This slide has been available on the Intel IDF press pages for a few days but it needs highlighting. There are 20 MID manufacturers lined up. 

 
Slide taken from Intel press pages.

This list includes Windows-based MIDs. New since last time we had a list are:

• Fujitsu. Am I dreaming or did we hear something already about Fujitsu?
• Hanbit. It will be based on the old Pepper Pad 3 hardware with a re-design coming in the future.
• Hitachi.
• NEC.
• Sophia systems. PearTree development system. Website. News.
• Tabletkiosk.
• USI (this is the Abit MID)
• Viliv (we’ve seen these two devices before)
• WiBrain.

To put this into perspective, consider that 20 MIDs is about 4 times the number of Origami devices that launched in 2006.

Technorati Tags: intel,mid,atom

On Tuesday 8th April (next Tuesday) at 4:10pm (Texas, U.S. 2110 GMT) there’s a very interesting meeting taking place at the Linux Foundation collaboration summit.

State of Linux Mobile – Why It’s Happening and What It Means
Moderator: Dan Kohn of the Linux Foundation
– Sean Moss-Pultz of OpenMoko
– Derek Speed of Intel’s Moblin
– Andrew Shikiar of LiMo
– David “Lefty” Schlesinger of ACCESS
– Eric Chu from the Google/Open Handset Alliance

Is anyone going? If so, make sure you make notes for us all!

Picked up in the forums from a story published by Digitimes.

The R50 will be priced above US$500 and the company expects to launch an updated version in November, which will have a keyboard.

Thanks Mikey

ZDNet reports that there will be an exception to the XP cut-off rule for Ultra Low Cost PCs. Many UMPCs use a similar low-cost platform to the one that Microsoft is describing and considering that the reason you might use XP is because you have a low spec PC and not a low cost one, why should this mean that low cost UMPCs aren’t  included? The price of the Everun and the Wibrain are as low as some of these ULCPCs. If you sold the Samsung Q1 Ultra at $499, would it be a ULCPC?

I suspect that MS will decide, whatever they say in a press release, case-by-case on projected sales volume rather than any fixed set of rules. Using the the Eee PC excuse is an easy way out. On the face of it, it says something about how they perceive the consumer mobile pc and MID market but I would take this announcement as simply an indicator that the low-cost and mobile PC market is a moving, evolving entity.

I’m here, at an old gasworks in Amsterdam, listening to some really cool web-based businesses talk about the future of the Web. We’ve heard about funding, about opening up website to public input and in a minute, well hear a presentation that will be guided, live, by social media feedback. This will be an interesting one if they can get the WiFi working properly here! Later on this morning Kevin Rose will be talking and then, at 1800, he will be teaming up with his Diggnation partner, Alex Allbrecht, for […]

Intel has announced their 9″ classmate PC:

The second-generation classmate PCs are built on Intel® Celeron® M processor with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and mesh network capabilities. The top range of these netbooks includes a 9-inch LCD screen, 6-cell battery life, 512 MB memory, a 30 GB HDD (hard disk drive) storage and an integrated webcam. An Intel powered classmate PC supports Microsoft* Windows* XP and variants of the Linux* operating environment. When pre-installed with the education software stack, these netbooks are ideal for classroom-learning environment. Software and content will be available in more than eight languages.

Press release.

Considering their current push for the Basic Mobile Platform, the specs feel decidedly first-gen. However, these devices are aimed at people that would’nt share my opinion.

More pics at Engagdet

I was a little annoyed when the Vodafone 3G network went down today. All I wanted to do was to twitter my status to the thousands that follow me (Hi Mum) and yet there wasn’t a 3G bit in sight. Ten minutes later it was still the same but when I tried my backup phone that today contains my data-only card, 3G was working. Swapping the SIM from the primary to backup phone proved that the issue was with the SIM so I called the customer helpdesk and, after the usual support-avoidance tactics I managed to log a fault. As soon as I did that, the call operative took the time to log into my account and saw that my Internet had been blocked for over-usage. Strange. No, very surprising as I have had a flat-rate HTTP-only plan for a while now and i’m very careful about how I use it. She offered to refer the case and an hour later someone calls me back from Vodafone and carefully explains (i could tell he’d done this before) that I had accrued 1594 Euros of data charges. IN 6 DAYS!!

After calmly (I was proud of myself) explaining that I had a flat rate Internet package, and a second data-only SIM, and a third PAYG SIM that I use for per-day flat usage, they repeated that no Internet package had been booked to my account since I had started the contract and that I should have taken the Vodafone Internet Flat option. Vodafone. FAIL. After a short explanation about my 4 year data-usage history with Vodafone, they agreed they they had made the mistake and offered to reduce the charge to 94 Euros. I was reduced to a short ‘spiel’ about my status as a researcher of mobile Internet devices and mobile Internet services and within an hour I was allowed back in through the pearly 3G gates. Phew!

There’s a couple of lessons to learn here. 1) You carrier is probably watching out for you. I wonder what would have happened if the 1600 Euro alarm bell hadn’t have rung so i’m happy about that. Despite their mistake, they were responsive and apologetic once i’d explained what the situation was although I pity the  person that doesn’t understand the system. 2) Data can be hugely expensive so take care, even in your home network so make sure you have the right data plan and once you have the right data plan, make sure you use the correct access point. Again, I pity the man on the street that doesn’t understand what all that means. I have 4 APN’s to choose from with Vodafone which doesn’t make it easy, especially when each application on a Series 60 phone can be configured to use a different one! 3) This is what makes the iPhone so easy. If you’re in your home network all the time, there’s really no need to worry but living, as many Europeans do, within an hour of a few country borders, it does make the choice difficult. 4) ‘Open’ smartphones allow so many services to be set up that its very easy to be downloading 50-100MB of data a day without even thinking. Audio and video podcasts are the ones that clicked up the data bill in my case.

So as I near the German border on the (delayed) ICE train to Amsterdam, I’m preparing to go off the grid again. I’ve got a PAYG Vodafone NL SIM card waiting for me there though so I can add that to my collection of 7 other SIM cards that I juggle with on different devices in different countries to avoid even more expensive roaming data costs. Being mobile can sometimes be a pain in the arse!

Posted at 160kmh. A new personal best!

A little chubby perhaps but this one definitely has more style than many of the VIA-based UMPC and MiniNotes. VIA have also made a press release but I can’t help but feel a little worried about the lead-time of ‘…in one year.’ I hope we see it without WiMax a long time before 2009 because it would be a waste of a good design if it was being held back just for the early WiMax customers. Not to mention the sales it could sweep-up in Europe and Asia if it had an HSDPA module in it. Everex don’t operate in these territories so fingers-crossed that someone else picks it up for these areas.

Images at BrownKnows. Cloudbook Max details in the database.