I possess many faults, but to my great relief, sweaty palms are not among them. Maybe during a marathon Harvest Moon session, but that’s all. I just get so excited! Anyway, if you’re among the proud, the few, the sweaty-palmed, this keyboard may be for you. Its little fan will keep your digits dry all day long… and all night strong. → Read More
I’m working on a few reviews of e-readers right now, but what I’m seeing here from Asus pretty much blows them all away. I’d seen pictures, but seeing the camera and writing in motion is a whole other world. The weird part is it’s not actually an e-ink display, it’s a monochrome LCD sans backlight. What the hell, right? Whatever works, I guess, although it brings the battery life down to a (still respectable) 10 hours.
The crazy thing? It’s supposed to be only $200. That makes it a huge bargain if what we’re seeing here really works. → Read More
Honestly? Two 14-inch displays? Tips the scales at 5.5 pounds? I honestly can say this is the least appealing tablet-style device I’ve seen. I’m sorry, but the entire point of this form factor is portability and ease of use. How can you use it at all, when you’re too busy trying not to fall over from the weight?
It’s supposed to replace your textbooks — I think it’s more likely to replace your desk. → Read More
Among the many and sundry delights at Computex, this $50 set-top box running Android might have been easy to miss. Luckily, they blew up the well-known Android home screen to 1080p. So if you missed it, you should probably get your eyes checked. The hardware is still in prototype form, but it’s fully functional and the >700MHz ARM11 CPU handled 1080p content… barely. Using a plain clicker to control the UI doesn’t look like fun, though. → Read More
O brave new world, with such products in it! Now honestly, it sounds nerdy, but as a blogger I can’t think of anything nicer than taking a blanket and a wireless broadband card out to a park and blogging all day in the sun (if we had sun here in Seattle this spring). Trouble is, my old MacBook Pro only has enough juice for two hours maximum, what with me constantly having a Super Nintendo game and a nature documentary running in the background at all times in addition to the wireless. How to stay up? How about a solar cell briefcase? Opti-Solar is making this (extremely expensive) briefcase that opens up to harvest the power of the sun and turn it back around for 75 watts of power. $1500 is a lot to pay for something like that, but the idea is cool. I’ll get one when they can be rolled up — although this one has the benefit of doubling as a picnic table when it’s cloudy. → Read More
Of all places for an Apple TV competitor to come from, Phillips was not at the top of my list or, rather, even in the top five. Apparently, this brushed aluminum squareish object from Phillips will be a direct competitor so you don’t have to go hacking and possibly bricking your precious Apple hardware. Details are very limited at this time and an actual UI was not up for demo at Computex. The 40GB capacity media hub is more or less the same beast that is the Apple TV with HDMI, optical audio outputs, and wireless streaming of audio and video content. Maybe we’ll see something tomorrow at the Phillips show, but I highly doubt it. Computex 2007: Philips Takes on AppleTV [Trusted Reviews] → Read More
San Francisco, CA
