Microsoft Ultrabooks Inspired By Intel… Or Apple?

Last night, while watching live TV (*gasp*), I inadvertently caught the commercial above. And what was I thinking? As “the new Ultrabook [was] inspired by Intel”… not Apple’s Macbook Air. It’s a cute ad and Windows users also deserve both better style and substance in their computing hardware. Further, Microsoft’s hardware partners would prefer higher … Read more

End of a 3-Year Netbook Experiment

It was nearly three years ago that I got my first netbook, an Asus Eee 1000HA. And despite a failed hard drive a year later (still under warranty), and complete failure six months after that, I loved my compact little machine. I loved it so much that I got another one in May of last … Read more

The Asus Transformer – A Netbook Replacement?

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 is launching in the US and Canada on April 26th as one of the first Android tablets with docking keyboard to grace our fair shores. (Brad Linder notes the Acer Iconia W500 Windows 7 tablet with keyboard is also on its way.) You may remember our excitement at CES 2010 over the Lenovo U1 hybrid tablet/laptop. Alas, that device still hasn’t made it to store shelves here, and it’s not clear that it ever well. The Transformer, on the other hand, promises much of what the U1 did, along with some 2011 upgrades.

If you’re looking for an Android tablet, the Transformer is beating out a lot of its more well-known competitors in review circles. According to Laptop Magazine, the Asus tablet compares favorably to the Xoom and G-Slate for battery life (about 8.5 hours detached, or more than 10 hours with the dock), and edges out both (just slightly in the G-Slate’s case) in a CPU benchmark test. Basic specs include the Android Honeycomb OS, a 10.1-inch display, Wi-Fi connectivity, a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB on-board RAM with expansion room to 2GB, and on-board memory of 16GB (for $399) or 32GB (for $499) with support for microSD cards.

What most excites me, however, is the Transformer’s potential as a netbook replacement.

Read more

One Plug to Rule Them All

One of the best conversations I had at CES this year was with the VP of sales and marketing for a company called Green Plug. Now granted, meeting with Graeme Finlayson was also the first chance I’d had to sit down in many hours, but even so, the GreenPlug story is one I’ve wanted to tell since coming back from Vegas.

GreenPlug was founded in 2006 with the goal of fixing the “broken” power model. You know how there are a bazillion different adapters for a bazillion different gadgets? Well, it would be nice to standardize them all and be assured that when your lovely little laptop power cord breaks, there’s another nearby that can be switched out from a different device. Unfortunately, as anyone in the industry knows, there is huge resistance from manufacturers around standardizing power accessories. According to Finlayson, the technical challenges of creating one power adapter for all major devices is essentially solved, though there would likely need to be different versions for different power needs – like a 15-50 watt version, a 50-150 watt version, etc. Trying to get manufacturers on board is the major nightmare. Apparently the IEEE is attempting to standardize power adapters for laptops, but when we’ll get any concrete solutions from that initiative remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Green Plug has extended its efforts beyond just creating a universal power adapter. In order to make powering devices more efficient, the company is proposing to add a little CPU, and a new communication wire into the cord that goes between your device and the outlet on the wall. The purpose is to create a feedback loop that communicates battery status, enabling functions like rapid charge and power shut-off when a battery is powered to capacity.

This is a fundamental shift in the way we think about power. Instead of dumb power cords, we’re suddenly looking at intelligent power networks. The Green Plug concept also provides another way to connect devices into the smart grid, which has its own set of implications. That new communication wire makes it potentially possible to connect with a larger grid even when a device, for all other intents and purposes, is turned off.

Read more

Mozy Raises Rates, Agitates Digerati

Mozy’s unlimited cloud backup service is decidedly less unlimited today. As the company has retired it’s $4.95 plan in favor of new tiers of service (shown above) with data overages running $2/month per 20GB. While quite a few seemed riled up, I don’t particularly mind. Mozy needs to make money and it’s easy to see how the top few percent of users could impact the bottom line. A Mozy VP responds on CNET:

We do not take this on lightly…I don’t expect everybody to be happy about it. But if they take a look at what we’re doing and why, it’ll at least be understandable.

As I told photographer Thomas Hawk, you generally get what you pay for. And Mozy is owned by industry giant EMC… something I take comfort in. I’d say they’re much less likely to lose his data than Flickr – a photo sharing service that operates without a backup or un-delete option. There continues to be an unreasonable expectation that everything on the Internet be free or inexpensive. The sooner we collectively get beyond that, the sooner we’ll have higher quality services and support.

Read more

Will The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Launch In 2011?

Lenovo tells us they’ll be officially announcing the IdeaPad U1 tomorrow AM. Yet, this won’t be the first time it’s been announced… As Lenovo’s clever, sexy, and surprisingly practical hybrid laptop, with removable slate, was one of my favorite products of CES 2010. The original plan had the fully assembled rig running Windows 7 in … Read more