Asus stuns Computex with £100 laptop

Wednesday 6th June 2007

4:12AM, Wednesday 6th June 2007

Asus chairman Jonney Shih sprang a surprise during Intel's Computex keynote today with the announcement of a $189 laptop.

The notebook measures roughly 120 x 100 x 30mm (WDH) and weighs only 900g. We saw the notebook boot in 15 seconds from its solid-state hard disk. The huge auditorium then burst into applause as Shih revealed the astounding price tag. Dubbed the 3ePC, Shih claimed the notebook is the 'lowest cost and easiest PC to use'. As the crowds rushed the stage, we sneaked off to the Asus stand to take a closer look.

The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the OLPC, though unlike the OLPC, Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The desktop looked fairly similar to Windows and we saw Firefox running on one 3ePC. A spokesperson from Asus told us that the notebook would come with "an office suite that's compatible with MS Office", though he refused to confirm or deny whether that meant OpenOffice.

He claimed the 3ePC would be available in all areas of the world, not only developing nations.

The low price comes from some interesting design choices, primarily the flash-based hard disk. A disk of today's standard capacity would cost more than notebook itself as we saw with the 32GB Samsung disk, but Asus uses a 2GB disk. We were not allowed to touch the 3ePC so couldn't tell how much of this is left after the bespoke OS is installed.

The CPU also remains a mystery, though Shih said the version on show did have 512MB of RAM. Another version will be available for $299, but nobody could tell us what the difference between the two models is.

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Kingmax shows off 16GB SDHC card

It doesn't seem too long ago that a 16GB solid state disc was a sight to behold, but now that SSDs are creeping up to 256GB and beyond, it's about time the flashy guys caught up. While we knew Kingmax was aiming to unveil its 16GB SDHC (only to match the early moving MICRODIA) card at Computex, pictured proof is always preferred, and it looks like all you digicam owners with SDHC-capable slots can rejoice as the sizes beneath this one quietly tumble in price. Notably, it was suggested that the cards were practically "ready for mass production," and should be available worldwide fairly soon. [Via Inquirer]

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Will the iPhone be undone by its keyboard?

from Engadget by Ryan Block

For those in the audience enamored with the iPhone -- especially those willing to look past the lack of 3G and requisite 2-year service agreement -- there's really only one x-factor left: the touchscreen keyboard. We've all seen it done, but no one's ever seen it done right -- and Steve seems to think it's going to be off the chain. So why is Dvorak, noted tech pundit, and goader of Mac users and iPhone fans, reporting that he's got insider information that the iPhone's keyboard is complete crap and "people are going to return the phone in droves"? Well, that might have something to do with the fact that he's Dvorak, but we did consult a trusted and well connected source who, as it turns out, has heard the very same thing from multiple iPhone users, and who further noted that an accessory keyboard to go with the device may become necessary if the touchscreen keyboard doesn't cut the mustard. Of course, we can only reserve judgment until we wrap our paws on a real production model, but we hope it all turns out well -- even if only because we're sincerely frightened of an iPhone-incited fanboy riot in the streets.

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Does Digital Fingerprinting Work?: An Investigative Report

Written by Liz Gannes Posted Friday, June 8, 2007 at 12:00 AM PT

Audio and visual fingerprinting of copyrighted video is seen as the best way to combat infringement, but in NewTeeVee's testing this week across multiple sites, it did not work. We were surprised to be able to upload multiple times the exact same copyrighted file, even after we explicitly told the hosting site and the fingerprinting provider about it and they took it down.

What follows is a description of our procedure, accompanied by the vehement disclaimer that we were doing this only for educational purposes.

Microsoft recently took its Soapbox user-contributed video site out of the public eye until it could implement filtering technology from Audible Magic. Last Friday, it relaunched, supposedly armed and ready to fend off copyrighted content. So we asked our intrepid reporter Craig Rubens to test how the system worked by uploading a Daily Show clip.

Surprise, surprise, the clip went up like a charm (screenshot). We called Microsoft to ask what was going on. You should talk to Audible Magic, they said; our system is only as good as their index. We called Audible Magic, who essentially blamed Microsoft, for only implementing the audio version of its software. The reps then set off to nail down statements from their companies, a process that took most of the week.

Only sometime last night did the clip finally get taken off Soapbox, replaced with a copyright violation notice. To see if the system had been corrected we uploaded it again today, and again it appeared about 40 minutes later. At this point, if all went as it was supposed to, the video should have been automatically added to the index of banned clips, and then rejected when we uploaded a duplicate. But again, we had no problem.

Concerns about whether digital fingerprinting is ready for action have persisted, and market leader YouTube has hesitated to deploy its "Claim Your Content" system while it is being perfected. However, confidence in fingerprinting has moved past the optimism stage. "This technology works," says MPAA Vice-President Dean Garfield, as reported by BusinessWeek.

Audible Magic has bagged most every high profile deal in video filtering: MySpace, Dailymotion, Break.com, and GoFish/Bolt.

The Audible Magic representative insinuated the company's technology was deployed in fuller form on MySpace — which recently launched its "Take Down Stay Down " and filtering system using AM's system — so we also tried uploading the clip there. Interestingly, that also posed no problem. See it in action here.

Below is Craig's description of the procedure he used to upload his clip to Soapbox. He says after about 50 minutes of "processing" the video went live and was playable. The MySpace experiment was even quicker, taking about five minutes.

1. Search for "Daily Show" on YouTube
2. Select first clip of actual Daily Show with Jon Stewart content and download it via KeepVid.com (selected video )
3. Convert the video to a Soapbox approved format (shockingly, Microsoft doesn't like .flv)
4. Upload Daily Show clip to Soapbox

5. Allow time for Soapbox to process, convert, and (supposedly) scan for copyrighted material.

Here are the official statements Microsoft and Audible Magic sent yesterday after days of deliberation and phone calls about the issue.

"We are continuing to work with Audible Magic to fine tune our implementation of their proactive automatic filtering services to best meet the needs of our content partners. The fact that a clip of any unauthorized copyright material slipped through is unfortunate, but that's why we also provide rich notice and takedown tools to content owners to automate and expedite the process of identifying and removing unauthorized content. We are committed to working in partnership with the industry to continue to evolve our technologies and solutions for customers and partners." — Rob Bennett, general manager for Entertainment and Video Services at MSN

"Audible Magic's technology has the ability to identify content such as 'The Daily Show' clip in question. We are working closely with Microsoft to customize our solution in order to meet the business needs of their Soapbox service." — Vance Ikezoye, founder and CEO of Audible Magic

Though all these systems, as advertised, depend largely on identifying content once in order to block it future times, we made no bones about identifying our uploads as Daily Show clips. We also had no problem uploading the exact same file after we had informed the proper people about it and they had taken it down.

Of all the videos on the web, Comedy Central clips are a huge bone of contention, figuring into Viacom's pending $1 billion-plus lawsuit against YouTube and its parent Google. Funnily enough, the original Daily Show video is still live on YouTube.

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Eurocom intros all-in-one LV190 / LV220 ViiVA systems

from Engadget by Donald Melanson

They may not boast a name like the "F-Bomb," but Eurocom's new all-in-one LV190 and LV220 ViiVA systems look like they should be able to garner a fair bit of attention on their own. Boasting 19- and 22-inch widescreen displays, respectively, the systems can be configured with your choice of Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme processors, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics, a max 4GB of RAM, up to two 500GB hard drives, and an internal TV tuner, among other options. Knocking things down a notch, however, is the somewhat lackluster 1680 x 1050 resolution on the 22-inch display, and an even lower 1440 x 900 on the 19-incher. If that's not a deal breaker for ya', you can get your order in now, with systems starting around $1,500 and going up considerably as you pack on the upgrades.

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