The [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101865.html]Wahington Post[/url] just ran a story comparing the Q1 against the TabletKiosk eo and which is better.

The review starts out good enough just comparing the features and then the reviewer says, “The Q1 lasted only 1.75 hours on a single charge, and the EO lasted about 2.25 hours”. This is strange since so far the battery figures we’ve seen have been reversed with the Q1 getting better battery life than the eo.

They also say, “In addition, you can connect to a second monitor with either machine, which lets you extend your desktop, use the external display alone, or show the same screen on both displays” which isn’t possible on the eo right out of the box.

so I am assuming either they got the machines mixed up or they have a review system with a bigger battery and different options at the Washington Post. But besides that, it’s a nice feature comparing review. Read the full story

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/themes/program_launcher_ipod_theme_small.jpg[/img]

I have been working over the past couple of days finishing the first theme for the forth coming theme creator.

The first “official” theme from us is an ipod type theme. For this particular theme I kept the default icon shadowing and changed every other component. We removed all of the default button outlining and added only blue highlighting to both the titlebar and applicaiton buttons to give it more of an ipod menu feel.

Here is a pic of the default Program Launcher theme for comparison with the new theme shown above.

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/themes/program_launcher.jpg[/img]

And with one of the default backgrounds during the animation:

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/themes/ipod_theme_green.jpg[/img]

As you can see, we are making headway in at least starting to see how we can create new themes and getting it running under the theme creator (which is more like a packager/emulator than a creator).

We have also been playing around with different button shapes for our next theme.

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/themes/differentbutton_shape.jpg[/img]

We will be releasing the ipod theme with the [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=74]Origami Theme Creator[/url] beta in the next week or so. It will have all of the included theme naming properties functional when it is released so people can tell where each new theme came from.
Until then enjoy the pics and thanks to [url=http://blog.tokash.org/]John Tokash[/url] for installing these themes and taking all of the shots. Read the full story

Good news for Europeans looking for ultra mobile PC availablilty today.

This morning, we had an email from UK-based Pocket PC Solutions confirming that they will be distributing Tablet Kiosk products in the UK.

PocketPC Solutions is pleased to announce that it has been appointed the UK agent for TabletKioskâ„¢ USA, a leader in Tablet PC and exhibit-centric computing solutions. PocketPC Solutions will be responsible for marketing, distributing and enhancing the TabletKiosk range throughout the UK.

All TabletKiosk products, including the newly announced eo v7110 Ultra-Mobile PC, are now available at PocketPC Solutions, www.pocketpc-solutions.co.uk, with prices for the eo v7110 ultra mobile PC starting from £699.99.

The price shown is inclusive of UK VAT.

I understand that they have the first Eo to arrive in Europe at the moment but the Eo stock has not arrived yet. Its possible that Tablet Kiosk could hold back on delivering more stock until they’ve got a plan for tackling the battery life issues but the latest info is that the devices will be delivered by ‘mid June.’

Cross-border sales within Europe should also be possible.

Steve / Chippy.

Update: Since 2006 there has been a lot more Linux news on the portal. Click here to see all linux/umpc related news items.

Well done Jtokash!

John succesfuly booted Damn Small Linux on an Tablet Kiosk Eo last night and got the gui up and running.
Unfortunately the gui didn’t scale well and a lot of hardware support was missing (USB mouse didnt work, touch didnt work) but it proves Linux boots and X runs.

Since yesterday, we’ve found a new set of links that refer to linux-on-tablet sites. (see forum)

At the moment, i’m waiting for someone to take the first screenshot and also try to run knoppix with these boot options:

knoppix nomce fb800x480 xmodule=fbdev

Its known to work on some tablets while booting from USB.

Further info in the Origamiportal linux thread and thanks to Origamiportal for the cool Linux-ultra mobile PC graphic!

Regards
Steve / Chippy

So after talking to some of the people that got a ultra mobile PC it seems that the next thing to conquer is getting Linux running on it. To help facilitate getting the community working on this we have opened [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=9]a new Linux forum[/url].

Steve at Carrypad.com has [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/journal/2006/05/volunteers-needed-linux-on-umpc.html]some ideas[/url] on what we can try to get a full distro running.

Some of the different distros that may be a good start to ge tit runnig could be [url=http://www.pendrivelinux.com/]Pen Drive Linux[/url], [url=http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/]Damn Small Linux[/url] or [url=http://www.puppyos.com/]Puppy OS[/url].

Any other ideas or distros that may work, update us [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=9]here[/url] and check [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/journal/]carrypad.com[/url] for more info on what Steve is trying. Read the full story

So, now that we’ve got to the the bottom of the Eo power problems, we can let Tablet Kiosk and Amtek work on that one and move on to the next project.

The problem is, we still dont have any UMPC’s available here in Germany and i’ve got lots of ideas. Frustrated.

So I need some volunteers to test out my next theory.
Is anyone with an Eo or Q1 prepared to do a bit of Linux boot testing? I’ve seen details of previous failures and have been discussing it with friends. The problem before was that everyone tried standard live-cd’s from the USB CD-ROM. Most (in fact probably all of them that have been tried.) don’t boot from USB-CDROM.

So, what someone needs to do is take one of the links below and see if it works.
In fact, the best place to start is probably pendrivelinux

If I had a ultra mobile PC in front of me now id try Damn Small Linux It has boot-from-USB-stick capability and also an install from windows option. How-to here. This is probably the most developed of the boot-from-stick distributions.
You could also try Puppy Linux which is a small one that should boot from a USB CD-ROM.

These two distros are reduced versions that have most programs you need on them but are probably best only used for the proof of concept we’re doing here.

If they work (and hardware is recognised) you could move on to try Knoppix. There’s an FAQ available on how to change it to boot from USB-CDROM. You’ll need another Linux box and some Linux skill to create the new ISO but if it works you’ll have pretty much a full Linux instalation.

I’m not aware that any of the main distributions have boot-from-USB-CDROM capability but i’d be tempted to try Suse 10.1 which has just been released.

Lets see if we can enhance the market for these UMPC’s. If the linux crowd get on board, we could see the market grow which will benefit everyone.

Any takers?

If so, Origamiportal.com have started a new Linux topic area where i’ve created a new thread.

Regards.
Steve / Chippy.

Ever since the TabletKiosk eo came out we have been having a big discussion about the battery life and benchmarks [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=334&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&start=0]in our forums[/url].

[url=https://www.umpcportal.com/journal/2006/05/eo-and-q1-power-information.html]Steve from Carrypad.com[/url] and [url=http://ultramobilepc-tips.blogspot.com/]Frank from ultramobilepc-tips.blogspot.com[/url] have had a lot of info to contribute to the post.

Steve has been summarizing the posts for us and the latest one can be found [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/journal/2006/05/eo-and-q1-power-information.html]here[/url].

The biggest issue with the power drain is caused by an issue where the USB devices get polled and the CPU never gets a chance to go into power-saving C3 state. The current fix is to disable the USB device (which effectively removes all extrnal components) until there is a bios update or patch from TabletKiosk.

One good thing though is that TabletKiosk is looking into it. I was talking to DocBliny on our [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=75]IRC Channel[/url] and he pointed me to an email he just got from TabletKiosk that he posted over on [url=http://origamiproject.com/forums/5185/ShowThread.aspx#5185]OrigamiProject.com[/url]:

[b]Thank you for contacting TabletKiosk Technical Support.

We acknowledge that there is room for improvement with the eo v7110 battery life and heat dissipation; and our engineering team is working diligently to resolve these issues.

Please know that our user base will be notified as soon as we have determined the solutions for these issues.

[/b]

So at this point everyone is waiting patiently for a patch and in the meantime have figured out how to make the battery last a little longer. Read the full story

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/dualcor.jpg[/img]

According to [url=http://www.gottabemobile.com/DualCorCPCToBeShippingWithin90Days.aspx]gottabemobile.com[/url] the [url=http://www.dualcor.com]DualCor cPC[/url] is going to be shipping in 90 days.

For any who don’t know what the DualCor is, it is a ultra mobile PC that has both both an Intel PXA263 400 MHz Embedded Processor and a VIA C7-M 1.5 GHz x86 and will be running both Windows XP Tablet/Edition 2005 and Windows Mobile 5.0.

There is more info [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=92]here[/url] and on [url=http://www.dualcor.com/details.php]DualCor’s official site[/url]

Read the full story