Best New Technology

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted May 16th 2008 at 9:49PM

With its minute keyboard, the Eee PC can be tough to use in the dark. Imagine, then, if yours had a backlit keyboard. The folks at Popsci have come up with — and explained — a way to add one of your own. And get this: you can do it in 3 hours for just $13.50. But before you go ripping apart your new Eee PC, mind this: this isn’t the easiest mod in the world. You have to be cool with removing the keyboard, slipping some wires, and doing some light soldering. In addition, the hack plops a Techno Flash luminescent wire inverter on the outside of the case, so if you’re big on minimalism, this might be a skip.

[Via Pimp My UMPC]

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Filed under: Laptops

Metal Gear Solid 4 is taking so long that maybe the 5G ipod was current when it was time to render Solid Snake’s mp3 player. Or maybe Snake just likes to keep things old school. Either way, these screenshots from the show yet another video game cameo appearance from Apple.

Metal Gear Solid 4’s Extensive Product Placement [Game|Life]

You know when you read a Top 5 list and the writer runs out of ideas after just four items? Well, the same thing seems to have happened to Sprint in it’s $100 million War on iphone ad campaign. After focussing on some rather short-lived advantages of the Samsung Instinct over the Stupendabrick (GPS, video camera, 3G and Live TV), Sprint came up short. The latest spot is entitled “Downloading music away from Wi-Fi”.

That’s a pretty specific difference. What next? “Launch the calendar with an icon at the bottom left”?

Product page [Now Is Good]

by Darren Murph, posted May 16th 2008 at 6:30PM

Just like that obscure Burt Bacharach album, some DAPs just need a little time to grow on you. Now that SanDisk’s comparatively inexpensive Sansa Fuze has been out and about for a couple of months, we’re imploring you dear readers to cast out your opinions on the minuscule device. Are you satisfied with the interface? Have you been disappointed by the sound quality? Was this thing just one feature away from being perfect? ‘Tis a shame SanDisk didn’t phone you up before mashing the green button and sending these on their way, but here’s your shot to tell all who will listen what could be done better in revision two.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

by Darren Murph, posted May 16th 2008 at 4:12PM

It’s been a tick since we’ve seen anything new from AOC, but today the outfit is introducing a new bargain-bin LCD HDTV in its Envision series. The 42-inch L42H761 features a 1080p panel, twin HDMI ports, S/PDIF digital audio out, a PC input (with audio), digital ATSC / ClearQAM tuner, 172-degree viewing angles, 3-D comb filter and “color enhancement / noise reduction features” sure to treat your eyes right. All wrapped up in a glossy, sleek black enclosure, the set dons a MSRP of just $1,049.99, and if history has anything on the present, we’d guess you can find it around for a good bit cheaper than that.

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV

If we take a statement from Intel Germany’s CEO, mix in a little internet rumor and season with a salty sprinkling of speculation, we come up with an Apple Internet Tablet. Here’s the first ingredient, machine translated from ZDNET, Germany:

Germany-World’s managing director Hannes Schwaderer today confirms what has long been a rumor on the Internet […]: namely, that there is an iPhone with Intel’s new nuclear-chip type. The device is slightly larger than the current version, Schwaderer. This is not the Intel chip, but to the larger display in the new iPhone is used.

For “Nuclear Chip” read “Atom”, Intel’s 45nm x86 chip intended for UMPC use. Apparently, this will not be a replacement for the current iPhone, but an addition, like the MacBook Touch we last dreamed about back before MacWorld in January.

ZDNET thinks that the screen will sport a 720 x 480 pixel resolution, which suggests a mini-tablet sized device (the current iPhone’s screen measures 320×480 pixels). That puts it close to the Eee PC’s 800×400 resolution. A high-res, always connected tablet with movies, music and the Mac OS? Goodbye, Kindle.

UPDATE: The German blog fsck spoke to Intel’s Mike Cato about this statement. It turns out that it was more speculation thanconfirmation (cleaned up from machine translation):

Intel’s press spokesman Mike Cato made clear to me that the statement made by Hannes Schwaderer so definitely not taken. Rather, Intel has used (and in this case is Mr. Schwaderer) the iPhone as a long time example for the entire category of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), that the Atom increasingly has to stop. Whether the iPhone, or other device from Apple’s mobile wireless platform will use Atom still remains open.

iphone comes with a larger display and Intel nuclear [ZDNET via MacRumors]

It looks like June is going to be another big month for the ultra-mobile PC market. In addition to the MSI Wind dropping on June 3, we will also be getting the Eee PC 901.

The Eee PC 901 will retain most of the same styling and features as the 900, except the 901 will feature an Intel Atom processor, built-in Bluetooth and have some metal allow parts added to the keyboard and hinge. The touchpad will also receive a metallic border. It was also confirmed, as we noted from the last images that the 901 will loss the Asus logo in favor of an Eee logo.

DigiTimes is also reporting that the notebook will be “at a price below” $650. Which would mean its pretty safe to say that it will retail for $649.99.

Via [DigiTimes]

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EchoStar is set to launch its SlingModem – a product that combines a standard Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) cable modem and a Slingbox at a Cable Show trade event in New Orleans next week. The device incorporates the place-shifting capabilities of Sling’s popular Slingbox, which allows television content to be transmitted from a consumer’s TV set to any location with an Internet connection. 

The SlingModem observes the DOCSIS 2.0 specification and can be used like a typical high-speed-data modem that connects to the Internet. Moreover, it also includes Sling Media’s proprietary video-encoding technology, which enhances traditional TV programming and makes it suitable for streaming to PCs and Internet-capable mobile devices – in one efficient housing. 

EchoStar is said to be working on other products and services for cable operators and would probably launch them this year.

Via [Crave]

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by Paul Miller, posted May 16th 2008 at 9:47AM

While OLPC tries to wise up to the real demands of the market and build a cheap laptop that people actually want — which means Windows XP for most — Walter Bender, OLPC’s former president of software and content for the project is taking his open source Linux-based Sugar OS and has started up a new non-profit to aid its development. Bender still has the vision of an open source learning OS, and plans to give Sugar full support for other low-cost platforms like the Eee PC. Ooh, burn.

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Filed under: Laptops