Hasta La Gadget!

We were pleased to see Asus responding to its critics by unveiling the new 1000HE at CES, offering a far more pleasant keyboard that finally moved the right shift key just a bit to the left. With the new model about to ship, Laptop Magazine has been able to stack one up against an older 1000 model and play a little game of “One of These Things” to spot the differences between the two. There weren’t many, just that chiclet-style keyboard, which was rated as “just better,” and the new 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU, replacing the elder’s 1.6GHz N270. Unfortunately the slight bump in clock and bus speed (from 133MHz to 167MHz) didn’t make any noticeable change in performance, but if this thing can deliver on its promise of 9+ hours on a charge we don’t think anybody will mind.

Filed under: Laptops

First impressions with the Eee PC 1000HE and its delectable keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Peek is like a BlackBerry without the phone. It’s built for one function only: e-mail. And right now, Amazon is offering a pretty sweet two-for-one deal: Buy one Peek for $79.99 and get a second one free.

Keep in mind that you’ll have to pay $19….

Originally posted at The Cheapskate

Amit Zoran shows off the Chameleon Guitar, along with a variety of the interchangeable soundboards.

(Credit: Webb Chappell Photography/MIT)

Guitars with electronics built in are hardly new. Most people are familiar with standard electric guitars, but Takamine and other companies started putting in equalizers and other sound-shaping gear in the ’80s and ’90s.

MIT’s Chameleon Guitar, however, goes a few steps further, incorporating a full computer, as well as a small soundboard that can be interchanged with other soundboards made of a different wood or a different material altogether.

The sound generated by the electronic pickups on that board can be manipulated by the computer to produce the effect of a different size or shape of the resonating chamber. By putting extra acoustic modules together, the guitar can mimic any other guitar and practically any other instrument.

It’s a neat idea, to be sure, but it might prove too complex for the everyday user. The everyday user, though, isn’t who creator Amit Zoran likely had in mind for the unique piece. He envisions a production model for professional musicians that features quick-changing components, allowing the player to change the instrument live during a performance.

It’s an ambitious task, but Zoran’s a graduate student at MIT’s Media Lab, so he’s probably up to the challenge. Who knows, we might start seeing the five-pickup-wielding Chameleon onstage soon. And it even looks good. Check a video of the thing in action after the jump.

…

There’s a reason that India’s $10 Sakshat computer is just $10. It does almost nothing. What we thought would be a humming notebook equipped with Wi-Fi and 2GB RAM turns out to be little more than a box with sockets — no keyboard, no monitor.

The Sakshat is a 10"x5" plastic box which, despite an official unveiling at India’s Sri Venkateswara University yesterday, still contains only mystery parts. The project is part of India’s education program, also named Sakshat, and is a triple-team effort from three of the country’s research institutes. In fact, costs have been kept low by letting graduate students take care of a lot of the design process.

But what good will this machine be? After all, while it’s great to have a tiny portable computer that is cheap enough to give to every student (as is the plan), the units will be useless without an input method and a display, both of which will cost more than the Sakshat and neither of which will be portable.

We wonder if this is a proof of concept, a way for the government to create an open standard for cheap computers. The actual making of things could be done by private companies. That way, the little box starts to make sense — a single, core system sat inside anything from a cheap OLPC-stlyle notebook to a low-powered desktop. This is guesswork, but it certainly makes more sense than a single, blind and mute plastic box.

There’s another disappointment, too. The $10 laptop is no longer $10 — the expected price is closer to $30. Just wait — before long it’ll be $400, have a 10" screen, Atom processor and… Wait, what?

‘Ultra-low-cost’ access device introduced [The Hindu via Engadget]

See Also:

• India Planning $10 Laptop

Courtesy of Palm‘s most recent 8-K filing, the general public is being informed that Palm’s former CEO Donna Dubinsky (pictured) is stepping down from the firm’s board. If you’ll recall, Elevation Partners decided that it would fork over another $100 million in order to help Palm stun the world and reinvigorate itself at CES this year, and as part of that agreement, Elevation “has the right to designate an additional director for election to the Company’s Board of Directors.” In light of the board wishing to maintain its current size, Ms. Dubinsky freely offered to resign her spot immediately, and at least officially, her decision was not made due to any disagreement with Palm. We’re also told that Elevation has designated Rajiv Dutta — who retired as President of eBay Marketplaces and Executive VP of eBay last October — for election to the company’s board, and said board is expected to meet shortly to consider both the resignation offer and Mr. Dutta’s appointment.

[Via PalmInfoCenter, image courtesy of NY Times]

Filed under: Cellphones

Donna Dubinsky steps down from Palm’s board, Rajiv Dutta steps in originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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