First thing’s first. What’s up with the name? I thought cyborg names were a distant past of the age of magnetic drives and flashing LED lights. Intel could have continued their 80×86 naming scheme, which would have been up to about 801186 by now, but they went down the Pentium path because they didn’t want their CPUs to sound like a model of vacuum cleaners. Product names should definitely come without the list of keywords associated with the product, and even less so, a 4-digit number. I also smell a lawsuit coming up.

Second thing. The design rocks. I’m a big fan of laptop-styled keyboard because the keys are not extruded as much, so you don’t have to push your fingers all the way. I have weak fingers OK? Also, they’re super quiet, so you can touch type without waking up the neighbours. The thin form-factor is also very stylish, but it looks as easy to break as a wafer.

The price? Who knows. Knowing this is aimed towards Media Center users and technology enthusiasts, it’ll cost probably more than it should. But this would work well as a “Vista package” for the enthusiasts, a set of launch products including Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, keyboard and mouse and probably some nifty merchandising. I don’t know, just throwing an idea out there.

Update: The retail price is US$249.95. That’s going to cost the same as a gallon of petrol by the time it ships. Review sample anyone? 😛

The following content is based on unreleased software. It may or may not accurately reflect the quality of the software when publically released. I make no warranties on the accuracy of the content.

A bird flew over my house today and pooped out a USB-drive with the NY Times Times Reader application on it. (I wonder how many times I need to say times in New York Times Times Reader.) Of course I installed it as soon as possible and checked out what all the fuss has been about. The NY Times Reader is an Windows Presentation Foundation powered application built on top of the .NET 3.0 Framework. It shows very practical uses and demonstrates the powers of WPF for both developers and users very well. If this is any sign of what applications in the Vista generation will look like, then it’s going to be a very beautiful future.

Here is a five minute screencast video overview of the New York Times Reader on Windows Vista. Note: This video does not accurately reflect the performance of Windows Vista or the NYTimes Reader due to technical limitations of the screen recording software.

Click image to view video (H.264, 4:58min)

Some of the most interesting technologies:

• Scalable and free-flowing column-based layout
• Scalable images and advertisements
• Searching through the “topic explorer”
• High readability with anti-aliased fonts

Some of the things that bugged me was:

• First boot, very slow to sync content.
• “Get into it” interface. Does not offer assistance upon first use. Have to discover functionality by yourself.

Of course, taking into account this is still an incubation project and yet to be released beta, there is a lot of potential for improvements. This is an awesome application that I suggest every Windows user (XP & Vista) user to try when its available. For someone like me who shamelessly prefers style over content, I’m definitely switching from Google News to this!

It is human (and animal) nature to be curious. We always want to know about what we don’t know. And when you try to stop a process in the sole of every human being, often it doesn’t work and could even lead to negative effects. So why do companies still do it? I take a look at our natural companions, Apple and Microsoft and compare how each deals with the rumourmill.

Apple deals with its loyal patriots by suing them. Sure, some journalists may acquire accurate details on product announcements that can be classified as trade secrets a whole two days before it is formally announced, but what are the consequences? Some Asian rip-off manufacturer gets a 2 day head-start on developing a copy-cat device, thousands upon thousands of Apple loyalists raises their credit card limits, and the news agencies goes berserk. Trade secrets are one thing, but free publicity is another. If the trade secrets were leaked only few days away from public announcement, then wouldn’t the ‘loss’ be ‘worth it’ with the all the publicity that money can’t buy?

Microsoft has only one trick up its sleeve, “Microsoft does not comment on rumours or speculation.” Other than that, Microsoft requests any posted information to be removed immediately. Although this is where it gets stupid too. (I wouldn’t know anything about this but) assume someone posted screenshots of an internal product build. The screenshots show nothing much except a number different to what has been seen before. Damages? Unless you work for this group of people, absolutely none. This is even more ridiculous than trade secrets. Screenshots are static representations of pixels and the only they reveal is in how things look. And I’m sure those who care about how things look won’t be so easily manipulated to leak out screenshots.

Rumours can do more good than harm, they satisfy the wants of enthusiasts and loyalists and generate positive publicity. Companies should stop focusing on how to shut down rumours, and divert their attention to how to utilize rumours as a marketing opportunity. Allowing the spread of false rumours can even damage the integrity of companies through excessive hype for products that merely do not exist, just ask Apple. Being able to send out the right rumours at the right times can create unimaginable results, just ask Google.

But back to reality, nothing’s going to change. Apple will continue to hate their more-than-eager loyalists. And Microsoft will continue to pull screenshots off the face of the internet. Whilst millions of people get excited by the list of domains Google owns.

Found this article on BetaNews through Neowin.

“Computer security depends on diversity and innovation in the field of security software, (and) such diversity and innovation could be at risk if Microsoft was allowed to foreclose the existing competition in the security software markets,” explained EU spokesperson Jonathan Todd.

In other words. “We got paid big time by security software vendors to make sure their business model stays profitable. If Microsoft actually makes their operating system secure, the Norton family will hunt us down.”

As Samuel L. Jackson would say, “I’ve had it with these ****** commissioners on the ****** EU.”

Apple now has two solutions for the living room entertainment experience, the Mac Mini and codename iTV. Microsoft also has two, the Media Center and Media Center Extender. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a look at each through a list, bet you’ve never seen a list on a blog before.

The following blog post is based on preliminary information about an unreleased product. Specifications may change in the future. So if the iTV thing turns out to be different, don’t look at me.

Continue reading →

Hugo Ortega sent this in. He’s had a world-exclusive look at the Vega Ultra Portable Personal Computer (UPPC). I don’t exactly know what the difference between a Ultra Portable Personal Computer (UPPC) and Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC) is, but they look exactly the same. It looks kind of funky and stylish, but I don’t see a need for it unless you don’t have a laptop and have 20/20 vision. It’s not something I would buy, but if I get a free review sample *hint* *wink* *nudge* raon digital, my thoughts can quickly change.

Watch the two part video of Hugo getting very excited.