Engineers at MIT are to unveil a $100 dollar laptop that they hope will stimulate education in the developing world. The 500Mhz kit boasts a number of unusual features aimed at making it tough, practical and usable in areas with a poor power infrastructure.
The laptop is blessed with a bare minimum Linux OS. It has a screen that can, with the press of a button, convert from colour to high-contrast back and white, making it viewable in strong sunlight. Power is provided via an AC cord that doubles up as a carrying handle, but can equally be provided by a hand crank on a 10 to 1 ratio i.e. one minute of cranking gives 10 minutes of use. There is in-built WiFi connectivity and each laptop can act as a node in a peer to peer network, meaning that a single internet connection can be used by neighbouring laptops. One area where the specification has not been compromised is memory with 1 GB installed - more than the laptop on which this story is being written.
The MIT team will target Brazil, China, Egypt, South Africa and Thailand for the $100 machines, which they hope will becime cheaper as production volumes increase.
TechSmec.com wonders how long it will be before Microsoft gets in on the act and start offering a ‘free’ version of Windows to the project. The thought of millions of new developing world PC owners using Linux must be an unsettling one for Bill Gates.
September 29th, 2005
Skype has released v1.4 of it’s Windows software adding a variety of new features including increased mobility options, new ways for callers to personalise Skype with original ringtones, sounds and pictures, better than ever sound quality, as well making it easy to find and connect to their friends, family and colleagues online.
“Skype pioneered free Internet phone calls, and even with more than 56 million people already registered, we’ve recently seen our growth accelerate to over 170,000 new registrations a day,” said Niklas Zennstrom, CEO and Co-founder of Skype. “We are passionate about really understanding what motivates people to want to make Internet communications a part of their everyday lives, and listening to our callers about what they want from Skype allows us to stay ahead of the game. Today, we are thrilled to be delivering on this promise by offering a new version of Skype which both new and existing callers will find adds powerful and innovative new features like call forwarding and personalization, as well as offering our best ever sound quality on our simplest product to install and use.”
Skype recently embarked on a comprehensive global survey to deepen an understanding of how Internet communications is used by people around the world and what they expect from next-generation personal communications services. According to the independent study, Skype is used once or several times a day by 76% of its callers, far surpassing the usage levels of traditional IM-based voice calling services. Callers also recognized Skype’s leadership in sound quality - 72% of Skype users consider call quality to be good to excellent. Skype callers are more international, with 85% communicating with people living abroad. Skype’s broad base of early adopters are eager to embrace new features, with 79% interested or very interested in receiving calls from landlines, and 73% interested or very interested in adopting call forwarding, key innovations unique to Skype.
The new Skype for Windows Version 1.4, which was first available in beta in August, incorporates two new premium services requested by Skype callers, and fortifies Skype’s role as a preferred complement to ordinary cell phones and landlines. It builds on Skype’s already extensive product offering which allows people to instant message, set up group chats, make conference calls, transfer files, send and receive voicemails, call and be called from a traditional phone system, and access Skype over Wi-Fi for extremely low rates.
Skype’s new Call Forwarding service will allow callers to forward incoming Skype calls to another Skype Name, or up to three landline or mobile numbers when they’re away from Skype, at no cost to the caller. Anyone using Skype may forward their calls to another Skype Name free of charge, or forward to traditional phone numbers at low SkypeOut rates. 83% of beta testers who have tried Call Forwarding have found it easy to use.
Skype’s new Personalise Skype features also allow callers to easily express themselves with original pictures, sounds and ringtones for as little as 1 euro ($1.20). This new feature opens up a new and exciting market for content providers looking to deliver great applications to Skype’s global callers and is initially offered in partnership with American Greetings, Qpass and Wee World. The global ringtone market is forecast to grow to $5.2 billion in 2006, and ringtones now account for over 10% of the $32.3 billion worldwide music market (Arc Group).
The new version of Skype makes it even easier for callers to extend their social network. It’s simple for callers to search Skype’s Global Directory, and import personal contacts from Outlook directly into their buddy lists. With the Skype Toolbars, users can make one-click calls to numbers and Skype Names from Internet Explorer and Outlook, adding tremendous value to popular desktop applications. Advanced Skype buttons allow webmasters and bloggers to create links that instantly initiate Skype actions, such as conference calls and chats.
September 29th, 2005
Dell is jumping into the media center market with both feet following its annoucement of a revamped XPS range including XPMCE as standard.
The new range is definitely being targeted at the luxury end of the market (some analysts have compared it to Toyota’s Lexus range of cars in terms of marketing concept).
The range includes three XPS desktops starting at $1000 with XPMCE and one new XPS notebook for $2699. However, the basic configurations may need plumping out with extra RAM and more powerful hardware, so expect to pay anything up to $6000 for a really high spec.
Nice looking PCs, but not at a normal Dell-type low price.
September 29th, 2005
Scottish tabloid, The Daily Record, quoting Graham Harding, professor in clinical neurophysiology at Birmingham’s Aston University, says that playing with your PSP could induce an epileptic fit.
“Any video game has flashing images but it’s the proximity to the screen that can induce the seizures,” says Prof Harding. “And people hold handheld consoles, such as the PSP, very close to their faces.”
So, to be accurate, playing any video game with the screen 2 inches from your nose could induce a fit if you are susceptible. Seems unfair to single out the PSP then Mr Daily Record reporter?
Nintendo must be seething that the DS didn’t seem to get a mention, but then there’s not really enough of them around to warrant a full scale health alert.
Source: The Daily Record
September 29th, 2005