This 2.1-pound netbook approaches more of a sweet spot in terms of pricing: The Linux version is $329, while the XP model is only $20 more. Acer includes a lite build of Linpus Linux, which I found to be great for quick, out-of-the-box computing, but most people would be better served with the XP edition. The incremental extra price also includes twice the memory (1 GB vs. 512 MB) and a faster 120 GB hard drive instead of the slower 8 GB of flash memory.

It’s pretty, too:

Boing Boing Gadgets’ John Brownlee discovers the coolest $99 watch ever! The Casio G8100A-5 invokes a retro-futuristic aesthetic that Brownlee likens to Star Wars. Others are noticing a steampunk look and feel. Whatever the design influence, it’s a nice looking watch — and I really want one.

The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.
T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

The high-end phone is expected to match many of the capabilities of Apple’s iPhone and other so-called smartphones that run software from Palm, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Nokia to access the Internet and perform computerlike functions.

The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the “dream,” will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video.

The design is more evolutionary than revolutionary, but it’s still a sleek, modern and stylish design with decent technical specs.

Coverage:

• SlashGear
• Crave
• Pocket PC Thoughts
• BrightHand
• WMExperts

The Treo Pro won’t have a revolutionary impact on phones or their users, but it looks like a step in the right direction for the one-time king of smart phones.

Chaos Manor was a monthly column in the print edition of Byte magazine back in the 80’s and 90’s, and the main reason I bought the magazine each month. Now it’s online and free — although Dr. Pournelle welcomes paid subscribers.

You can get similar functionality, including keyboard shortcuts and two-pane navigating, with the free Windows program Free Commander.

I’ve replaced the “My Computer” link on my desktop with a Free Commander shortcut. The program also allows easy access to network drives and ftp sites, and even integrates file zipping and unzipping.

Download Free Commander

Mine, circa 1988, had a ‘composite’ color monitor that I could toggle to black and white to make 80 column text more readable. Sweet.

The guys at the MIT summit got the idea for a $12 computer from cheap “TV Computers” available in India for under $15. That product, as is, would probably sell well in the U.S. as a kid’s toy and hacker’s play thing. Of course, most of the built in games would have to go — or be licensed.

UPDATE: The technology in the TV Computer is actually based on the Nintendo NES rather than the Apple II. There’s still the potential there for lots of old-school fun — I wish there was a US source for these devices.

If you buy a lot of content from the Zune marketplace, this may be good news. For everyone else that’s rocking out to DRM-free MP3s, it’s irrelevant. My son’s Samsung Beat and my daughter’s T-Mobile SDA play MP3 files just fine — as do most newer handsets. And with plenty of online outlets for cheap unencumbered MP3 files, the Zune desktop software becomes just another program to load music onto your device. In that role, it’s sorely lacking; the Zune software is bloated and without any compelling features. I would much rather use Windows Media Player, or anything else, to load my 30gb Zune. And I really like being able to drag and drop music onto devices, something neither the Zune nor the iPod allow.

The latest victim is the Jointech J-Pro JL7100, which may eventually be available at just $99. At that price, the specs don’t matter much, but the JL7100 rocks WinCE 5.0, a 400mhz processor, a 7-inch 800 x 480 display, 64MB of internal storage, 64MB of RAM, 4 hour battery, VGA out and three USB ports. No mention of WiFi, which is sort of important.

Assuming the price stays at $99 and wireless is available, even as a cheap option (usb dongle, maybe?), this would be a compelling device. Add an 8GB USB drive for storage, a decent browser, and some productivity apps, and you’re in business for not much more than a c note. And the Linux hackers would love this thing.

By the way, Windows CE clamshells were somewhat popular back in the late 90’s — in fact, the J-Pro reminds me a lot of the somewhat larger IBM Z50 I had back in 1999:

On the Web: Roku Netflix Player

Crave reports that the Studio Hybrid will go for $699 with a monitor, and $499 without.

Video teaser courtesy of Dell:

A space solar power system would involve building large solar energy collectors in orbit around the Earth. These panels would collect far more energy than land-based units, which are hampered by weather, low angles of the sun in northern climes and, of course, the darkness of night.

Once collected, the solar energy would be safely beamed to Earth via wireless radio transmission, where it would be received by antennas near cities and other places where large amounts of power are used. The received energy would then be converted to electric power for distribution over the existing grid. Government scientists have projected that the cost of electric power generation from such a system could be as low as 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is within the range of what consumers pay now.

That’s from an Op Ed by Glenn Smith, a “former manager of science and applications experiments for the International Space Station at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.” The idea of solar power from space dates back at least to the late 1960’s.

One version of the Moblin User Interface:

Ars Technica has more info on OpenTech.

The WiFi driver was my main concern — If you can get online, you can usually find any other drivers needed. However, I went ahead and backed up all my non-Microsoft hardware drivers — even the driver for my never-used soft modem.

The backed up drivers are kept on a separate partition on my hard drive, in a folder synced to Microsoft’s Live Mesh service. The drivers will not only be stored in the cloud, but also on the other PC I synchronize my Mesh folders with. (For more about Live Mesh, check out Surflizard.)

Reinstalling Windows is never fun, but Double Driver can help make it a little less painful. Recommended.

ASUS seems to have confused “innovation” and “repetition”, since they’re apparently committed to churning out every possible combination of Eee PC possible. Latest to clog up comparison charts is the 1000HD, the dreary offspring of the existing 1000H and 904 models.

I would warn Asus about diluting the valuable EEE brand and confusing consumers, but that ship has sailed. Even so, the Asus lineup features some very nice machinery.

1000HD Specs:

The owner of Esquire said Tuesday that it plans to publish the magazine’s October issue using so-called electronic ink to mark the publication’s 75th anniversary.

Hearst said the issue will feature a cover across which various words and images will scroll ” news-ticker style — thanks to technology developed by Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink.

Print publishing is a content distribution medium on the decline, but this technology could certainly postpone the inevitable. How long Kindle and kin can be held at bay remains to be seen, but I do think I’ll be buying the October Esquire.

UPDATE: Possible explanations:

* Slightly late Y2K issue

* Alien Virus

* Evil Clowns

* Egyptian Curse

* Latest GNR Album Rocks Too Hard

* MS Sucks

UPDATE 2 - I have a feeling this was a coding error related to 2008 being a leap year — today is day 366. Could be wrong, but as a long-time mainframe programmer, I’ve seen leap year glitches a few times.

UPDATE 3 - Microsoft says the issue will fix itself tomorrow..

The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.

Read more details on the official Zune blog.

UPDATE 4 On Twitter, ZuneInsider is assuring us that the firmware will be updated before 2012 — the next leap year. Man, I hope I’m not still using my brown 30gb Zune 4 years from now.

link: http://twitter.com/ZuneInsider

(cross-posted on badooble)

The TextOnPhone Android application doesn’t support bookmarks, but it does a good job of remembering your place — even if you close and then re-open a book.

It would be nice if TextOnPhone could open text files stored on the phone’s SD card, or if I could at least figure out how to get large books uploaded, but it will do until a more full-featured application shows up.

UPDATE: Uploading books to TextOnPhone seems to be working fine now via the Facebook app. Go to the TextOnPhone web site to install the app to your Facebook account, and have fun uploading your books. The G1 application itself has also been updated — books are now downloaded to the G1’s storage card instead of to the device’s storage (only five books can be saved to storage at a time). And books can now be read online, without downloading first (like on the iPhone).

Finally, books can even be read on your desktop pc, via the Facebook app. The TexOnPhone developers are definitely on the ball, and this is easily the best (and most improved) G1 ebook application — not to mention my favorite G1 app of all. Thanks guys…I can finally stop carrying around my old Treo 650 just to read ebooks on!

There are still bugs, to be sure. Find Text doesn’t work yet, and each orientation change causes the book to re-load and start at the beginning (open the keyboard while reading, and lose your place!). And I haven’t discovered a way to set bookmarks yet, which is important. But this is a key application for me, and I’m glad it’s available. Hopefully, active development will continue and improvements will come quickly.

FBReaderJ 0.2.1 is not in the official Android marketplace yet, but the Android package can be downloaded here (you’ll need to enable “Unknown Sources” in the Settings > Application menu on your G1 first).

Thanks to FBReaderJ, I’m now closer to retiring my Treo 650 for good and just carrying the awesome G1.

FROM THE COMMENTS:
“what did you use to convert the LIT books to FB2?”

I use a free Windows program called ABC Amber Lit Converter. It does the job, converting Lit titles to a variety of other ebook and document formats. Very nice.

UPDATE: The Google Chrome browser is available for download.

Movie: We saw The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor this weekend, and it was an entertaining adventure flick enjoyed by all. The plot and structure didn’t deviate much from the previous two installments, despite being set in China instead of Egypt. Beyond that, the cgi was better and the battle scenes were crazy good. We re-watched the first two films after seeing this movie, and my daughter insisted that the latest was the best.

The massively multiplayer game, from Cryptic Studios for Windows PCs and perhaps Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, takes place about 30 years after Star Trek: Nemesis. Players can captain their own starship, as a human or alien, as they seek out new civilizations.

I want to play a tribble.

Chrysler will reportedly offer up its in-car EV-DO solution (dubbed Uconnect Web) starting on August 25th, and owners of 2009 Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles (along with a few “earlier models”) will be able to have the $499 box retrofitted into their rides.

Ok, a Jeep with internet access is just cool.

Here’s my take on such a device, from the 14th of last month:

If the ad is a fake (and I suspect it is), hopefully someone at Palm is paying attention.

Hat Tip: Boing Boing Gadgets

UPDATE: The ad is apparently the result of someone’s project in a marketing class. Fake, in other words. Come on, Palm — the ball’s in your court. Build this phone already!

“From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence,” said Jane Bradburn, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks for HP Australia.

“However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today.”

Of course, Microsoft gets credit for a Vista sale, even when XP is shipped on the PC.

My own experience with Vista has been more positive than many (with most of my exposure coming after SP1), but I don’t see any compelling reason to update, considering the steep hardware requirements. In fact, my last laptop came with a free upgrade certificate that I never used. Apparently, a lot of people agree.

First off, no more brand new version each year. Microsoft is “moving off of an annual release cycle for Microsoft Money Plus.” In other words, there will not be a “Money 2009″ released this fall. It was apparently getting difficult to convince people to buy a “new” version each year that contained only minor updates.

The other change is even more dramatic. Going forward, Microsoft Money will only be sold online: “Microsoft Money Plus will continue to be available at retail outlets while supplies last. We have stopped shipping new product to retail outlets.”

Both changes make sense. Money’s annual release cycle has always been a bit silly, and buying shrink-wrapped boxes of software at Wal-Mart or Staples started to seem quaint and old-fashioned some years ago. Personally, I’ve been happy with the free versions of Money (and/or Quicken) that came with various PCs and laptops purchased over the years.

Official Money Web Site

For the first time, IBM and leading Linux distributors Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat will join forces globally with their hardware partners to deliver Microsoft-free personal computing choices with Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony in the one billion-unit desktop market worldwide by 2009.

Citing shifting market forces and the growing demand for economical alternatives to costly Windows and Office-based computers, the four leaders sense an ideal set of circumstances allowing Linux-based desktops to proliferate in the coming year. Linux is far more profitable for a PC vendor and the operating system is better equipped to work with lower cost hardware than new Microsoft technology.

“The slow adoption of Vista among businesses and budget-conscious CIOs, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux,” said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president for IBM Lotus Software. “We’ll work to unlock the desktop to save our customers money and give freedom of choice by offering this industry-leading solution.”

The four organizations are working with vendors to build and distribute a PC pre-loaded with Linux and IBM enterprise collaboration software. This move is aimed squarely at corporate and government desktops, a market notoriously resistant to Linux computers outside of server racks. If IBM really wants to tackle the desktop, I think a better strategy may be taking the Apple route and building a new OS based on some other less-popular flavor of Unix, with the difference that it would not be tied to proprietary hardware. Now that would be cool.

Ok, the guide is in that annoying multiple slideshow format, but I guess that’s a forgivable conceit for good content.

Reuters: IOC feels media heat on Internet restrictions

AP: IOC being grilled on Internet censorship

Dell already seems to have a trademark on “Dell Cloud Computing Solutions“, and few would argue that it’s not a legitimate use of trademark protection. But they apparently also feel the need to go after the more generic “cloud computing” mark.

Given the negative publicity this move will (and should) generate, it’s hard to understand what Dell is trying to accomplish here. At the very least, the USPTO should have thrown this application out based on the fact that cloud computing is a generic term in common usage already, but I’m guessing the legal eagles at the trademark office aren’t all that Web 2.0 savvy.

The current status of the trademark claim:

Opposition period completed, a Notice of Allowance has been issued.

UPDATE: Boing Boing Gadgets weighs in with “what a bunch of disgusting shysters“. Agreed!

DriveThruComics.com is the first downloadable comic book store.

John Dvorak has a scathing review slamming Cruil for poor search results.

And Juan Carlos Perez points out that Cuil’s poor first impression could do lasting damage to the brand the owners are trying to create.

One interesting thing I noted was that as the day wore on, Wikipedia articles started suddenly appearing high up in the search results where they had been conspicuously absent before (something a number of other bloggers pointed out). That’s a positive sign — when you’re researching a famous person, you expect a competent search engine to return an encyclopedia entry fairly high up in the results.

But even if Cuil gets its act together, it doesn’t seem to bring anything compelling to the search engine space. Maybe I’ll change my mind once the stability and load balancing issues are sorted out.

I was worried early on…the first part of the movie has the feel of a second-rate remake or reboot more than a sequel. But eventually the plot heads back to the original source material and brings it up to date nicely.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot of silliness in this movie–like the McGyver moment when Will ‘invents’ a WiFI antenna from a Pringles can, and his friends act like he’s just invented the wheel. And the premise that get’s Will in trouble in the first place — an autonomous government computer system identifies terrorists and executes them based on how well they play a computer game — is utterly preposterous. Sort of like locking up people who are good at Grand Theft Auto. And the frequent World of Warcraft references may help sell this movie to most viewers, but they are more likely to induce groans from the more online-savvy viewers this movie will appeal to most.

But overall, this movie works. Even the special effects and action scenes are well done. And, without giving too much away, several characters from the original movie play significant roles in The Dead Code.

I’m sure the plot holes and occasionally weak dialog could have been tightened up a lot with a bigger budget, and it’s unfortunate that this movie was made for DVD instead. But it’s still a decent movie worth watching — and a must-see for any fan of the original.

Buy On Amazon: War Games: The Dead Code

This is an amazing site…enjoy it while it’s still available.

If you need offline access to your email or want to consolidate your various accounts into a single inbox, Zimbra may be worth a try — the reviews seem positive so far.

After September 30, 2008, you will not be able to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or re-license these songs after changing operating systems. Please note that your purchased tracks will generally continue to play on your existing authorized computers unless there is a change to the computer’s operating system.

For any user who purchased tracks through Yahoo! Music Unlimited, we highly recommend that you back up the purchased tracks to an audio CD before the closing of the Store on September 30, 2008. Backing up your music to an audio CD will allow you to copy the music back to your computer again if the license keys for your original music files cannot be retrieved.

I’m glad to see these protection schemes collapsing, but seriously — how much would it really cost a huge multi-national corporation like Yahoo to maintain a single license server in perpetuity? Avoiding the bad publicity that goes with screwing your customers should be worth a few thousand dollars a year.