Saturday, May 24, 2008

ASUS vaguely hints at alternative Eee

ASUS

ASUS isn't being shy about its plan for global Eee domination, and it sounds like the company is exploring expanding beyond the laptop and desktop form factors we've already seen. Speaking to Current.com.au, ASUS Australia retail manager Emmanuele Silanesu said that ASUS's Eee group is "obviously looking at other form factors rather than just a clamshell," but wouldn't confirm anything -- and just to make things even hazier, Silanesu said that a forthcoming touchscreen machine from ASUS might not carry the Eee branding. That's just about as vague as it gets, but we're in agreement with UMPC Portal that ASUS has plenty of low-power, low-cost UMPCs on the shelf (like the R2E pictured above) that could easily be made over to fit with the Eee line. We'll see when we see -- Silanesu hinted that something was due to appear at Computex in June.

SATURN

If you've been bored by your limited all-electric vehicle choices, we've got just the thing for you. After a year of development, Advanced Mechanical Products (or AMP) is taking orders for a limited run of 300 converted Saturn Sky Roadsters, which will be 100 percent electric. The cars can travel roughly 150 miles on a single charge, go 0 to 60 in under six seconds, and can reach a top speed of 90 MPH. The cost of the conversion and vehicle comes to around $50,000, making this one of the more affordable high-performance options around. The cars are expected to ship to buyers in 2009, so you'd better get on that list quick.

ROBO

Budding robot-builders certainly don't have any shortage of kits to choose from these days, but this new self-descriptive ROBO Builder set looks to be a good deal more complete than most and, compared to the norm, is somewhat more reasonably priced. This one will let you assemble three different bots (dubbed DINO, HUNO and DOGY) out of the included robot building blocks, each of which can apparently be programmed to perform various activities, or simply be controlled via a computer or remote control. You can also get your choice of black or transparent kits, the latter of which appears to boast some significantly more advanced break-dancing skills. It's also a good deal more expensive, costing 660,000 won (or $630) compared to the 450,000 ($430) for the basic black version.

SKOOBA

Responding to travelers' woes about the laptop-out-of-the-bag shuffle at airport security stations, the TSA solicited bag manufacturers for "checkpoint-friendly" designs. Skooba and Targus are responding with their own line of bags to meet those requirements. What requirements, you ask? In order for a bag to be TSA-friendly, it must be small, have no straps or zippers, and leave no room for chargers, pens, or other detritus that could interfere with the X-ray image. Is it just us, or does that mean we'll be carrying another bag with us anyway? Nonetheless, the Skooba Skreener pictured here -- which doesn't seem to meet those requirements -- is available now for $119.95.

IPHONE

iPhone gaming aficionados -- your wildest dreams will soon be coming to fruition. Apparently, CraigX (one of the masterminds behind the Pandora project) is also busy whipping up a physical control pad add-on for the Apple device. The peripheral -- dubbed the iControlpad, of course -- will attach to the dock connector on the bottom of the phone and wrap around the sides, and is said to provide a PSX-like feel. The pad's site claims that compatibility is already built in to popular iPhone game emulators, and units are being sent out to other developers as well. The model pictured here is a prototype design -- but frankly, they had us at "Hello."

EE

We've already heard about some supposed specs for ASUS's forthcoming Eee Box desktop PC, but Trusted Reviews has now turned up some slightly different ones, which it claims come from a "very reliable" source. While that source apparently couldn't confirm that the desk-bound Eee would in fact be an Atom-based box as many are speculating, the source reportedly did flat out say that the system would be launching with 2GB of RAM as standard, and a 160GB hard drive (not 1GB and 80GB as we had previously heard). It'll also supposedly be running the same Linux distribution as the Eee PC, and be available in white only to start with. What's more, it seems that this particular source's information should be able to be verified one way or another soon enough, as he/she is also saying that ASUS will get official about the Eee Box on June 3rd at Computex in Taiwan, with an actual release set to follow sometime in the third quarter, in the UK at least.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

getitornot dude/chics

THis Is really amazing... you have no idea how this works. Unless you are up for it and the challenge is to beat this. I guess it's google proof until you are smart enough to break it.

WEll take up the challenge.... be a part of it. I hope you guys get it. I think you've have got it!

So be a part of it.
If you don't know your OS from your elbow, you should perhaps [Alt+Left] now. Getitornot?