The new Asus EEE PC 1000HE improves on the earlier EEE PC 1000 model that was overshadowed by the eminently affordable Aspire One from Acer. Now however, it has made sure that nothing stops it from getting all the attention. It has changed so much that it barely looks the same as the original EEE PC 1000. So much so that the HE might as well be a new model altogether. It gets a cosmetic makeover and has gone through bit of a slimming job. However, this slimming is not very noticeable so the two models might look absolutely the same in size.
When it comes to the usability, it is eminently usable. The keyboard is nice with spaced out keys, making it easier to type on. This is very important if you want to send off emails on the go. There are assignable shortcut keys to the top right, below the screen. The screen is 10.1 inches and has a native resolution of 1024×600, which can be compressed to 1024×768. This is handy and necessary too in some cases because some apps will only run on a standard resolution like 1024×768. Lenovo actually uses the same technology on one of their portables – the IdeaPad S10. The screen is made up of backlit LED and has a bright output with good color reproduction. But you might find the shiny bezel around the screen a tad bit too distracting at times.
The touch pad is slightly too accelerated so some people might need longer to adjust to it. It is certainly no deal breaker but you would want to keep this in mind. The netbooks not only got cosmetic changes, it has gotten heavier as well. It is now 3.2 pounds in weight, thanks to the 8700mAH battery. Asus promises 9.5 powers but real world figures are more like 7 hours and a bit more.
Spec-wise it is quite nicely loaded, for a netbook that it is. 1 gig of RAM, 160 GB HDD, 667 MHz Front Side Bus running on an Intel Atom N280 1.66 GHz processor. So the performance is on the nicer side. Plus it has 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi adapter, Bluetooth and three USB 2.0 ports. Well, what’s a netbook without connectivity and expandability, right? Still, it is a nice set of features to have. All in all, it is a great thing to have on a budget and gives an all round satisfying performance.
Just when you thought you had seen the largest pen drive in the market, Kingston comes out from behind the bushes and goes ‘boo!’ It has recently released a massive capacity flash drive and even though it is a pricey now, it will soon become a standard thing for many professionals in all likelihood. So as the dust settles, we take a look at this behemoth and what it is capable of doing. We also wonder with wide-open mouths at the enormous price tag, even though it is somewhat (?) justifiable.
So the total capacity on the monster is 128 whopping gigabytes. That figure alone itself must’ve caused quite a few hearts to flutter around the world. For an idea on how big that is – Apple was selling them white MacBooks with 120GB HDDs only last year. And this storage device from Kingston is roughly 50 times as fast as those hard disk drives simply by the virtue of being a flash drive. Flash drives, also known as Solid State Drives or SSDs are really coming into vogue these days. They called solid state because they contain no moving parts inside. They have memory chips like the ones you see on your RAM stick. Only, these don’t get erased when left unpowered.
So they can give you the same massive storage at many times the speed. Flash drives are very popular amongst professionals for the speed and portability. The Kingston DataTraveller 200, which is the name of this mammoth of a flash drive, is priced at over $500! But, that should not be a deterring factor for many enthusiasts and professionals because now they can carry around even larger files and all they have to do for fast file access is to plug this small pendrive in to a machine.
For the rest of us, multiple smaller pendrives might suffice. Plus putting together the same amount of storage will cost less this way. Sadly, since flash drives grow at the binary progressions, the nearest size is 64GB. Still it must be noted that two of them cost less then $500 right now. However, as mentioned before, some people will just go for it.
Physically, the device is just 2.7”x0.49”x0.89”, which beats having to lug around portable hard drives. Flash drives are getting bigger and cheaper and soon they will take over. So that is the real good news.
Asus can easily claim that it practically invented the netbook category of mobile computing devices. But now that it has been facing steep competition from a plethora of other manufacturers, it has been trying to find its feet again in the market. Although it is not a very weak competitor, Asus surely is trying very hard to offer things that others can’t in order to win back some revenue. Another factor is that other companies are looking in to the netbook market as a cheap way to launch co-branded computing products that will find their way to the niche crowd that the companies will be targeting.
These probably the combines reasons behind the announcement of Asus’ new line of Disney Netpal netbooks. These notebooks are of course meant for children and aimed specifically at them. The package not only includes the designing but also includes specially designed software and interface that showcases Disney characters. Physically, the netbooks will come in two color choices – ‘Magic Blue’ and ‘Princess Pink’. As is obvious from the naming, the whole thing smacks of Disney’s signature fantasy world themes. Nonetheless, the styling is sure to win some hearts.
The insides of the netbooks will feature a specially designed interface that has Disney’s branding all over it. The custom setup will also include special parental settings so that parents can have some peace of mind as their minors surf around the Internet. The device interface will also features themes around famous characters like Mickey Mouse, Wall E, Toy Story, etc. So for those kids who are fascinated by the world of Disney, this is the ideal computing device to have. Ultimately, it boils down to some lightweight hardware with some fancy designer interfaces, perfect for kids but that’s about it.
Device wise, it is very much the standard thing that you are getting in t he market right now. It is a standard 8.9 inch Asus Eee PC that is available everywhere. There is however, the option to upgrade to 160GB HDD or a 16 GB SSD. When it will be available is still a mystery but parents can rest at ease because the pricing has been declared. It will be available for $250, which is more or less affordable as a Christmas present. It quite possible that give that Disney is involved, they are looking for an early Christmas release and hence cashing in on the holiday rush.
The UK three-pin plug has got to be the bulkiest plug in the contemporary world. If you have used one, you will know that it is positively huge. This creates more than just little problems. When it is being carried around, it is really the worst thing that you need to pack in. This is especially bad when laptop users need to carry things around. Sure you have the coolest, thinnest laptop around but you also have to pack in its bulky three-pin wielding power cord whenever you want to carry it. So your laptop bag looks like it is pregnant, has bad case of tumor or it will simply look like you are bad at hiding things!
There have been attempts to make the three pin plug slimmer but none have been very successful. So when it comes to a power brick for the MacBook Air, you are not likely to have a great time stuffing it into your nice and slim laptop bag. And that is another problem – laptop bags are not designed to handle that bulky plug, you have to pack them in anyway. So it is agreed unanimously amongst users of the UK three pin plug that it is the most cumbersome thing every designed (almost).
So a designer took up the challenge to change the three-pin plug in to something that will fit the width of a MacBook Air and tat by itself is taking on a huge challenge. Here you have a mini brick sized plug and there you are trying to match it to the world’s thinnest laptop. But hey, if inventors did not take up the challenge, we’d still be hunting wild game with clubs. The task must have been really problematic at first but this designer/inventor came up with an ingenious method to make the three in UK plug smaller. The plug will simply fold upon itself, completely.
So now we have a folding UK three-pin plug that folds down less than 1 centimeter! And as crazy as it sounds, when you see it in action you can’t help being impressed at the sheer ingenuity of the inventor. So far, the product is only at the design stage and t he inventor is looking for someone to pick it. The design looks brilliant in white and gray and suits Apple to the T, I mean A. Now if only they would pick it up.
Here’s the presentation video. Be warned, the voice over was done by someone who is non-english speaking, so it is not the best voice over but gets the points across quite well with the graphics.
Recently I have re-discovered the pleasure of playing room escape games. You know them for sure: “point and click” to get out of the room.
After playing day by day for several weeks, I decided to gather the room escapes that I liked the most into a list. Below you can see the result. Enjoy!
Crimson Room – The well known escape! The game that popularized the genre. It has to be no.1!
Viridian Room – Created by the same Japanese software house that created Crimson Room, Fasco-CS, you have new mysteries to solve before getting out of this one.
In a not-so-unexpected turn of events, mobile giant Nokia and chipmaker Intel (another giant, but amongst microscopic things) have come together to form a collaboration. The news was announced earlier this week. The announcement however, left out the juicy bits, all of them. It did not say anything about what the two companies are planning to do together. A very vague blanket statement was made saying they would be looking in to the mobile computing market. Well, duh! What else would a mobile device maker and a chip company be expected to do together? Definitely not make large vacuum cleaners.
But there you have it, a momentous announcement that has been stripped of all data whatsoever. However, it is easy to see that both the companies stand to gain (or lose) from the collaboration. The market for convergent mobile devices is now raring to go and the recent bevy of launches (Nokia’s own N97, Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS just to name a few), it is easy to see where this is going to go. Analysts of course have declined to comment. With the amount of information that both companies have supplied us with so far, everyone might as well go in any direction their gadgetylicious ideas take them.
Nokia (and every other phone manufacturer) has been losing out on market share since the launch of the iPhone and the new iPhone 3Gs doesn’t really help things much. However, Nokia has always been a strong player in the smart-phones segment and it has been a tough contender for specialized companies like Palm, RIM (makers of BlackBerry phones) and such. Nokia’s E-series phones have been dedicated smart-phones and amongst them, E-71 has perhaps been the most successful model. It got great reviews last year when it was first launched and till date it continues being in great demand all over the world.
Nokia has now announced that a new phone that improves on the E71 is on its way. This phone takes everything that is good about the E72 and makes things even better by adding, first of all, an optical touch D-pad. So instead of having to click through everything, you can now slide your fingers to get access to something. This of course makes browsing through items much faster. Another welcome change is the addition of a better camera. Up from the old 3.5 megapixels, the new Nokia E72 has a 5 megapixels camera and support for video recording.
Every now and then, you look at your photo frame and you think of all the cool things that a digital photo frame can do. In reality however, when you really think about it, there isn’t much that an ordinary photo frame can do. All they do is slideshow your photos with some nice transition effects, but that’s about it. So along comes a product that really changes everything. This is the Kogan 8” Wi-Fi LCD Digital Photo Frame and yes; it is a photo frame that connects wirelessly to your Internet connection.
It does that so that you can share your photos with your friends and family over the Internet, even if you do not have a computer. Each photo frame comes equipped with its own unique email address and web account. This enables the user to pull their favorite photos from services such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr and more. In fact, the photo frame can receive an RSS feed of your choice, so the possibilities are actually endless. You can easily follow your favorite photo-blog or a website that regularly updates with photographs.
The 8-inch screen is actually something that is worth talking about, because this photo frame is the only one of its kind to support a native 800×600 resolution at a 4:3 aspect ratio. All other photo frames in the market support lower resolutions and an aspect ratio of 16:9. This is important because most modern cameras take photos with a 4:3 aspect ratio and they are displayed on the other photo frames, there is a total viewing area loss of about 25%. So this photo frame is actually the best photo frame to view your pictures on.
Every now and then, we all feel the need for a small projector. Smaller than what is already available in the market. Small enough to easily carry around without feeling like you are lugging something around. Along comes the K10, answering all your problems but creating some problems of its own. It is small, quite small, and small enough to be mistaken for a fancy lunchbox at a glance. The size comes at the cost of power. It is not powerful from any angle.
Acer launched the k10 earlier this year, utilizing the DLP technology from Texas Instruments. The projector uses LED lamps to deliver a mere 100 ANSI lumens and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio. The resolution is 800×600 and can be enhanced digitally. It is advisable that you set your system to this resolution before moving to higher resolutions while using this projector for the first time. Connectors provided include VGA and composite video in. So you can use your gaming console, your DVD player and your computer with the projector.It features automatic keystone adjustment and the rated power consumption is 55w. The official dimensions are 127x122mm it weight 55 grams.
KidZui may just be the answer to parents worrying about the safety of children on the Internet. Launched in March 2008, the browser allows children to access only URLs within the database of approved URLs, and allows teachers, parents and guardians to screen and monitor content viewed by the child. Each child is represented online by an avatar called a “Zui”, and is allowed to make friends with other Zuis. Since there is no list of Zuis, each child needs to know the name of the Zui through offline sources before adding him/her as a friend.
The KidZui browser uses a Zooming User Interface, or ZUI, which lets children view scaled-down versions of web pages, pictures and videos in search results. When clicked, the full-sized versions can be seen. The ZUI also allows children to perform searches within the KidZui database without having to type out search strings.
Children gain points as they view new websites, pictures and videos. These points can be spent on their Zuis – buying clothes, accessories and backgrounds for their Zui avatars. This is an excellent reward system which teaches children how to earn and spend responsibly from a very early age, and with minimal consequences.
The new Asus EEE PC 1000HE improves on the earlier EEE PC 1000 model that was overshadowed by the eminently affordable Aspire One from Acer. Now however, it has made sure that nothing stops it from getting all the attention. It has changed so much that it barely looks the same as the original EEE PC 1000. So much so that the HE might as well be a new model altogether. It gets a cosmetic makeover and has gone through bit of a slimming job. However, this slimming is not very noticeable so the two models might look absolutely the same in size.
Just when you thought you had seen the largest pen drive in the market, Kingston comes out from behind the bushes and goes ‘boo!’ It has recently released a massive capacity flash drive and even though it is a pricey now, it will soon become a standard thing for many professionals in all likelihood. So as the dust settles, we take a look at this behemoth and what it is capable of doing. We also wonder with wide-open mouths at the enormous price tag, even though it is somewhat (?) justifiable.
The insides of the netbooks will feature a specially designed interface that has Disney’s branding all over it. The custom setup will also include special parental settings so that parents can have some peace of mind as their minors surf around the Internet. The device interface will also features themes around famous characters like Mickey Mouse, Wall E, Toy Story, etc. So for those kids who are fascinated by the world of Disney, this is the ideal computing device to have. Ultimately, it boils down to some lightweight hardware with some fancy designer interfaces, perfect for kids but that’s about it.
The UK three-pin plug has got to be the bulkiest plug in the contemporary world. If you have used one, you will know that it is positively huge. This creates more than just little problems. When it is being carried around, it is really the worst thing that you need to pack in. This is especially bad when laptop users need to carry things around. Sure you have the coolest, thinnest laptop around but you also have to pack in its bulky three-pin wielding power cord whenever you want to carry it. So your laptop bag looks like it is pregnant, has bad case of tumor or it will simply look like you are bad at hiding things!
In a not-so-unexpected turn of events, mobile giant Nokia and chipmaker Intel (another giant, but amongst microscopic things) have come together to form a collaboration. The news was announced earlier this week. The announcement however, left out the juicy bits, all of them. It did not say anything about what the two companies are planning to do together. A very vague blanket statement was made saying they would be looking in to the mobile computing market. Well, duh! What else would a mobile device maker and a chip company be expected to do together? Definitely not make large vacuum cleaners.
Nokia (and every other phone manufacturer) has been losing out on market share since the launch of the iPhone and the new iPhone 3Gs doesn’t really help things much. However, Nokia has always been a strong player in the smart-phones segment and it has been a tough contender for specialized companies like Palm, RIM (makers of BlackBerry phones) and such. Nokia’s E-series phones have been dedicated smart-phones and amongst them, E-71 has perhaps been the most successful model. It got great reviews last year when it was first launched and till date it continues being in great demand all over the world.
Every now and then, you look at your photo frame and you think of all the cool things that a digital photo frame can do. In reality however, when you really think about it, there isn’t much that an ordinary photo frame can do. All they do is slideshow your photos with some nice transition effects, but that’s about it. So along comes a product that really changes everything. This is the Kogan 8” Wi-Fi LCD Digital Photo Frame and yes; it is a photo frame that connects wirelessly to your Internet connection.
Every now and then, we all feel the need for a small projector. Smaller than what is already available in the market. Small enough to easily carry around without feeling like you are lugging something around. Along comes the K10, answering all your problems but creating some problems of its own. It is small, quite small, and small enough to be mistaken for a fancy lunchbox at a glance. The size comes at the cost of power. It is not powerful from any angle.
KidZui may just be the answer to parents worrying about the safety of children on the Internet. Launched in March 2008, the browser allows children to access only URLs within the database of approved URLs, and allows teachers, parents and guardians to screen and monitor content viewed by the child. Each child is represented online by an avatar called a “Zui”, and is allowed to make friends with other Zuis. Since there is no list of Zuis, each child needs to know the name of the Zui through offline sources before adding him/her as a friend.
The KidZui browser uses a Zooming User Interface, or ZUI, which lets children view scaled-down versions of web pages, pictures and videos in search results. When clicked, the full-sized versions can be seen. The ZUI also allows children to perform searches within the KidZui database without having to type out search strings.
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