It's been well over a year since Asus first showed off its Eee Keyboard concept, which packs a complete Windows computer into a keyboard that you can connect to a TV over a wireless HDMI connection. The idea is that you can surf the web, stream video over a home network, or do just about anything you can do with a PC on your TV. The keyboard also has a built in touchscreen panel for interacting with certain elements of the computer while you're watching a video or doing something else with the TV display.

Now, after a major redesign and a lot of waiting, Asus says it will finally get around to launching the Eee Keyboard in April. The question is more than a year later, are you still at all interested in this device?

Asus has also officially introduced the DR-900 eBook reader. It has a 9 inch display, WiFi, and optional 3G. Its battery is supposed to be good for up to 10,000 page turns.

While Asus hasn't made all the specs official yet, earlier this year specs were released for a mighty similar looking machine called the DR-950, which has a 1024 x 768 pixel display., 4GB of storage, headphone jack, and support for MP3, ePUB, PDF and TXT formats.

No word on a launch date or price yet.

Post from: Liliputing

Asus Eee Keyboard due out in April, eBook Reader coming soon

As expected, HTC has unleashed a slew of Android smartphones here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and I have to admit they're looking really good.

While not exactly groundbreaking, HTC Desire is the top-notch phone that competes primarily with Google's Nexus One (also made by HTC), as it has similar looks and pretty much the same specifications.

Here's a quick overview: It's an Android 2.1 phone with a 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU, 512MB or ROM and 576 MB of RAM memory, a 5 megapixel camera (with flash and autofocus), GPS, and the usual connectivity options: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G. It also has a beautiful AMOLED 3.7 inch screen (multi-touch is supported) with 480800 pixel resolution.

What makes it different from the Nexus One is the lack of trackball, and HTC's Sense UI, so the choice between the two will be strictly a matter of personal preference. I will update this post with some hands-on experiences as soon as I lay my hands on it.

*Update: After trying out the HTC Desire, I'm definitely a bit disappointed with the speed of the device. It's fast, but it's not exactly flying. This is not due to the hardware, though; HTC's Sense UI is faster and more fluid on the new HTC HD Mini, which is based on 600 MHz CPU and Windows Mobile 6.5. However, as far as Androids go, HTC Desire is still on top of the food chain, partly due to HTC's Sense UI, which is getting better and more flexible with each new iteration.

Tags: android, Desire, htc, Mobile 2.0, trending

As expected, HTC has unleashed a slew of Android smartphones here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and I have to admit they're looking really good.

While not exactly groundbreaking, HTC Desire is the top notch phone that competes primarily with Google's Nexus One (also made by HTC), as it has similar looks and pretty much the same specifications.

Here's a quick overview: it's an Android 2.1 phone with a 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU, 512MB or ROM and 576 MB of RAM memory, a 5 megapixel camera (with flash and autofocus), GPS, and the usual connectivity options: WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G. It also has a beautiful AMOLED 3.7 inch screen (multitouch is supported) with 480800 pixel resolution.

What makes it different from the Nexus One is the lack of trackball, and HTC's Sense UI, so the choice between the two will be strictly matter of personal preference. I will update this post with some hands-on experiences as soon as I lay my hands on it.

*Update: after trying out the HTC Desire I'm definitely a bit disappointed with the speed of the device. It's fast, but it's not exactly flying. This is not due to hardware, though; HTC's Sense UI is faster and more fluid on the new HTC HD Mini, which is based on 600 MHz CPU and Windows Mobile 6.5. However, as far as Androids go, HTC Desire is still on top of the food chain, partly due to HTC's Sense UI, which is getting better and more flexible with each new iteration.

Tags: android, Desire, htc, Mobile 2.0, trending

While the saga between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage continues, the latter company is moving forward with the launch of the controversial web tablet, now called JooJoo. While it's not the magical tablet that inspired this blog (In African, the word joujou' means magical device.') Fusion Garage thinks they've got a winner on their hands.

For the same $499 that Apple intends to charge for an entry-level iPad with 140,000 available apps, Fusion Garage will provide you with a browser-based tablet without any capability to run and install local applications. It also lacks a 3G wireless option of any kind, relying solely on WiFi.

But what does the JooJoo have that iPad doesn't?

For starters, a 12.1 inch LCD touch screen in a widescreen aspect ration that we're more accustomed to seeing these days. And you can use all of that screen to render full HD quality video but only from your favorite video sites since the device has only 4 GB of SSD storage not nearly enough to store HD content of any real duration. It has the front-facing camera for videoconferencing that so many people feel is lacking in iPad as well as a USB port, though what one might do with that port is still unknown. As for the software, it's a Linux variant running a Webkit browser that will support both Adobe Flash 10.1 and Java.

So, do they have a winning device?

They may have had one before the iPad announcement, but not now not at that price point and limited functionality, anyway.

You can pre-order the JooJoo now which is expected to ship in 8 to 10 weeks though the site has indicated that time horizon for some time. If you're considering a JooJoo you may want to contact them for an update on a ship date, though the latest word from company executives is late Februrary.

Will you JooJoo?

[JooJoo]

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Will You JooJoo? is a post from: The Magical Tablet

The Dell Mini 5 tablet looks like an oversized smartphone, and kind of acts like one too. It has a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (which is the same CPU powering the Google Nexus One phone), and runs the Google Android operating system. But it's 4.8 inch display is larger than any screen you'll find on a cellphone anytime soon, making the Mini 5 much more attractive for surfing the web, watching video, or playing games. You can also make phone calls and surf the web over 3G or WiFi.

Final details on pricing, regional availability, wireless broadband partners, and a launch date aren't available yet. But Dell is showing off the Mini 5 tablet at Mobile World Congress in Spain this week, and letting a few details drop. Right now, for instance, the demo unit is running Android 1.6, but it's likely that by the time it's available to the public the tablet will sport a newer version of the OS, possibly 2.0, 2.1, or something even newer. Adobe Flash support is also on its way.

The user interface seems very snappy and the Mini 5 can run all Android Market applications as well as some custom Dell software. As far as hardware, you've got a capacitive multitouch display, haptic feedback, and a 5MP webcam with

The folks at SlashGear got to spend some hands-on time with the tablet, and you can check out their video after the break.

Post from: Liliputing

Dell Mini 5 Android tablet shows off in Spain

When the folks at Netbook Navigator first asked me to write about the company's new 9 inch tablet PC I had a hard time getting past the high price tag of nearly $1200. But that price was for an early model that packed 3G capabilities and was intended for early adopters. Now Netbook Navigator has updated the pricing for the Nav 9 tablet and the base model costs just $799. Yeah, that's still enough money to pick up 2-3 netbooks, but here's what you get for the money:

• Display: 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel multitouch display
• CPU: 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Storage: 16GB SSD
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, LAN, optional 3G HSDPA or CDMA
• I/O: 3 USB ports, MiniSD card slot, SIM card slot, port replicator w/VGA/LAN adapter, 1.3MP webcam
• Battery: 3 cell, 1700mAh (2.5 hours max)
• Dimensions: 10 x 6.6 x 0.8
• Weight: 2 pounds
• Other: car charger

The 3G module will cost you extra, as will a higher capacity battery which is good for up to 4 hours of run time. You can also get the Nav 9 with a 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB SSD. The most expensive unit will run you $1399, but the $799 starting price is certainly much more appealing than the $1200 the company was charging earlier.

Netbook Navigator has also put together a handy chart comparing the Nav 9 tablet to the upcoming Apple iPad and the already-on-the-market Archos 9 tablet. The long and short of it is that the Nav 9 supports multitasking, supports USB peripherals and SD card expansion, and comes in more varieties. Oh yeah, it can also run most Windows applications. On the other hand, it's thicker and heavier than the other tablets.

Post from: Liliputing

Netbook Navigator's Nav 9 slate PC gets affordable, guns for the iPad

...it's just tough to be floored by anything less.

The Qisda (you also know them as BenQ) QCM-330, expected to debut at the upcoming CeBIT tradeshow this March before being available through Vodafone, features a 4-inch, 1280x1024 screen that could be sharper than life itself, along with HSDPA and Wi-Fi.

We don't know much else, other than that it will most likely run Android given the Home key (which makes the prospect of importing a phone for its hardware alone so much more appealing). But if you're one of those people who doesn't like to use the same phone as other people, the QCM-330 might be a decent handset to watch. [Unwired View via SlashGear]

By being more powerful we mean that the Eee PC 1005PE features 2GB of RAM, and 320GB of HDD. The screen remains at 10.1-inch of course with 1024x600 resolution. It's battery pack is still 6-cell 4400mAh with 11 hours of battery life and of course it is powered by Intel Atom N450 CPU running Windows 7.

Since it is not officially announced yet, no official pictures are available, even its price and release data are uncertain at this moment. But we will sure bring these information to you once they became available, so stick around.

via Blogeee

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Eee PC 1005PE-H Spotted, More Powerful than the One without an H

The Samsung X120 falls in the CULV category as it features the Intel CULV processor. The X120 features an 11.6 inch display and a full sized keyboard. The left and right mouse buttons are located either side of the trackpad, which for some may hinder the use of the built in mouse, especially if you're used to the right and left buttons being located under the trackpad. The guys over at Netbook News received the X120 and have posted an unboxing video along with first impressions design wise. Like the other Samsung netbooks, the accessories include a neoprene sleeve to protect the netbook, however it's noted that no manual is included, not even a quick start guide. The X120 also has the trademark chrome border. Looking at the underneath, it appears that the HDD and RAM are easily accessible for those who wish to upgrade either. You can view the full unboxing and first impressions video after the jump.

via

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Samsung X120 unboxing video

There's the Atom N270 processor, running at 1.6Ghz, for example. And then there's the 2GB of memory and solid state 32GB drive. Lastly, the replaceable battery on this 8.9-in. multitouch tablet is clocked at a mere four hours, which doesn't seem that great (saving grace being that is replaceable).

Pricing is set at $599 when it launches in March. Impatient types can buy a non-multitouch prototype for $780 right now. [ExoPC via Engadget]

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Via ARMdevices

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Hivision PWS700CA Android-powered laptop gets reviewed

For his keynote presentation, Steve Jobs shared the stage with a vintage Le Corbusier chair and small Saarinen table. Beyond the aesthetic compatibility of mid-century furniture and Apple design, what makes the detail notable is that in past years Steve always delivered Apple keynotes standing. Here, each time he went to demo an aspect of the iPad, the CEO sat downa subtle shift that speaks volumes about how this new device might fit in to our lives.

Not meant to replace computers used on desks or the phone that goes with you everywhere, it's an in-between device. The gadget's design makes it perfect to use in the living room, on an airplane or during morning commutes (as Apple illustrated in this video).

At first glance, the wide, black bezel surrounding the iPad's screen perplexed me; it seemed to be a step backwards from my long-standing belief that the evolution of screen technology is full-bleed. Upon using the device, however, it became clear that that the edge necessarily gives you a place to grip it without accidentally touching the on-screen interface. It turned out that the 9.7 inch, 1024x768 pixel screen looks so gorgeous that I quickly forgot about this concern all together, instead immersing myself in content.

For all intents and purposes, this 1.0 version of the iPad is a large iPod Touch, a development that lends the new device familiarity and ease-of-use. The iBook store and touch versions of iWork applications are a welcomed addition and the ability to run iPhone applications out-of-the-box is more necessity than benefit.

Pictures and videos really show off the beauty of the device's screen and benefits of its connectivity; the redesigned version of Apple's media apps are perfectly tailored to the postures and situations where we'll be using our iPads. And the touch-keyboard really does work well.

What I'm most excited about, however, is simply web browsing. While the lack of Flash presents an issue, sites built for modern computer-based browsers fit, look and perform beautifully on the iPad. Especially thrilling, was previewing how beautiful the upcoming Cool Hunting redesign looks on the device. (Pictured at right.)

The newest addition to Kidrobot's successful Grumpsters' series is Wilson,' who just so happens to be the grumpiest of the bears. This fuzzy 8-inch plush created by Frank Kozik, comes in two variations: the Smokin' and Non-smorkin' edition. Both editions will be available at select retailers, and via Kidrobot starting from February 2010.

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3. Kidrobot x Frank Kozik Vasily Plush

Fujitsu's iPad has been in the market since 2002, and it features a 3.5-inch touchscreen color display, an unspecified Intel processor, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and Microsoft's CE operating system. Aside from the OS, it sounds pretty much like Apple's iPad, eh? It's unlikely that the two companies won't settle in some way for joint usage of the name, but like I said earlier, there's a slim chance that Apple might change the name to, I don't know, something a little bit better maybe?

Via New York Times

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Apple using iPad name without U.S. trademark, to battle it out with Fujitsu for it

The iPad And The World Of Tomorrow

For those who spent yesterday glued to the State of the Union address instead of tech news feeds, Gizmodo has a terrific summary of Apple's new device. To break it down: The iPad looks basically like an iPhone, but with a 9.7 inch screen. It runs the same software as the iPhone, can connect to the internet, and seems to work nicely for reading books, newspapers and magazines, watching video, checking Google maps, reading your email, surfing the web, and casual gaming. Like the iPhone, it has no keyboard - you can touch-type on the screen.

Why is this outsize version of the iPhone so important that the internet basically exploded over it yesterday? Mostly because Apple's last two new mobile devices - the iPod and the iPhone - changed the way people think about computers. They really did change the future, by making it glaringly obvious that computing devices are not all desktop PCs - they can be specialized music players, or telephone/internet toys that put the web in your pocket. They are the beautiful, cool poster gadgets for the mobile computer generation; they are what we imagine when we think of tomorrow's machines.

The Mythical Convergence Device

The iPad promises to be just as revolutionary as its predecessors, for one reason. It embodies, as much as possible, the mythical convergence device that technophiles have been craving for almost two decades. The convergence device, which people began to discuss seriously in the 1990s, would be a unified gadget where you could consume many kinds of media, especially TV and the web, with the same gadget.

This is exactly what the iPad does, helped along by the fact that so much television is available online already. And you can add books to this convergence, too (the iPad even has a Kindle app). The iPad is also the perfect shape for a convergence box. Its screen is about the size of a quality paperback or small television set. There's none of that scrunching your forehead as you peer into the teeny screen of the iPhone to read a book or watch YouTube.

What I'm saying is that the iPad appeals to a very deep and longlived fantasy in the consumer electronics world: A device that does it all. At least, if all you want to do is consume media.

And there's the problem.

Reinventing The Television

Apple is marketing the iPad as a computer, when really it's nothing more than a media-consumption device - a convergence television, if you will. Think of it this way: One of the fundamental attributes of computers is that they are interactive and reconfigurable. You can change the way a computer behaves at a very deep level. Interactivity on the iPad consists of touching icons on the screen to change which application you're using. Hardly more interactive than changing channels on a TV. Sure, you can compose a short email or text message; you can use the Brushes app to draw a sketch. But those activities are not the same thing as programming the device to do something new. Unlike a computer, the iPad is simply not reconfigurable.

The iPad emulates television in another way, too: You can channel surf through the Apps Store, but you can't change what's playing. Every single app that's available for the iPad has to be approved by Apple first, just like apps for iPhones. That means censorship of "offensive" apps, no apps that compete with Apple (i.e., no Google Voice), and no random app you wrote to do whatever obscure shit you want to do. So you've got thousands of channels and nothing on. And because you can't reconfigure the iPad, you can't change that. You can only keep flipping through the channels, hoping in vain to see something other than reruns of Cheaters and Alf.

As futurist Jamais Cascio told io9:

This is Apple's big push of its top-down control over applications into the general-purpose computing world. The only applications that will work with the iPad are those approved by Apple, under very opaque conditions. On a phone, that's borderline acceptable, but it's not for something that is positioned to overlap with regular computers.

The iPad has all the problems of television, with none of the benefits of computers.

Back To The Shopping Mall

So if it's not a computer, what exactly is the iPad? It could be just a really tarted-up ebook reader, which would make sense if you consider that the iPad is competing with Amazon's Kindle. So it's a reinvention of the book, a fairly old technology, but in a gleaming new package. Except that package isn't even very new, as futurist and science fiction author Karl Schroeder pointed out. He told io9 that the iPad isn't about brilliant hardware innovation, and that in fact the device doesn't even use state-of-the-art ebook tech like e-ink.

Speaking to us via email, Schroeder said:

What Apple has done (again) is seize the moment with a combination of a device and a business model . . . even if e-ink provides a better reading experience for books (reading on an iPad will continue to literally mean staring into a lamp, just like reading on a computer screen), it doesn't matter because it's the total package of iTunes, iBookstore, 3G, games, apps etc. that will pull ebook readers along with it. Consider that the iPad is a closed platform that doesn't even multitask; if the technology mattered, those would be major considerations for the buyer. But they won't be, because when you buy an iPad, you buy access to the whole Apple business ecology.

Looked at from this angle, the iPad isn't so much new technology as it is a shiny, pretty doorway to a mall where you can buy everything from books to movies.

The iPad hasn't brought us forward into the future. It's taken us backward to a world of strip malls and televisions.

Another Vision Of The Future

So the iPad takes us back to the 1980s, or maybe even the 1950s. It's likely to be a device that changes our future, but what that means is we're facing a tomorrow where true innovation is sidelined by a device that represents a convergence of old media and shopping.

But as John Connor would say, we can change the future. That might be as simple as pushing Apple to change its App Store policies to make iPads less like TVs and more like computers. As Lifehacker's Adam Pash put it, "The App Store isn't exactly the problem-it's the way Apple runs and limits the App Store." He suggests that Apple could create a special "Restricted section" for its App Store. He continues:

Rather than reject applications that it feels may confuse the user (like they claimed Google Voice or Google Latitude might), or applications that allow users to access naughty pictures, or even applications that it hasn't had time to vet for the App Store proper, [Apple] put those applications in the Restricted section. Before a user is able to install applications from the Restricted section, that user has to agree that the application may confuse their feeble minds, offend their delicate sensibilities, or even slow down their device. Is this such a problem? . . . Even better, [the iPad] could work like the package manager it actually is and allow users to add their own trusted repositories as sources for other applications . . . The point is, users should at least be allowed to flip some switch, somewhere on the machine, that says, "Hey computer, I'm an adult, and I take responsibility over how I use this machine."

A convergence device that can also be reprogrammed the way computers can? Now we're in the twenty-first century.

Another possibility would be for developers and investors to focus on hardware that truly is innovative and futuristic. Schroeder says:

There's really nothing in the iPad that's new; if you want truly new, disruptive tech that would be at a similar price point if commercialized, look at Pranav Mistry's SixthSense and related projects.

SixthSense is a gesture-controlled mobile device with a projector - you can see its telephone app at work above. You project the phone onto your hand and press the buttons. You can also use gestures to take pictures. This is truly the next step in mobile computing, and will likely revolutionize computer networks in ways we can't yet imagine.

What Is To Be Done?

I know a lot of otherwise-savvy consumers and hackers who are already drooling over the iPad and putting in their orders. They hate the idea of a restricted device, but they love the shiny-shiny. I'm not saying that they should deprive themselves of this pretty new toy. What I am saying is that this toy represents a crappy, pathetic future. It is no more revolutionary than those expensive, hot boots I bought at Fluevog, and only slightly more useful.

The only way iPads can truly become futuristic devices is if we hack them so that we can pour whatever operating system we want inside. We need to jailbreak these media boxes so we can install the apps we want, not the ones provided by the Apple shopping mall.

Do not be content with a television when you can have a computer.

Do not be content with yesterday's machines, because the future is before you. Ready to be hacked.

Editor's note: This a guest post written by Joff Redfern. Redfern is the co-founder of FlattenMe.com, a site for creating personalized storybooks. He was formerly a vice president of product at Yahoo, where he managed Yahoo Buzz and Toolbar.

Amazon Kindle: The Road Ahead

I'm a recent Kindle fan boy. I like the instant access to earth-friendly books, the paper-like display and the way it fits in my hand like a paperback. I've also deeply admired the crispness of the Kindle visionany book, any language, in minutes. But with Apple's iPad announcement the playing field on which the Kindle competes shifts and the disruptive technology itself gets disrupted.

If I were running the Kindle I would answer this question today: Are we innovating the publishing or the entertainment industry? Is the Kindle just for my reading entertainment or is it for watching, listening, gaming, browsing, sharing photos, and communicating with friends & family too? Ultimately the answer is shaped by consumer preference, competitors and time measured in years.

As a product guy this is a really intriguing question to try to unravelwhich path should Amazon choose? Over time this is what may push the Kindle into being more than just a reader . . .

For the same price, more is better

Will consumers prefer a multi-purpose entertainment tablet over a single-purpose reading device as their prices converge? This is a religious question; sides will be drawn. I look to the evolution of my own personal technology habits for the answer.

When I wanted to manage my contacts I started with a paper-based Address Book, upgraded to a Digital Rolodex, upgraded to a Palm V, upgraded to a Blackberry, then upgraded to an iPhone. Fundamentally I was trying to solve how I manage and communicate with my contacts. With each upgrade I got more functionality yet the price point for each device was not radically different.

If consumers can eventually get an entertainment tablet that also has the core features of a great reader (screen, content catalog, ease of purchasing) at under $200 they'll want more.

Prices drop. Over time, price won't be a factor in the purchase decision.

Today, Kindle enjoys a price advantage over the iPad. It is nearly half the price, starting at $260 versus $500 for the iPad, although the cheapest Kindle DX with an equivalent 9.7 inch screen is $489. That is pretty close already. What happens when the price of iPad-like devices trend down to a point of consumer indifference?

Moore's Law and business model innovation will drive the iPad-like devices to sub-$200 pricing. Unrealistic? The retail price of the iPhone 8GB dropped ~83% in 3 years from $599 to $99.

Also keep in mind that entertainment tablets are using different math from the Kindle. The device pricing will be subsidized by multiple revenue streamsdownloads of books, music, movies, games, apps, advertising, and more. Today I can get a cell phone device for free, will my iPad be free some day?

Competitors are playing a platform war. Is Kindle?

Apple, Google and Microsoft have massive investments in their respective mobile platforms. In particular, Apple is king of the mobile mountain. As Jobs declared today, Apple is now the largest mobile device company in the world.

This Apple sizzle has drawn 100,000+ developers and publishers to its iPhone (and now iPad) ecosystem. These apps are already available to entertain us in all sorts of ways on the iPad beyond what Apple exec Scott Forstall showed today.

Amazon knows this. Last week they announced a developer API is coming. So the question remains how robust is the API and will the developer community bite, or is it game over?

What would you do if you ran the Kindle?

Gallery: The Apple iPad

Gallery: The Apple iPad

Gallery: Apple iPad accessories

Continue reading The Apple iPad: starting at $499

The Apple iPad: starting at $499 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As anticipated, the operating system is best thought of as an evolution of iPhone 3.0. That means that apps are running the show, with the same tray at the bottom and the same accelerometer capabilities.

To access the screen, you slide to unlock, just like on your phone. The display is practically identical (though biggie-sized, obviously), with a Home button situated at the bottom. You call up apps the same way you do on your phone, and they automatically go to full screen. You can also swipe through pictures and pages, again just like on the iPhone.

But how does it feel in the hand? Well, it's an inch thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds, so it's definitely easily portable. And since it's intended to be a portable device, it's got a pretty crazy proposed battery life: ten hours of video playback, and one month of standby charge.

A primary concern has been how the keyboard will work. Our money was a split-screen keyboard, but it turns out they've opted instead for to copy the iPhone again here, with a keyboard taking up the bottom half of the display when called up. It's not meant for your thumbs, apparentlyyou're expected to type on it as you would a physical keyboard.

For web surfing, the page renders just like a browser, with navigation buttons on top. For email, you can bring a pull-down menu of the inbox.

So basically, it looks like the user experience is going to be just like a big ol' iPhone, for better or for worse. I'm especially curious to see how intuitive the keyboard is. But otherwise, all the multitouch features and app arrangements should feel like old hat.

Gallery: The Apple iPad

Continue reading The Apple iPad

The Apple iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

9to5Mac claims that they've spoken with a few print publishers about the upcoming Apple Tablet iPad reinforcing what most of us already know but with a few extra details. These conversations yielded specs like a 10-inch glass screen slightly smaller than a Kindle DX but similar in weight.

They also indicated that Apple is describing the device to publishers by comparing the shift from Kindle to the Tablet as going from black and white TV to color TV.

Finally, they've said that there won't be much content until mid-2010 at the very earliest.

Not so fast, cowboy. What else to do know about this device? Well, how about the fact that it runs a version of the iPhone OS and that most iPhone apps will run on it without many, if any, changes.

If that's true, then the iPad will have tons of ebooksthanks to the Kindle app for iPhone. With the application loaded on your Apple gadget, you'll have access to any and all content sold sold through the Kindle store and any unprotected (.mobi) files, as well. That means indie ebooks and other content.

Repeat after me, one more time: Amazon doesn't care if it's in the hardware business. It wants to sell electronic books, whether they produce the device or not.

[9to5Mac]

Disclosure of Material Connection: http://dsclzr.us/0

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Wait Until Mid-Year for eBooks on The Apple Tablet? Think Different. is a post from: TechStartups.com

I'm not one to post often about gadgets or their pricing. But this is a really good deal for a pre-order phone from Nokia that can fill the iPhone void for AT&T haters.

I've had my eye on the N900 since the N97 arrived and fell flat on its screen. I've seen prices go below $500 for the device unlocked on Amazon but they are not back up over $700. Dell has the Nokia N900 for $489 until Dec. 10th.

That at price comes from a 10% discount (not an affiliate link) on the $599 price tag and a $50 mail-in-rebate. The phone specs and video after the jump.

Nokia is calling this thing an internet tablet, but that is going to be short lived, I hope. The rumor mill is producing much talk of larger devices that should start arriving in the next few months. I'll post on this later. The N900 is really a smart phone (with out of the box tethering!).

Let's roll this is what this Nokia smartphone is packing:

• Up to 32 GB internal storage
• Total available application memory up to 1 GB (256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)
• Supported protocols: Mail for Exchange, IMAP, POP3, SMTP
• SMS and instant messages organized as conversations
• Multiple number, email and Instant Messaging details per contact, contacts with images
• Integrated hands-free stereo speakers
• Logging of dialed, received and missed calls
• Ring tones: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma
• Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g) with WEP, WPA, WPA2 security; designed for continuous TCP/IP connectivity
• Capability to serve as data modem via USB connection
• Music playback file formats: .mp3, .wma, .aac, .m4a, .wav
• Video playback file formats: .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp; codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263
• Video streaming: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263 in .avi, .mp4, .wmv, .asf and .3gp containers
• TV out (NTSC/PAL) with Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U, included)
• FM radio (requires headset to be attached) and FM transmitter

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

As for size this thing weighs 6.38 ounces and measures 4.37 x 2.35 x 0.77 inches. Which comes in 1.5 ounces heavier than an iPhone. Height and width differences are negligible but depth is not at a difference of at a skosh over a quarter of an inch.

For this price and the ability to shoot video, tether, take photos with a Flash and carry it as an FM boombox on your shoulder as you walk down the street it is a no brainer if you've got the loot.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Nokia N900 Cheap at $489 from Dell is a post from: TechStartups.com

Dogster has never been a Web 2.0 darling. At first glance a social network for pets isn't the most innovative idea, and its audience is limited to the kinds of wackos who make name tags for their dogs at conferences or create elaborate fictional personalities for their cats.

But with the benefit of hindsight, Dogster has done two things very, very right: It never raised venture funding and never relied on an ad network for revenues. The result is its network of sites Dogster, Catster and Snuzzy that focused on maximizing revenues early on instead of aiming for user growth for the sake of user growth. While many other Web 2.0 names are struggling to raise more money to stay in business, Dogster has been profitable since the second quarter of 2007 and is solidly in control of its own destiny. (Full disclosure: Michael Arrington was a very early angel investor. His statement about his investments is here.)

Not only thatpremium ad sales for the sites are up 20% this year. Why? Because while hot sites like Digg and Facebook outsourced ads to big players like Microsoft and smaller sites outsourced them to Google, Dogster has invested five years in building direct relationships with big pet food, supply and other consumer packaged good brands. We figured each $50,000 ad deal was like getting another angel investor, says Ted Rheingold, Dogster CEO.

These aren't lame banners. These are coupons, contests and other things that incent users to interact with the brand. A recent example was a coupon from Royal Canin Cat Food. The company was hoping for 500 takers and it got 5,000. As a result Dogster and Catster charge $10-$12 CPMs and as high as $40 CPMs for their newsletter. (I interviewed Rheingold about this strategy back when I was co-hosting TechTicker. The clip is below.)

But there's a problem. Dogster is still a small site and even happy advertisers will only continue to pay so much to reach the same users. So Dogster has solved that by deciding to become in essence the thing that it always argued startups shouldn't work with: Ad resellers.

Dogster will now sell ads for the much larger Cheezburger Network of Lolanimal-related sites that include IHasaHotdog and ICanHazCheezburgera never-ending meme that will hit one billion page views later this week. That's 10 billion cat pictures served, says founder Ben Huh. At 72 pixels per inch, if you laid them out end-to-end it would reach the moon and back four times. (I'm guessing that moon part is actually true. Huh also told me that under the new deal every time they sold an ad, Dogster would ship them a free dog.)

The two have just closed their first sale to Clorox for Fresh Step Kitty Litter. Sexy? Maybe not. But it's lucrative. But Dogster is no longer in the one million-unique category, it's selling for six million uniques and until the CPM dies, this is still a volume industry. Neither company would comment much on the economics, but Dogster is taking a smaller cut than a traditional ad network would. In exchange, Cheezburger Networks has to do more work to make sure the ads are effective, whether it's creating a contest or just tracking the metrics the way Dogster already does in house.

It's an interesting announcement, since ICanHazCheezburger is so much larger and better known. Typically it's the smaller site that outsources inventory to the giant. But the founders Huh and Rheingold were long time friends who'd frequently ask each other's advice: Rheingold would ask how Huh got those gaudy user numbers and Huh would ask how on earth Rheingold was so good at monetization. Looks like the two will now be able to actually share those areas of expertise: Dogster now gets a network of six million uniques and Huh gets much higher revenues.

Neither of the deals is exclusive. Dogster plans to add more complementary sites to its ad inventory and Cheezburger Networks plans to ink similar partnerships for properties with non-pet user profiles like the FailBlog and newly launched ItMadeMyDay.comwhich has already hit one million page views.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

The latest signature toys by Joe Ledbetter called Terror And Magnus' are now available for pre-order at ToyQube. The editon is limited to 515 pieces and each toy will come with a large window box in the beginning of November. The Terror figure stands 8 inch and boasts a 10 inch wingspan. Magnus stands 3 inch tall with a much smaller wingspan and wields an awesome skull staff.

We found this rather interesting preview of the Kidrobot 3-inch Wood Dunny online and couldn't resist sharing it with you guys. A smooth and clean wood grain gives the KR staple a really nice organic look that lends its self to some awesome customization possibilities. Let's wait and see what comes out in the next few months

Source: Kidrobot KRonikle

20 all-new designs from 20 great artists!

It's Dunny Series 2009!

Dunny is back in 3-inch form and morphed into pop art masterpieces in ways you've never seen him morphed before.

Get ready for Dunny editions of Devilrobots' To-Fu Head Son and Mori Chack's Gloomy Bear, plus a new bunch of wild figures equipped with the accessories necessary to wreak havoc on your collection.

Keep an eye out for 2 chases that slipped into the line-up, plus Golden Tickets redeemable for an elusive 3-inch Dunny by the NYC-based artist Pon. Not available for sale anywhere!

Each Dunny sold with a collectible insert card starting September 10!

Artists in this series include Amanda Visell, Andrew Bell, Amy Ruppel, Brandt Peters, Dalek, Devilrobots, Gary Taxali, Mori Chack, Huck Gee, Jeremyville, Kozik, Kronk, Luke Chueh, Mad, Pon, Shane Jessup, Shawnimal, SupaKitch, Travis Cain, and Thomas Han.

The Toys

Continue reading WD ships industry's first 2.5-inch 1TB hard drive

Filed under: Storage

WD ships industry's first 2.5-inch 1TB hard drive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

MSI takes the pain, fun out of overclocking with OC Genie originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sony was supposed to win this. The company made magnetic tape out of like paper and mud back in the 1940s, turned out a "pocketable" transistor radio in the 1950s, and invented the "portable" television by 1960. They had their first video tape recorder by 1963. They weren't the only ones, but they were among the first and best.

The so-called VTR business had a rocky start. The things were hulking bastards, with huge price tags and poor recording capability.

A company called Ampex put out the first "home entertainment" VTR in 1963, only it cost $30,000 in the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog, and was nicknamed Grant's Tomb because the product manager who thought it up was going to be shoved inside by the company's accountants. (He would have fit, too, the thing was so big.) Sony comes along in the middle of that decade and puts out a $1,200 "portable" VTR that came with a leatherette case and its own TV. It still weighed 65 pounds.

The worst part about these 1960s VTRs was that they were basically reel-to-reelyou had to thread your own 1-inch videotape through spools and stuff, and by the end of the decade, a one-hour spool of tape was like 8 inches in diameter. Can you imagine your TiVo needing 180 spools of videotape to get the job done?

As Sony toiled on the videotape problem, Matsushitawho we now call Panasonicand its independent subsidiary JVC weren't really standing out in the VTR business. Let's say this: Nobody would have guessed they'd be able to overthrow Sony and kick mecha ass within the decade.

However, these guys were among the biggest manufacturers, dwarfing Sony many times over. Matsushita, known for efficiency, not innovation, tended to focus on big boring appliancesTVs, refrigerators, air conditionerswith a smaller team, branded Technics, devoted to dominating the hi-fi realm. JVC was all about TVs and audio gear, and had decent video know-how.

It was Sony who solved the reel-to-reel problem withta daaa!a video cassette. It was called U-Matic, and at 3/4" thick, it was smaller than the earlier formats, but still a bit of a chunkster. Since video was a bit of a Wild West, Sony felt like it needed partners to firmly establish a format, and to avoid a format war. It asked Matsushita and JVC, who said "yes" as long as Sony adopted some changes. They key here: The partnership included a deal where everybody shared all the patents. Turns out, probably not the smartest move by Sony.

Sony was right to form a posse, though. Every single electronics maker in Japan, Europe and America was trying to build a video recorder. Some American firms were obsessed with lasers (though ironically it would later be the Dutch and Japanese firms who actually put lasers to good use); other American firms were jazzed about microfilm...for video. None of them had success. Before we get on with the story, here's a list of totally failed video players and recorders:

Matsushita VX-100 and VX-2000
Matsushita AutoVision
Toshiba/Sanyo V-Cord
Ampex InstaVision
MCA DiscoVision/Magnavox Magnavision
CBS Electronic Video Recording
RCA HoloTape
Sears/Cartridge Television Cartrivision

See what I mean? A friggin' mess it was.

Part of the problem was the message. Nobody knew what the hell this was all about. Sony wasn't just a pioneer in the technology, they thought hard about how to explain why you totally desperately want something bad. At one point, Sony hired Bela Lugosi to dress up one last time as Dracula, and explain that, since he worked nights, he needed to catch up on primetime shows when he got home. Get it? Vampiresthey're out killing people when Barney Miller is playing! It was a good bit, and there were a lot more like it. Little by little, the public caught on to what VCRs were for.

Anyway, U-Matic, launched in 1971, wasn't a runaway success, either, but it was the bestselling video recorder to date, and the first successful VCR. In the realm of pro video, it was hot. Sony cashed in by steering from the home market to the businesses but JVC, who kept trying to pitch it for home use, got hosed. Like villains in some Shakespearean play, Matsushita and JVC kinda lurked in the background, planning for the next round when they might one-up that little charmer, Sony. The name of their plot? Video Home System, which you and I call VHS.

Sony was naive. Like, crazy naive. In 1974, it asked Matsushita and JVC to partner up again, this time on a fully baked format called Betamax. They weren't asking for intellectual collaboration, just a deal to make and sell the things. It was a nice system, with really small tapes, but the problem was, the tapes only recorded for an hour. Sony was like, "That's not a problem," but everyone else was like, "Yes, it is." The would-be partners dragged their heels suspiciously, not signing any deals. Sony kinda thought that was weird, but went ahead and launched the one-hour Betamax box in 1975.

Big mistake.

Not long after Sony went into wide release with the one-hour Betamax, JVC pulled a two-hour VHS out of its butt. And in time for Christmas 1976 no less. Sony had another flash of naivete when it pressed on with the one-hour system for a while, even though it had a two-hour system in the works. In that gap, JVC and its big poppa Matsushita scored sales and recognition.

Some people say Betamax was "better" but that depends on many factors, and could very well be an urban myth. The technologies were so close Sony's own chairman called VHS a copy of Betamax. What may have looked good in one system with certain settings might not look as good on another with different settings. And by some accounts, Betamax's more moving parts meant they were more expensive to manufacture and more costly to maintain and repair. It's not an open-and-shut case of quantity vs. quality. Either way you look at it, there are compromises.

By this point, it wasn't just some anything-goes contest with a million formats. By 1976, all those above had died or were dying. In Japan, there were just two choices. The Japanese government told everyone to sort it out. Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Sharp joined Team VHS, but didn't really move forward.

In February 1977, Sony grabbed Toshiba and Sanyo, and then signed the American powerhouse brand Zenith up for an order of Sony-made Betamaxes with the Zenith name on them. Was it going to happen for Betamax after all? Seemed like they'd finally drawn at least a few good cards from the deck.

Sony might not have been totally screwed at that moment, but there were two American powerhouses, and the other one, RCA, was undecided. Ironically, the fate of the Japanese VCR industry relied on how well it could handle the most American of sports: Football. In other words, now that both players could manage two hours of recording time, what RCA wanted was enough recording time to capture a gamethree hours would do.

What transpired next is unclear. Even though, at the time, both technologies were limited to two-hour capacity, Matsushita pledged to make RCA tape machines that could record for four hours.

Was this a lie? Was it vaporware? Whatever the deal, JVC engineers pulled off a four-hour capacity six weeks later, and RCA agreed to buy 55,000 machines that year, and up to a million more in the next three years. Better yet, RCA's SelectaVision VHS decks would cost $300 less than the two-hour Betamaxes, at $1000 a pop.

Although Betamax hung on for a bit longer, that, boys and girls, was the end of the competition. In 1979, Sony market share tilted downward, and by 1980, the jig was up for those poor bastards.

Note: I recognize that there are other issues that might have come into play here, including Universal's lawsuit of Sony, which lead to today's Supreme Court definition of fair-use copyright law, and the fact that some studios, including Warner, began squeezing movies onto videotape early, with varying degrees of success. However, I contend that none of that changed the outcomethe war above was fought between Sony and Matsushita, and Matsushita won.

SOURCES:
Fast Forward: Hollywood, The Japanese, and the VCR Wars - James Lardner (Special thanks to you, Jim, for chatting me through some of this)
Sony - John Nathan
The History of Television - Albert Abramson
Sony History - Sony Global Website
Made in Japan - Akio Morita
Quest for Prosperity - Konosuke Matsushita
[PDF] Case Report on Betamax - Verardi et al
"Why VHS was better than Betamax" - Guardian UK - Jack Schofield

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.

Think of it as a giant Erector Set. Grid Beam is a great way to make working prototypes of furniture, experimental vehicles and even small buildings. If your idea doesn't work, you can change it until it does. If you don't need it anymore, Grid Beams are easily demountable and ready to use for the next project. I find the ability to try ideas quickly in analog form to be a huge advantage. With nothing simulated, you know for sure it works, not merely that it should work. A drawing can lie to your client or worse, to you. Grid Beams never lie. The book illustrates a remarkable array of projects, all real, and many actually at work. Inspiring!

How to Build with Grid Beam
Phil Jergenson, Richard Jergenson and Wilma Keppel
2008, 288 pages
$23

Available from Amazon

Gridbeams

Sample Excerpts:

*

Figure 1.5: Four types of commercial grid beam. From bottom: 1-inch (25mm) steel, 1 1/2-inch (40mm) wood, 1 1/2-inch aluminum, 2-inch (50mm) steel double-hole with a 1 3/4-inch (45mm) insert. You can also drill your own.

*

Figure C.17: The wood-framed workbench that Phil assembled in chapter 1.

*

Figure C.1: Ken Issac's Superchair, the first commercial grid beam product, has built-in shelves and a book holder, snack tray and overhead reading light. The seat back lowers to make a bed.

But then, Sony did the same thing. Before announcing the Sony Vaio W netbook, Sony keep on saying that they have no plans of releasing a Sony Vaio netbook, and they are their words.

Will Apple follow the same path? Well, if a China Times report claiming that Apple is releasing a 9.7-inch touchscreen netbook sometime in October is true lo and behold I might cancel my plans of getting the 13-inch MacBook Pro and wait for this Apple netbook instead.

But wait, the report also claims that the said Apple netbook might likely cost around $800 too expensive if I may say so.

What is pretty weird is the fact that the said Apple netbook would have a 9.7-inch screen. Ain't that too irregular for a netbook's size?

Anyway, please remember that all these still remain a rumor.

The MacRumors Forum is running this news item and they have posted several updates regarding this info. You might want to check it out to keep abreast of the developments about this netbook.

Via Engadget

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Is Apple Finally Releasing their Own Netbook?

Some fans objected to Reznor's claim that Topspin Media (video interview) got it right with its re-release of the Beastie Boys album Ill Communication, which offers a wide array of merchandise in just about every conceivable format at a wide variety of prices. It's become a well-worn criticism of the independent distribution model that fledgling bands need a helping hand in order to make it in the music business. Not so, says Reznor. According to him, giving away digital music while charging for scarce, premium edition is the best way forward for artists of all stripes not just Radiohead and his own band, Nine Inch Nails.

Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales, wrote Reznor on his message board. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY [as DRM-free MP3s] Collect people's e-mail info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods.

It's a play straight out of Anderson's playbook (and, in fact, Anderson cites Nine Inch Nails as an example of a business that understands Free).

To put it into practice, Reznor advises that bands distribute through Amazon, TopSpin or Tunecore; set up a simple, Flash-free site outside of MySpace (which he says is dying and reads as cheap / generic); never abuse their mailing list; use free tools from Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube and SoundCloud; and give people a reason to keep coming back to their site (Reznor's own forums are an example of this strategy).

However, Reznor says the strategy of giving away music in return for e-mail addresses, then marketing pricey box sets and other premium goods to those e-mail addresses only makes sense if a band wants to keep all its money and stay in control of its image.

If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake), your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days, you'll need old-school marketing muscle, and that only comes from major labels.

Good luck with that one.

See Also:

• Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
• TopSpin Lets Bands Ape Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails
• Video Interview: Ian Rogers, Topspin Media
• SoundCloud Threatens MySpace as Music Destination for Twitter Era
• Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson on the Future of Free
• Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead Dominate Amazon MP3 Chart
• It Just Got Cheaper To Sell a Song on iTunes
• MySpace Music: What Went Wrong, and What's Being Done About It

Photo: Andrea Veraart

Continue reading Video: Jaguar's 2010 XJ cockpit is a dual-view, 7.1 surround sound lovers' paradise

Video: Jaguar's 2010 XJ cockpit is a dual-view, 7.1 surround sound lovers' paradise originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

On a good morning there's no alarm clock. I wake up with the sun and do my best to resist the instinctive urge to look at the computer or check email for at least an hour.

My vice of choice isn't coffee, but the Kindle. Its electronic shelves are filled mostly with the business books I read in order to grow up to be a real businessman (before someone figures out I'm not). At any point in time I have about 120 books downloaded. Interspersed between Drucker, Godin, and Buffett are classics like Seneca, which I wish I could read more often but only get to a few times a year.

Automattic, the holding company behind WordPress.com, finally got an office late last year at Pier 38, a beautiful open-floorplan space right on the Embarcadero. It's about a five-minute walk from my apartment, but my preference is to work from home. We're very much a virtual company where everyone primarily works from home (or their coffee shop of choice). The half dozen of us in the Bay Area will go in on Thursdays to have a little company, but six days out of the week the space is usually empty. But we throw some great parties there.

The team communicates mostly via P2, something a little like Twitter but password-protected, with real-time updates and threaded inline conversations. P2 is almost like a chat channel, but structured like a blog, and we've evolved to have almost a dozen across the 40 people at Automattic serving a variety of purposes. We fill any gaps in communication by IRC, Skype, and, in a pinch, email.

In my home office there are two 30-inch monitors a Mac and a PC. They share the same mouse and keyboard using Synergy so I can copy and paste between them. The Mac is mostly used for email and chat, while web stuff and coding happen on the PC. The keyboard is, of course, Dvorak, a more efficient keyboard layout that I switched to 10 years ago. I also have a Sony Z90 laptop with me all the time, whether I'm going overseas or just to the doctor's office. I'm pretty rough on laptops, sometimes going through two a year. At home I like to geek out with home servers and networking, and sometimes find myself doing IT support for family, friends, and colleagues.

One of my favorite programs that we didn't make is RescueTime. Hackers all know that you have to profile before you can optimize, and RescueTime runs in the trap of my computers and tracks how much time I spend on different things, sometimes with surprising results. My biggest time-suck is email, and to help out I wrote a WordPress plugin that filters people into folders based on their email address and priority settings which helps keep my inbox relatively clean. Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, advocates checking email only twice a week but that's too severe for me. I'm currently trying Leo Babauta's approach from The Power of Less, which suggests small steps like checking email five set times a day instead of constantly. It's like dieting: People who binge diet gain it all back. That happens to me with email.

Music is my muse and I listen to it all day. There's a lot of jazz Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins but I'm also a big fan of Jay-Z, Beyonc, and Method Man. I have an analog Shindo stereo that was hand built in Japan and the aural experience is mind-blowing. When you're coding you really have to be in the zone so I'll listen to a single song over and over on repeat, hundreds of times. It helps me focus. The other best way to focus is to turn off email and instant messenger. The moment that little toaster pops up and says you've got mail you're taken out of the flow. You're juggling variables and functions and layouts and the moment you look away it all falls to the ground it takes you 10 minutes getting it back in the air again.

A big part of my job is to manage the support, usability, and product development people who are scattered all over the globe, from Alabama to Ireland to Bulgaria. My management strategy is centered on hiring: find extremely self-motivated and curious people and then give them the autonomy to succeed. There's no manager looking over anybody's shoulder, so everyone needs to be self-directed. For every person we hire there are hundreds of applications. We always start people on a contract basis first; that way we mutually understand what it's like to work with each other. One of the most important things I look for in rsums is a history of contributing to Open Source projects, because I know these people will understand our ethos.

For four years I was the only developer on Akismet, our anti-spam service. It started because my mom had wanted to start a blog but I was scared she'd be bombarded by spam for Viagra and worse, think that's what I looked at all day. We finally added a second engineer to the project at the end of 2008, which was weird for me but was necessary for growth, especially as I'm pulled in more and more directions.

I go out for lunch whenever I can, which fits well with my preference for no meetings before 11 AM. There's something very personal about sharing food with someone; it's a deeper connection than shaking hands in a boardroom. Often when I'm in town I'll have lunch with Toni Schneider, my CEO. He and I get along super well which is one of the reasons I think the business has worked. He brings gravitas because he's a digital native but also has great startup experience including being the CEO of Oddpost, a webmail company Yahoo acquired in 2004. Sometimes we'll go to lunch at 12:30 and stay until 5.

In general, I'm pretty darn disorganized, late as often as not, and really bad at keeping a schedule. My PA is now focusing on office and event tasks so I'm in the market for someone new. Last year I was on the road 212 days and clocked 175,000 miles, which is seven times around the globe (according to Dopplr, a great travel journal I use). The bulk of my travel is to WordCamps, which are educational and networking events that celebrate blogging. Automattic held our first annual WordCamp in San Francisco in 2006, thrown together just a few weeks before the event happened. Now they've exploded all over the world and I've been to over 30 community-organized events from South Africa to the Philippines. I say they're a great bargain: a full day of quality speakers, BBQ lunch, a cool t-shirt, and a party for $25. We just wrapped the largest WordCamp ever here in San Francisco with over 700 people. Though I'd love to, if I went to every WordCamp I wouldn't have any time to actually build WordPress, so I'm cutting back and trying to go to every other one. They are great fun, though; it's a chance to be a rockstar for a day. In the Philippines after the conference was done I stayed almost two hours afterward taking pictures and autographing badges and laptops. I've even been asked to sign body parts. Really.

To document my experiences when I travel I use my Nikon D3 camera. My photos are autobiographical my memory is so bad (and the travel pretty grueling) that I'll forget everything about a trip, and the photos help trigger my memories. On the plane ride home I'll process and edit the photos as a narrative of each day, a visual diary. On my trip to Vietnam last February I took 2-3 thousand photos. I've heard that the difference between an amateur photographer and a pro is that the amateur shows you everything they shoot. I'm somewhere in between I'll post maybe a quarter of what I take.

I used to think constantly about building an audience for my blog but now my attitude is that if I'm not blogging for myself it's not worth it. I don't force myself to post once a day, I just do it when it feels natural. Sometimes people complain Write more about WordPress; we don't want to see photos of kids in Vietnam but I don't really care. For my 25th birthday in January I published a list of 2009 goals on my blog. It included learning Spanish, learning how to cook, and posting 10,000 photos. Cooking has been a total fail so far; I go out for every meal. If you open my refrigerator you'll find Girl Scout cookies and barbecue sauce. Photos are blazing along, half-way through the year and I've taken 20,000 photos and posted about 4,000 of them.

My blog is fortunate enough to get lot of comments and I read and manually approve each one. I think the broken windows theory a broken window or graffiti in a neighborhood begets more of the same applies online. I'll happily approve a comment from someone who completely disagrees with everything I believe in, but if I get a positive comment with a curse word in it I'll edit it out. My blog is like my living room: If someone was acting out in my house, I'd ask that person to leave.
I look at our numbers every day, usually after 5 PM PST when GMT goes into a new day. We have an internal dashboard where we track 500 to 600 statistics about everything from how often people are logging in to WordPress.com to how many words they're pressing per day. Almost all of the numbers are real-time.

I do my best work mid-morning and super late at night, from one to five in the morning. Some people don't need sleep, but I actually need a ton. I just sleep all the time, catching naps in the afternoon or a 20-minute snooze in the office. Our business is 24 hours folks in Australia start their day around 4 PM my time and our guys and girls in Europe get going around midnight. Sometimes I'll go out at night, come home from the bar at 2 or 3 AM, and then go back to work.

For WordPress we're trying to set up a community that will be around 10 to 30 years from now, one that's independent from the whims of the market. My role is somewhat like Linus for Linux or Shuttleworth for Ubuntu, affectionately referred to as BDFL, and it's my responsibility to meet as many users as possible and direct the software in a way that reflects their interest. Last year I probably met 5,000 or 6,000 WordPress users, about half of them who make their living from it. We want to be like Google, eBay, Amazon they all enable other people to make far more money than the company captures. That's ultimately what we're trying to do, we're trying to create a movement.

My Mom started a blog a couple of months ago. Six years into this, and we finally made it easy enough for my Mom to use. (She hates it when I say that.)

If you ask questions in the comments, I'll do my best to answer them.

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Samsung's Pixon 12: a dozen megapixels of cameraphone nonsense in June After failing to show at the Mobile World Congress event in February, Samsung's rumored 12 megapixel cameraphone has finally arrived. Meet the Pixon 12 and its 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a Sammy promise of fast shutter speeds and quick browsing.

I've often wanted a small auxiliary monitor on which to slap IM windows, twitter deck apps, scratch pads and the like, but finding a reasonable balance between size, price and quality was always a pain. So it's natural that as soon as I thought "Bah, I'll just get a second display," last year, than the exact thing I wanted originally should appear, grinning.

Product Page [Mimo via Gadget Lab]
Sidestage PR [D-Link via CrunchGear]

Previously: Mimo 7-inch LCD gets reviewed (Verdict: fantastic for coralling all your tiny windows and widgets)

Last week we noted that Best Buy had reduced the price of the MSI Wind U100 to $349 and NewEgg did the same for the comparably equipped Acer Aspire One.

Now, Best Buy has cut the price of the Eee PC 900A to $279.99, meaning you can pick up a netbook with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 4GB SSD for under $300. OK, it runs Xandros Linux, but there's no reason you couldn't install Ubuntu.

[Engadget via Liliputing]

Posted from my Acer Aspire One, 4 GB SSD, 8 GB SD, 512 MB RAM, 9-Cell Extended Battery.

Samsung's NC10 is the only product that provides comparableand even improvedfeatures for a lower price. Its comfortable, well-positioned keyboard, speedy and spacious hard drive, and more than 7 hours of endurance make the $499 Samsung NC10 the most well-rounded 10-inch netbook on the market.

Have a look at the review and see if you think the NC10 is the netbook of your dreams.

VIA has apparently confirmed that the next generation HP Mini-Note will not use VIA processors. HP is expected to launch a new netbook called the HP Mini 1000 this week (possibly as soon as Wednesday), and from what I can tell, it will have a 10 inch display, a cheap plastic case (unlike the sturdy aluminum case used in earlier models), and it will likely have a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, much like almost every other netbook released in the US since this summer.

DigiTimes reports that a VIA official says that the new HP Mini-Note models will not sport VIA chips, but that HP will continue to sell the existing line of HP 2133 Mini-Notes through mid-2009.

That doesn't mean VIA is going to just curl up in a ball and roll away though. The company today announced the launch of a Global Mobility Bazaar program designed to make low cost computers available in the developing world. VIA is working with Microsoft and 15 Chinese PC makers to create an infrastructure for producing mobile computers with 7 to 15 inch screens that will be available for the equivalent of about $400 or less in regions including Eastern Europe, India, South America, and China.

While we may not see a lot of VIA C7-M or VIA Nano-powered computers in the US or western Europe in the near future, this initiative could result in an awful lot of computers in developing nations being powered by VIA chips. And who knows, if the VIA Nano lives up to its promise overseas, perhaps we'll see major western companies like HP take another look at the chip maker's products in the not too distant future.

via UMPC Portal

Post from: Liliputing

Our recent posts about HP Mini-note price drops at Amazon are starting to illustrate what we thought last month: HP is either making room for a new netbook or they're adding another choice to their lineup. Vivek caught sight of the new HP Mini 1000 netbook on HP's shopping page, but there's limited information at this point. Here's what we can see and\or guess:

• Starting price of $399
• Weight begins at 2.25 pounds, which is a little less than the HP Mini-note
• Under 1-inch in thickness
• Like the Acer Aspire One, the left and right mouse betters truly are left and right... of the trackpad.
• The large screen bezel of the 8.9-inch Mini-note is gone; we're guessing a 10-inch display

There's no mention of the remaining specs just yet and the two that are likely of interest the most are the CPU and screen resolution. The Mini-note uses an older VIA C7-M, so the question is: will HP go with VIA for the same-socket Nano CPU or will we see yet another Intel Atom system? Also, the Mini-note differentiates itself from all other netbooks with the generous 1280x768 display resolution. That sounds like a perfect res on a larger 10-inch screen and would continue to set HP's netbook apart from the crowd.

A company called Celiocorp has launched a completely different take on the netbook phenomenon. Instead of offering a lightweight computer running either Linux or XP like today's netbooks do, this notebook PC is entirely powered by a device you already own: your smartphone. Dubbed a mobile companion, the Redfly device has an 8-inch screen, a full-sized keyboard and touch pad, and is connected to your smartphone via a USB cable or Bluetooth.

To use the Redfly notebook, all you need to do is install the Redfly driver on your phone (see supported phones here). You can then use the netbook like any computer. Its bigger screen makes it easier to read documents, write emails, or surf the web. Redfly supports remote desktop, virtualization and other cloud-based environments like Citrix, GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, Microsoft's Remote Desktop protocol, stoneware, inc., and others. The netbook also features a VGA connector so you can connect your Redfly netbook to a projector for presentations.

As you use the Redfly device, you can be charging your smartphone too, assuming it's plugged in via the USB cable. The Redfly battery works for up to 8 hours, according to the company.

Because Redfly has no OS, no CPU, no hard drive, and requires no software licenses, its cost is lower than a laptop PC (an Amazon search shows that price to be around $199). That's also slightly more affordable than today's crop of OS-powered netbooks, but not by much.

The benefit to using a mobile companion instead of a PC is that the device can get lost or stolen without any threat of losing important data. Of course, a lot of companies have already started doing this now via the use of virtualized business apps running on top of the OS installed on regular company laptops all the important data is in the cloud so laptop loss or theft isn't as big a concern as before. However, given the price ($199) of Redfly vs. that of a laptop, the replacement cost would be minimal.

in reply to Redfly: A Netbook Entirely Powered By Your Windows Mobile Phone

A company called Celiocorp has launched a completely different take on the netbook phenomenon. Instead of offering a lightweight computer running either Linux or XP like today's netbooks do, this notebook PC is entirely powered by a device you already own: your smartphone. Dubbed a mobile companion, the Redfly device has an 8-inch screen, a full-sized keyboard and touch pad, and is connected to your smartphone via a USB cable or Bluetooth.

To use the Redfly notebook, all you need to do is install the Redfly driver on your phone (see supported phones here). You can then use the netbook like any computer. Its bigger screen makes it easier to read documents, write emails, or surf the web. Redfly supports remote desktop, virtualization and other cloud-based environments like Citrix, GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, Microsoft's Remote Desktop protocol, stoneware, inc., and others. The netbook also features a VGA connector so you can connect your Redfly netbook to a projector for presentations.

As you use the Redfly device, you can be charging your smartphone too, assuming it's plugged in via the USB cable. The Redfly battery works for up to 8 hours, according to the company.

Because Redfly has no OS, no CPU, no hard drive, and requires no software licenses, its cost is lower than a laptop PC (an Amazon search shows that price to be around $199). That's also slightly more affordable than today's crop of OS-powered netbooks, but not by much.

The benefit to using a mobile companion instead of a PC is that the device can get lost or stolen without any threat of losing important data. Of course, a lot of companies have already started doing this now via the use of virtualized business apps running on top of the OS installed on regular company laptops all the important data is in the cloud so laptop loss or theft isn't as big a concern as before. However, given the price ($199) of Redfly vs. that of a laptop, the replacement cost would be minimal.

Well, you can make pesto from any type of basil. But if you don't like black licorice, then you'd probably not like Thai or anise basil, even if it was turned into pesto. And if you find cinnamon or lemon bitter, then you won't like those either.

But my friend is right, there must be something more to do with basil than turn it into pesto. And with somewhere between 50 and 150 varieties (huge disagreements about what denotes a species, and basil tends to interbreed easily) there must be a variety of dishes that would work best with one type of basil over another.

Despite there being dozens of varieties of basil, there are a handful that are very different from each other. Sweet basil is the kind that you're most likely to find in grocery stores. I'll use it as a reference base for the other types of basil you'll likely find. Lemon basil is similar to sweet basil and can be used interchangably, but it will add a lemony flavor and aroma that will be very noticeable. Thai basil has smaller leaves that tend to be a bit more purple than green, and this what you'll likely find in used in most Thai dishes. Cinnamon basil has a much milder taste than any of the others, and the cinnamon smell seems to disappear when it is mixed with vinegars or cooked. But it does retain a tiny hint of cinnamon spiciness.

Any of these varieties can be made into pesto. But I think the lemon or sweet basil will provide your most pleasing options. The Thai and cinnamon basil are just a little too strong to meld well with the other, gentler flavors in the pesto. However, Thai basil's punchy flavor makes a great Coconut and Basil Marinade for chicken or tofu. Cinnamon basil's spiciness matches fruit really well in Fruit and Cinnamon Basil Chutney. Lemon basil goes great in Baked Whitefish with Lemon Basil. And sweet basil goes great in Orange and Sweet Basil Black Bean Salad.

Coconut and Basil Chicken or Tofu
1 cup of coconut milk
1/2 cup of chopped thai basil
1 scallion, minced (keep the white and green parts separate)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2-inch piece of ginger, freshly ground
salt to taste
2 teaspoons of sugar or honey
1 teaspoon of Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1/2 pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, cut into cubes or
1/2 pound of deep-fried tofu cut into cubes
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped fine (to reduce the heat, remove the seeds)
Salt and pepper
chopped cilantro for garnish
2 tablespoons of toasted coconut for garnish
lime slices for garnish
4 cups of cooked white basmati rice