Cuddly Chimps

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by Thomas Ricker, posted Apr 21st 2008 at 4:08AMMSI just got right with the gadget lorf by going official with its Wind Notebook. Launched anonymously at Intel’s IDF, the Wind is pretty much everything we’ve heard: about 1-kg weight; XP-only (at the moment); LED-backlit, 8.9- and 10-inch 1,024 x 600 displays; and traditional 80GB, 2.5-inch hard disk. MSI also claims to have a superior keyboard and battery life compared to the competition. Yup, they’re looking right at you Eee PC. No word on price or delivery date though we previously heard Juneish (with Atom CPU launch) for between $470 to $1,099.

[Via DigiTimes]

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Mobile coupons (m-coupons) are nothing new and previously the biggest barrier to entry was the technology. It seems that they’re facing another challenge now: consumer adoption.

According to a recent questionnaire published by JupiterResearch, when consumers were asked which types of mobile coupon offers would interest them most, approximately 70 percent said “none of the above”. The good news is that the 30 percent that are willing listed “Restaurants” and “Stores they select” as the top offers, with Local businesses, Drinks, Event tickets, CDs and DVDs, Travel/air discounts, New cellphones and packages, Invitations for sweepstakes/contests and Snacks, bringing in the rest of the responses.

Read more at The New York Times.

Joel’s Opinion

What does this mean for the future of the m-coupon? It’s interesting timing considering a quick search of news.google.com yields top items including McDonalds and some grocery store chains testing out m-coupons. So, it would seem that while the companies are ready to put a mobile coupon in your hand, the consumer has yet to agree to accept it.

As I mentioned above, it used to be that technology was the barrier. The fact that there are so many mobile phones out there means that each one potentially reads differently on the bar code scanner. A lot of m-coupon suppliers are now just asking that you show a unique code instead of a bar code, so I guess they found a way around the technology. Now they just need to find a way around the consumer’s hesitation to adopt the m-coupon.

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If you got a sporty GPS for Christmas or if you are just looking for interesting places to travel, you may want to check out a new website that has just launched: POIfriend.com. Rather than just provide a static listing of points of interest (POIs), the site bills itself as a POI community that not only allows you to connect with places to visit, but with people as well.

The website is a free service to end users and will work with most GPS-enabled devices and if you don’t have a GPS that’s not a problem. The website will allow you to map and print your POIs as well. Also, you don’t have to worry about filling out a huge biography to get started. You simply provide your email. Once registered, you can choose which POIs you wish to share or keep private.

MySpace meets Google Maps is the best way to describe POIfriend.com. Some examples of POI groups that you can create are ATM machines, gas stations or even secret spots. Whether it’s just useful or breathtaking, you decide the group you want to create and what spots you want to share. This might not be a bad place to check out if you are going on vacation and looking for some new spots to visit even if you are going to an old location.

Read more from the POIfriend.com press release and website.

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It has been a long time since we mentioned the Sony Ericsson BeiBei, but seeing live pictures is an interesting development. It looks like the mock-up that we featured back in February but it will feature the UIQ 3.3 user interface instead of the 3.2. Note that Sony Ericsson owns a share of Symbian, which makes the OS for the phone.

There are still no official specifications, but it was rumored that this phone would have FM Radio, Music Player and a 5 Megapixel camera. Camera. To be continued…

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The iphone Pwnage Tool, a hack which will let you, well, Pwn your iPhone, has arrived on Windows in a beta incarnation called, somewhat inevitably, WinPwn. The original Mac tool has also been updated to v1.1.

Pwnage will jailbreak your iPhone, just like other existing hacks, but offers a special bonus. It allows you to load any ipsw file onto your iPhone. An ipsw file is essentially the operating system for the iPhone. When iTunes downloads a new version of the iPhone OS and upgrades your Stupendabrick, it is grabbing the official ipsw file.

It’s been possible to use iTunes’ built-in restore feature to reload older version of the OS (needed for some Jailbreak solutions), but both Pwnage and Winpwn flash the iPhone with a custom bootloader. This means that the iPhone can no longer check to see if you are loading an official, Apple provided OS.

From there, you can grab any jailbroken ispw file from the net, or use the Pwnage tools to roll your own. You can even load several version on there and choose which to boot into: perfect for testing purposes. If you want to try out the pirated beta of iPhone v2.0, this is your chance.

Product page [WinPwn via iPhone World]

Product page [Pwnage]

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by Joshua Topolsky, posted Apr 20th 2008 at 8:04PM
The OLPC XO — it’s all rainbows, hugging, and laser beams of learning, right? Maybe not, kind reader. Apparently, users of the diminutive, educationally themed laptop are experiencing a rash of “stuck key” issues which are causing tons of headaches (and possibly some heartbreak as well). It seems that keys are becoming stuck in activated positions, and / or are being triggered by key presses nearby. The company is aware of the problem, but can’t pinpoint a single cause, as the components are made by a variety of manufacturers. For now OLPC is asking customers to RMA the laptops so they can get the repairs they so desperately need, though we’re not sure how this is going to play out in the developing areas where the XOs are being rolled out. Well, they can probably just take them to the hospital.

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Horse Racing Extravaganza

You can have this for ?39.95

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