Linux
”Everex Going Bigger With Tiny Cloudbooks and Adding Next-Gen Wireless Joy
The mini-notebook market is heating up, with today bringing stats and shots of the Asus's latest Eee PC with its tiny screen and keys that might work with normal hands. Then later, we get news of a leak about Everex, Asus's competitor in this market, about its next Cloudbooks, including one with a 10.2-inch screen and 3G connectivity, and another with an 8.9-inch screen and WiMax. More »First Footage: Same OLPC XO Boots Both Sugar and Windows XP
This is the first footage of the same XO OLPC doing a dual-boot of Sugar Linux and Windows XP—something skeptics have said wasn't going to happen. Soon, XOs will ship with both Sugar and XP for Boot Camp-style dual-booting options. They will never come with only XP, though the team is working on adding more of the Sugar functionality, like the mesh network and the fun sharing apps, to the Windows side. Once again, little PCs are coming to the rescue of Windows XP. More »Android Running on a Nokia N95 Offers Lessons on Taking Video
By the looks of the following videos, someone has managed to get Android working on a Nokia n95 in one form or another. During the videos we can (sort of) see a dual boot Android / Symbian setup, Google maps running and a voice call being made. However, like most UFO footage and Bigfoot sightings, the video quality is absolutely hideous—which does nothing but generate skepticism. So the lesson here is if you have a genuine breakthrough that you want to catch on film, get a decent camera to do the job. More »Black Box Case Mod Scoffs at Server Crashes
While most of us wonder why planes aren't built of the crash-proof "black box" flight recorder material, one modder has requisitioned a black box of his own to use as a PC case. While the package itself is quite large (and disappointingly red), the interior is so cramped that only a Mini-ITX motherboard could fit inside, running Slackware Linux on a 800MHz Via C3. But have you ever seen the inside of a black box before? More »AMD Jumps Into Ultraportables With Low-Cost and High Performance Models
With Computex 2008 in full swing, the sub-notebook announcements are coming fast and furious. First came the Eee PC 901 and 1000, followed by the MSI Wind and the Asus Aspire One. Now we have learned that AMD is entering the fray with two new ultraportables.
Acer Aspire One: Also Priced To Kick Assus, Soon To Pack 3G
Acer has just announced their new 8.9" Aspire One ultraportable laptop. With a starting price of just $379, configurations include an Intel Atom processor, up to 1GB of RAM and either 8GB of flash storage or an 80GB hard drive as well as a choice between Linpus Linux Lite and Windows XP. Nothing here is out of the ordinary for this new class of laptops except its competitive price and that future iterations are planned with 3G data support—yes, your computer may finally replace your smartphone. Read on for more details: More »Motorola + Kodak's 5-Megapixel Cameraphone Leaked Shots
We've been hearing about a 5-megapixel cameraphone from Motorola and Kodak for more than a year now, but we've only recently seen leaked photos of the actual device. Boy Genius says it's running on Motorola's MOTOMAGX Linux platform and has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 100MB internal storage and a ROKR touch wheel. The problems? The camera isn't autofocus (ruh roh), and there's only EDGE. Someone's going to have some good times uploading blurry pictures over a slow connection when this is released. [Boy Genius]
Cheap IKEA Furniture Makes One Hell of a Linux Cluster
My IKEA experiences have been pretty hit or miss, but maybe that's just because I wasn't building Linux rendering clusters out of the POÄNG chairs. Because one modder took a $40 IKEA Helmer set of drawers and shoved in 6 Intel Quad Core processors. His end product featured 24 2.4 Ghz cores and 48GB of RAM. Where an example render on his DualCore Xenon 2.66 Ghz with 4 GB ram took 552 minutes (9.2 h), the IKEA machine breezed through the same task in just 64 minutes. Just don't try to pick up your Helmer case on a weekend. You could seriously die. [Helmer via MAKE]Asus Notebooks Getting Splashtop Instant Boot Linux OS: Web Browsing, Skype in Seconds
The lightweight Linux variant Splashtop that's been pre-installed on some Asus motherboards is shimmying its way over to a range of Asus notebooks, providing instant-on functions like wireless, web browsing, chat, etc. Since the software runs out of the computer's RAM, you don't have to wait for the full OS to boot up roll with basics (plus it saves battery life). Expect to see this and other software like it on more systems. More »"Netbook Remix" Ubuntu for Ultraportables Coming in June
Considering that one of the weak points of both the XO Laptop and the Eee PC were their OSes, and that not everybody wants to run Windows XP, this is pretty excellent news: Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth revealed that a new version of Ubuntu tailored to ultraportables, called Netbook Remix, will be announced the first of June. They're working with Intel on it—no surprise, considering Intel's a driving force behind the whole "netbook" concept. Computex takes place the first week of June, so I'm guessing that's where we'll see the announcement, along with more details. [Guardian via Ubuntu]OLPC XO Laptop's Sugar OS Being Shopped to Four Other Laptop-Makers
Even though the XO Laptop's Sugar-coated OS wasn't exactly the most vaunted aspect of the attempted laptop-for-all, following Windows XP's invasion of the project, former OLPC exec Walter Bender's newly formed Sugar Labs is shopping Sugar around. They're in talks with at least four "ultra low-cost" notebook makers who would use it for kid computers. This is the second OLPC splinter faction to license tech from the OLPC project, the first being Mary Lou Jepsen's Pixel Qi, which is licensing the XO's innovative indoor/outdoor display and aiming for a $75 laptop. I'm waiting for someone to sell me that sweet XO-2 unveiled the other day. [Betanews via Electronista]Bestlink Alpha 400, The $250 "Eee"
We're a little sick of the Asus Eee metric too, but it sure makes for a succinct headline. The Bestlink Alpha 400 is a 7-inch Linux PC with a 400Mhz processor, scant 128MB of RAM and 1-2GB of internal flash storage. It's nothing impressive, but it only runs $250...through probably not much else, if you know what I mean. But order 100 or more and the price drops to $180 per unit. Pretty neat, since $18,000 could easily buy you just one computer in more advanced configurations. [Desktop Linux]Question of the Day: Do You Use an Anti-Virus Program?
I don't know about you, but I get stuck with calls every so often from family and friends looking for solutions to their computer problems, only to find out that their systems are bogged down with viruses and spyware. Naturally, a lot of what your computer may be infected with comes down to your browsing habits and the OS that you use, but there has always been a debate about whether anti-virus programs are resource hogs that actually do more harm than good. So, the question is: Do you use an anti-virus program?
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