I have seen Netbook PC's and none have them have done a thing for me. They are too small for me to consider practical and too expensive to consider an impulse buy. They have done nothing to tempt me away from a light and portable 13 inch MacBook. This has changed as of today with the availability of the 2go Classmate Convertible Tablet PC.

It isn't that the 2go is overwhelmingly powerful or sexy; rather it is so practical for what I do, and the price seems right. I use a Wacom Tablet attached to my Macbook for doing lectures and presentations. I have looked into official tablet solutions by HP and Dell, but they are both two pricey, andthey are overkill for a simple presentation unit. The 2go Classmate Convertible Tablet has humble specifications with a 1.6Ghz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, 60GB hard drive, and an 8.9 inch 1024 x 600 display. You get all of this in an intuitive and convertible form factor for only $549. That is the perfect price for a machine that actually fills a need and can get some work accomplished.

The 2go is shipping now, although there is a "one per household" restriction on orders. If anyone out there has one, I would love some hands-on experience. Like I said, I am very, very tempted on this one.

via 2go PC

By:  Chris Matier                        Source

When Fifth Gear wanted to outfit a vehicle with all the latest hi-tech gadgets, they turned to Connect2Car’s MFC System to control various electrical functions on the vehicle with a cell phone via Bluetooth wireless technology!

A stylish Clamshell handset known as TwoStep is headed for US Cellular. The device features dedicated music keys and stereo speakers meaning that is a multimedia device. It will be in three vibrant colors including Burnt Orange, Red and Purple.

Here are the details:

Dimensions: 3.58×1.77x 0.75 inches

Weight: 3.60 Ounces

Display: 2 inches 262K color display (176 x 220 Pixels)

Camera: 1.3 Megapixel Camera

Memory: Up to 8 GB of microSD support

Communication: Bluetooth, GPRS

Others: Voice Recognition Services, Speakerphone, Java

Talk Time: Up to 3 Hours

Source: Cell Phone Digest

By:  Umair Khalid                        Source

The new Palm Pre has been getting some big love from the media since its launch at the CES show, with some good early coverage online already. I thought I’d have a little sniff around too, to see whether it’s really as ground-breaking as everyone is saying, and I did discover something interesting.

The thing that’s wowed most people about the handset is the interface, with things like multiple live windows running on screen for each program running in the background. It occurred to me that this was pretty powerful stuff for a handset to be doing. Let’s face it, the iPhone can’t even manage to run multiple programs, let alone display live widgets on screen.

So I asked the chip maker, TI, to tell me what was so special about the processor. The answer is very revealing, not just for the Palm Pre, but as a pointer to the future of the mobile phone market in general.

The ARM Cortex A8–based OMAP 3 processor in the Pre is 3 times faster than the ARM11 core. Which translates into:

Boot time in as little as 4 seconds
Up to 4x graphical performance
Up to 2x camera performance improvements
Up to 4x video performance
The chip in the Pre supports up to a 12 megapixel camera (!) as well as offering support for 720p HD video.

It looks as though we are on the verge of moving into a new level in handset design, with what TI call ‘laptop type processing’ as standard. That means no more laggy web browsers, and an end to dodgy page scrolling as the processor and memory struggle to keep up with our PC driven expectations. The processor in the Palm Pre is the OMAP3430, watch out for it in other products and further developments in the low power super small CPU market.

By:  Redferret                        Source

Part 1 of 5 videos describing how to build your first OpenSocial application.

Dan Holevoet gives a brief introduction about gadgets, and goes over how to add your first OpenSocial application in the Orkut sandbox.

The entire tutorial/codelab:
http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/tutorial

What’s next?  Popcorn without kernels? Gimme a break!

Hi tech gadgets from ‘From China With Love’

Featured on Hacked Gadgets
http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/01/27/top-5-coil-guns/

No access for unauthorized persons

French Connection

Data Injection

An interesting project created by Dialog05, they use USBs as a universal connection for various daily life themes such “No Authorization,” “French Connection,” and more.

Link via Scene 360 Illusion

By:  Scene360                        Source

“Don”t hate me because I”m beautiful” should be the motto of the new Nokia 7520 which debuted at CES last week. Yes, it”s got a snazzy external light display ( invisible when the backlighting is off, but the numbers and text are large and visible when lit) and bright animation that flashes randomly, and yes, you can switch out the covers (available in “Fatal Red”, “Espresso Brown” and “Emerald Green”) but at it”s core it”s a good, mid-range phone.

It includes a 2-megapixel camera, a music and video player, support for T-Mobile myFaves, messaging and e-mail, instant messaging, Bluetooth, an expandable memory slot, a speakerphone, and a personal organizer. It also has integrated Wi-Fi for use with T-Mobile”s “HotSpot@Home” service and allows for UMA connectivity - so you can switch between the cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

Are people going to buy it because it has the functionality we”ve come to expect from a phone or because it”s stylish? Both.

Not available until the end of the month but you can get more details here.

By:  Sarah                        Source