Best New Technology

Contrary to popular belief, the first laser wasn’t really reverse-engineered from Megatron of the Transformers. It was actually created by a guy named Theodore Maiman by shining a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod with silver-coated surfaces. And if he hadn’t made the first laser work on May 16, 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California, there wouldn’t be laser etched Nokia Prism phones, laser printers, or convenience in the laser-powered supermarket check-out counter. Just think how much we would have lost if not for that one great innovation. Today’s the day to be thankful for it, because it’s the laser’s 48th year anniversary. Here’s to many more years, and I hope they finish my laser death rays in time for the 50th anniversary!

Via [Google]

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Microsoft and OLPC have issued the official word that the XO laptop will begin to become available with Windows XP, while we have heard the rumors, its now official. Currently the XO laptops running Windows XP are scheduled to begin their trial stage in June, however they are anticipated to be released as early as September.

Windows XP will not be replacing the original Sugar Linux, they will both be available, and there is even some talk of a model that is dual booting with both Sugar Linux and Windows XP.

Similar to the original release of the XO, these new XP-based models will be headed to developing nations and not the retail market. Keep reading to check out a nice vide demonstration…

Read [Microsoft] Via [Laptop Mag]

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Apparently, it’s sink or swim time for Samsung’s laptop group. Sukyong Hong, Samsung’s senior manager of overseas sales and marketing said that the company would quit the laptop market within three years unless it can triple sales.

Hong says that the company needs to ship 11 million laptops in 2011 in order for its notebook division to meet its “minimum survival” volume. Samsung currently enjoys 1.7% of the global laptop market, but will need to more than triple that to 5.7% within three years. Fortunately, a move into the US market and an unnamed European country is expected to boost sales and bring substantial growth. 

The shocking announcement came amidst the company’s major senior management overhaul. Samsung CEO Yun Jong-yong and Semiconductor business head Hwang Chang-gyu will be replaced.  Last month, the company’s long-standing chairman, Lee Kun-hee, stepped down due to allegations of tax evasion.

Read [PCPro]

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Remember the rumor back in February that Google was buying Plaxo for $200 million? Well, for the most part, it turned out to be a trumor.  However, instead of Google making the purchase, it turns out that Comcast is doing the buying. The cable company plans to utilize Plaxo to deliver upcoming social-networking features currently in the works for their TV, Internet, and phone service. Plaxo will be used to bridge all three Comcast services together, linking devices such as TVs, DVRs, and wireless devices. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but the two companies have already been working together in developing SmartZone, an online portal available to millions of Comcast broadband and phone customers that provides easy access to several communications tools (e.g., email and voicemail)—all in one place.

Plaxo was founded in 2001 with an original premise of keeping users’ address books updated by automatically sharing data among friends. With the emergence of social networking sites, the start up company now offers capabilities to keep in touch with family and friends by sharing photos, videos, and messages. According to the Plaxo blog:

“Joining forces with Comcast is a real win for our customers, our investors, and our employees. Comcast has an exciting vision to bring the social media experience to mainstream consumers. Together, we will be able to help users connect with all the people they care about, across all of the devices they use, with all the media they love to consume, create, and share. This is also great news for the Internet industry at large, where Plaxo has been - and will continue to be - a strong advocate for opening up the Social Web.

Plaxo will remain an independent operation in Silicon Valley, reporting into Comcast Interactive Media, which is a division of Comcast that develops and operates Internet businesses focused on entertainment, information and communication. All of our 50cmcsa1.png employees will continue to innovate on and grow both our networked address book service and our next-generation social network, Pulse.”

Read [Reuters UK] Via [Plaxo Blog]

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by Darren Murph, posted May 15th 2008 at 3:30PM

Rest assured, this won’t be the first or last time you hear of insects and mammals being used as inspiration for robotic creatures. Nevertheless, a recent MIT mechanical engineering course saw students craft bots that could handle “beaver-like tasks” such as “knocking down trees and gathering food in the form of street hockey balls” while fending off competitors in 45-second rounds. Separately, the EU-funded SPARK endeavor is seeking to “develop a new robot control architecture for roving robots inspired by the principles governing the behavior of living systems and based on the concept of self-organization.” There’s plenty more material to make your skin crawl in the read links below, just don’t feed the mechs, okay?

Read - SPARK project
Read - MIT competition

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Filed under: Robots

by Thomas Ricker, posted May 16th 2008 at 6:27AM

var June’s shaping up to be a pretty special month ’round here. In addition to whatever Apple’s got up its sleeve and all the new gear set to announce at Computex, Asus will be launching its Atom-based Eee PC 901 just like we heard. June 3rd is the date for “a price below” $650. We assume that means $649.99. DigiTimes’ reliable market channel sources claim the 8.9-inch 901 will also feature Bluetooth for the first time (you know, without a hack) while the rest of the tech specs remain the same. That’s $250 more than the 10-inch, Atom-based, MSI Wind running Linux and launching on the same day. Oh ASUS, what have you done?

Update: To be fair, it could be that the $650 Eee PC 901 model runs XP and the Linux-based Eee PC 901 will sell for (a lot) less — the XP-flavor of the MSI Wind costs between $500 and $549.

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Filed under: Laptops

by Nilay Patel, posted May 15th 2008 at 3:07PM

See, it’s not all dour news in the wireless industry — oft-overlooked carrier Alltel just announced that it added over 1M gross wireless customers in the first quarter, and that it’s committed to LTE in the next three to five years. The LTE news isn’t particularly surprising, since Alltel’s got roaming agreements to maintain and both Verizon and AT&T are committed to LTE, but the company did specifically say that it was picking LTE over WiMAX. (Oh, and if you’re keeping score, that pretty much puts the final, final nail in the coffin for Qualcomm’s UMB — good thing it’s got those LTE-compatible chipsets in the works.) Alltel’s actually growing pretty fast — this is the second quarter in a row it’s added over 1M gross customers, probably due to those sparkling call-quality survey results — but we still have our doubts when the company claims it’s “America’s Largest Network.” Should be interesting to see how this all shakes out as 4G gets built out, no?

Read - Alltel Q1 results [Warning: PDF link]
Read - Alltel commits to LTE

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Filed under: cellphones, Wireless

CBS and CNET Network has sealed an acquisition agreement that could probably be the next biggest acquisition deal after the failed Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Although the price involved in this acquisition is not as big as the Microsoft-Yahoo deal, the fact is both CBS and CNET Network own some of the most popular internet properties and combining them would elevate CBS into the ranks of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the US.

For a purchase price of $11.50 per share, CBS hopes to acquire CNET Networks by the close of the third quarter this year. Luckily for them, the CNET Board has unanimously approved the proposed deal valued at $1.8 billion.

This deal would certainly be most favorable to CBS, since if you combined the unique visitors of its Internet properties with that of CNET Networks, the company would gain around 54 million unique users per month, with a total of around 200 million users worldwide. This is certainly not a bad deal at all for both companies.

CNET Networks-owned sites include CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot, TV.com, MP3.com, CNET News.com, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MySimon, and TechRepublic. This will be combined with CBS’ own networks of dynamic and growing interactive Internet properties such as CBS.com, CBSSports.com, CBSCollegeSports.com, MaxPreps.com, CBSNews.com, last.fm, Wallstrip, MobLogic, CBS Radio and CBS Television Stations digital media platforms, as well as the distribution network of the CBS Audience Network comprised of more than 300 partner Web sites and reaches 82% of all online users in the United States.

Read [News.com]

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