Sabah Arif writes "We've all heard of Apple's Newton, the portable handheld device under John Sculley's rule at Apple that debuted to big media attention and much fanfare but never managed to take a strong footing in the marketplace. The same handhel that went on to be 'Steve'd' when Mr. RDF killed the project after taking control of Apple. That's the extent of knowledge most of us have with regard to Apple's first handheld device. OS Opinion sheds light on the early days of the pocket Apple." From the article: "Apple in the late eighties had become stagnant. The Macintosh had become Apple's cash cow like the Apple II that had preceded it. To protect the Mac, Apple was hesitant to start or pursue any project that might compromise the company's revenues. Several people in the corporation were weary of this approach, and began to look at the future of computing. One of those people was Steve Sakoman."

MarkEst1973 writes "Sun Microsystems Inc. is buying Storage Technology Corp. in a $4.1 billion cash deal, the companies announced Thursday. The acquisition answers lingering questions about what Sun would do with about $3.1 billion of balance sheet cash. StorageTek is a profitable company with $191 million in profit in '04 on $2.2bn in sales while Sun posted a loss last year (albeit a much smaller one than the year before)."

grqb writes "Reuters is reporting that strong growth for portable devices such as laptop computers, game and music players, PDAs and mobile phones is expected to pressure battery manufacturers to improve their products, which are quickly becoming the limiting step in portable technology development. The lithium-ion battery technology that is commonly used hasn't changed in several years. The race is on to find battery technologies that are lighter and have increased life, but major breakthroughs don't seem to be on the horizon other than the lithium polymer battery, which can squeeze roughly 10-20% more life than lithium-ion. Micro fuel cells that run off of methanol are touted to be the next major wave for portable power, although logistics and price still make these fuel cells long shots, which is why Nokia recently dropped development of this technology."

DreamWheezer asks: "I work on a medical imaging program that uses CrystalEyes for high resolution true color stereoscopy. This program requires high resolution high frequency true color CRTs. Very recently, a vendor trend has developed: almost all are dropping out of the CRT market in favor of LCDs. Unfortunately, LCDs cannot render high resolution page sequential stereoscopy. The vendors have said that autostereo LCDs are on the way in 12 to 18 months, but what can I do in the meantime? Furthermore, does this mean the end is near for CRTs?" While there does still seem to be a market for CRTs, it seems to be dwindling to a narrow niche. Are LCDs ready to take over as the primary computer display or is the retirement of CRTs, premature?

magic_user writes "Now that Mattel's JuiceBox can be had for $12 (Target, WalMart), this seems like a perfect toy for hackers. I've found a picture frame hack but what I'm really looking for is a way to play my own videos on it. It runs uclinux so this shouldn't be too hard, right? "

Gorm the DBA asks: "I live out in the boonies, where Cable is just another word for what the telegraph guy delivers and the nearest Central Office is over 27,000 feet away, so DSL is at best a (fat) Pipe Dream, and dialup speeds top out at 17,700baud on a good day. Currently we have satellite internet via DirecWay, but it's expensive ($60/month) and VPNlike applications are not supported, never mind gaming (high latency), which reduces it's utility dramatically. At the same time, I've been looking at getting a new cell phone. I see that Sprint, Cingular, and others all have cards that you can plug into your computer and use the cellular network to get data. The claim is 'wireless online surfing as fast as DSL'. I've confirmed I'm in the coverage areas, but is this really as good as they're making it sound? It's pricey ($79.99/month, plus the cost of the card), but it would be portable as well. Does anybody have experience with this sort of technology? Is it ready for prime time? Does it really work? Is it worth it? Is the internet access real, or a filtered 'You get what we want you to get' sort of thing?"

zbojnik83 writes " Today was the official start of this year's Computex, but as always we were able to get a sneak peak at the show before the floor actually opened. With the show a day barely underway, we've already seen the first AMD BTX motherboard, a number of NVIDIA G70 graphics cards, an Intel motherboard that can be switched to an Socket-939 board by just purchasing a single card and the details of ATI's new multi-GPU chipset."

HaloPhreak writes "InformationWeek reports today that AMD has released the Athlon 64 X2 for the high end desktop. Intel and AMD have been competing to get these out as soon as possible, but I think it will be interesting to see what AMD will do with the mobile version of this processor, due out in 2006." From the article: "Both companies have been in a tight race to deliver the processors since engineers realized that simply ratcheting up the clock speed of single-core chips was creating too much heat and not producing the same improvements seen in previous models."

chip rosenthal writes "The effort to ban municipal networks in Texas has failed. Texas House Bill 789 originally had provisions to ban muni wireless networks. The Senate passed a significantly rewritten version, without a ban. A conference committee failed to reach agreement, so the bill died when the Texas legislature adjourned this weekend."

Igor Birman writes "Reuters reports that Toyota aims to sell service robots by 2010. Meanwhile, the most advanced consumer robot produced in the US appears to be the iRobot Roomba, now available in pink. More information is available at Robotics Trends and NewsTarget.com"

Kez writes "I couldn't express the size of this heatsink in the space provided for the subject of this post. It's the size of a small country and when the fan is running, turbulence from it means a no-fly zone needs to enforced above it. At Hexus.net we've got a picture of this behemoth."

boarder8925 writes "From Wired: 'A new Wintel prototype that openly apes Apple Computer's popular Mac mini is due out this week, giving Intel a showcase to prove its chips are a match for anyone when it comes to tiny PC designs. Working prototypes of the Mac mini look-alike running Microsoft Windows and based on Intel's Pentium M CPU have already been built by Taiwan PC maker AOpen at Intel's request, according to two sources in Taiwan's PC manufacturing industry who have seen them.' This isn't the non-working box Slashdot covered earlier."

MrIcee2 writes "XtremeResources today has on the test bench the Hiper Type-R Modular Blue Line 580W Power Supply Unit . Our European Senior Reviewer Grace evaluates the high end modular Power Supply Unit solution powering her Intel P4 3.73 EE, Asus P5AD2-E premium based test bench. Read along as she determines the flexibilty this unit offers in it's modular construction, and takes a look inside to see what make this unit the powerhouse that it is. "Most users underestimate the necessity of a good, reliable and high quality power supply unit. They usually do not understand that it is the driving force for the whole system and it can affect reliability and stability substantially. An inadequate power supply unit will cause instability of the system at best, it may overload and burn out attached components in the worst case scenario. Hiper (High Performance Group) recently released the Type-R modular blue line HPU-4B580 power supply unit, which is competitively priced and claims to be able to offer everyone what they want and require. Hiper was nice enough to have us take a look at the unit, so we will shortly know if it can stand up to its claims."

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a robot combined with a swallowable camera could give doctors a better look inside the small intestine. This medical robot, dubbed 'bugbot,' is being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in its NanoRobotics Laboratory. It will measure less than 800 nanometers in diameter and will transmit thousands of images during its trip inside yourself with its embedded camera. With the six legs attached to the microrobot, CMU researchers want to give more control to camera operators, such as coming back to a suspected lesion. This robot should be ready for human inspection within 2 to 3 years and opens the way for future nanorobots. This overview contains more details about this project."

Jon_Aquino writes "For programmers like me with wrist pain (the dreaded Emacs Pinky syndrome), I have made a simple keyboard modification that lets you press the Ctrl, Alt, and Shift keys with your thumbs. Just like those expensive $240 Kinesis keyboards, but made using a $30 K'nex building toy. (K'nex is like Lego but uses rods instead of bricks)."

Eh-Wire writes "This is an interesting point made by a Clayton Hallmark on IndyMedia out of Argentina. He predicts that cheap Asian computing appliances with an Open Source Operating System on a chip will be the ultimate MS killer. References to the US$220 Mobilis out of India suggest the begining of newer, more powerful, and cheaper things to come. Mr. Hallmark also points to the success of the Wal-Mart cheap PC as proof the end is near for proprietory software. Overall an in interesting and thought provoking read."

grqb writes "News.com is reporting that GreenFuel Technologies, a Cambridge, Mass. based start-up, is using algae fed with sunlight, water and emissions from power plants to make biodiesel. The benefits are that heavy polluters can cut back on their emissions and at the same time make biodiesel. The algae consumes carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis and they also break down nitrogen oxide, reducing the amount of polluting gas released. Once the algae are grown, the conversion to biodiesel is a relatively simple process. The company uses technology licensed from a NASA project. The only barrier now is to prove that it is economically viable."

ValourX writes "NewsForge (part of OSTG, like Slashdot) has a review of a mouse that is powered by RFID (and yes, it works with Linux). It's cordless and uses no batteries -- you just have to keep the mouse within 2 inches of the mousepad for it to work. What else could be powered by RFID?"

Badluck writes "Microsoft and the entertainment industry's holy grail of controlling copyright through the motherboard has moved a step closer with Intel Corp. now embedding digital rights management within in its latest dual-core processor Pentium D and accompanying 945 chipset. Officially launched worldwide on the May 26, the new offerings come DRM -enabled and will, at least in theory, allow copyright holders to prevent unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard rather than through the operating system as is currently the case..." The Inquirer has the story as well.

buckymatters writes "Christoffer Järnåker has converted an old home phone to be used with Skype, MSN voice chat or other similar software. Using the 'highly scientific method Trial and Error' he uncovered the input and output of the phone, wired it up and began talking 300 meters away from his computer on MSN."