD, as well as 802.11g WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet support, plus a DVI and two USB 2.0 ports." It weighs less than 850g.  
First to market with a solution on the NanoBook reference design will be Packard Bell with the EasyNote XS. It doesn't feature the clip in modules. It's all black and it feels like a quality build, although it's still very light. You can read the rest of VIA's Press Release here. | |
| It was the night before Computex...
Monday, June 04, 2007
and all through the hotel room, nothing was stirring, apart from a UMPC. It is going to be interesting this year at Computex. There isn't any anticipation about any graphics cores or chipset releases from anyone. Even the buildings that are normally covered in advertisments, which usually plague the area where Computex is held, are fairly bare. Although I am still interested in chipsets and high end graphics cards, I am going to be spending mosty of time this year looking into the latest developments on the UMPC side of things - my quest to find the perfect all-in-one replacement for all my gadgets. Over the last month I have spent a lot of time playing around with games and other uses for the OQO. On the flight over I was forced to relinquish the OQO to Fiona, so I pulled out my PSP and fired up the latest Star Wars game. It was actually based on the Unreal engine. To be honest I would never of considered installing games that old on the OQO. But I wanted to see what fps games were like on the PSP. It was more like a Tomb Raider version of Jedi Knight. Even being the mad Star Wars fan, and a fan of the original Jedi Knight series of PC games, having a cameo appearance of the character Kyle Kartan in the first part of the game is not a big enough draw card for me after seing how gorgeous Quake III and Half Life engines run on ultra mobile PCs. Could UMPCs become the portable gaming console replacement? I want to look at the interface of some of the new units as well as screen size and battery life. I'll let you know what I find as the week goes on. | |
| New Windows embedded support packages
Monday, June 04, 2007
Online today:
VIA WLAN VT6656 Driver V1.46 for Windows CE 4.2/5.0
VIA HD Audio Codec VT1708A Driver V1.0 for Windows CE 4.2
VIA HD Audio Codec VT1708A Driver V1.1a for Windows CE 5.0
VIA HD Audio Codec VT1708A Driver V1.0a for Windows CE 6.0
VIA CN896/CN800/CX700/CN700/CN400/CLE266 Board Support Package V2.4 for Windows CE 5.0
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| EPIA Pico-ITX board reviewed
Monday, June 04, 2007
Mini-ITX.com have managed to get their hands on a sample VIA EPIA PX 10000, the first commercially available Pico-ITX sized mainboard. Pico-ITX, a news standard developed byVIA, is just 3.9 x 2.8 inches or 100 x 72 mm. It's a detailed review, which nuts out just what the board is good for as well as what it's not good for. The board is so tiny that there are not a lot of connectors on it - it's not set up for general enthusiasts, although they might also have some fun with it. "We'd really like to see a Pico-ITX powered robot on our project pages one day." So would I! | |
| New Eco PC Review website
Saturday, June 02, 2007
I just got an email from Mike Chin, the creator of Silent PC Review about a new web site that he and some colleagues have just launched: "Eco PC Review is dedicated to bringing news, information and analysis to educate people about the environmental impact of computers. This is an issue that is not widely understood, and we are only just beginning to get an inkling of what all those electronic thinking machines might be doing to the environment. A majority of people in the developed world are computer users and the ubiquity of computers is almost complete, yet the questions about their eco-footprint are only beginning to be asked. There is much to be learned and solved.EPCR has an activist, user-centric, and practical focus in achieving its mission. This is as much for the benefit of the audiences as for its staff: The writers, editors, researchers and other contributors who bring you Eco PC Review are keenly interested for themselves in finding out more about the issues around computers and the environment, and ways to deal with them." I am really looking forward to reading the content that will be produced on this site. | |
| Quake III Arena on a six inch PC
Friday, June 01, 2007
This is our seventh video in a month! As you may have noticed, the number of articles we have published has considerably dropped. We're still getting used to the camera, lighting issues, presenting, zooming, editing, making titles, converting files ... we're on a learning curve but it's fun! This time John plays Quake III Arena on the OQO model 02 UMPC. | |
| Excitement builds for VTF
Friday, June 01, 2007
Alas, I wont' get to meet Chippy from UMPC Portal next week in Taipei. Never the less he fully intends on covering Computex and the VIA Technology Forum from afar. He's especially looking forward to the VTF keynote speeches: "I expect this to be the day when we'll see the official announcements on new devices, technology and roadmaps. VIA have recently published the agenda and speaker list for VTF and its nice to see that Otto Berkes, father of the Origami Project, will be speaking. Also interesting is a keynote slot for Packard Bell. What are they up to? And why are AMD paying $5K to be a Gold Sponsor?" | |
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| Most recent blog entries |  |
| | | Update in Process | | John Gatt's Babblings
| By John Gatt onThursday, August 21, 2008 2:13 PM | |
| So, there’s a new iPhone update out there. The first thing I did this morning was plug in my iPhone to sync it with iTunes and get the latest update, hoping it would fix some of the crash Apple screens ... |  | | Comments (0) | More... |
| | @Me dot com | | John Gatt's Babblings
| By John Gatt onTuesday, August 19, 2008 9:34 AM | |
| iTunes has advertised the Apple @Me service to me a couple of times, so I thought I’d give it a spin. If you don’t know what @Me is, it’s iTune or Apple’s solution to Gmail but it’s meant to have more ... | | | Comments (0) | More... |
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| | Updating my iPhone | | John Gatt's Babblings
| By John Gatt onTuesday, August 12, 2008 11:39 AM | |
| iPhone 2.0.1 software update is now available from iTunes. This 249.2MB update was released to fix numerous issues that have been plaguing the release of the 3G iPhone. I personally have found the iPhone to be less stable than your average V ... | | | Comments (0) | More... |
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