Wow. I never thought we’d be geeking it out with the best of them but if you look closely at this video from G4-TV, you’ll see Acer notebooks and the all-in-one PC showing some wicked gaming action on display at the brick-and-mortar Wired store in New York.

The video description says: Head to the WIRED store in New York City if you’re looking for the coolest gadgets to buy, from a $4,000 toilet, sumo robots and more! That’s just what Diana Falzone did and luckily, she shared her adventures with us.

If you’re in New York and have the chance, drop by the store, take your picture next to the Acer AIO, post it on The Acer Guy Facebook page below and I’ll send you an Acer Lanyard I swiped from the PR dept…

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For those of you with better things to do with your time, I’m going to write a quick report on the Global Press Conference held yesterday in NY.

First thing to say is that it was a major event as far as Acer was concerned and it’s interesting to see that the journalists took us a bit more seriously than in the past.

At one point yesterday, the things being announced in NY by Acer occupied three of the leading articles on Engadget so all in all, we got decent coverage.

Special mention goes out to Ross Miller who, unbeknown to him, took over the live commentary when the Acer live stream went down (egg on face anyone?).

I wonder if any of the thousands of people who tried to connect to Acer’s official video stream decided to follow Mr Miller’s frequent updates? Oh well, sh** happens…

Oh, and if you missed the event – as I did – and really want to see what went down and when just click here and you’ll be whisked over to Mr Miller’s live blog page.

Just remember to scroll from the bottom of the page upwards…

So what did Acer unveil yesterday?

Here’s a quick checklist:

Clear.fi (new interface and release dates)
alive (digital content store)
Three tablets (4.8″, 7″ and 10″ Android and Windows versions)
Acer ICONIA (Touchbook)

Clear.fi is destined to replace what is now called Acer Arcade. It’s the digital media player of the future which not only gets a great new interface that’ll be on all Acer products including smartphones, but allows digital content to to shared seamlessly across connected devices. In essence, it creates a single media environment out of all the individual components connected to the same network.

There are – as ever – DRM restrictions at play here and this is designed NOT to allow illegal P2P sharing but it’s a pretty nifty system.

And yes, I did name it.

alive is the mega-baby I helped create (at least brand wise). I’m really rooting for this particular product and Roberto, Alberto and Jordi deserve full credit for their efforts here. How many air miles did you guys clock up putting this baby together?

alive isn’t another iTunes although they do overlap in more than one area. First of all, it’s a feed based system, meaning that Acer makes the platform directly available to content partners who then control what gets sent through it. This means that the contractual business models are a LOT easier to manage and gives the entire platform much broader scope to work with. The result is that you the user get a much bigger choice of media types.

Second, the recommendation engine at work here is a lot more refined than normal, meaning that out of the myriad of choices of different content, your recommendations get updated much more frequently over a broader scope of content. Still have to see it in operation but on paper it looks pretty damned slick.

And yes, I did name it.

The tablets are a mystery right now, if I’m perfectly honest. I’ve seen and held the 10″ Android model as well as the 4.8″ smartphone but have very little else to tell you other than the tablet is a LOT better looking than the iPad (my opinion of course) while the 4.8″, 21:9 smartphone is, well, enormous. I see the point and reasons for doing it, but personally wouldn’t want that log in my jeans pocket if you see what I mean…

And yes, I did name them, although the jury’s still deciding.

Finally, the ICONIA. This is one serious slice of ego-pampering. It’s very luxurious to use, a LOT less mechanical than the click clack of keyboards and touchpads we’re all used to and a completely novel interaction experience. I think they did an amazing job with the Acer Ring (not my name) and when you see it in action, you’ll think exactly the same thing too.

The ideal buyer for this is someone who wants a highly visual, touch-based desktop replacement. It’s certainly not the most practical ultraportable and I’m not sure how effective the virtual keyboard is outdoors but as an indoor media controller, it’s the real deal. Have to wait and see whether buyers agree.

And yes, I did name it – and the segment too (Touchbook). Wonder if that will catch on…?

Remember last year when we hooked up with Pete Bethune and the Earthrace (Ady Gil) boat that was cruelly sunk in the Antarctic?

Well that’s all thanks to Emily Penn who Acer helped out by sponsoring her with a first-edition Acer Aspire Timeline.

Just got this letter (and some photos) from her with a quick update I thought you’d appreciate hearing about. She’s currently in Rio winding down but is expected back in the UK from November to February if any radio broadcasters or journalists want to catch up with her…

Hi Michael,

Great to chat earlier today. It reminds me of the other world and that gap we need to bridge

A couple of shots of the trusty Acer attached here. One is of the Acer in the Navigation Station while performing a search pattern over Jaseur Seamount. I was plotting points on the boat GPS system, calling out bearing and distances on the radio and entering the data from the depth sounder into my Acer to create a 3D model of what were seeing beneath the surface. The second photo was at anchor in Rio this morning – me checking my email underneath the Christ Statue (my office for today – who knows where it will be tomorrow)!

To quickly summarise my action packed last few months… I’ve been working with Pangaea Explorations (www.panexplore.com) on the beautiful 72ft Global Challenge racing yacht, Sea Dragon. This boat was designed to sail around the world, against the trade winds. It is an absolute machine! It cuts through the waves and maintains a high speed even when crashing into the swell. The perfect vehicle for getting the scientists, journalists, film crews, technical divers and educators out there into the middle of the ocean, to do what they need to do, and bring it back to land.

Which is exactly what we just did.

In August we left Rio de Janeiro, amid the United Nations Safe Planet event, on a pioneering expedition to the South Atlantic Subtropical Gyre.

In the area of the ocean where the wind doesn’t blow, the currents are slow and sea is calm we discovered large amounts of plastic floating around on the surface of the water. We had found the South Atlantic Garbage Patch, that is number 4 of the 5 known Gyres (www.5gyres.org).

After 13 days trawling for samples we landed on the incredible Ascension Island – at 1300nm from the nearest land and only recently inhabited, this place is barely touched. The marine life is prolific, the terrain different each direction you look, the weather changes from hot and arid to cold and wet.

This place is like nowhere else on Earth.

After a quick stop in the filthy waterways of Recife we raced in the Refeno Regatta with 140 yachts to the tropical archipelago of Fernado de Noronha Marine Reserve. There we worked with Project Tamar on the feeding patterns of the green turtles along coastlines subject to tonnes of marine debris washed up each year. Further south we encountered hundreds of humpback whales enjoying their last few weeks of warm water breeding before heading south for the summer.

It was there, in Abrolhos, where we loaded the boat with helium, oxygen, specialised pumps, camera gear, underwater housings, dive tanks, compressors, computers, dry suits and a new team to explore and film the uncharted sea mounts of the South Atlantic.

Sea Dragon is soon to head to Cape Town for the next transect through the South Atlantic Gyre. The agenda for the next 18 months is non-stop from Africa, back to South America, round the cape into the South Pacific, island hopping to Hawaii, Alaska and beyond… Lots more to do, see, assess, solve.

This is one busy Acer…

Emily

This is a post that could worry the many Acer Guys I’ve had the pleasure of meeting over the past four and a bit years.

Don’t panic. I know what I’m doing… I think.

You may have noticed that I’ve been almost completely absent from the blog for the best part of a year, leaving this site and its free, real time feedback to problems, posts and other general queries about Acer products almost completely in the hands of a few dedicated members to whom I will be eternally grateful. You know who you are!

The reason for this is that I’ve been virtually (as opposed to officially) bumped up from Senior Copywriter to Creative Director for Strategic Projects which is a fancy way of saying I now have to do all the digging, planning, writing and presenting for all new shiny objects and projects coming out of Acer.

If it sounds like fun, it would be if we were a little better organized (and better paid!) but the fact is the strategic team is ever-so-slightly undermanned and struggling to keep up with the avalanche of new stuff.

Which brings me to The Acer Guy. Building this site has been the most fulfilling, hands-on workshop I have ever been involved in and I am seriously dedicated to securing its future, which I am not stupid enough to ignore may well require me to get out of the way.

I won’t take this decision alone though as there are many ways it could go and suggestions are more than welcome but with 1 million visitors per year, >20k forum members and a YouTube channel that’s off the charts (and unused), I risk being both creator and destroyer.

In a perfect world, Acer would take it off my hands, recognize the value of the participants and use it like you – yes You! – deserve, but as time passes that looks increasingly unlikely considering the complexity of what’s going down right now (although no matter how many fireworks web 3.0 and fancy, web-based widgets bring to the party, I still believe squarely in good old fashioned dialogue with customers).

Plan B of course is the most likely. I made it for the community so it rightfully belongs with the community so this is a open invite to all you who’ve worked so hard to get this site to where it is, to suggest how to take it further and make it the site Acer has so far refused to build.

TAG 3.0? You design it.

Michael

All in all I’d say yesterday was a great day.

The project I’m working on is absolutely huge and the “brand guidelines” – meaning naming, brand philosophy, colour choice and icon usage etc., is right at the very start because if you don’t know what you’re building, you’re going to get stuck very quickly.

Fortunately this part went very smoothly and everyone welcomed the choices made so at least they have something concrete to work on which shouldn’t be underestimated as I also got a first glimpse into the inner workings of the project development stages and it’s both frighteningly complex and fascinating at the same time.

The sad thing for me is that once this passes I’m out of the project until it goes public (if Acer decides to do any marketing with it) so I won’t get to see the team in London again which is a real shame as they’re a top flight agency and it was a privilege to work with them on this. If you’re reading this William, top marks for the group you put together!

Still, we’ve got a much bigger fish to fry starting Monday so it’s not as if work’s scarce round these parts… Brilliant.

I find myself sitting in a very quiet, yet highly productive office I cannot name in London.

I’m not actually part of anything going on here right now but I am part of the caravan trailing through this city today meeting a bunch of agencies and suppliers on possibly the most interesting project Acer has ever undertaken.

It’s a long way from my “bunker” in Milan and a million miles from where we (Acer) were only a few years ago.

But that’s the thing with this company. Senior management takes strategic decisions at the speed of light. It might take a couple of days to pin one of them down and get an approval out of them but when they’re available, they approve about twenty things at once.

Which is why I’m here today. I wasn’t supposed to be presenting this but I guess I just became the Creative Director of this project as I was the one gluing all the pieces together and – quite possibly – I’m the only one who can explain it and hand it over in the limited time we have this afternoon before the companies in London do their thing. The best part is that I’m presenting it to my counterparts from two of the top flight agencies in London so it’ll be interesting to see if they giggle behind my back

So yet again, I named something and – hopefully – it’ll be something that will blow you away for a long, long time rather than something that’ll get replaced next year.

I’ll keep you posted on how it played out today and it won’t be long before this baby sees the light of day so be patient. It’ll be worth it.

It’s not every morning you get to sit down with Gianfranco Lanci before he has breakfast and grill him on the subject of smartphones but that’s exactly what Michelle Caruso-Cabrera from CNBC did when she met up with him at the closing ceremony of the Vancouver Olympic Games on her way to the CTIA Wireless Conference in Las Vegas.

The interview basically goes on to point out that “no one is interested in the PC or laptops or desktops anymore. Every company has a target on smartphones.”

Gianfranco commented that Acer’s commitment to smartphones actually had nothing to do with the phones themselves and everything to do with “the assumption that the computer and the phone are converging and he wants his company to be at the center of computing.”

Anyway, check out the interview and if he looks a little tired, remember it was below freezing, 7am and he’d just stepped off the overnight plane…

Have you guys been following the Winter Olympics? It’s been getting some pretty good coverage where I’m from but the time delay (Vancouver’s 9 hours behind where I live) is making it hard for me to be a regular.

Which is a shame as there’s something about the Olympic Games (both winter and summer) that make them both a really special. I like the fact that they mix competition and sportsmanship, national pride and cultural equality and that every now and then they produce some truly unexpected heroes.

This year I’m not sure who’s going to claim that prize but I know that Vancouver 2010 will be etched in the memories of some of my colleagues for the rest of their lives. I’m talking about dear friends who upped sticks and took on the biggest organization challenge you could ever imagine and came out shining. I’m also talking about the many technicians losing sleep every single night to make sure nothing breaks and the many support staff who are making sure things run smoothly. And what about the unspoken heroes staffing the internet cafes, two of which are open round the clock?

Guys, thanks.

I didn’t have a lot to do with the Olympics. Sure I wrote (some of) the brochures and a great deal of the marketing material but most of what you see on the ground (and in the station too) was done by my colleagues out there.

But…. as they’ve (finally!) got their own Facebook page, I’m suddenly a little short on footage, which is where the Acer Guy spies come in really handy… My man Peter sent me a bunch of pictures from inside the Acer Pavillion and a video so what’s an Acer Guy to do…?

For the record, I’ve been told they’re averaging over 6,000 visitors a day to the pavillion alone so it’s absolute mayhem.

Thanks again Peter.

Oh if you’ve got any pics let me know here and I’ll happily add them to the post.

Check out this brand new video from the guys from Netbook News.

They’re in Barcelona at the Acer stand at the MCW right now and this is a pretty good review of the Acer Aspire One 532G, the first 10-inch Netbook with Intel Atom N450 and NVIDIA Ion 2.

Basically with these two little gizmos, we’ll start to see power and performance sneak into the netbook’s previously underwhelming vocabulary…

Bet you missed me.–

January – and the best part of February for that matter – was one hell of a month.

It started out of course with the Global Kickoff in Rome where we had to kit the hotel out, prepare all promotional material including stands, showcases, no fewer than 5 videos, too many press releases to count and a make sure everyone’s presentation was squeaky clean.

Then immediately afterwards, we had to start working on the 7 new smartphones due to be presented at MWC in Barcelona. Seven? I thought there were only four new ones… That’s right – three got canned but only after I’d written the web texts. Grrrr…

Just in case you missed them, head off over to the new site now… and no prizes for guessing what that opening banner is announcing…

Of course it’s not over and if you’ve been following my Facebook page, you’ll have seen what is for me the most important announcement of the past 4 years and no I’m not talking about the Olympic Sponsorship. Acer has its first 100% social media page on Facebook!

OK, you can’t add your own posts but you can start discussions (for now). Don’t underestimate this: this is ground breaking stuff and in addition to complimenting those who managed to get this thing approved and published (you know who you are) I urge you to become a fan if you’re not already as we’ll be doing a case study on “how it went” once the Vancouver Games are over.

There are some 7000 employees working in and around Acer Group so as long as the number of fans sits below that number, it can’t be considered a success really can it. I mean, it’s all too easy to hit “Send to all” with a Fan Link and ask everyone inside Acer to fan it, so we’re I’m interested to see if they can take that number any higher.

If it does, this could quite easily be considered a test bed for something much, much bigger picture and as in all probability I’ll be involved, I – and you my Acer friends – have a vested interest in supporting it.