ASUS PC EEE

Asus has big plans for its Eee PC S101. Details on the premium ($699 and up) netbook were announced as its slimmest, sleekest netbook. According to DigiTimes, Asus expects the S101 to account for 10% percent of the Eee PCs it ships by the end of the year.

That would seem to be an impressive number, given that the S101 costs double that of the original Eee PC and that Asus seems to introduce a new Eee PC model every other week.

And I do not believe it for one moment.

In fact, Asus will reportedly introduce two new Eee PC models, which will fall between the Eee PC 1000 series and the S101.

DigiTimes reports that Asus expects to overtake Lenovo in global shipments next year, while leaping over Dell in China in 2009. At last count, Asus was eighth in laptop market share, three spots behind Lenovo.

OK, it is sexy, attractive, works and is very light to carry. Now get over that and it is very difficult to use as a laptop.

There is a lot of noise and thunder about there machines. What no one says is they are simply not very practical. And, yes, I have used one for considerable time.

There will the first mad dash of early adopters and then it will slow down to being just another machines. There is a lot of hype written about these machines. No one mentions they are too small. Which they are.
Source: CNet News

China's epic space walk

When the Olympic flame extinguished on Aug. 24, it ended a phase of modern Chinese history that began more than 15 years earlier, when Beijing first bid to host the 2000 Olympics. Then comes the question: what’s next for China?

The answer is simply. The Shenzhou-7 rocket carried three taikonauts (China’s word for astronauts, from ‘tai kong,’ the Mandarin Chinese word for ’space’) into space. Two days later, Zhai made China’s first space walk.

So what now?

Think on a smaller, more commercial scale. China already leads the world in numerous technology market sectors, including as an Internet market and mobile phone market. It’s also Asia’s largest producer and consumer of computers.

It may well be that Yang Liwei will always be remembered as the first Chinese in space, and, perhaps, another name will eventually be immortalized as the first Chinese on the moon, but the role models for China’s youth are the founders of companies such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. They are the entrepreneurs who have reached for the skies. Who have made technology their very own. For them and China, it seems that in technology the sky is the limit, and that may only be a theoretical limit.
Source: PC World

We need to talk

Apple has released an iPhone which is not attached to any telecoms company. This is a good idea. For me, it is an excellent idea as I work in so many countries I need to use different SIM cards in each or I will be a pauper. Not that I have far to go.

I wondered how the Chinese had managed with their hald a million iPhones bought with out benefit of Apple.

Now I know

I need not wait for Apple. YouTube has a stack of excellent demos on how to do anything to your iPhone including removing the SIM card and unlocking the iPhone. YouTube will do as an example.

Now, I may get one. Although, in fairness the price and the weight put me off. But I am absolutely positive that is the way we will go. For certain sure.

Apple iPhone

Officially, Apple has lost a bid to dismiss an iPhone monopoly suit

The action suggested that the terms in AT&T’s two-year service agreement for iPhone customers deceptive.

A federal court in Northern California agreed there was enough evidence to let the case continue. It denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the case. Apple could not be reached for comment.

The plaintiffs argue last year’s version 1.1.1 upgrade of the iPhone’s operating system wasn’t merely an improvement offering new features for consumers, but as a way of ‘retaliating against consumers who had unlocked their iPhones or installed unapproved’ third party applications. Apple knew, the suit says, the update would ‘brick,’ or damage, some iPhones that were unlocked or contained non-Apple sanctioned software.

Which appears to be true. Apple, in fact, admitted as much in a press release.

Apple might fight back except for one thing. Apple is selling unlocked iPhones in Hong Kong. I will repeat that. Apple is offering unlocked versions of the iPhone 3G on the Hong Kong version of the Apple Store.

The Hong Kong Apple Store is offering the 8GB Apple iPhone 3G for HK5,400 (about $695) and the 16GB Apple iPhone 3G for HK6,200 (about $798). It is getting more and more willing to sell unlocked iPhones apparently impress by the fact that China sold 500,000 without going near a phone company.
Source: Channel Web

Skype logo

Skype, eBaysWeb communications unit, has admitted that TOM-Skype, its China venture with TOM Online Inc, had been monitoring and storing some of its users’ text messages.

To get this into perpective: everything you writie on the Internet is stored somewhere. Bill Gates did not have that clear in his mind and had a very nasty surprise when they were produced in court.

You send a message somewhere, anyhow — if the Internet is involved it is recorded somewhere. So those, ahem, somewhat personal notes you sent your sexual partner about the night before are still hanging around somewhere. No matter what you thought. No matter how scrupulously you both cleaned them from you hard drive.

Now it has been alleged that a Web service monitors text chats with politically sensitive keywords and stores them along with millions of personal user records on computers that could be easily accessed by anybody - including the Chinese government. What is amazing is hat this should come as a surprise.

Jennifer Caukin, a spokeswoman for Skype, minority owner of TOM-Skype, admitted to the privacy breach in the servers and said it had now been fixed.

If Jennifer Caukin thinks the message thus disappears she is in for a sad disappointment.

She said that Skype needed to have further discussions with TOM after it found out that the venture had changed privacy policies without Skype’s consent or knowledge in order to store certain user messages.

Caukin said in an e-mailed statement that Skype had publicly acknowledged in 2006 that in order to meet Chinese regulations, TOM was operating a text filter that blocked certain words on TOM-Skype chat messages without compromising customer privacy. But she said that policy had changed.

Jennifer, worry not about the policy. There is no great scrubbing vat in the sky that deletes all messages. If you invent one, let me know.
Source: Reuters

Warren Buffet

In the world’s ultra-wealthy people Warren Buffet is the third man. He is a big mate of Bill Gates and he swore he would never invest in technology because he simply did not understand how it worked. That was then. Now is now.

Berkshire Hathaway — which is, to all intents and purposes Warren Buffet — has invested in BYD, a Chinese producer of rechargeable batteries, electric cars and car parts. It seems Berkshire Hathaway has bought a 10% stake in the firm.

Immediately the value of the shares surged 70% — Warren Buffet is buying 225 million of them therefore, by definition, they are a good buy.

Berkshire Hathaway is the Omaha investment firm led by the investor Warren Buffett, holding stakes in insurance and finance, utilities and energy, manufacturing, retailing and services and now, for the first time that can be ascertained, technology.

BYD’s Website says the company’s 130,000 workers produce information-technology products including nickel-cadmium and lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, mobile-phone displays, keypads and housings and laptop-computer keypads.
Source: MarketWatch

Mobile phone user

There were 616.02 million subscribers of mobile communication services in China. And that figure is growing 1.26% a month and 19.46% a year.

This according to statistics published by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (this is known known as MIIT replacing what we used to know as MII.)

The number of subscribers at the end of August accounted for 45.6% of the country’s population.

Also at the end of August 2008 there were 354.07 million subscribers of fixed telecommunication networks in China, translating into a user density of 27%.

Althletic mobile phone user.

But, wait, there is more. In August 2008, mobile phone subscribers in China sent 57.31 billion text messages, averaging 3.02 messages per subscription a day.

Which means that China mobile users are NOT the most text message people of earth. On the other hand, 57.31 billion text messages if stretched end to end would show that a total communication revolution had taken place.
Source: Digitimes

After the sale, Hynix will see its stake in the Wuxi plant, which produces dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips used in personal computers, cut to 72.3% from the current 83.3%.

Numonyx, a memory joint venture owned by STMicroelectronics, Intel and Francisco Partners, has said it planned to increase its stake in the joint venture to one third.

It is also working with Hynix in a five-year tie-up to develop NAND flash memory chips, used in hand-held devices including cellphones, digital music players and cameras.
Source: Reuters

More and more Chinese farmers are turning to the internet to look for information on growing and sales as well as to release business information.

The informatization of rural areas has improved in recent years, but there is still a disparity between city and countryside. Internet use in cities is still four times higher than among rural residents.
Source: China.org.cn

Most computers are made in China

China’s IT market is projected by BMI to reach a value of more than $100 billion by 2012. Total spending on IT products and services should grow at around 12% over the forecast period as the country witnesses rapid expansion on the IT front.

Despite some concerns such as falling prices, the fundamentals supporting growth will include an expansion into Western China, rural areas and lower-tier cities, growing demand for IT services and outsourcing in key verticals, and more sophisticated demand from enterprises.

As a result of rising computer sales and internet usage in recent years, IT is being applied by enterprises to upgrade traditional technologies and enhance efficiency and value.
Much, much more HERE.
Source: PR Inside

Intel Netbook

Intel is planning the promotion of TD-SCDMA Netbooks in the Chinese market in partnership with China Mobile.

This may be slightly difficult until TD-SCDMA gets widespread acceptance and coverage.

Intel plans to bundle its laptops with China Mobile’s 3G data services. Abroad, Acer’s netbooks have also been connected with 3G Internet access services but note, that was not using TD-SCDMA which, at the moment, is confined to China and is not, perhaps, working as well as it might.

Netbooks are just smallish computers and, indeed, this item is being written one.

Some PC makers expect that this low-price, small-sized laptop suitable for wireless Internet access will see its sales reach 15 million units in 2008.
Source: Trading Markets