http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:20:00 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/22545/Should_Smoking_Void_Warranties_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22545/Should_Smoking_Void_Warranties_/ Now this is an interesting case. Late last week news got out that Apple is refusing to repair machines still under AppleCare from customers who smoke, citing health risks from second-hand smoke. Wait, what? Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:45:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 106 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22520/Review_Acer_Aspire_One_AO751h/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22520/Review_Acer_Aspire_One_AO751h/ Geeks.com, home to cheap laptops and discounted netbooks sent us over the Acer Aspire One AO751h for a review. The AO751h is in-between of a small laptop and a netbook and so it makes it an interesting item to investigate. Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:52:12 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Hardware, Embedded Systems 28 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/22516/Dell_Earnings_Down_54_Percent/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22516/Dell_Earnings_Down_54_Percent/ "Dell reported its third-quarter earnings results Thursday, showing a small improvement over the last quarter, but revenue was down 15 percent over the last year, and profits fell 54 percent. The company reported revenue of $12.9 billion, within analysts' expectations between $12.8 billion and $13.5 billion. Earnings were 17 cents per share, when excluding 6 cents of pretax expenses and amortization. That's 54 percent off the 37 cents Dell recorded a year ago. Besides its acquisition of Perot Systems last month, there weren't too many positive signs in the recently completed quarter. Shipments were also down 5 percent across its businesses." Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:44:54 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 13 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22491/Qualcomm_Hopes_Snapdragon_Smartbooks_Take_Bite_Out_of_Atom/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22491/Qualcomm_Hopes_Snapdragon_Smartbooks_Take_Bite_Out_of_Atom/ "Qualcomm has revealed that its 1Ghz Snapdragon ARM chip will ship in an upcoming Lenovo smartbook. AT&T has already partnered with Lenovo to sell the product. New smartbook products will bring ARM into the small form-factor laptop market and could give Intel's Atom some serious competition." Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:19:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 4 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22490/World_s_Cheapest_Laptop/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22490/World_s_Cheapest_Laptop/ Techvideoblog has a video review of the Menq Easypc E760, an $80 ARM-based laptop that runs Android. From the looks of it, I don't think this is a very good gadget, because it's slow (less powerful than an iPhone 3GS, but of course also a lot cheaper), but I agree with the Techvideo guy: the Easypc is important because it's the vanguard of a likely wave of cheap, ARM-based devices that will very soon have the necessary power for a pleasant and productive web browsing experience. Once that happens, a sizable portion of the current laptop and netbook userbase will move downmarket, and some of the constituents that the OLPC program was trying to serve (young students and the lower economic stratum) will have a network communication device available to them that's more accessible. Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:16:13 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Hardware, Embedded Systems 73 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22479/Psystar_Owners_Speak_Out_Deny_License_Violation/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22479/Psystar_Owners_Speak_Out_Deny_License_Violation/ The Miami New Times News (try saying that out loud ten times in a row really fast) has a long story on the Pedraza brothers, the two men behind Psystar, which is located in Miami. The story details the brothers' youth, and, of course, talks a lot about Psystar and Apple. There is a lot of interesting stuff in there not covered before. Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:25:42 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 48 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22460/Open_Source_Design_and_the_OpenOfficeMouse/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22460/Open_Source_Design_and_the_OpenOfficeMouse/ Is complexity (and wearing this on the outside) an inherit part of open source design? FactoryJoe compares the OpenOfficeMouse (a mouse with 18 programmable buttons and even an analogue joystick) and the Apple Magic Mouse-"To me, the OpenOfficeMouse seems like such a typical product from the open source community." [Kroc: I honestly believed the OpenOfficeMouse to be a very clever satirical joke, the irony that it isn't suspends belief] Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:21:45 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Hardware, Embedded Systems 45 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22445/Rebel_EFI_Send_your_Computer_to_Psystar_for_Compatibility_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22445/Rebel_EFI_Send_your_Computer_to_Psystar_for_Compatibility_/ We already had the news about Psystar's Rebel EFI possibly including open source code, but now we have another story which doesn't really seem to bode well for the small Florida clone maker. Gizmodo has a story on an interesting customer experience. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:49:56 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 30 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22432/Startup_Litl_Launches_Internet-Enabled_Computer/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22432/Startup_Litl_Launches_Internet-Enabled_Computer/ Litl LLC launched today a Linux-based laptop design, named "Webbook". The device comes with a custom simplified interface, it can run third party web apps, and it can operate both in a laptop mode, or by bending backwards the screen, in the "easel TV-like mode". The Webbook can also connect through HDMI to an HDTV, and a remote control is sold separately. The Webbook goes in auto-maintainance mode, when in sleep. The Atom 1.6 Ghz/1 GB RAM device sells for $699. More info here and here. Videos of the UI here. Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:13:40 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Hardware, Embedded Systems 18 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22429/VIA_Intros_Nano_3000_Netbook_Notebook_CPUs/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22429/VIA_Intros_Nano_3000_Netbook_Notebook_CPUs/ "VIA has introduced out its latest Nano CPUs, pitching the new 3000 family of low-power processors at makers of thin'n'light laptops and of all-in-one desktops. The Nano 3000 series runs to six processors, clock at between 1GHz and 2GHz. They all sit on an 800MHz system bus. Four U3x00 models consume just 100mW of power when idling - the two L3xx0 Nanos consume 500mW at idle. VIA touted the new parts' support for 64-bit computing, virtualisation and the SSE 4 media processing instructions. Like past VIA processors, the new ones have on-board AES and SHA encryption engine." Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:48:17 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 19 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22415/Review_Hackable_Linux_NAS_the_D-Link_DNS-323/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22415/Review_Hackable_Linux_NAS_the_D-Link_DNS-323/ The D-Link DNS-323 is a bargain-priced, consumer-grade network storage enclosure, similar to countless others. It's made of cheap plastic, has uninspired design, and a clunky web-based management interface. It's also brilliant, and if you have any hacker in you at all, you should buy one. Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:34:05 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Hardware, Embedded Systems 25 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/22402/Rebel_EFI_Allegedly_Contains_OSS_Code_Covered_Under_APSL/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22402/Rebel_EFI_Allegedly_Contains_OSS_Code_Covered_Under_APSL/ When Psystar announced it Rebel EFI package, the company was quickly accused of simply taking open source code, repackaging it, and selling it for USD 50. While selling open source code is not a problem, not making the source code available if the license demands it is. Netkas, famous OSX86 hacker, and a Russian site are now claiming they have found the smoking gun. Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:09:36 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 85 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News Cytor http://www.osnews.com/story/22399/Asus_Releases_Desktop-Sized_NVIDIA-Powered_Supercomputer/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22399/Asus_Releases_Desktop-Sized_NVIDIA-Powered_Supercomputer/ Asustek has unveiled its first supercomputer, the desktop computer-sized ESC 1000, which uses Nvidia graphics processors to attain speeds up to 1.1 teraflops. Asus's ESC 1000 comes with a 3.33GHz Intel LGA1366 Xeon W3580 microprocessor designed for servers, along with 960 graphics processing cores from Nvidia inside three Tesla c1060 Computing Processors and one Quadro FX5800 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:27:06 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 21 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22395/We_Hate_the_Wall_Wart/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22395/We_Hate_the_Wall_Wart/ The "wall wart" is one of humanity's worst inventions (not counting all of the inventions that are actually intended to kill and maim each other, I'll admit). AC-plug power supplies are a cheap workaround to various engineering, economic, and regulatory problems that manufacturers face, and they solve those problems by pushing them off onto end users. So what can we do about it? OSNews takes a look at an ingenious workaround to the Wall Wart problem, and some hopeful trends that might make them a thing of the past. Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:32:37 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Hardware, Embedded Systems 43 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22386/Psystar_Defies_Apple_Once_More_Releases_Rebel_EFI/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22386/Psystar_Defies_Apple_Once_More_Releases_Rebel_EFI/ As if selling non-Apple labelled computers with Mac OS X pre-installed and licensing the technology to do so to third parties wasn't enough, Psystar has now moved ahead and has started offering its Rebel EFI package for everyone to buy and use. It makes it possible for just about anyone to install Mac OS X on a non-Apple labelled computer. Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:08:58 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems 52 http://www.osnews.com/topics/32 News JayDee