The next generation of EEE PC will sport a touch-screen interface and other goodies, such as a GPS module most probably. According to DigiTimes, the new 8.9-incher will go for around US$500 which is pretty good. The new EEE PC will have SSD space from 8-12 Gb, unlike the currently available model with 4 Gb of SSD space. One of the things that I also like is the fact that the new bigger screen will also have a higher resolution (1024×600 pixels).

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Sounds like a name for a car concept featuring a hybrid power plant, but it’s actually the latest sub-notebook warrior. It’s a very sexy design featuring things like built-in webcam, three USB 2.0 ports, ethernet, 56Kb/s modem (?!). Info is pretty thin for now, with everyone waiting for ECS (Elitegroup Group Systems) to give out more information. The design is good though…

Images from pocket-lint.co.uk

I just love the keyboard, and the design is very agreeable with me, as it reminds me of the VAIO I used to have (well, still got it, but broken, awaiting reparation). Some already call it the EEE PC killer (although HP Compaq 2133, better looking than EEE BTW, and Cloudbook are threatened as well). I don’t know, but it definitely looks good, maybe because it brings a little bit of a Mac Book and Sony VAIO mix that the others lack as far as design is considered.

According to Pocket Link, the device comes with a HSPDA 7.2 datacard built-in, so we’ve got mobile broadband connectivity. I am expecting the G10IL to feature all the wireless connectivity it can with WiFi and Bluetooth. There’s no optical drive, which is kinda expected for a device this size. Judging from the picture and hand-to-casing size ratio, it’s going to be a nine-incher. ECS is aiming at a below $500 price mark, which sounds alright.

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Almost a month ago Yahoo! announced Yahoo! oneConnect, a mobile communications aggregator and yesterday they announced Yahoo! onePlace, which is also to appear live sometime in Q2 2008. Basically, Yahoo! onePlace is going to be a pretty nifty attempt by Yahoo! to help mobile users organize “everything” they need in one place.

“Yahoo! onePlace(TM) will bring together a consumer’s interests, passions and important information into a single location - creating a rich and highly personalized experience. Everything is instantly organized, dynamically kept current, and served to them the way they want. So now, the content they consume and the way they consume it will be hyper-customized to their specific preferences and tastes.”

They are promising it will be simple to use, being based on bookmarking as a way to link to practically any content on the Web (news feeds, web sites, videos, images, emails, search queries, whatever)… Every item will be automatically updated with new values and data (quotes, scores, etc.) and the users will be able to categorize content freely. Yahoo! gives an example of a scenario where a user may find Yahoo! onePlace a neat application to use:

“…if a user is planning a holiday to Paris in June, he could create a “Paris” collection, and begin linking it to any information he thinks will be useful to him on his trip: weather conditions, city guides, restaurant reviews, hotel reservations, walking maps, songs of Edith Piaf, English-French dictionaries, winery recommendations, etc. Yahoo! onePlace will give consumers a single location to consume all of their information contextually, keeping it updated (so they know, for example, if their flight times have changed) and instantly accessible whenever and however they want it…”

Sounds pretty good, and will be released just in time for summer holidays

Smart phones are changing the way people use mobile phones, and we’ll probably be seeing a drastic shift towards web-based applications aimed at mobile devices, rather than applications that have to be installed on the device itself, taking up valuable memory and causing inevitable hangs and slow-downs.

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Great news for all hi-tech adopting professionals (smart phone oriented) who find LinkedIn a useful business social networking tool - LinkedIn released a mobile version of their service. It’s available at m.linkedin.com. The interface allows for any mobile internet enabled device (with Wireless Application Protocol) to access the service, although there is a special beta version for iPhone.

The team behind the new mobile LinkedIn is working on introducing more applications to the mobile LinkedIn platform, such as LinkedIn Answers and LinkedIn Experts.

The new mobile LinkedIn service is available immediately in these languages - English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese, but additional languages are to follow in the near future.

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It seems Apple is working hard on developing a new generation input interface. The new patent pertains to something called “multi-touch input surface” and is a step forward (or a few steps forward) from the existing solutions, implemented on iPhone for example.

There’s a lot of technical details involved, but basically it comes down to improved ergonomics. The new interface will allow multiple ways for users to use it - finger touch and stylus (pen) - but without having to make all the excess hand, arm and body movement that inherently leads to fatigue injuries over time. It will “provide tactile key or hand position feedback without impeding hand resting on the surface or smooth, accurate sliding across the surface.”

See in more detail on Apple Insider.

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Just saw this on Engadget - HP revealed their new UMPC, the HP Compaq 2133. I must say I am very pleased with the design. The “lifestyle accessory” really looks good. Even though it’s more an ultra-portable laptop, such as the Everex Cloudbook and the EEE PC, rather than what we’ve been used to calling an UMPC, its size is indeed small. Plus, it looks way better than the two afore mentioned models. According to Engadget, the new mobile computer sports an 8.9” scratch resistant wide-screen format (1366×766px), ExpressCard/54 slot, Wireless LAN, an almost full-sized QWERTY (95% full size), integrated web cam, and optional SSD and all that in a 2.5-pound (1.125 kg) anodized aluminum casing. It will be running Windows Vista or Linux.

I don’t know about you, but me wants one. I’d carry it everywhere and call it “precious”.

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Yahoo! announced oneConnect in Barcelona (at the Mobile World Congress). Basically it’s their approach to aggregating mobile communications on a single platform. The service will provide features like socially-connected address book, integrated mobile messaging, pulse, favorites and a social contact card. It will also initially bring integration of the major social networking sites such as Bebo, Dopplr, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, hi5, Last.fm, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Wow, impressive!

“Last year we set out to reinvent mobile search with Yahoo! oneSearch, and today with 29 operator partnerships around the world covering more than 600 million subscribers, we believe we have certainly succeeded… Now, we intend to reinvent mobile communications through Yahoo! oneConnect, a revolutionary new mobile communications service that will combine integrated mobile messaging with a socially-connected address book.” (Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo!)

More information about Yahoo! oneConnect here.

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Gypsii is a social network for people who use mobile devices and the web. The core of the network is that all content is geo-location tagged. This means that if you produce content in form of pictures, text, video - it will not only be shared with others on the network, but also tied to the exact location where the content creation took place (country, city, street, club, bar, restaurant, etc). Your friends on the network will be able to get information about the exact time and place where the shared event happened. That’s not all - users can create points of interest (ex. restaurant with good food and low prices). Each user can find these points of interest and get distance from their present location to the point of interest. There are plenty more ways to use this network, for example for checking what another friend did today (where they went, and corresponding generated content if available), and their present location relative to your own (if they are close by). Friends can easily find each other and meet for coffee or lunch, or at a common point of interest (a sale at a fashion store). Their video does a good job of explaining features, so check it out.

Gypsii officially announced their services at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday. It’s available in several languages for now - US English, UK English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

The fact that geo-location is deeply integrated into the service, may represent a nice advertising opportunity for local services and vendors. Each advertised business could easily be added by the user as a point of interest.

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Mozilla is busy developing the new mobile version of the Firefox browser. Doug Turner, Firefox mobile product manager, has just released another idea for the user interface for the new mobile FF, on his blog. Basically, the browser would have a hidden UI layer that would come up when a user touches one of the icons that translucently sits on the bottom of the screen. The whole idea is that the user would have the whole screen available for viewing the internet page, and use the UI extension only on demand. Here are two pictures which represent what the new mobile FF UI could look like:

  

Pretty good idea, although I am hoping the mobile FF will not inherit blocking glitches of its big brothers (open a few tabs and run a couple of AJAX intensive sites, and that’s it). The Mozilla Wiki already has an entry for the new mobile touchscreen browser interface from a while ago, although quite different than the one just presented.

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Skyfire, a company which specializes in mobile web browsing technology, released a Beta version of their new mobile web browser which should deliver PC browsing quality to mobile phones. The idea is to allow mobile web surfers to do anything they would on a PC based web browser, without any restrictions or limitations. There are already mobile web browsers that are very good like Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, Internet Explorer Mobile, which all do a very decent job of presenting web content.

Skyfire promises greater speed, no technology limitations (supports latest Flash version, Quick Time and Java embedded content).

“We’re talking about full-featured PC versions of your favorite web sites. Skyfire gives you speedy page loads, full audio, video, images, dynamic Flash content, advanced Ajax, Java and more – just like your PC.”

Okay, that sounds pretty good. The browser is still in Beta, but you can sign-up for testing right away. There is only a version of the software for Windows Mobile phones for the time being (and US based numbers only), but Skyfire promises versions for Symiban as well. Here’s their video which shows a demonstration of the new product:

It’s free, so if you are in the US, have a Windows Mobile phone, sign up for the Beta release and get an early taste.

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