about 4 months ago - No comments
The UMID M1 will be available in two variants: the “High” version includes a 16GB SSD and is powered by an Intel Atom clocked to 1.33GHz, while the “Low” version comes with Linux preinstalled and has only 8GB flash storage and its Atom runs a bit slower too at 1.1GHz. Both versions have a 4.8″ touchscreen with a “wide” resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, 512MB of fast 533MHz DDRII RAM, Bluetooth 2.0, also 802.11b/g wifi and HSDPA (with own SIM card slot), connection to other devices is established with USB2.0, but you can also use the microSD-card reader for synchronizing data with, for example, your smartphone. Also included is a 1.3MP webcam for video telephony via skype or other VoIP-based services, and everything is powered by a 2400mAh Li-ion battery.
about 4 months ago - No comments
Most of the UMPC and MIDs available today share the same disadvantage: most of the time the keyboard just doesn’t work well at those tiny key sizes, especially if you have large hands. What to do? One possible solution could be using one of these ultra-portable external keyboards with your UMPC! The device shown on the right for example, bearing the rather technical description “Targus PA875U01X”, weighs just 180 grams at a size of 280 x 108 x 9 mm (unfolded), with 68 full-sized keys in QWERTY layout – enabling easy and smooth ten-finger typing for the mobile email enthusiast
about 4 months ago - No comments
For all those users without free USB ports on their smartphones, PDAs, MIDs and other devices, or those with an aversion against cables in general, there are also bluetooth versions of those full-sized foldable keyboards I mentioned already on this blog few days ago – namely I’d like to make mention here of the “Freedom Universal Keyboard²” (from a company called Freedom Input Ltd) with its own two AAA sized batteries and – most important – bluetooth! The manufacturer claims that due to support for both HID mode (used and recognized by all PCs, most PDAs, UMPCs and smartphones) and SPP mode, a bluetooth serial port emulation protocol utilized by the blackberry family of smartphones for example, this gadget enjoys comaptibility to > 200 different devices. Sure is that every device with bluetooth and either Blackberry OS 4.0 and upwards, symbian OS v9, or windows mobile 5 & 6 ( both PPC and smartphone edition), as well as Windows 2000 and WinXP is supported without need to install any drivers. No mention of linux though, and what about windows CE??
about 4 months ago - No comments
Yes I know – this has not got anything to do with mobile computing (sorry), and No, its not an april hoax at all – but I simply had to write about it.. as you can see on the youTube video below, this guy actually makes a small (and inefficient but still amazing) solar panel at home – from donuts, “starbucks passion” red hibiscus flower tea, water, vodka and some microscopy object slides…
about 4 months ago - No comments
Now it has been over a week since I installed Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” on my netbook, and in the meantime I’ve been working on customizing things to my needs. One main tweak consisted of replacing the default “2.6.28-8-generic” kernel with the more appropriate “2.6.28-12-netbook-eeepc” kernel compiled by Adam McDaniel over at array.org , main reason was merely the unpleasant sound of the word “generic” to me, since this “generic” kernel was working quite well – there was no obvious need to replace it. But I still thought it would be nice to have the core of the operating system customized to my hardware.
about 4 months ago - No comments
Now Viliv is jumping on the UMPC train too: since several weeks the long-announced “VILIV S5 MID” is available in several configurations. The “Premium Air” version sports a 16GB SSD, 4.8″ touchscreen LCD with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels, and full 3G/HSDPA functionality – whereas the “normal” versions come equipped with 30 or 60 GByte 1.8″ HDD instead, 800×480 LCD only, and no wireless broadband at all. Both models have the same 24Wh battery, allowing for 5-6 hours of continuous use, and are available with either WinXP, Vista or Linux (unspecified distro) preinstalled, both weigh around 380 grams and have 802.11 b/g wifi, bluetooth 2.0 and external video connectors (for VGA, S-Video and Composite-video cables!), the whole controlled by a “Silverthorne” Intel Atom clocked at 1.33GHz and supported by 1GB RAM.
about 4 months ago - No comments
During the last days I’ve been quite excited about a certain idea I want to report about here, and which I think is quite an entertaining project. During one of my web journeys I recently happened to stumble upon this link over at instructables.com and was fascinated: I was looking at a 5×5 LED matrix that initially blinked its LEDs randomly, but somehow “magically” (with the support of 25 light-dependent resistors) synchronized them very slowly, to finally reach a state of absolute synchronicity – and all this with 25 totally independent control circuits, all based on 25 single atTiny13 microprocessors!! The whole thing should be considered as being a model of large swarms of thousands of male fireflies in sout-eastern asia, which are capable of synchronizing their blinking to attract more female fireflies over a greater distance. For more detailed explanations about the background (and how to set up a physical logic model using AtTiny13 chips and C coding) I want to forward you to the instructables link above as well as to this scientific paper explaining the underlying mathematical theory behind this..
about 4 months ago - No comments
I guess after my last articles bearing somewhat randomized topics it is time for a real “eeeGadget” again.. So, what about having multi-color LED signaling incoming email (and ICQ instant messages) for you, visually with various blinking colors for assorted message types, even when your netbook’s lid is closed, for example
about 4 months ago - No comments
I refined the software part of my last project a bit. Now the thing consists of one main python script calling various subprocedures as separate threads, it has a nice colorful “parrot” tray icon (for closing the “application”), it listens on the dBus interface for alerts from various other software and shows three different types of incoming messages with a) respective system alerts (indicating message content and type), b) with a pop-up tray icon showing type of message by icon, and c) with some RGB LED wired to a RS232toUSB-adapter via a small picaxe08m microcontroller, which lights up in the corresponding color (twitter is turquoise, pidgin is purple, email is red)
about 4 months ago - No comments
I’ve added a light diffuser made of milky glass.