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Mouse Netbook Includes Optical Drive

William — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:10:43 +0000

By Evan Ackerman

It’s unclear where exactly the line between netbook and small laptop is, but the Mouse computer LB-F1500W certainly blurs it by including an optical drive. Not just a CD drive, either… They’ve crammed a DVD burner in there. The rest of the specs are fairly bland, including a 1.6 GHz Atom, a gig of ram, a 160 gig HD, 10.2″ 1024 x 600 display, and Windows XP Home.

Is this a useful feature to have on a netbook? I have my doubts. There are certainly specific instances where having an optical drive comes in handy, but is it something that’s necessary to a computer that’s designed to be (generally) minimalist and efficient? It would be nice for, say, being able to watch a DVD while on the plane or something. But I’m sure battery life takes a pretty significant hit and the computer has got to weigh more and have a larger case, all things that netbooks were designed specifically to avoid. A much better solution would be to just get a little external USB powered DVD drive to have when you want it… And even with that, you’ll still probably be saving money over the 9 price of the LB-F1500W if you get yourself something better. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe an MSI Wind?

VIA [ CrunchGear ]

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Amex Digital Doesn’t Seem to be Entering a World of Hurt With Their Mac-Ready Blu-ray Superdrive

William — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:48:58 +0000

Amex Digital has gone and brought out a Blu-ray superdrive that is both Mac and PC compatible; and at a reasonable price too. It comes in black or white, features Quiet Drive, which is a noise reducing technology and connects to your Mac or Windows-based PC via USB.

Price: 9.99 [I4U News via Slashgear]

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Video: DIY Pop Can Solar Heating Rig

William — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:23:17 +0000

This is the coolest DIY project I have seen in a long time, and definitely an interesting project if you want to live off the grid. Fifteen columns of soda cans are used to harvest the suns rays and provide some pretty good water heating performance.

According to the maker:

Peak BTU performance was observed during the noon hour period in October 2001 wherein the temp rise was 50 to 54F degrees resulting in a 9000 to 9720 Btu or 2636 to 2847 Watts. Peak BTU performance will actually increase in colder weather due to the rise in temperature between input and output temperature and a lower angle of incidence.

What you need is a whole lot of soda cans, some conductive black paint and the time, patience and skills to pull a build like this off. Check out the video for some more technical details. [Cansolair via Hacked Gadgets]

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Shuttle Mini PC D10 is coming soon

William — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:22:28 +0000

Quite a surprising premiere is waiting just round the bend. It is Shuttle Computer Handels GmbH that presents its latest gadget. Shuttle Mini PC D10 will be unveiled at this weekend but only for Japanese market. Unfortunately there is no clear word about when and where else D10 will be available to buy. But there might be a clue to get in Shuttle’s august worldwide press release about Shuttle Mini PC solutions. The fact that it was, ones again, worldwide, leaves us the message. So, D10 combines some interesting solutions for home and office use for temperate 330 Euros (price in Japan) with not much drawbacks to worry about.

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DIY Lasertag Game Will Probably See You Playing Alone

William — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:57:57 +0000

Growing up I must admit that I liked a bit of lasertag whenever I got the opportunity. If, you take the technology behind such systems and you meld that with the lack of fashion sense of the more technically minded of the DIY-set then you get something that is lasertag without the relatively cool styling of the better systems. Totally tasteless and lacking in class it might be, but if you find a friend that is prepared to put that gear on (and go running around the street zapping without concern for what other people think), then he or she, my friends, is a keeper.

The homemade variety makes use of a toy gun, a micro-controller, and a piezo buzzer, full details of the build can be found at q.geek.nz. [q.geek.nz via crunchgear, make]

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TETRA erasers

William — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:55:20 +0000

These TETRA erasers spotted at the recent Good Design Expo in Tokyo are the perfect editing tool for pencil-pushing tetrapod enthusiasts. Produced by Sun-Star Stationery Co., Ltd., the shapely erasers come in 9 colors and are available at stores like Tokyu Hands for 120 yen (about ) a pop. Pile them on your desk to inspire daydreams of the beach in Japan.

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Electronic newspaper – new design from Plastic Logic

William — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:39:53 +0000

For centuries newspapers were biggest source of information – even in the age of Internet and TV they are still very popular. Of course, we can browse to one of the many news sites, but reading newspaper is not just about getting information, it is the feeling of some sort. That’s why books are popular even if many of us can read from cellphone’s screen. However, such as paper books evolved in eReaders, newspapers must be upgraded too. In any case, that is how Plastic Logic thinks. They made a concept of how modern newspaper must look like, and it is pretty interesting.

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VIA quits motherboard chipset business

William — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:43:56 +0000

After seeing the VIA Nano versus Intel Atom video, where the VIA Nano basically destroys an Intel Atom, albeit at a slightly higher wattage rating… you’d think that things at VIA were going better than great.

They even have the VIA Nano, which looks to be a killer low-watt CPU, they have the Pico-ITX platform which can essentially put an x86 based in the palm of your hand.

However, it seems like VIA is exiting the motherboard business to concentrate on building better processors:

Previously one of the best chipset makers for enthusiasts looking for high performance on a budget, VIA has told Custom PC that it now sees no future in making chipsets for third parties such as Intel and AMD.

Speaking to Custom PC, VIA’s vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, Richard Brown, explained that: ‘One of the main reasons we originally moved into the x86 processor business was because we believed that ultimately the third party chipset market would disappear, and we would need to have the capability to provide a complete platform.’

‘That has indeed come to pass,’ said Brown. He also added that ‘Intel provides the vast majority of chipsets for its processors and, following its purchase of ATI, AMD is also moving very quickly in the same direction.’

I know that right now, in my Chaintech motherboard, I have a VIA 4-n-1 chipset for audio, video, memory and USB2 controllers. And I know that VIA has supplied drivers and hardware for pretty much the last three or so builds of machines that I’ve had around here in the last few years.

Regardless… guess it’s a tough business to be in. Can’t wait to see what else VIA pulls out next.

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Independent VoIP Companies Fade as Cable Takes Over – Cable succeeds in stealing landline customers

William — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:08:12 +0000

Independent VoIP companies such as Vonage have struggled to maintain subscribers in the last year due to a variety of different reasons including increased competition from cable VoIP operators. Subscriber growth for the one-year period ending in the first quarter of this year was less than 200,000 for independent VoIP companies; this amount equals less than one fifth of the new subscribers from the previous year. In contrast, cable VoIP subscriptions increased by over five and a half million in the same time period. This has helped cable operators to not only beat out independent VoIP companies but also to steal landline customers.
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Wii MotionPlus Add-on Promises Perfect Precision

William — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:17:31 +0000

By Jonathan Kimak

The Wii-mote is pretty sweet already, but it will get even better with this add-on from Nintendo. The Wii MotionPlus snaps onto the bottom of the Wii-mote and enhances the motion capture to a 1:1 response ratio. Meaning that if you move your hand 1 inch up, your character on screen moves his hand 1 inch up.

Nintendo is planning on releasing more details at their E3 media presentation later today.

Now if Nintendo can just hurry up and give us some games that truly use this precision to its fullest(Like say, some precision lightsaber dueling) they will be on top of gaming for many more years.

[ Nintendo Wii MotionPlus ] VIA [ Engadget ]

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