Netbook rivals battle it out at CeBIT

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

The big netbook guns are out in the halls of CeBIT this year, with MSI, Asus and now Gigabyte showing a raft of new low-cost models. Here’s a round-up of what’s new.

MSI
On the MSI stand, the Wind U100 series has blossomed into the U110, U115 and U123 series. The U110 Eco promises to bring the Wind’s Achilles Heel – its battery life – up to snuff, with a claimed 12 hours on the standard battery. MSI says this is possible with the use of the new Intel Menlow mobile platform, originally intended for Intel’s pet MID (mobile internet device) product category but now half-inched for netbooks.

The U115 is, MSI claims, the first hybrid netbook with both SSD and hard disk storage, but aside from that looks the same as the U110, and both share the same styling as the original Wind U100:

The Wind U123 is slightly higher-end, with a posher, more angular look and aimed at business users, and it brings an integrated 3G broadband adapter to the Wind range:

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Robot servants in sight!

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

In the field of technology prediction, “twenty years” is a strange Neverland. How many times have you heard an expert confidently predict a brilliant new technology will arrive in about twenty years? And how many times has any two-decades-away tech ever actually materialised?

Fortunately, the cynicism in my tone won’t stop researchers trying to develop brilliant things that will change our lives but are forever just about twenty years over the horizon.

One of those things is the good old domestic robot. An impressive stand at the Future Parc hall here at CeBit in Germany – a hall dedicated to research projects and the like – is showing off some of the state-of-the-art robotics happening in academia.
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(Literally) hands-on with Microsoft Surface

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

On the back of news that Microsoft is to bring Surface to the UK, it’s been showing off the device at this year’s CeBIT. PC Pro got a private hands-on demo with Surface’s director of product management, the superbly named Matt Champagne.

Sitting idle in the darkened demonstration room, the 30in Surface screen showed a screensaver-style pond animation, with rippling water. Just sitting beside it, our fingers were itching to try. Touching the tabletop produced water ripples around each fingertip; swishing a hand across the water gave an effect eerily identical to swishing your hand through real liquid.

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