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Loading ...Intel leaves One Laptop behind
It is with tear welling in eye that I note Intel has severed ties with One Laptop Per Child, a project to deliver cheap laptops to children in developing countries, a development that really should shock no one.
With both hulla and ballou last July, the chipmaker and OLPC announced Intel was joining the board of the project and would work with OLPC to develop cheap laptop technology. Never mind that OLPC was already pushing the XO, an AMD-based laptop, nor that Intel was offering a competing computer, though at twice the price, in the Classmate.
It’s ended in tears and recriminations, with Intel citing “irreconcilable differences” and OLPC chair Nicholas Negroponte rumbling that Intel never put anything into the relationship. They just couldn’t stay together, even for the children’s sake (cue sappy music). Read the rest of this entry »
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(Rate This Article) Loading ...Update: PIN your data key
A couple days back, I wrote about a USB data key from Corsair that’s secured by a personal identification number (PIN). I promised then to turn it over to our IT squad to see if they could extract data from the key without using the pin.
Well, they’ve had at ‘er for three days now, disassembling it, poking and probing, and it seems to be watertight (though not literally, like the Survivor USB key). It seems the key draws power from a battery within, not from the USB port on a computer, and it’s soldered in. They’ve concluded they can’t get at it without destroying the key. So chalk one up for Corsair.
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(Rate This Article) Loading ...PIN your data key
Every once in a while here at Cool Tools Central, an oddly shaped package arrives, completely unsolicited. After listening very carefully to ensure it isn’t ticking, we open it it. It’s like Christmas every day, but without the socks.
Our latest little surprise came from the people at Corsair, who take USB memory keys and do things to the design that make you go, “I wish I’d thought of that.” A few weeks back, Corsair sent us the Survivor, a USB key housed in an aircraft-grade aluminium tube that gave us hours of entertainment trying to disprove its claims of indestructability.
The new package contained the Flash Padlock, an ingenious idea that protects your data with a PIN number. And if it’s half as secure as the FedEx package it came in, which took two strong men, a pair of scissors and about 15 minutes to open, then it’s, well, pretty secure.
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...Vanity, thy name is LG Shine
So, off to trendy downtown T.O. hotspot Lobby (corporate slogan: “No, you can’t come in dressed like that”) for the announcement of the new lineup of cell phones from Rogers for the holiday season. It’s a rough life, this being forced to eat Kobe beef sliders and wash ‘em down with raspberry mojitos, but someone’s gotta do it. Read the rest of this entry »
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(Rate This Article) Loading ...Fighting Office Butt
A friend of mine sends out a weekly invitation to her mailing list to join her aquafit class. “Fight Office Butt!” she admonishes. (Okay, she doesn’t use the word “butt,” but this is a family program.)
Yes, we send too much time sitting on our assets in front of a computer. This can be a sedentary life (if not actually, glacially, sedimentary) and we can probably use a little more activity. So says Gamercize, a U.K. company that’s marketing the GZ PC-Sport & Power Stepper. Read the rest of this entry »
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(1 votes, average: 9 out of 10) Loading ...The Littlest Notebook
To tell the truth, I wasn’t paying 100 per cent attention when Irving Frydman at Fujitsu offered to send along the new LifeBook U810 for review. I thought he’d be sending one of the slim, shiny laptops I’ve grown to covet over the years for their impossibly light weight, sexy form factor and richly detailed LCD displays (not to mention their correspondingly hefty price tags).
What turned up was, while tiny, certainly not like the machines I’ve test-driven before. While Fujitsu calls the U810 a notebook computer, you could argue it’s a convertible tablet UMPC. It’s smaller than a paperback, with a compressed keyboard, 5.6-inch touchscreen, built-in Web cam and fingerprint reader, and runs on Windows Vista Basic. You can get full specs here. Read the rest of this entry »
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(1 votes, average: 10 out of 10) Loading ...iPhone impersonators and the landscape of Web design
Telus and HTC launched the HTC Touch smart phone at a downtown Telus retailer this morning. One’s coming in for a full review shortly, but I had some hands-on time with it at the launch, and I must say … well, it’s a smart phone.
It’s not explicitly positioned as an iPhone competitor, but it’s implicit. David Neale, chatting after the launch, referred to the iPhone as “opening the floodgates” for similar devices. Read the rest of this entry »
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...One bad Apple
While we in Canada wait with bated breath for Apple to bestow upon us the privilege of owning an iPhone, developments south of here might tarnish the World’s Coolest Phone’s hitherto unblemished reputation.
Apple’s software update has “bricked” (as in, rendered about as useful as a) iPhones hacked to work on networks other than AT&T’s in the States. Phones with third-party software freeze. Oh, and there have been some feature upgrades, but they seem to be quite beside the point.
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...A handset with a stunning feature
I was getting a little jaded with the mobile device scene this week. Nothing new, nothing original, nothing revolutionary. (It says something about the industry when you expect a revolution every week.) Nokia sent along the new 6070 handset, and though I haven’t given it thorough investigation — that’ll have to wait for next week — it just seems like a well-spec’d tri-band handset.
Yawn. We’ve come to expect new features every iteration of the mobi, and after messaging, integrating video cams, calendaring, Web browsing, e-mail, well, what’s left to jam into your cell phone?
Then, devoted technophile Kathleen Sibley brought my attention to this: The Stunster. Read the rest of this entry »
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(2 votes, average: 9 out of 10) Loading ...Survivor: Dave’s Place
Out of the blue last week, a parcel arrived bearing Corsair’s Flash Survivor, a ruggedized 8G USB key in a blister pack with a camo-screened cardboard insert with GI-style stencil logo. In fact, the Corsair Web site describes the Survivor as “ultra rugged,” which is a challenge if I ever heard one. It’s days like these that make me regret opting for the enclosed sunroom instead of the open balcony.
Does it seem rugged? Damn straight. The drive screws into a CNC milled aluminium tube with a seal the company claims is watertight to 200 metres, and if you’ve got a flash drive in your pocket in more than 200 metres of water, you’ve got more pressing issues than whether you can recover your data. So yeah, it looks tough. But tough enough to survive a weekend with me? A weekend when I have to do laundry? Read the rest of this entry »
