I’ve been searching for a cheap but decent laptop, but price is really a deterrent. And while OLPC and Intel’s Classroom PC are geared towards poor countries, they are not going to be available to the general public. The next best thing are the mini-laptops, though there are no mini-laptops currently available commercially.

There are three mini-laptops announced: Palm’s Foleo, Via’s NanoBook, and Asus Eee.

Foleo is out of the question. It require owning a Palm Treo or a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone (see Alec Saunder’s take on the Foleo) for Internet connectivity. Via’s NanoBook has respectable specs for a fairly respectable price of US$600 (Php 27,252 at Php45.92 per US$1).

And then there’s Asus Eee PC 701. While it has dumbed down but still respectable specs, what’s alluring is the price and availability. According to Engadget:

Asus also reiterated that seemingly too good to be true $200 starting price, adding that a version for “English speaking countries” could be available “as early as August this year.”

That would be Php 9,184 using the same exchange rate above. The clincher is that unlike OLPC and Classroom PC, this beauty/beast will be available through the usual retail channels.

I can’t wait for August. I don’t need a souped-up laptop. If it can connect to the Internet, that’s fine with me. And the price, man, the price!

Asus, please bring this here in the Philippines. Mighty please.

Not content with just downplaying the One-Laptop-Per-Child project as a US$100-gadget, Intel now teams up with Asustek to produce a cheap laptop. This product will directly compete with the OLPC.

This is not the first time that Intel took a stab at the OLPC. The first one was the Classmate PC. And now, this.

The man behind the OLPC project, Nicholas Negroponte, was at one time furious about Intel. I wonder what would be his reaction to this news.

Sorry, Nick. Intel has to earn in order to dominate the world.

(This is capitalism at its best.)

For two days in a row, I keep on getting SIM card error on my Sony Ericsson M600i. The phone is only several months old (almost four months); the SIM card is five years old (since this is a Smart line).

Actually, there was already a problem when I first inserted the Smart SIM card after I got this phone. When I first powered it up, the phone cried out “No SIM card”. I had to reinsert and power on the phone several times. To check if the phone was defective, I inserted my Sun SIM; in one snap, the phone worked. So it was not the phone. After reinserting the Smart SIM several times, the phone worked.

I got the occassional SIM card error when the phone is shaken (i.e., fell from the bed). Now, just a little shake, and I get the error. So last night, I inserted the Sun SIM (purchased less than 6 months ago), and the phone worked.

Now: is it the phone or the SIM card?

(Will Smart replace the SIM card while retaining the same number assigned to me?)

They really have lots of time in their hands.

Trying to prove a theory that anything with a processor can be infected, a new, proof-of-concept virus affecting a calculator has been discovered.

Yes, a calculator.

To be specific, the calculator in question is the graphing calculator by Texas Instruments, TI-89. This is a file infector (replicates by inserting its code into files) that clears the screen and displays text.

Kaspersky detects this virus as Virus.TI.Tigraa.a.

This virus would have been cooler if what it does is to obfuscate the answer to 1+3.

I’ve never been a fan of censorship. But I do believe that children should be shielded away from dangerous materials. The reason why I abhor censorship is that it is always subject to abuse. And sometimes, in their exercise of censorship, some people are just plain dumb.

Remember the Digg Revolt?

Now, it’s LiveJournal‘s turn to suffer from a revolt. Six Apart, LiveJournal’s mother company, has initiated a purge of LiveJournal accounts and communities on the behest of one Warriors for Innocence. The purge has taken down around 500 accounts, and will probably continue. And as I have said, sometimes in our quixotic quest, we tend to go too far. And that was what had happened. Included in those that were taken down were Harry Potter fan fiction communities, a Lolita discussion community, and other fan fiction communities.

Unfortunately for that organization, censorship does not work on the Internet. My suggestions to LJ account owners whose journals were unjustly deleted to create another LJ blog, or create another blog somewhere. Other bloggers who likes to support LJ bloggers may give space for them. Digg the Boing Boing entry and other entries tackling this issue. Some chose to boycott LiveJournal altogether.

And if I am a malicious person, I would have begun a DDoS against that organization. But there are better ways on proving your point. Censorship is not one of them.

Some posts to Digg:
* LiveJournal deletes hundreds of “illegal” rape survivor, LGBTQ communities
* Livejournal suspends hundreds of accounts
* LJ purges incest, slash fic under pressure from self-appointed “warriors”
* Digg Revolted. Now It’s LiveJournal Turn!
* Mass deletion sparks LiveJournal revolt
* The Purity Police and Fanfic
* Banning of hundreds of LiveJournal – are YOU promoting paedophilia?
* the fandom voice

And, oh, if you want, you may bury this, for all I care:
* LiveJournal Deletes 500 Pedophile Sites

UPDATE:

The Chair and CEO of Six Apart issues an explanation and an apology. Digg or bury it here.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the graphics shown on the panels in the USS Enterprise-D‘s bridge caught the attention of hardcore Trekkers. And the way the characters interacted with the ship computer was awesome, too. And now, LCARS is fast becoming a reality, thanks to Microsoft.

Microsoft? Yes, Microsoft.

Microsoft introduced yesterday at Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” the Surface, a concept computer that will do away with keyboard and mouse. It is basically a table computer with a screen under a hard plastic table top, where interaction is by pen, touch, and voice. Though commercial production is geared for businesses like casinos and mobile phone shops at the moment, it is really exciting just to think of the possibilities. (After all, just put the Surface in an angle, and voila! Star Trek ship panels!)

Will this new Microsoft product reach warp 9? Or will it putter at mach 1 (like the Zune)? That remains to be seen, although the concept is exciting and sound.

I hope that the underlying OS in Surface is skinnable (my WinAmp skin is LCARS). LCARS-themed Surface, aye, Keptin.

(Star Trek’s relevance never fades. I suggest tech companies hire Mike Okuda.)

VoIP and telcos do not see eye to eye. Telcos see VoIP as enemy and threat. From blocking VoIP calls to patent infringement cases, the battle between the two seems endless. So I am surprised by the news that German telco Deutsche Telekom is investing in Jajah, a VoIP company that offers Web calling service.

Hmmm. Embracing what is inevitable? Or hedging for world domination? DT’s T-Online service now integrates Jajah Web interface. Is that a sign of things to come?

This investment is good for Jajah. If DT wants to enter the VoIP market with minimum cost, this investment is probably the most prudent way to do it.

Big companies are really gearing up in their quest for world domination. Eating up smaller companies is just one easy way of doing it.

Not content with indexing, searching, and storing information (and your search history) and serving ads, Google is about to acquire RSS distribution company FeedBurner for US$100 million (FeedBurner has raised US$10 million in capital).

That’s big moolah. But small change if your goal is world domination.

Anyway, Google has launched an online security blog, making people speculate that Google is going into the security business (online security, at least). Heck, the first blog post revealed that they have an anti-malware team for a year now.

Will Google acquire another company for this? Or will it build its own? And should Microsoft be threatened?

Speaking of Microsoft, it says it has all the tools that it needs to enter the ads business, with its recent acquisition of aQuantive for US$6 billion. It seems that Microsoft is ready to take on Google’s leadership in the Web ads business.

US$6 billion???? For an ads company? Small change for world domination, indeed.

If you think Koei and Omega Force have run out of ideas to cash in on their Musou properties (Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors), think again.

Released in Japan last March, Orochi Warriors is set to land in Europe (though Koei Warriors says it will be released in the US). What’s cool about this game is that Koei/Omega Force has managed to put the two properties together! And it will probably be a blast!

I’m so gonna wait for this!

Kaspersky has discovered an interesting mobile malware.

Dubbed as Viver (F-Secure: Trojan:SymbOS/Viver.A, Trend Micro: SYMBOS_VIVER.A), it works like RedBrowser (F-Secure: Redbrowser.A, Kaspersky: Trojan-SMS.J2ME.RedBrowser.a, Trend Micro: J2ME_REDBROW.A), only that Viver works exclusively for Symbian phones (RedBrowser works for phones that runs Java 2 Mobile Edition or J2ME, which includes most Symbian phones).

Those who browse sites for mobile software are forewarned. Viver is being paraded either as a photo editor or video codec.

This mobile malware sends text messages to a premium number, which translates to around US$7.00 (Php 322.00 at Php46.00 per US dollar). Fortunately for most Filipinos (who are on prepaid and on unlimited prepaid schemes anyway), Viver would probably not work.