forged writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that networking giant Cisco Systems plans to acquire Linksys later this year for $500M, thus entering the consumer market. Linksys also has a press release. The good news is that those who bought a Linksys access point now have a Cisco access point for 1/2 of the price ;)"

deglr6328 writes "The final barriers to OLED commercialization have been falling fast lately with Kodak's first product shipping soon, Samsung demoing a 256 color OLED wristwatch phone and now Chi Mei Optoelectronics announcing a 20 inch full color active matrix OLED display. The new display was made possible by a breakthrough using amorphous silicon for the TFT. The new technique is said to allow conventional TFT LCD manufacturers to convert their facilities over to OLED with relative ease."

MightyMaus asks: "So I've been checking out various hardware websites lately, paging through computer retail catalogues, and basically pining for a better-paying job. But one device that's really caught my eye is the Programmable Keypad. Looks pretty cool, but $140? No way. Even the smaller version carries a hefty $90 price tag. Now, it seems like making one of these should be relatively easy; but the almighty Google returns nothing but more places to buy these things. So where do I turn? To Slashdot. Has anyone hacked together one of these before?"

schm00 writes "A Dell press release today announced an expansion of thier recycling program. For $15 they will arrange to pick up used computer equipment from your home and transport it to an EPA approved recycler. You can order pickup starting on March 25th. It's nice to see an alternative to the darker side of computer recycling."

dutky asks: "What devices does Slashdot recommend for the programmer on the go? Recently I went on vacation to Vietnam. Before we left my wife asked what I would do if I couldn't program for a month. I tried to assemble an inexpensive and portable programming environment using a Palm 130, but it was less than satisfactory. With the recent article on the Zarus PDA I have gotten to thinking about the problem again. Notably, I -don't- need a whopping amount of RAM, disk space, or processor speed, and I can live with fairly modest screen sizes. I was unable to find anything that matched all these criteria in about two weeks of occasional (and hurried) research. Do any such beasts exist?"

juxter writes "The BBC is reporting on a London bar which has installed a Bluetooth and WiFi access point. Owners of camera phones can wirelessly send their pictures to an overhead screen and web based gallery - The system runs the LocustWorld Linux based MeshAP which has been extended to drive bluetooth devices as well. Hopefully this will encourage more UK premises to deploy free hot spots."

steve writes "The German tech news site heise.de is reporting here (in German, of course) about a PCI card developed by the Universiy of Wuppertal and Vigos AG being shown at CeBIT, which does Gzip compression in hardware, thus freeing the CPU to do other tasks. The PCI card can compress 32MB/sec, which is more than enough to compress a 100Mbit LAN in realtime. A future version will do 64MB/sec. The article mentions that this will be of particular interest for web servers. The card should be on sale by the end of the year."

mckennabluedot.com writes "Laptops aren't truly portable until you can stand to sit with one on your lap for more than 30 minutes. Sandia National Labs has developed small copper 'wicks' to transport methanol--and waste heat--from one area of a computer to another, where it can be dispersed more efficiently, comfortably and compactly than with heat sinks. The technology is being licensed to an undisclosed startup." So this stuff (mentioned here previously) might soon make it to a lap near you.

Anonymous Howard writes "I've never understood the need for smart display's. It appears I'm not the only one. Here's an article that agrees with me, but even goes as far as calling smart displays a dumb idea. The only use I see for smart displays is in a business setting. But I still see better options, like laptops that connect to projectors, etc. What are the markets for smart displays and what are the targeted uses?"

Joey Patterson writes "CNET News.com reports that, after five years, Apple has stopped selling the gumdrop-shaped iMac to the general public."

ydeepakjois writes "BusinessWeek is running a series of articles on the potential of wireless high-speed access, the Wi-Fi industry and the challenges faced by it. There is also an interesting bit about a business model for wireless carriers."

Big Mike writes "c|net just published their review of the Sony Ericsson P800. They deem it the 'Maserati of smart phones'. Built- in camera, speakerphone, 16MB Memory Stick Duo, Bluetooth and IR connectivity, wireless e-mail, MP3 audio and MPEG-4 video capable, and more. Sounds good to me..." Of course, it looks pretty slick too. Infosync looked at this phone last month, and more praise is heaped on this time around too.

krezel asks: "So I've been drooling over the Ambient Orb, a cool little gadget 'glowing ball' that you changes colors based the 'health' of things you specify. It can do stuff like fade from red to yellow to green as your stock portfolio improves. However, being a poor college student I can't afford its $200 price tag. I've found lots of sources for super bright multi-color LED's. Cast a couple of them in some translucent resin, hook them up to a power source, and you've got yourself a cheap glowing ball. But I've yet to find any good information on how to build hardware that will let me control relays for devices like this through my serial or parallel port. Basically I'm looking for a cheap way to build a board that will let me control 4-8 relays (for each color) over my serial port, and some info on how to write the software for it. This could be a very cool project, and I plan on making the plans available, and the code Open Source, when I'm done with it. Any ideas?"

Tweakmeister asks: "With the product cycle for cell phones being what seems like months, is there any use for old phones? How about pagers? A search reveals some initiatives to recycle them or send them to foreign countries. Have you found any alternative uses for old cell phones?" We last touched on this subject in this previous article, from two years ago. Have any new ideas shown up on the horizon, since then?

Econolinecrush writes "If even exotic water-cooling isn't enough for your processor cooling needs, there's always vapor-phase cooling. The Tech Report has an interesting review of Asetek's latest Vapochill system, an admittedly pricey cooling option, but one that manages to fight off condensation while keeping even high-end processors running at sub-zero temperatures. A little extreme? Sure, but it's undeniably cool nonetheless." I haven't seen a cooling system this intense since my organic chemistry labs.

87C751 asks: "Over the weekend, I happened upon a deal: 10/100 PCI NICs for $1.99. I bought two and installed one in my Linux box. The box came up to POST, and the new NIC started looking for a DHCP server (which I thought was cute, if useless). Once that timed out, boot sequence continued to the message "NTLDR not found"! In an attempt to do a PXE net boot, the new NIC had -rewritten my boot sector!- Granted, a few minutes with a GRUB boot floppy set things right again, but why in the world is J. Random piece of hardware arrogant enough to frob my disc? Has anyone else been bitten by antisocial hardware?"

maxentius writes "Apple released detailed specs on the new Aluminum 17-inch PowerBooks, apparently intended to spur compatible hardware development. A PDF is available."

Bill Kendrick writes "LinuxDevices is reporting the good news: Sharp is now shipping the Zaurus SL-5600 Linux-based PDA. Compared to the SL-5500 that's been out for the past year, this new model sports a 400MHz X-Scale CPU, twice the Flash (32MB), twice the RAM (64MB) a much better battery (1700 mAh), and a real speaker and mic. Learn more at Sharp's website." And IceFox writes "Well I wasn't expecting this to happen till next week, but I guess it was put up early. For a limited time on hsn.com you can get a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA for $198.92, combined with a hsn.com coupon you can bring the price down to $169.08. For anyone who has wanted to play with this Linux PDA here is your chance to get it for very cheap." Update: 03/18 02:03 GMT by T : Reader Brendan Hoar corrects the listed specs: "The specs for the SL-5600 are incorrect. It should be 64MB of flash, 32MB of SDRAM. It's technically *half* the RAM of the SL-5500, not twice the RAM." Thanks.

Julio writes "For some, the Audigy 2 is what the original Audigy should have been, however without trying to underestimate Creative efforts, they are bringing us today a revamped soundcard that is set to raise the bar like the original Live! did, many years ago. You will be happy to know that Creative has taken care of the board quality from the ground up, newer and better DACs are used to ensure 24-Bit/96-kHz/192kHz playback and among the rest of niceties the card offers you have DVD-Audio playback, full 6.1 surround sound, THX certification and the mandatory (for a Creative soundcard) EAX Advanced HD."

cpfeifer writes "Washington Post has this article about Verizon rolling out it's ultrawideband wireless service based on EvDO (Evolution Data Only). Reiter breaks 1xEV-DO down for us."