I’ve been on vacation for the last week doing some snowboarding in Colorado, but it wasn’t all play. I’ve been doing an accessory review for you, our good readers. For the last week, I’ve been testing the Marmot iTouch Multi gloves for use with capacitive touchscreens.

What Are They?

The iTouch Multi gloves from Marmot are gloves that have a special tip on the index-finger and thumb that allow one to use capacitive touch devices that normally only work with bare fingers. I bought mine at a local ski/snowboard shop for only $35. These gloves aren’t thick (or water-resistant) enough for use as dedicated skiing/snowboarding gloves, but they work great as liners for larger gloves or for stand-alone gloves in brisk weather.

How do they work?

On both gloves are pads on the index-finger and thumb that have a special material that activate the capacitive touch device. The material helps transfer the field that you fingers’ naturally generate which acts to disrupt a field created by a capacitive touchscreen, thus locating the region that the screen has been touched. It seems that these gloves are rather new, as I can’t even locate them on Marmot’s site, so I unfortunately don’t know the exact origin of the material. The special material is flexible, and it goes over top of the regular glove material, so you thumb and index-finger stay just as warm as your other fingers.

How do they perform?

I’m pretty impressed with the gloves. They work about as well as I expected them to. I bought these gloves with the desire to be able to operate the basic functions of my iPhone 3G in the cold without having to remove my gloves. I also wanted them to function as a liner for larger gloves so that I could take my outer gloves off while snowboarding and be able to use my phone on the slopes without my hands freezing off.

The special material on the index-finger and thumb work well to initiate touchscreen input. Of course it isn’t the surface of your real finger, so it is hard to be as accurate as normal, but as long as you are careful, it is possible to touch right where you are trying to. Sometimes it is easiest to use the side of the glove tip where it comes to more of a point to hit exactly what you want. The gloves make it easy to answer and place phone calls without taking your gloves off. Though it might take more time, you can also respond to text messages. When returning texts, it is only practical to type with one finger; you won’t be typing with two thumbs like you might normally.

I only have two issues with these gloves. The first of which is grip. The gloves are covered on the palm side with little rubbery grips that look just like the red logo on the index-finger. While they probably assist your grip somewhat, holding the iPhone is still analogous to holding a wet bar of a soap. Ok that might be a bit of an overstatement, but I would recommend being very careful while holding your electronic device. For me, holding and typing with the same hand was totally out of the question. While I was on the ski lifts, I would hold my iPhone firmly with one hand and use the other to navigate, any other way would just be asking to lose your iPhone to the snow 30 feet under you. Stopping to answer a call on the slopes wasn’t much of an issue. All I had to do was take off my outer glove and slide the slider to answer. I was able to talk on the phone without completely taking off my gloves, which is very nice when you are out in the cold.

My second complaint is build quality. The gloves would probably hold up very well if they were used by themselves. However, a week of being used as liners is already taking its toll. The special pads are already frayed. After prolonged use as liners, it seems like they would degrade fairly quickly. As I said, during stand-alone use, they would probably last much longer.

Overall I’m pretty satisfied with the gloves, and I feel that they are priced fairly. Any glove makers out there think they have a better pair of capacitive touch enabled gloves? Contact me at Ben [at] umpcportal.com if you would like to have them reviewed.

Update: Building a list of the specs and news references in the product database page.

An 8.9″ 2.1lb PC it’s not exactly the type of thing I’d like to have on my car dashboard but it seems that ASUS might be thinking that way. With GPS, touchscreen and an FM transmitter it looks like they’re going for the navigation option.

LaptopMag have a short article with information from the ASUS press event that took place at CES a short while ago.

I have a similar combination of convertible with GPS on my SC3 and I can honestly say that I’ve never ever thought about using it as a PND. There are far better solutions out there. Maybe ASUS will focus on the tablet element of this one though. At 1KG, it will work well for some.

Liliputing have some more pics and are saying that the device is due for launch in the 3-6months timeframe.

Related ASUS convertible item: The T83 from CeBIT in 2007 that never saw the light of day.

Update: Looks like there’s a 10″ version of this. The T101H

Have a look at Phun, the free physics sandbox, available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX. I’m really excited to share this game with any touchscreen users out there because it is really well made and lots of fun if you like to create and tinker.

Phun is not a goal oriented game. It is more of a playground, or a sandbox if you will. You have at your disposal many different tools to create whatever you can think of. You are essentially using these tools to create objects and see how they act and react given the properties that you have specified. Tools range from simple circle and box creation to more complex and interesting mechanics such as the spring tool which allows you to couple objects together with springs that are totally adjustable by the user (things like spring strength, dampening, etcetera).

The great thing about this game, with regards to touchscreen users, is that just about every adjustment can be made on screen using your stylus. The major tools are represented with nicely sized on-screen buttons and it makes them easy to select with the stylus. Right clicking on any object brings up a menu with lots of options that are specific to each object. For example, right clicking on a block will allow you to change its density, friction, color, and lots more. Selecting the object menu from the top bar without having anything selected brings up a small window that will make it really easy for touchscreen users to navigate. See the video-demo below.

continue reading for video-demo, download link and more…

Read the full story

We’ve seen it done to several other netbooks in the past and now it is the Dell Mini 9’s turn. Jkk points us to a video of a Dell Mini 9 [Portal page] that has been modded with a touchscreen. He says that any of the common 8.9" touchscreen kits can be used with the mod, but connecting the necessary components could be tricky. Check out a short video below:

Laptop Magazine, Hardware Canucks and Hardware Zone have all now published full reviews of the Gigabyte M912V, the 1280×768 version of the Gigabyte Netbook.

Nothing surprises me in any of the reviews. Laptop Mag, who published their review last month) highlights the battery life and the screen resolution as problem points along with small keyboard and lack of touch software. Hardware Canucks picks up on the same issues. Hardware Zone who, like LaptopMag, had a Vista version, highlights some exceptionally high battery drain figures.

I agree with most of the issues and documented the lowlights in my article after we did the live session with it in July. At least we all agree on the same things!

It really is a shame that the keyboard is the standard EeePC style keyboard as there’s definitely room for a better one. The styling could also do with some pep but some of those other issues might be cleared with the arrival of the M912M which is scheduled to be available next week.

Many of you that have been following the M912 screen saga will know that the M version, with it’s lower resolution 1024×600 screen, is said by Gigabyte to have the LED backlighting which should help on three counts. 1) Battery life. The 1280×768 CCFL-backlit screen seemed to suck exceptional amounts of power when I tested it so the LED-backlighting should help a huge amount. 10% less drain overall is the minimum I’m expecting but it could be up to 20% in some scenarios. This should take the device over the magic 3-hour battery life. 2) The brightness and contrast should be far better on the LED-backlit model.  3) There should be a reduction in heat both under normal use and in tablet mode.  I’m quite sure that Windows XP is going to help too.

The M912M also comes with a smaller disk, lower price and, in some cases (check with your reseller) there won’t be a Bluetooth module. Maybe this fits with your requirements, maybe not, but for me its turning out to be an attractive package that I’m looking forward to testing. The Medion Akoya Mini is good (very good actually) but I need Bluetooth and with the ability to reach 3hrs of online battery life (30 minutes more than the Akoya Mini/Wind) the possibility of an internal 3G upgrade (Note: Some reports are coming in that the PCI Express Mini slot is not working) an easy 2GB memory upgrade, easy access to the hard drive and a fun, convertible touchscreen, has me really interested in the 912M as a better alternative. We’ll see next week when we put the Everun Note, the Akoya Mini and the M912M side-by-side.

More info and links on the M912M product page.

In the Gigabyte M912X unboxing last week, the second thing I mentioned was the washed-out screen. The following morning, in my tests,  it was clear that the screen was taking too much power. Ding! Of course, it was a CCFL-backlit screen.

I sent an email to Gigabyte who have confirmed that the (production) 1280×768 screen is CCFL backlit. They also told me that the 1024×600 screened version is LED-backlit. The 1024×600 screen will be installed in the M912M version.

For those not familiar with the terms, CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) is the old, power-hungry and often low-brightness backlighting method. LED (Light Emitting Diode) is the newer, much more power efficient and higher-brightness (mostly) method. In this case, it means that if you take a lower resolution screen, you get more battery life (it could be a significant amount, taking the standard 4-cell battery up to 3.5hrs browsing time) and, potentially a much brighter screen. All the LED 1024×600 screens I’ve seen so far have had great colour balance too.

I’ll happily drop that 1280×768 screen to 1024×600 to get the extra brightness and longer battery life offered by a LED-backlit model but there’s a catch if you’re thinking the same way. The 1024×600 screen is only in the M912M model. For that you have to sacrifice the Bluetooth (not a big deal) take Windows XP (which is likely to be faster and run better in 1GB) take an 80Gb hard drive instead of 160GB and wait 2 weeks longer until the end of September for delivery. Personally, I think it’s worth it and I don’t think anything else is going to come along that has the same features for the same price.

In summary then, there are now two models. The high-end version and the low-end version. The high-end version is available with XP and Vista. (M912X, M912V) The low-end version only with XP (M912M) There will be no Linux version.

Read the highlights and lowlights and watch the live Q&A session here. See the unboxing here.

Side-by-side specification comparison here.

Update: It’s the I1 (i1) not the L1. My mistake. Sorry Wibrain!
Detailed specifications and links are now in the database.

This, just in from Wibrain.

We had news from UMPCfever that Wibrain were working on an Atom-based ultra mobile PC and I can now bring you some details in English. The L1 i1 will be based on the B1 design, will have an updated casing design and will include variants of the Silverthorne Atom processor and an HSDPA module.

It’s planned to be launched running on Menlow (Silverthorne/Poulsbo) in two versions, one with a 1.1Ghz CPU and one with a 1.3Ghz version. The usual 30Gb or 60Gb drive options are available and you’ll also have SSD options up to, wait for it, 64GB! It is planned to be built with Windows XP or Linux (version unknown.) Target weight and dimensions are as per the B1 model. 500gm. One specification that many will be happy to see is an SD card slot. Simple but very useful and missing from the previous, B1 model.

As for battery life, we have a document here that says 6-hours browsing. I’m not sure if that’s with the 30Wh battery or the double-capacity battery. Were checking. It is possible that, with an SSD and the 1.1Ghz CPU that they can reach this figure with the standard battery and a low-level backlight but it’s going to be tough. We know that already! (Update: Wibrain tell us it’s 6-hours with the standard battery – Wow. Even if it’s 5, i’m interested!) Availability is planned for October through global channels. (Yes, U.S. is included in the target territory list.)

For those that haven’t read much about the Wibrain UMPCs, they’re good value and easy to use. The touchpad works exceptionally well and the split keyboard is one of the quickest for URL and password entry. If Wibrain reach 6-hour browsing time on the standard battery I’m sure it will sell extremely well. Links and information about the B1, here. I’ll add the i1 to the database ASAP.

Source: Wibrain.

The next generation XO Laptop will be a smaller, dual-touchscreen device consuming just 1W of power and is scheduled for launch by 2010 says Nick Negroponte of the OLPC project.

Laptop Mag were at the launch event today and report that the device will take on a dual-format design that can be used in book or notebook PC modes.

Its an interesting concept although at 1W, which I assume is without Wifi, you’d have to build this on an extremely low power platform. Moorestown or ARM would be the only contenders which means XP or Vista is out of the question. [Vista won’t run on Moorestown due to architectural limitations around the lack of a PCI bus] Which leaves either the Moblin distribution or something new from Microsoft.

Laptop Magazine. First Look: OLPC XO Generation 2.0