Purdah writes "I found this site with a description of a new type of palm sixed PC. It runs windows and would be great for mobile uses like music and movies (says it can store 3 movies). Extracts below are from the official website: complete Windows XP wireless handheld computer, cradle to dock with a keyboard and monitor, transforming the OQO to a full feature desktop machine, media player mode with enough memory for 1000 songs or three feature length movies, optimization for cool running and miserly power consumption" Looks a little vaporous to me, as well as thick. But there's an awful lot of potential if they get it right.

ender81b writes "Scientific American is carrying a nice article on asynchronous chips. In general, the article advocates that eventually all computer systems will have to move to an asynchronous design. The article focuses on Sun's efforts but gives a nice overview of the general concept of asynchronous chip design." We had another story about this last year.

Little Hamster writes "SGI and Nokia have signed an agreement to co-operate on the development of a 3D standard suitable for all embedded mobile terminals, based on OpenGL. This could be used for bringing real 3D Games to mobile devices, 3D global positioning systems, 3D representations of buildings or even creating entire interfaces in 3D. You can also find the press release press release here."

An anonymous reader writes: "Charter Communications will offer a Moxi-like cable tv set top box with DVR / MP3 capabilities next year. Here it is. I like the idea of merging the set-top box with a DVR using normal cable tv or satellite. A good combination."

An anonymous submitter writes "I noticed that a review of NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset has been posted here. From what I can gather the chipset contains two 10/100 ethernet controllers, six USB 2.0 ports, UltraATA133 support, three 1394 ports, five PCI slots, and an integrated GeForce4 MX core including NVIDIA's nView technology and a TV Tuner." Tom's Hardware and NVNews also have looks at it.

miradu writes: "TreoCentral has just posted an intriguing article about how the Handspring Treo has Flash ROM - something that Handspring claims it doesn't. They've worked with Brayder Technology to create applications to utilize this newly discovered feature. It brings up the question, Why do developers lie about features in a device - especially if they are features that are wanted? Does anyone know any other examples?" Strange -- hardware manufacturers don't often underestimate their products' capabilities, do they?

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wanted a Mac case for your pc? Well this is your lucky day. Well sort of... you can read a preview of this yet-to-be-released case at hardware-unlimited.com." Smart design -- Now, if only this came in black ...

New Palm writes "It looks like pictures of a new Palm os5 device codenamed 'Oslo' have hit the web. www.pocketpcthought.com had them up, but after a phonecall from Palm's Director of Global Information Security, pulled the pictures. A number of people are mirroring them. Looks semi-legit - but who knows, and who knows how long the images will stay up?

Diabolus writes "This is the tale of a man, a bunch of disposable cameras, and his techniques for harvesting lots of capacitors to build a gauss gun. Insane..." A basic capacitor tutorial is probably in order.

unspec writes "For those looking for cheap Macintosh DVD authoring, Zettabyte Solutions have a press release describing the SuperDrive-equipped eMac they will soon be offering." I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to convert your own eMac to a "SuperDrive," but I don't really know.

visionWhiteout asks: "I've been looking around a while for a laptop that would suit my special needs. I have a rare eye disorder known as achromatopsia which makes it nearly impossible to see a laptop screen in bright condititions. The ideal solution is a headset with a small screen near the eye, but the ones that I've seen (mostly on ThinkGeek) are a bit bulky. I'm not sure how many people remember it, but there was an old IBM commercial featuring a small voice activated PC that used a device like this. I was wondering if that, or anything similar has become available that I may have missed. Any other commentary is greatly appreciated."

An anonymous reader writes "This is only important for the networkphiles out there, but the Category 6 UTP specification is finally here. The standard is the TIA/EIA-568-B.2-1. The significance of this is that now you can transmit at 250Mhz frequencies (vs 100Mhz of Cat 5/5e). So 1Gbps is easily achievable. Of course ther's still Category 7 (600Mhz) in development, but I guess we should eventually move to fiber." Who hasn't crimped cat-5 before?

ColonelPanic writes: "I switched my computer keyboard to the Dvorak layout about a year ago. But now I've gone and done something really outlandish. I tried to discover the most efficient layout possible with a genetic algorithm. It's weird-looking, but I am typing with it now. I put the gory details up on the Web."

EccentricAnomaly writes: "CNN is reporting that the Simputer will roll out next month. The Simputer is a handheld computer running GNU/Linux starting at around $214 and is aiming to be an affordable computer for the third world that can be used even by the illiterate with its text-to-speech features. From the Simputer website: "The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man." Slashdot ran a story in May 2001 reporting the launch of the Simputer project." The same Reuters story is also found at the Hindustan Times.

mrsaggy writes "When you get sick of putting an aluminium case on your PC, and lighting up the keyboard, here is something you can do with your optical mouse. Does anyone know where I can get a Han Solo lego figure ?" Thats a pretty funny mod. Ya don't see many mouse mods, and that one is pretty cool.

whoppers asks: "I'm sure we've all had our share of computer fans die, but what happens if your box is running while you're at work and several fans go out? My in-laws spare TigerPC AMD K62-400's power supply fan just went out about two hours ago, and the thing was blazing hot. A little poke to the blade, and it started up again, but shouldn't these things be made to stop if the fan stops for any reason? I'm starting to wonder if I should start leaving my box off when I'm away for a few hours. Since it's usually wide open, I don't see too much harm, but these cheap boxes that never get opened and cleaned have to be a hazard right? I can't afford a halon system in my office just yet. The only link I found related to this is here and should a few more people read this, here's the cached version. Does anyone have any thoughts or stories related to this?" The fact that this article appears on July 4th, when most Americans will be lighting fireworks is purely coincidental. That doesn't change the fact that the submittor raises a very good point. A general rule of computers is: the older they get, the more dusty they are and dust bunnies and their denser cousins are highly flammable. Unless you can keep such machines clean, it' is probably safer to leave them off.

Anonymous Gimp writes "Today's keyboards aren't what they used to be, no sir! Back in my day, we had our BS technology; our keyboards had chassis which allowed 'em to be thrown off a 3-story building and still work - barely dented. Yes those were the days. Now we've got these newfangled Wireless Ergonomic E-Mail button membrane keyboards. To heck with them, I say!"

haahr writes "Good article about why the coolest electronics products are available first in Japan and may never make it to the U.S., in Slate."

bjschrock writes "Tech-Junkie reports that Asus is rolling out new motherboards with the new Serial ATA interface, along with AGP 8X support. Serial ATA will soon become pretty popular with the release of new hardware like the Seagate Baracudda ATA V hard drive, that sports a 8MB cache. The main advantage of Serial ATA, besides a slight speed increase, is the much smaller cable and the ability to hot-swap."

Gameface asks: "I am looking for the smallest system I can find, in quantity, for my company. We need thousands of these systems, and I'd like to ask the Slashdot community what they'd recommend. Looking for the tiniest footprint for: Case, Motherboard, CPU, RAM, HDD, Serial Port, (2) 10/100 ports. No video required, no sound, all access will be via console (serial port). No OS, just a bare piece of hardware that I can load the OS onto the HDD. I'd really like to find something with SIMMS so we can upgrade the RAM if we need to. And of course, price is very much an issue. Thanks."