OLPC’s XO-1 goes Via
One Laptop Per Child announced a “1.5″ refresh of its Linux compatible XO-1 mini-laptop for schoolchildren in developing nations.
How to Build a Laptop Studio on Any Budget in EM May 2009
Photo: Bob Montesclaros The latest laptop computers are powerful enough to make them a viable alternative to the tower in the personal studio, especially for musicians for whom portability is an important factor.
In Firm Line Up of CES Gadgets
You know the New Year is kicking into gear with the sight of new gadgets being touted at the annual Consumer Electronics Show where a cadre of The CPA Technology Advisor ’s contributors converged to see and experience the latest and greatest digital products.
Tech Web Reader - Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Workplace Adoption Of Windows 7 Likely To Be Slow - More Firms Chuck Windows For Mac Will Linux Overtake Windows On Netbooks? Group Logic: A Mac/PC Referee for the Enterprise Apple And The 3G Laptop Subsidy “Grenade” 9 Photo Management Apps for OS X Profiled Teens reject Microsoft’s Zune The Mac Night Owl: Is the Netbook a Bait and Switch Scheme? …
Laptop Wireless Internet Access With Sprint’s AirCard 402
Laptop wireless Internet access is one of those great innovations of the last years that has two sides. On the bright one, there’s the ability to go online virtually everywhere, and get the job done, but this is also a dark side, at least as I see it - I happen to know a lot of people who can’t have a nice vacation because they are obsessed going online and checking something. That “something” could be their email, shares, site traffic, it doesn’t really matter what. I think that a world without Internet for a week would allow a lot of people to finally get some rest, while others will surely kill themselves…
Anyway, let’s leave such evil ideas aside, because I can’t imagine a week in the office withou Internet, either, but I surely enjoy taking some time off far from any piece of technology. Anyway, we’re not going to talk about mountain trips here, because a new laptop wireless Internet access card has been released by Sierra Wireless, and it looks pretty good in theory, from what I can tell.
The official description says “The AirCard® 402 is a sleek and innovative solution that supports PC and Mac notebook computers with EV-DO Rev.” Great, no reason for another Mac vs PC fight here! Even more, “Designed to work with both ExpressCard and PC Card slots, the AirCard 402 includes a locking 2-in-1 adapter to go from PC Card to ExpressCard slots with ease.”
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The AirCard 402 weighs 2.08 oz, featuring a Qualcomm® QSC 6085 chipset and a built-in antenna, while its dimensions are 5.11” x 2.13” x 0.42”. Fully compatible with Vista, XP, Windows 2000, Mac OS X and Linux, it supports CDMA 1900 and 800 MHz, as well as EV-DO 1xRTT, Rev. 0 and Rev. A when available.
The only system requirement you should be careful of is the free Express Card or PCMCIA Type II Card slot, because I am sure absolutely all those in need of laptop wireless Internet access have more than a Pentium 150MHz processor, 23 MB of disk space and 64 MB of memory…
At last, you should be glad that the AirCard 402 comes for $99.99, after $180 instant savings, as well as a $50 mail-in rebate…or not, depends on your budget, but I am sure you don’t need to change your mobile broadband card too often.
Fujitsu’s Secure USB Memory
Security above anything else, that’s what you should always keep in mind when your computer holds more than just the OS and some documents you wouldn’t mind at all becoming public. Sometimes, it’s not only about your computer, and since this may sound a bit strange, let me explain…
No, I am not talking about securing your car or your house - it’s still about the data your laptop carries, but when talking about data on the road, USB memory also has a very important part to play. For example, Fujitsu’s secure USB memory will self destruct the data on it after being lost…but don’t think about any explosions!
“The new and unique USB memory device prototype contains a processor and battery. After a fixed period of time, if the USB memory device is plugged into an unauthorized PC, the data can automatically be erased or the USB memory device can be rendered unusable. For example, the USB memory device can be set up with a policy whereby the data will be automatically deleted after 24 hours, or it will be deleted if the USB memory is plugged into an unregistered computer even once. By storing and carrying data on a USB memory device that allows for this type of security setting, in the event that the USB memory device is lost, the data stored on it will be automatically deleted and thus enable strict security.”
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Pretty cool, don’t you agree? Obviously, the technology described above will be more expensive than the simple USB memory sticks we know these days…but if you really need security, then you gotta do what it takes. In this case, that means to pay a bit of extra cash to take advantage of some extra security.
Unfortunately, this is more of a technology demo for now, and no price or availability for the public have been disclosed…
Self-Encrypting SSDs From Samsung
Data encryption becomes more and more popular with mobile computers, since I can’t think about anything worse than having your personal information revealed to the evil eye of someone who shouldn’t see it. Don’t think about THAT KIND of information, think about your own code, passwords to your sites, bank information…stuff like that. Well, Samsung comes to the rescue!
The big story? “Full disk encryption (FDE) has already been adopted as a standard feature available in many commercial laptop and desktop systems with hard disk drives. Samsung self-encrypting drives – 256-, 128- and 64-gigabyte SSDs – provide FDE bundled with Wave’s EMBASSY® management software and are now available through at least one major OEM.”
On the other hand, we all know that no SSDs commercially available have such features, so Samsung is going where no tech company has gone before once again!
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“Samsung’s new 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB SSDs are the first solid state drives to incorporate hardware-based encryption, which has made headlines in recent weeks with publication of the industry’s Opal storage specification published by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). Benefits of hardware encryption over today’s software-only encryption approaches include faster performance, better security and an “always on” feature. Because encryption keys and access credentials are generated and stored within the drive hardware, they never leave its confines and are never held in the operating system or by application software. This hardware FDE approach is considered more secure and less complex to manage.”
Unfortunately, pricing and availability information still needs to come out, because “at least one major OEM” isn’t quite enough for somebody interested in buying a self-encrypting SSD, don’t you agree? 
Best External Hard Drive
OK, so you got a laptop. Great! But…don’t you think that 80-160-320GB hard drive is too small? I mean, come on - let’s get serious! In a short mountain trip, I usually end up with at least 10GB of video and pictures…so even a 320GB hard drive can become small fast. Too fast, really! So…what’s the best external hard drive, after all?
The question above is pretty interesting, and while we’ll talk about the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Q×2 RAID box (the beauty pictured above) a bit later, now I’ll start by offering you a low-cost solution for your external storage needs. You can even donate some cash to the nearest church, and still get out of it better than some of your friends, for the same storage capacity!
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So, I was looking to get a new internal drive, as I always hated having more than a drive inside my computer, for various reasons. Once I got a new 1TB Enterprise Edition drive from Samsung(5 year warranty, 32MB buffer, 7200rpm, a really silent and pretty fast beast), I found myself with the “old” 320GB drive on my hands, a Seagate with about 4 years warranty left. Sell it? Why sell it, when I found some external rack for only $20?
That’s the advice - get a decent external rack case, and then a standalone hard drive. This way, you may even get out of it cheaper than a similar external hard drive(if you’re going for a cheap rack, as I did - I didn’t have any other alternative, anyway), more warranty for the hard drive inside the case, and - most of all - you’ll have the ability to upgrade it easily when needed(the hard drive inside the case, not the whole mumbo-jumbo, of course).
Price? About $20-$80 for the rack, plus the price of the drive you’ll use inside it.
On the other hand, I spotted some Seagate external drives for a good price, and offering 5 years warranty, so if you want to forget about the ability to upgrade the hard drive inside the case, you can also take this solution into account.
Now, here’s the best external hard drive I have seen so far, at least today - since it’s a new product, we can’t talk about reliability, but the specs are looking great! The quad-interface Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID box is simply a beast, sporting FireWire 400, FireWire 800, eSATA and USB 2.0 sockets, as well as the following selectable RAID settings - 0, 1, 5, 10 or Span (NRAID).
The OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 is now available in no less than 7 configurations, as you can see below:
- 2TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (500GB x 4 w/64MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $679.99
- 3TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (750GB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $849.99
- 4TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (1TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $979.99
- 6TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (1.5TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $1149.99
- 8TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro QҲ (2TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $1899.99
- Enterprise Class 2TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (500GB x 4 w/64MB cache) & 5 year warranty - $799.99
- Enterprise Class 4TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Q×2 (1TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 5 year warranty - $1149.99
These being said, you can also consider grabbing one Other World Computing Mercury Elite external drive from the list above, as long as you don’t want to carry it around - but what’s the best external hard drive…well, that depends a lot on your needs and budget.
Safest Operating System, Laptops Included!
If you’re looking to find the safest operating system for your laptop, then you’re in for a big surprise. No, it’s not some obscure OS coming from the North Pole! The reality is very obvious to most specialists who aren’t “fan boys” yet - there’s no such thing as “safest operating system,” because the user is the weakest link of the chain in most cases. There you have it!
No, that’s not the story, because some people think Windows Vista is the safest operating system, even when compared to Mac OS X and Linux! I know, it’s hilarious, but we’re not talking about rumors here, because Kevin Turner, chief operating officer for Microsoft, said it at The MidMarket CIO Summit held in Redmond!
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“Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we’ve ever built. It’s also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today. Everything that we’ve learned in Vista will be leveraged in Windows 7, but certainly when we broke a lot of the compatibility issues to lock down user account controls, to lock down the ability to manipulate states and all the things, that was a very painful process for us to grow through, but we had to do it. And the reason that Windows 7 will be successful is because of the pain we took on Vista. Because from a compatibility standpoint, if it works on Vista, it will work on Windows 7. If it doesn’t work on Vista, it won’t work on Windows 7.”
As far as I’ve heard from end users so far, Windows 7 is a few levels above Vista, so why keep pushing that piece of **** forward as world’s most advanced, most secure, most sexy, most
FCC Approved Nokia 8208 CDMA Dual Slider
The Nokia 8208 has been approved by the FCC. The CDMA phone was announced earlier this year. It features a dual-slide form factor, and supports MP3 music player, 3MP camera with 6X digital zoom and video recorder, and 150MB internal storage with 16GB microSD card support. Its battery provides 20 hours of continuous music playback. [Slashphone]
Toshiba TG02 and TG03 Pictures Leaked
Here are some of the leaked pictures of Toshiba’s upcoming Tᮾ and Tᮿ handsets. According to Techblog, the Tᮾ offers a 4.1-inch touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, GPS, 3.2-megapixel camera, Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and a waterproof shell. Meanwhile, the Tᮿ sports a 4.1-inch touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, GPS, 5-megapixel camera, Windows Mobile 6.5 OS, 5.1-channel audio and video-box functionality for video playback. Both handsets are expected to launch sometime near the end of the year, although a specific time-frame and pricing information remain unknown.
Tᮿ
Motorola 3G RAZR LúK Phone
The new black version of Motorola’s 3G RAZR LúK phone will be available soon in the Korean market. The phone supports HSDPA 7.2Mbps data transmit speed, video call, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, and MP3 playback. However, there is no info on pricing at this time. [AVING]
AT&T Sells Refurbished 16GB iPhone 3Gs Online For $150
AT&T is offering you refurbished iPhone 3Gs online for just $150 under a 2-year contract agreement with AT&T. This offer is limited to one purchase per household and you’ll have to be a new consumer to take advantage of this offer. Interested? [AT&T via MobileWhack]
Red LG Lotus Available For $49.99
The red version of Sprint’s LG Lotus messaging phone is now officially available at 50 percent off the original price. The cell phone is priced at only $49.99 with a two-year service agreement. The handset has a 2-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, GPS, EV-DO, a music player, and more. [Cnet]
Waterproof Solar Powered Phone From AU KDDI And Sharp
AU KDDI and Sharp will release a waterproof mobile phone in Japan that features a solar panel embedded in its lid that is able to recharge your phone on the go. The phone will be released in June this year. Stay tuned for more updates. [KDDI]
Texting in Europe gets a whole lot cheaper
It will be up to 60 percent cheaper to send mobile phone text messages while traveling in the European Union or surf the Web by laptop under price curbs to be adopted by the bloc’s assembly on Wednesday.
Samsung sees smart phone, OLED boost
Samsung Mobile Display expects a significant increase in the number of smart phones that will be shipped over the next few years, rising to 500 million units in 2012 from a projected 170 million in 2009.
Nokia Sells Mobile TV Unit
The world’s largest cell phone manufacturer is looking to cut costs, and it wants to focus on the client-side business of mobile TV.
Data transfer rates to jump with Bluetooth 3.0
A standards group on Tuesday approved specifications for a new Bluetooth standard that speeds up wireless data transfers between devices like smart phones and laptops.
China Telecom losing market share
Chinaa s largest telecom has seen first quarter profits fall 27.4%. China Telecom has blamed fixed-line telephone services falling back as Chinese begin to favour the extended use of mobile phones.
Cellphone bill narrowly clears panel
Devices that allow people to talk on cellphones without holding the phones are displayed Monday at Car Toys, 550 Broadway.
Adobe bringing Flash to your TV
Adobe’s got a three-screen strategy of its own. Like AT&T and others who are ubiquitous across the PC, TV and mobile phone, Adobe is also expanding to cover the major touch points for digital consumers.
LG Elec Q1 result beats forecasts
LG Electronics Inc posted a smaller-than-expected 25 percent drop in first-quarter operating profit, and said it expected increased sales of mobile phones and air conditioners to drive a recovery in the quarters ahead.
Criminals Pay Top Money for Hackable Nokia Phone
About 10 days ago, investigators observed someone transfer 25,000 for a Nokia 1100 phone, said Frank Engelsman of Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations.
Free TV for cell phones and mobile devices
Free TV service could soon be coming to a cell phone near you. Broadcasters announced Monday at the National Association of Broadcaster’s annual conference in Las Vegas that a new pilot program is launching in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area that will allow people to watch free mobile digital television on cell phones and other mobile devices.
Cut-rate prepaid plans shake up wireless industry
As wireless carriers start reporting first-quarter results this week, investors will be looking at the effects of some spectacular price cuts for prepaid cell phone service.
Japan’s KDDI To Release Solar-powered Cell Phone
Cell phone users could soon be turning to the skies to charge their handsets. Japan’s No.
Smaller handsets could give satellite calling a foothold
The vast, thinly populated expanses of the country that still lack cell-phone coverage could be getting an interesting option next year: ordinary-looking cell phones that connect to a satellite when there’s no cell tower around.
Police offer tips on beating burglars
CRAWLEY police were out in force in Queens Square last week to offer people tips on beating burglars.
Defense: Colo. transgender slaying about deception
A man accused of beating an 18-year-old transgendered woman to death with a fire extinguisher “snapped” after finding out the teen was biologically male, a defense lawyer argued Thursday as the murder trial began.
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