Hasta La Gadget!

The show floor is still under construction, but when Computex 2010 opens its doors tomorrow in Taipei, Taiwan, expect to see a parade of netbooks, 3D displays, and lot of would-be competitors to the Apple iPad. 

One of the key trends at Computex this year is expected to be tablet computers designed to go head to head with the iPad. Last week, Acer showed off an Android-based tablet at its annual sales conference in Beijing, and that device will probably make an appearance in here in Taipei as well. What’s more, both Asus and MSI are expected to debut Windows 7-based tablets at the show. Dell and Sony also plan to launch tablets this year, although they probably won’t make the show floor.

Granted, the tablet market has been downright dormant for years, but the iPad has given the segment a big boost; and vendors here at Computex sense an opportunity. Although tablets are still a small part of the overall computer industry, they could grow fast. According to ABI Research new-generation tablet PCs will reach 4 million units this year and could swell to 58 million by 2015.

This is the 30th anniversary of Computex, Asia’s largest technology trade show. According to the Computex organizers, there will be more than 1,700 manufacturers on the show floor, filling more than 4,600 booths.

The show extends across the city of Taipei, from the Taipei’s World Trade Center and Nangang Exhibition Hall. The show opens officially tomorrow, June 1st, and runs through June 5th.

Take a look at our Computex 2010 slideshow at PCMag.com.

What if I told you there was an ultralight device that put all the functionality of a powerful tablet into the thinnest, lightest laptop you ever saw? It exists. It could be great. And it’s dying before its time. More »

Would you believe us if we told you that that rubber bracelet-looking thing is actually going to have a built-in SIM card and bring voice / text capabilities to Android tablets, e-readers and netbooks via Bluetooth? Yeah, it sounds super crazy, but that’s exactly what it’ll eventually do. Convinced that 2G capabilities like talking and texting should be easier to add to MIDs, tablets and netbooks, Seattle-based startup Iota has come up with the Flex. It’s definitely in the early stages of development, but in essence they see people clipping the bendable device to a bag, pairing it to an Android tablet, e-reader or MID, and then making calls from said devices.

We caught some time with Iota and the prototype at the Netbook Summit this week and were told that they plan to sell the Flex through retailers for under $100 — it would be an extra $40 a month for unlimited calling and texting thanks to a partnership with Simple Mobile. Here’s where we say we wouldn’t hold your breath for this thing to hit the market — though if they can pull it off, it’ll certainty be an interesting solution for adding voice and text to those hoards of incoming Android tablets. After you’re done wrapping your brain around this wearable voice and text accessory, check out the hands-on pics and hit the break for a hacked together demo of the dev kit they’ve been selling.

Continue reading Iota Flex wants to be a MiFi for voice and text

Iota Flex wants to be a MiFi for voice and text originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 20:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Iota Flex  | Email this | Comments

The OLPC slate may actually get made after all. Nicholas Negroponte of the One Laptop Per Child foundation has promised to get his XO-3 tablet computer into prototype form by December this year for a showing at CES in January 2011. The super-slim all-touch tablet will have a 9-inch screen and sell for just $75.

The problem is, we’ve been here before. Just last year, Nick was promising essentially the same thing. There have been a few changes, though. Speaking at MIT’s Media Lab Tuesday he said that the price point should be no problem because the whole device, screen and all, will be made from plastic. The prototypes, however, will stick with heavy, fragile glass, presumably because the technology to extrude a whole computer (Negroponte’s plan) from a machine is not yet here.

The XO-3 doesn’t seem quite as ridiculous as it once did, though. Apple has managed to deliver the iPad for just $500, and the simple tablet form with no moving parts seems ideal for the rugged outdoors that is the intended home of the OLPC slate. In fact, there’s something the computer will have that I wish were in the iPad. The XO-3 will have the same dual-mode screen as the original XO, which will be backlit indoors but use the light of the sun when outside so it can be read in bright light. Outdoor use is one place where the iPad fails.

Whether the final result is like the machine shown in the mockup pictures or not, we’re pretty sure to see something similar, even if it does take a few more year. The original OLPC had a long and difficult gestation, but Nick Negroponte is stubborn enough to pull it off.

OLPC’s Negroponte Says XO-3 Prototype Tablet Coming in 2010 [PC World]

See Also:

• Negroponte: OLPC Machine Will Be $50 in 2011, Electronics Are …
• XO-3 Concept: A Crazy-Thin Tablet OLPC for Just $75
• OLPC Designer Turns to Spectacles
• XO-3 Concept: A Crazy-Thin Tablet OLPC for Just $75

Barnes & Noble has released its e-reader software for the iPad, adding yet another way to buy and read e-books. It’s as slick as we’ve come to expect, but suffers from several minor flaws and one fatal problem: Unlike iBooks, where you can buy easily and seamlessly from with the application, the B&N reader boots you out to a website, just like Amazon’s Kindle App.

The app is available only in the US App Store, but as it is free you can create a US iTunes account and grab it anyway. That way you can try out sample books and also download free e-books (credit required, although not for samples), of which there are surprisingly many (mostly romance and Star Wars novels). Once you have completed the transaction in your browser, you step back to the app and hit refresh. The books are quickly downloaded to the iPad.

I briefly tried out the reading interface, and it is adequate. There is a good range of fonts, you can highlight and make notes on text, although you can’t search your notes, and you can define words in the built-in dictionary as well as Google and Wikipedia (you’ll be asked if you want to launch the search in Safari first). The page turns are slick, and thankfully they leave out the page-turn animations that are so distracting in iBooks.

The problem is when you flip to landscape format to read. Instead of splitting the text across two pages to take advantage of the big screen, the app just goes wide. There appears to be no way to fix this, so upright reading is recommended. BN eReader for iPad (it’s full, ugly name) is a competent reader, and it’s free. If you already own a Nook, I’d recommend it. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem much point.

BN eReader for iPad [Barnes and Noble. Thanks, Brittany!]

See Also:

• Barnes & Noble Nook
• Bookstores Aim at Amazon With E-Readers of Their Own