Be sure to "middle click" on the post links to open them in a new tab. Kids get your mom or dad to approve all the news feeds, some may be PG-13 or higher.
In not-too-surprising, yet good-to-know-for-sure news, it seems that Samsung is indeed working on a netbook designed around Chrome OS. Now, what exactly that comprises I can’t tell you — my guess is they’re really just getting a cheap netbook ready to go with whatever Google announces when Chrome OS hits prime time. Or maybe they’ll use one of those neat (useless) transparent ones?
The specs are nothing crazy: 3G, 2GB of RAM to start, 64GB or more of SSD storage, probably a 10.1″ screen, and a nice long battery life. The chipset and processor weren’t disclosed, but the source is suggesting a 1.5GHz Snapdragon. I wonder about that — I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some curveballs in there. Dual Snapdragons, for instance, or a dedicated GPU like the iPad. It’s actually very similar to this speculative post here, except without a price, which makes it much easier to swallow.
Guess we’ll find out… not soon. It’s not clear when they’ll be making the real announcement, and at any rate we’ll probably hear from Google first.
Reader Louis sent in this longish missive about his own experiences installing a Psystar Hackintosh. We were stymied last night by the authentification procedure so we didn’t even get as far as Louis but it seems that the install, while fairly seamless, is fraught with problems. The speakers on our HP, for example, don’t work and while Apple’s Ink feature shows up in the control panel, the touchscreen is about useless.
Here’s Louis’ take:
I saw your article about the success you’ve had. I’d like to share my experience to date.
I’m running a G31M-ES2L and an 8800GT. It’s an original PsyStar machine with an upgraded video card.
I purchased the app yesterday. Followed install instructions posted .
The SL install reports a failure but I could boot to the desktop in SL with the Rebel EFI CD. (The instructions have since been revised to reflect this).
Note: I also had to use a PS2 kbd in order to select the HD option when booting from the PsyStar CD (USB doesn’t work for me until I get to the desktop).
Went through the normal OS registration info that comes up after install.
The machine is basically crippled without an activation code for the Rebel EFI application ( it installs the kexts etc needed to properly recognize your HW) and Psystar is behind on sending them out (Just spoke with a very nice support person).
So, all in all, things proceeded as they should have up to that point.
Received the authentication code today and authenticated the app.
However, the app errored out with my account info in the next step.
Apparently you can’t get phone support for this app. I spoke with a tech who noted I had to send an email for support. He was very nice but couldn’t help.
I rebooted and tried the authentication code a second time and the app won’t even accept it. It simply errors out now.
REBEL EFI doesn’t appear to be ready for prime time yet, IMO.
Who wants to wait days for support for something that’s supposed to simplify a process?
FTR I do own Apple HW and this is mostly a fun/tinkering machine for secondary use.
When I say DIY, I mean he DIY’ed, not necessarily that you can DIY. This 22-year-old college student took a Kawasaki ninja frame, stripped it down, and with help from his electrical engineer father, built a pretty damn amazing electric motorcycle.
I suspect we’re going to be hearing from this kid again. His first project is a motorcycle that’s capable of over 70 mph and a range of 60 miles on a single charge, and that’s just the first version. He put this all together in one semester. The total cost of his little project was $12,000 and half of that was just for the battery and the motor. Again, this is the first version of his project, he’s currently out of school and refining the design to squeeze as much performance as possible out of the setup.
This isn’t the first electric bike project we’ve seen but it is one of the more promising ones. The others are not quite ready for prime time, or really expensive. I do expect that the electric motorcycle is going to come into mass production on a large scale before the purely electric car does.
We launched Gmail Labs as a forum for delivering useful (and maybe not so useful) features that might not be quite ready for prime time. The idea was always that the most popular and viable Labs features would graduate and be made more readily available to all users...and that some of the less used, less viable ones would disappear forever.
I'm proud to announce that Tasks is in that first bucket — it's been one of the most popular experimental Gmail features and it's now the first graduate from Labs.
To access Tasks, starting today you can just click "Tasks" under the "Contacts" link above your chat list (no need to turn it on from the Labs tab anymore).
Rest assured there's more on the way for Tasks— just because we're graduating from Labs today doesn't mean we're done.
We've received a lot of positive feedback about Gmail Labs, and we've found that testing something in Labs can be a good way to help decide whether it should become a regular part of Gmail. So we decided to extend the same model to Google Calendar. Beginning today, you can add Labs features to your calendar too, such as Free or Busy, which lets you see which of your friends or coworkers are currently in meetings or World Clock, which helps you keep track of different timezones when you schedule meetings. Take a look at the Google Apps blog for more info.
Google announced on its company blog that starting from today the company will remove the beta label from Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. Matthew Glotzbach, Director of Product Management, Google Enterprise noted "We're often asked why so many Google applications seem to be perpetually in beta. For example, Gmail has worn the beta tag more than five years. We realize this situation puzzles some people, particularly those who subscribe to the traditional definition of "beta" software as not being yet ready for prime time." Google says it has added new features to the Google Apps suite. Offline access to e-mail and calendars and better access to Google Apps for BlackBerry users are some of the improvements.
Apple released the iPhone 3G S on Friday (here’s our review), and the world is much better off because of it. What didn’t sit well with me is this CNBC segment that aired on Friday. It shows a several people clamoring over the device, saying how great it is, why they want it, etc. But fast-forward to 1:03 and you’ll see Prime Time Sam Roberts from the Opie and Anthony show. Here’s where the trouble starts.
In the CNBC-aired version of the interview, embedded here, Mr. Roberts is portrayed as someone who’s gushing over the iPhone 3G S—“BlackBerry is yesterday, the iPhone is now!”
Only that’s now what he said at all.
The entire interview aired live on the Opie and Anthony show on Friday. (Anthony had sent an intern, whom Mr. Roberts accompanied, to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store to buy an iPhone first thing in the morning. The intern was unsuccessful, as he usually is.) This is the audio, as aired on Special Delivery with Sam and Dave on Saturday night (you can also download the audio here):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Never mind that the CNBC reporter gets her facts completely wrong (“But BlackBerry is coming out with their touchscreen pretty soon…” Yeah, it’s out already. It’s called the Storm. It stinks, but it’s available, and has been for several months now.), but that Mr. Roberts is portrayed as being just another rabid iPhone 3G S fan is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. He obviously alludes to the fact that MMS won’t work right out of the box (“picture messaging, soon”); that AT&T service in New York is atrocious (switching from the BlackBerry to the iPhone because he’s “tired of all [his] calls going through”); mocks the Apple-consumer culture (“hopefully we’ll spend $500 to $700 today… on just Apple products”). And so on.
Now, if you’re just a regular CNBC viewer, you’d be under the impression that Mr. Roberts is nothing but a wooly-haired iPhone 3G S mark. I think it’s safe to say that’s not accurate.
Does any of this matter in the grand scheme of things? Of course not. But if CNBC is editing Mr. Roberts’ interview to fit some sort of pre-determined angle (“go interview crazy iPhone fans”), then it does make you wonder what other type of creative editing is going on over there.
Reader Louis sent in this longish missive about his own experiences installing a Psystar Hackintosh. We were stymied last night by the authentification procedure so we didn’t even get as far as Louis but it seems that the install, while fairly seamless, is fraught with problems. The speakers on our HP, for example, don’t work and while Apple’s Ink feature shows up in the control panel, the touchscreen is about useless.
