Asus and Intel have teamed up to develop a USD 199 notebook PC, the companies announced here on June 5. In a keynote address given by Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel and chief marketing and sales officer, Jonney Shih, chairman and chief executive of Asus, was invited on stage to unveil the ‘Eee PC’, an inexpensive laptop designed to help spread computing to poorer regions. Two models were demonstrated: a USD 199 and USD 299 model. They represent part of what Intel is now calling its ‘World Ahead’, market initiative, giving virtually anyone around the world a chance to own a PC. In addition, Intel has announced major updates for its C++ and Fortran tools.
If this comes in a less childish case that the OLPC and if widely availiable in the US, Europe and other modern countries it would kill the Palm Foleo before it starts, assuming the two are comparable.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2007/06/05/intel_cl…
Does Foleo really compete in this segment? Because to do so it would have to be a general purpose device, much like a standard notebook.
But the foleo seems to be a special purpose tool, in that it can do only some things well and is generally aimed at corporate executives who own a Treo.
How does it go?
First, they mock you.
Second, they laugh at you.
Then, they imitate you.
I remember a lot of people saying the OLPC can’t be built that cheap (this is separate from who will use it and how) and all of a sudden OLPC is getting ready to ship and all sorts of cheap laptop design are appearing.
Yup, and Intel was one of the main detractors of the OLPC project. But look at ’em now.
In addition, Intel has announced major updates for its C++ and Fortran tools.
I don’t see why this didn’t get its own news entry as it has little to do with the main topic of this entry.
do people still use fortran on windows?
People use whatever tools they are comfortable with.
Even if you develop on Windows, it doesn’t mean Windows is the end target environment. So you could develop and debug your Fortran in Visual Studio (with Intel tools) and move it onto whatever platform you want to run it on, be it a Linux cluster or Windows compute cluster or whatever.
So yes, I’d say people do use Fortran on Windows still.
Are you asking about the usage of Fortran in general or the usage of Fortran in Windows?
Because if your question lies in the former category, then the answer is yes. Fortran is still used largely by physicists for their scientific computations.
i would like to know what the difference is between the $199 and $299 models tho.
i would also like to see a $399 model with a 8.9″ screen capable of 1024×600 rather than the standard 7″ screen that can do only 800×480.
i would happily buy that!
Three companies competing to give laptops to kids in developing countries — and maybe more in the works. They will have to compete in price, reliablity, security, usability, and more.
Who will win in this? The children.
I don’t know. I don’t see what Intel and Asus want to do here. If they would want to help the children, they would support the OLPC project. Now they’re introducing competition, which will only lower the amount of laptops the OLPC project can build, thus increasing the price. Not a good thing. These laptops are indeed more powerfull, but to what advantage for the children? It’s not like it’ll make a diff for them to have a faster proc. It’s far more important to have everything work.
Again, I don’t understand why Intel wants to do this. Margins in this market will be extremely low, they even have to sell these laptops below costs. Is it marketing? Hate for AMD? Certainly, the children won’t win. The cheapest laptop (OLPC) will be more expensive, and there will be even less cheap pc’s to choose from – which doesn’t make much sense anyway. Esp considering the OLPC at least is BUILD for children and the environment they live in. This laptop isn’t as rugged. This laptop isn’t as safe. This laptop isn’t as low-power. This laptop isn’t as easy to use. And it is more expensive.
I think intel is doing a bad thing, and I can only guess for their reasons behind it.
The children won’t win? Are you kidding me? Intel will compete and the children will get even better stuff in the end. Competition always makes things better. Always.
Please leave your politics are the door.
I love competition, sure. But this is a non-for-profit game. Competition is good because it forces companies to do the best for the customer instead of for the stockholder (actually, it would be even more accurate to say it aligns the interests of stakeholders). In this situation, competition would be bad, as such a force is not needed – we’re doing this for the kids. We need cooperation.
Sure, old charities sometimes need a kick in the butt, because they lost sight of their purpose. But I don’t think you can argue that in this situation, if you’ve ever spoken to one of the volunteers.
Fair competition does.
Marketing bullshit and unfulfilled promises do not.
OLPC’s goal is to help educate and inform children around the world.
Intel’s goal is to make money, more money, and even more money.
And the second one clearly conflicts with the first one.
running Ubuntu would absolutely slay. I would be on top of that in no time. This and the Via subnotebook look very promising.
A perfect little messaging / note taking / chatting device – doesn’t have to be fast at all.. a single core low power celeron or p-m would deliver – I would expect this to be tech thats a few years old. But you don’t need a dual core superchip to msn your buddies or browse over to facebook.
Please let the eee pc hit the market soon, i’ll buy a few of them.
A perfect little messaging / note taking / chatting device – doesn’t have to be fast at all.. a single core low power celeron or p-m would deliver
P-M? =))))
Z80 should be enough.