I got a bit distracted on the site yesterday doing lots of things to optimise the product pages (all product pages now show the latest forum entries if there is a related forum. E.g. HTC Shift.) and to tidy up the front page, forums and get the Wiki function enabled. Everyone is welcome to contribute – Non members too!
Then I had a great chat with Jeff Moriarty of Intel. He’s part of the software ecosystem for Moblin and MIDs and wants, just as I do, to engage the 3rd party software community so if you have an idea for software you want to write or see on top of Moblin, either as a standalone 3rd-party app or as something that gets bundled up with the Ubuntu or Asianux distro’s, let me or him know. Here’s his opening blog on the Intel Software blog network. For some background on Moblin, check out Dan’s report.[More after the break…]
I also spent a lot of time with some new members to the UMPCPortal team. My call for help resulted in 5 responses and we’re all chatting together now trying to work out who can do what. I’m honored that people want to join up as part of team and I’m sure it’s going to make the experience better on the portal. Welcome to Thorsten, Alex, Ben, Elliot and Andre. If you’re also interested in helping out (or if you contacted me and I didn’t reply) please contact me. Two types of person I’m especially interested in are 1) A non technical user. 2) Someone to give a womans point-of-view.
Then there was a podcast, some fixing of things I’d screwed up during the day and when I looked at the clock it was 0245. Ooops! So on to a round-up of yesterdays news.
HP 2133 will update with a new processor.
This story makes sense. I’m guessing that HP will keep the C7 in there and introduce two new devices. One will be totally education focused and will be their big money maker. The second will be a consumer version with Vista and a few disk options. It makes total sense that they move to the Isaiah processor but there’s a couple of things that could happen. 1) Isaiah might not be ready in numbers. 2) Intel could offer to build a mobo and absorb some cost into their marketing budget. I’ve got my fingers crossed the VIA are ready because if it gets down to a game of throwing money around, VIA aren’t in the best position.
ultra mobile PC squeezes in optical drive.
Kind of old news this one. The S41 and SR8 have been in the database for while. The pricing seems high but once again, Inventec, the OEM, have created a unique device. This is the smallest notebook with a DVD drive in the world! We should be getting one for testing soon.
Laptop Batteries 30% more capacity.
Its happening, but very slowly indeed. I wrote a detailed report on battery tech recently and stated that would should expect 20% battery capacity improvement per year. As CPUs near insignificant levels of power drain it’s becoming increasingly important to focus on the finer points of engery optimisation. Software, radios, screens, storage.
Firefox mobile. ‘Fennec’ showing promise.
The reports focus on a 5.9x speed improvement which is a bit misleading. The test results are from a Javascript-only test which is good, but not the whole picture. Speaking of mobile browsers, where’s Opera Mobile 9?
JKK and I edited up a video we took of the Aigo MID at CeBIT. It seems like years ago! I’ve also put the images in the gallery.
there would be a great demand for mobile browsers in the coming years that is for sure.`*:
mobile browsers would become greatly popular in the next few years`.: