garan.org

I've just been reading this article on AppleInsider.com about rumour of an Apple sub-notebook. As a 12" Apple G4 Powerbook user I've been looking at the current Apple range of dual-core Intels thinking that the 15" machine just isn't portable enough for what I want. Maybe now something from Apple may replace the Sony SZ carbon fibre wrapped laptop at the top of my broken laptop/win the lottery wishlist.

Remember when laptops were the size of suitcases with mono screens and 5¼ inch disks? Over the last twenty five years mobile computers have got smaller and smaller, culminating in the UMPC devices that Microsoft are certain that we all need.

Sun and Google are going the other way.. Have a look at the latest Sun concept server:

An example on their website says that the box could have the following spec:

• A single Project Blackbox could accommodate 250 Sun Fire T1000 servers with the CoolThreads technology with 2000 cores and 8000 simultaneous threads.
• A single Project Blackbox could accommodate 250 x64-based servers with 1000 cores.
• A single Project Blackbox could provide as much as 1.5 petabytes of disk storage or 2 petabytes of energy-efficient tape storage.
• A single Project Blackbox could provide 7 terabytes of memory.
• A single Project Blackbox could handle up to 10,000 simultaneous desktop users.
• A single Project Blackbox currently has sufficient power and cooling to support 200 kilowatts of rackmounted equipment.

If Sun starts to produce this then you would be able to give them a call and get a top 200 computer delivered by noon the following day. All you have to supply is some fibre into your network, power and water for the cooling system. This would be significantly cheaper and faster to implement than building out your existing data centre plus you can be creative; put it in the car park, in a warehouse or maybe on the roof!

Whilst Sun are prototyping this product industry rumours are that Google are a bit further down the track, already having a shipping container ready to go. If that is the case then Google could quickly grow across the World's peering points which could be good or could be bad... Let's hope that Google remains true to their own 'we're not evil' PR.

Expansys are selling the Sony VAIO UX180P for £2,699.99.

As evilking has pointed out on the Handtops.com forum:

Just for kicks I went to britishairways.com and checked the cost of a return ticket to Tokyo. Came to £827.70. Minus that from Expansys UK's crazy price of £2699.99 (Where did they get this figure?) and you'd have £1872.29 left over, more than enough to buy a UX and have £800 spending money (A weeks holiday in Japan - awesome!). I'm sure you could find cheaper flights :P
In fact, if you don't mind the EDGE version, you could fly to the US and buy TWO UX's and have about 800 dollars left as spending money.
This is from a UK perspective (Not sure on the air fare from austrailia to japan).


Over the last few years I've been looking for a small portable device that I can use in place of a laptop. My wish list is along the lines of:

1. Portable
2. Good battery life
3. Strong! Needs to be robust
4. Landscape screen layout
5. QWERTY keyboard that has a pipe key
6. Serial connector for use with a terminal emulator
7. Connects to my mobile for internet access

So far the Psion Series 5 has been the closest to fulfilling the wishlist. It didn't have a pipe key though which was really annoying as I need to type commands in unix. The PDA's that I've had/used just haven't been up to it - no landscape screen layout and no keyboard. But the batteries haven't lasted or they haven't been strong enough to survive my 'usage habits'. Things are to be used not to look nice :)

I've been keeping an eye on the Ultra Mobile PC's that are coming out. HandTops.com is a good resource; listing the available devices that are smaller than laptops, bigger than PDAs and running XP out of the box (they can run Linux).

The new Sony VGN UX20 whilst not having an elegant name, looks promising. There's more info at Dynanism's website.

Still hanging on though... :)

I caught Click on News 24 last night. It had a report on the 3GSM Show that took place in Barcelona.

In amongst the mobile TV handsets and the new HSDPA data standard (the real 3G?) was a segment about the Nvidia GoForce 5500. Nvidia have come up with a graphics engine, video decoder, flat panel display controller and an audio controller in a package the size of my fingernail! Begs the question why PC graphic cards so big? Oh and these little GoForce chips will probably keep your ear nice and warm. :)

Sony Ericsson have announced some new phones at the 3GSM World Congress. I'm fancying the K610, the replacement for my current K600i.

It's interesting to see that three out of five phones are larger form factor devices. A sign of things to come? Out of the remaining two, only the K610 is a 'business' handset. The other is a basic candybar phone that is aimed at the no-frills, budget end of the market.

I still think that there's a gap in the market for a no-frills, easy to operate handset that features a large screen capable of displaying text big enough for people to read without their specs on.

The new Bluetooth stereo headset looks interesting too.