Linux

The Telikin is a new touchscreen family computer designed to make everyday tasks as easy as possible. It is clearly aimed at the older user, which explains why its most vaunted features are social in nature, and make a lot of sense for grandparents with distant relatives. Video chat (thanks to a built-in camera), photo sharing and email are first among its advertised features - all of which come ready to use out of the box, provided an internet connection is available, of course.  Read More

Unveiled at Computex 2011, the MeeGo Linux based ASUS Eee PC X101 is billed as world's thinnest and lightest netbook at 17.6 mm (0.69-inches) thin and weighing 920 grams (2lbs).  Read More

Apple's new MacBook Pro line-up might be grabbing all the headlines with its new Thunderbolt port, but the claimed battery life pales into insignificance when compared to that offered by HP. When running on the company's new Ultra-Capacity Notebook battery, the HP EliteBook 8460p is said to be capable of running for up to 32 hours between charges. It's one of a number of business notebook releases announced by HP, so let's take a closer look...  Read More

Having full-blown computers linked to a central server delivering applications to office workers is so last century. More and more businesses are choosing to deploy thin-client or virtual desktop solutions, where much of the storage and processing needs are met at the data center. Advantages often include low power draw at the user end, low maintenance, and minimal desktop footprint. Chip PC's Plug PC cross-platform thin client or virtual desktop computer solution offers maximum load power consumption of just 3W, is about the same size as a pack of cards, and benefits from a processor architecture that provides the equivalent of 1.8GHz x86 processing power.  Read More

One of the biggest marketing miss-steps of the past decade surely has to be LG’s Internet Refrigerator that incorporated a Windows 98-based PC and 15.1-inch LCD touch display in the door, allowing users to surf the Internet for recipes, play music and videos or (theoretically) do some office work while standing at the fridge. Electrolux seems to think the world is now ready to embrace the idea and has developed an Internet fridge of its own in the form of the Linux-based Infinity I-Kitchen.  Read More

In May, ASUS announced that it was going to release an amalgam of a notepad and e-Reader tentatively named the Eee Tablet. The details of just such a device have now emerged, although the company is now calling it the Eee Note EA800. The 8-inch glass touchscreen display is said to be ultra-sensitive to pressure from a stylus input, with the monochrome screen image remaining clear even in bright sunlight. It supports all of the main e-Book formats as well as Microsoft Office documents, benefits from wireless connectivity and has quite an impressive battery life.  Read More

Gone are the days when we simply used our mobile phones for calling people – now we can conduct our own ECGs. We’ve already seen iPhone and Android applications that can create ultrasound images and that measure air pollution. Now tech companies IMEC and the Holst Center, together with TASS software professionals, have released a new heart rate monitoring application.  Read More

Burning Man, the popular desert music festival, is this year featuring a free, solar powered cellular network for the duration of the festival which winds up on Monday. The open source software, OpenBTS (Open Base Transceiver Station) is a low-cost replacement for traditional cell networks. It allows mobile phones to connect to each other if they're all within range of the transceiver, or to connect with any other phones with Internet connection. It utilizes a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) to create a GSM air interface on any standard GSM mobile phone. The founders of Burning Man, which began this week in Black Rock City, Nevada, have decided to trial the system by allowing the 50,000 or so attendees free access to the network.  Read More

Whether right or for wrong, the human brain is often compared to a computer, and vice-versa. They both receive data, process it, store it, and output new data. Unlike computers, however, the human brain doesn’t crash. Yes, people have nervous breakdowns, but that has more to do with psychological stress than with data management. Now, researchers from Yale University have figured out why our brains succeed where computers fail.  Read More