My former Dallas Times Herald colleague, Dean Takahashi, today reports in the San Jose Mercury News that:
"Radio Shack plans to start selling a low-cost alternative to the personal computer starting Sunday. The $299 machine, dubbed the Personal Internet Communicator, was designed by Advanced Micro Devices to access the Internet and perform basic computing tasks." Read the rest of the story.
Now, I'd trust Dean even if he didn't have quotes from AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, but wouldn't it be nice if either AMD or Radio Shack had at least a press release and a picture on their Web site? Search "personal Internet communicator" on RadioShack.com and all get are links to cellular phones.
I'll have to drive by a Radio Shack on Sunday, so I'll report back on what, if anything, I find.
VIA Technologies, and online retailer Mini-box.com today announced the VoomPC family of inexpensive, compact x86-based car PC kits. Based on low power VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboards, the VoomPC is specifically designed for the ultra power sensitive conditions of in-vehicle applications, the companies said in a news release.
With prices ranging from $299 to $399, the VoomPC barebone platform is described as being "ideal for automotive enthusiasts and vehicle manufacturers alike to integrate a wide range of GPS navigation, communication, entertainment and information functionality into private cars or vehicle-dependent professional service vehicles such as law enforcement, rescue and commercial transport, where access to data on the road is essential." Whew, that was a mouthful.
The VoomPC integrates the intelligent Mini-box M1-ATX 12V power supply unit to prevent system damage from power surges and eliminate car battery drain by monitoring car battery levels, even when the car is turned off. The energy efficient VIA C3 processor with its highly effective heat dissipation enables the VoomPC to consume between 15-30 watts, "less than the dimmest car parking lights."
While I see this as a means to run some car-based Windows apps, my friends at LinuxDevices.com see it, well, through their own lens. (And include more technical details in their report).
An item on our DeviceForge.com site caught my eye today, as I am very interested in location-based services. It's an Intel-written white paper that introduces an open source toolkit that lets mobile devices determine their locations with the aid of freely accessible, nearby radio sources, such as fixed Bluetooth devices, 802.11 access points, and GSM cell towers.
Basically, the device reads the IDs of these local "radio beacons" (each of which has a unique or semi-unique ID), looks up their positions in a locally-cached database, and performs a computation akin to triangulation. This is a new twist on location determination as most of the time it's the network that does the direction-finding and tells the client where it is located.
Not all Gearlog readers will care about this, but I will err on the side of trying to present the exciting to the excitable among us.
XM Radio and DirecTV have announced that beginning next month, DirecTV subscribers will receive--for free--72 of XM's music and talk channels. Competitors Sirius radio and Dish Network have been working together since 2002, so this deal is a catch-up for XM, which recently topped 5 million subscribers. (Sirius has 1.8 million but Howard Stern lined up to begin his show early next year).
Dish Network only makes Sirius available with its expensive programming packages while all DirecTV subscribers will have access to the XM programming, though if you pay more you will get more than the base 50 channels.
XM on DirecTV begins on November 15. XM already offers its paid subscribers free access to programming over the Internet.
It's important to note that only XM-originated programming has been offered online and I'd guess this is what will be offered on DirecTV as well, due to rights issues. That means programs from other organizations--like the BBC--won't be part of the DirecTV feed.
OQO Inc. has upgraded its Model 01 Windows XP minicomputer ($1,899) to include specs and accessories that weren't available in the original model. OQO's Model 01 still offers Bluetooth, Wi-Fi connectivity, and a QWERTY thumb keyboard, just like its predecessor.
But now for the good stuff:
512MB of RAM (up from 256MB)
30GB hard drive capacity (up from 20GB)
Firewire and USB 2.0 ports
VGA adapter
enhanced pen-based digitizer
stronghold metal case
universal power supply to be used in automobiles and airplanes
The Griffin SmartDeck ($29.95) is a wonderful example of what competition does for a marketplace. In their ceaseless quest to make the next buck, the Griffin Technology folks have invented a cassette-to-iPod adapter that allows the tape deck's buttons to control the world's most-popular MP3 player.
"Using patent pending sensing technology, the SmartDeck determines which commands the cassette player sends to the iPod," Griffin said in product announcement. "SmartDeck is more than just a cassette adapter for iPod; it achieves truly seamless integration between iPod and cassette deck. Users can utilize the cassette deck's forward and rewind buttons to advance to the next or prior songs in the iPod playlist. In addition, pause and stop buttons do what pause and stop buttons are expected to do. When the user hits the cassette deck's Eject button or switches from Cassette to Radio, Griffin's SmartPlay technology automatically pauses the iPod."
The first model won't work with the Nano (that won't happen until November) but both have intelligent level control to set the iPod at the proper volume for the cassette deck.
In the announcement I received Griffin says the device is "now shipping." So why does their their Web site still say "pre-order"? Another wonder of the Web, no doubt.
(Thinking about this, there is a tiny voice telling me that the SmartDeck may sound neater in concept that it turns out to be in the car. I'll try to get one and see).
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