Hasta La Gadget!

When I was but a wee lad, I hosed my share of family computers simply because I wanted to help out — once I tried to free up space on a 6GB hard drive by deleting anything larger than 1MB. You can imagine how well that played out.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the founders of Barcelona-based Now Computing went through something similar, because they’ve just recently launched a Kickstarter project for a device that should ensure it never happens again.

At its core, the $59 StormFly is little more than a 16GB USB 3.0 flash drive with a bootable version of Ubuntu that someone (ideally a kid) can wear on their wrist. After a little bit of setup (mostly changing the boot sequence in a PC’s BIOS), those little ones whip the USB bracelet off their wrists, plug it into a PC or a Mac, and do whatever it is that kids do on computers these days without having to worry. Thankfully, since the StormFly’s user never has access to the OS that’s actually installed on the host computer, there’s no way for them to royally screw things up by mucking with other people’s settings or downloading things they really shouldn’t be.

Not a bad proposition, especially when parents are exposing children to technology earlier and earlier these days (for better or worse).

Granted, this is the sort of thing most of you readers could probably cobble together in under an hour, but not everyone can be bothered to put together a custom computing environment for their kids. StormFly is about more than just a bit of hardware that you wear though — young ones are prone to lose things, which is why StormFly also features an encrypted online backup component… for an additional monthly fee. In the event that its user misplaces their USB bracelet, StormFly can ship out a replacement unit that has all of a user’s data back where it was within about 24 hours.

There are, however, some issues to be found here. Perhaps most concerning its the project’s tagline — the team claims multiple times that the StormFly is “like a PC on your wrist,” which seems a bit misleading. To their credit, the project’s description puts a finer point on what the thing actually is (a USB 3.0 flash drive with Ubuntu loaded onto it), but it’s a questionable move that’s already caused some heated debate in the project’s comments section. Still, it’s a neat enough project, and it’s slowly been picking up steam — StormFly has currently hit $14,000 in pledges after only a few days, so it’s certainly got a shot at becoming a real product.

It’s beautiful. It even works. But if there’s a downside to the notion of an Android phone that runs full-blown desktop Ubuntu when docked to a big screen and keyboard, it’s the need for patience. Nearly a year after the first announcement, we’ve had an update from one of the key project leads, Richard Collins, to the effect that work on a converged Ubuntu for Android device is running on schedule, but won’t culminate in an actual product until shortly after the launch of the first Ubuntu-only smartphone:

“We are planning to very quickly follow our initial launch [of an Ubuntu-only handset] with the converged device which will have high-performing system components that will allow Ubuntu to run as a desktop OS when docked.“

Considering that the first Ubuntu smartphone isn’t expected until early 2014, pending agreements with manufacturer and carrier partners, we could be looking at another 12-month wait. Still, the company probably wouldn’t flesh out its roadmap like this unless things were going well behind the scenes. It’s also possible that Canonical will release early builds of the dual OS for us to try — just like it’s going to cater for experimental GNex owners next month. In fact, Collins told us that we “might not have much longer to wait” before we see something new on Ubuntu for Android, even if it isn’t a finished product. Read our full interview with him right here.

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Mobile

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A new challenger steps in the niche market… ring of portable consoles built to run emulators of older systems. But like the relatively famous Pandora handheld, the GCW-Zero aims not just to let players enjoy old games but also let those with programming skills tweak and play with its software.

The GCW-Zero runs on OpenDingux, a Linux distribution that was originally made for Dingoo’s gaming handhelds. Hardware-wise the GCW-Zero has a 1GHz Injenic CPU, a Vivante GC860 GPU, 512MB DDR2 RAM and 16GB of internal memory. It also has a microSD slot that supports micro SDHC cards up to 32 GB or micro SDXC cards up to 64 GB, a mini-USB port and a mini-HDMI 1.3 out, which is a nice surprise. The controls are mostly what you’d expect – a d-pad, an analog nub, 4 face buttons, 2 shoulder buttons, select and start buttons – except the GCW-Zero also has an accelerometer, so it supports tilt controls.

Here’s a video of a few games running on the handheld, courtesy of GCW-Zero lead tester Kirk Shepherd:

You can check out more videos of the handheld on Shepherd’s YouTube channel. But if you think this is the portable videogame museum for you, pledge at least $135 (USD) on its Kickstarter fundraiser to reserve a unit. Can you imagine just how much money Nintendo, Sony, Sega and the other old guards would make if they put their heads (and licenses) together and released an all-conquering retro handheld?

[via Gear Diary]

If you were hoping for a full-fledged Raspberry Pi sequel this year, you’ll have to keep waiting. Designer Eben Upton tells ZDNet that, while there should eventually be a replacement, he doesn’t expect one in 2013. Both software tweaks and upgrades like the Model B are reportedly doing the job — and it wouldn’t be right to “orphan” the 700,000 existing owners with a new platform, Upton says. He isn’t worried about the Cubieboard and other current rivals, as they have yet to be as fast as their raw numbers suggest. We won’t hide our disappointment at missing out on a quick revamp, but we know what they say about things that aren’t broken.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: ZDNet

Italian electronics firm DaVinci Mobile Technology is now accepting pre-orders for its Kite Full-HD tablet. This European slab features a 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 IPS display, a Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a front-facing VGA camera and a rear-facing 2-megapixel shooter. In addition to packing some decent specs, the device also dual-boots Ubuntu 12.04 for ARM and Android 4.0. While there’s no telling if this switch hitter will ever officially make its way to US soil, our friends abroad can fly this Kite for €309 (around $413 USD).

Filed under: Tablets

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Via: Notebook Italia (translated)

Source: DaVinci Mobile Technology (translated)