AOpen mobile-on-desktop PCs enter Core 2 Duo era

AOpen has equipped its MiniPC line-up with Intel’s mobile Core 2 Duo processor – aka ‘Merom’ – the company said today, neatly avoiding World+Dog’s announcements yesterday of notebooks based on the chip giant’s latest next-generation part.

AOpen said its MiniPC MP945-X and MP945-VXR small form-factor systems would be offered with Core 2 Duo processor support, as would its line-up of MiniPC-oriented motherboards based on Intel’s 975X and 945-series chipsets.

The company also promised downloadable BIOS updates for purchased machines to allow their owners to swap in Core 2 Duo CPUs.

The 16.5 x 16.5cm-footprint MP945-VXR contains a motherboard based on Intel’s 945GM integrated chipset providing Gigabit Ethernet, DVI output, Firewire and USB. The SATA hard drive and slot-loading DVD burner are mounted on a riser card for easy removal and replacement. AOpen said. The AOpen miniPC also includes a built-in component, S-Video, composite out port as well as 5.1 channel audio.

Essentially, the new model shares the same specification as the MP945-VX AOpen unveiled at the CeBIT show in March 2006. There’s still only a single memory slot: a DDR 2 SO-DIMM connector supporting memory clocked at up to 667MHz. And there are no PCI Express slots – just a MiniPC connector, used for a Wi-Fi adaptor card. ®

via reghardware

technorati tags:AOpen mobile desktop PCs enter Core 2 Duo era hardware

Top 10 firefox Web 2.0 addons

With all this talk of the Web as a platform, it’s worth taking a closer look at what web apps are using Firefox as their platform. Firefox is regarded as the best Web browser in terms of extensions – i.e. small browser add-ons which modify or add to existing functionality. It has hundreds of add-ons, which can be downloaded from here. But which are the best ‘web 2.0’ add-ons for Firefox? And I’m using the term ‘web 2.0’ very broadly here, to mean any add-on that has a social Web aspect to it.

Based on Mozilla’s list of recommended extensions, AdaptiveBlue‘s Alex Iskold and I have generated a top 10 list of Firefox Web 2.0 add-ons. As always, let us know your own favorite add-ons in the comments.

Smart Browsing / Personal Productivity

Browster

Browster is a very cool add-on that enhances your browsing experience – for example mousing over a link gives you a preview of the website. It enables you to speed up your browsing experience and can save a lot of clicks in the long run. It does this by automatically pre-fetching links. It’s a free add-on for both IE and Firefox – and hopes to make a profit by putting ads in the pop-up previews.

Answers

Answers is an add-on that promises to “instantly deliver the information you are looking for”. It comes from answers.com, which is a popular online dictionary and Wikipedia syndication site. Alex says this is a “perfect example of smart integration with a service in the browser”. The Answers add-on works like this:

“Just point at any word, hold the Alt key and click. Upon letting go, an AnswerTip in the form of a pop-up “information bubble” appears on the screen explaining the term.”

blueorganizer

The blueorganizer smart browsing extension for Firefox is developed by Alex’s company adaptiveblue. This extension drives productivity by building smarts and semantics into the browser. The blueorganizer integrates with many popular sites and services – including Amazon, Flickr, YouTube, iTunes, Odeo and Netflix. It utilizes Amazon’s S3 storage service, as well as being run from the Firefox browser – so it is using the Web as a platform in many ways. SolutionWatch has a great review of blueorganizer, if you want to find out more.

Bookmarking / Social Bookmarking

delicious

The del.icio.us extension for Firefox allows you to easily bookmark webpages in del.icio.us, from within the Firefox browser. It integrates with the Firefox toolbar and provides extra options such as right-click menu and highlight text to add notes.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is an increasingly popular bookmarking tool – indeed in my recent post about the Turkey market, we discovered that StumbleUpon is a very popular app in Turkey. The StumbleUpon add-on is described as “collaborative surfing tool”, because you can browse websites according to what other people recommend.

ClipMarks 

ClipMarks is an early pioneer in the clipping space. Users clip pieces out of web pages and share these bits with each other. They can also tag and lookup the clips, but not much more can be done since the information is not structured. The Clipmarks Firefox add-on integrates this with the browser.

Google Notebook 

Google Notebook is very similar to Clipmarks, but has better Firefox integration. It also works in IE6. As with Clipmarks, the user manually extracts text and images out of the page – but this information is unstructured. Google Notebook has had mixed reviews so far, but we think Google is currently putting in resources to improve it.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer

FoxMarks Bookmark Synchronizer is an easy way to sync your Firefox bookmarks, if you use Firefox on more than one computer. It is very simple, but does its job nicely and has been well received by Firefox users.

RSS Readers

Unfortunately, we are not aware of a really great RSS Reader for Firefox. If you know of one, please mention it in the comments section. In our opinion the best reader in a Mozilla-based browser is the one which comes with Flock. It would be great if someone got inspired, extracted it and released it for Firefox – since Flock is also open source.

There are however two RSS readers that most Firefox users rely on:

Sage

Sage is a basic and lightweight RSS Reader, although you need to be a techie to use it. It leverages Firefox bookmarks to store feeds – and it does the job pretty well.

Wizz RSS News Reader

Wizz RSS is a fancier reader that works well. It supports OPML import and export, plus has advanced features like filtering news items on words and/or phrases. But it is still not as smooth in terms of usability and options as the Reader that is built into Flock.

Conclusion

Firefox is currently one of the best platforms for building a new breed of web applications, on top of the emerging Web Platform. Given its native support for JavaScript and excellent extension API, we expect to see more complex and more tightly integrated web apps built on Firefox in the near future.

via readwriteweb

technorati tags:Top 10 Firefox Web 2.0 Add-ons Browster answers blueorganizer delicious bookmarking StumbleUpon ClipMarks Google Notebook “Foxmarks+Bookmark+Synchronizer” “RSS+Readers” Sage “Wizz+RSS+News+Reader”

Samsung Z610 FCC approved

According to several sources, Samsung’s latest cell phone, the Z610, has just rolled out of the FCC. Now begins the slow process of bringing it into the hands of customers.

Tech sites everywhere are constantly comparing its cream-white casing and large LCD screen to the iPod. I can’t help but agree with the look, but it also sounds like an iPod with its ability to play MP3s, WMAs, and ACC audio. This slider phone also features a 2-megapixel camera and a microSD expansion slot. One of the most stunning features is its secondary camera, which can be used to make video transmissions.

It is expected that the Z610 will be available by the end of the year. No word as yet on a price, however.

Via CrunchGear

Via Gizmodo

technorati tags:samsung z610 fcc latest cell mobile phone

Aiptek My Note: old school feel, new school tech

Pen and paper may seem so yesterday, but let’s face it: old habits die hard. Some of us have a much easier time jotting down a quick note on a Post-It than we do whipping out Microsoft Word to do the same. This can be especially true when it comes to thumbnail sketches. Well, if you’re in for a traditional feel but with some techie stuff to back it up, then the Aiptek My Note could be right up your alley, because it’s a “digital notepad that lets you take down notes anytime, anywhere.” It may look like a standard clipboard with a piece of paper attached, but it’s so much more than that.It’s not quite a tablet PC, but they are marketing the My Note as being ideal for collecting quick data, both in portrait and landscape orientations. The “sheet” is the standard 8.5 x 11 letter size that we’re all accustomed to (A4 for you European folk), and it saves your notes as single pages, so to speak. This way, when you’re ready to share, back up, or what have you, you can easily upload the information (via USB) to your Windows PC for post-processing.

You’ll find 32MB of internal memory, but if that doesn’t cover you, you can always expand via SD memory cards. It does seem that you are limited to storing 135 digital “leaves” however. No word on pricing, but we do hear that battery life can be as good as 20 hours. Look for more deets at IFA, Berlin early next month. Just don’t let me catch you trying to draw happy faces with your Sharpie.

via mobilemagi

technorati tags:Aiptek My Note gadgets technology “tablet+pc” pen paper