I was really looking forward to hitting up 10 countries next week on my MIDMoves tour but alas, roaming 3G data costs have killed the idea. With daily roaming ‘offers’ at 15 Euro for 50MB and per MB costs coming in at between 2 Euro and 4 Euro it won’t be possible to do this while I’m Internet connected. Wifi hotspots won’t be enough to fill in the gaps either so rather than go off on a jolly where no-one can see me, I’ve sent back the inter-rail ticket and re-arranged my tour. Here’s the new itinerary.

Day 1 – 20th Jan remains as planned. Its a 5 country dash in my car with live location feedback and media along the way. I will take a couple of 3G SIM cards with me and should be able to keep the data down to under 100MB for the day. Weather permitting, I’ll drive from Bonn. Germany to Trier taking in the Rhine and Mosel then cross over into Luxemborg. Drive north into France and find a nice route up towards Belgium and then a quick dash through the southern-most city of Holland (Maastricht) where I will eat lots of gouda cheese, smoke a joint (joke!) and then drive home where I’ll review the experience.

Day 2 – 21st Jan is GPS-art day. I’m going to attempt to draw something over Cologne. You’ll be able to track me live, watch my microblogs and blog posts, see a stream of images and watch the map mashup as I create the image. I should be able to stay online all day and will probably be using an XP-based mobile device for this which will make it easy to integrate all the software I need to do it. If you’re in Cologne and fancy a meet-up, get in touch with me and we can drink a nice stein of beer together at the end.

Day 3 – Connecting with Nicole and MBC attendees. I’ll be travelling up to Hamburg on the 22nd of Jan to meet with Nicole where we’re going to get together for MIDMoves podcasts and try to arrange a meet-up with attendees from Europe’s first microblogging conference, MBC09. Nicole is arranging it for late afternoon so if you’re interested in meeting in Hamburg to see all the devices we have and to talk in detail about how the devices can be used, keep an eye on MIDMoves where we’ll publish the details. Obviously, there’s be a big stream of information coming out on MIDMoves.com

Day 4 and 5. Getting involved with MBC. In my eyes, microblogging is not just about 140 characters. It’s about quick and easy updates with any type of media. Microblogging can easily include location, image, video and audio data and can be as valuable as a fully edited blog post. During the two days of MBC I’ll be trying to get a feel for how the microblogging sector is moving by talking to some key people and feeding back as much information as I can in a well-formatted and media-rich way. I’ll also be available to give demonstrations on the Intel hardware that we’re taking. Hopefully there’s going to be some live streaming too. If you’re going to MBC09 and want to check out the new Intel hardware, please comment below.

Following the tour I’ll be doing some update posts and writing in more detail about the devices. It’s also possible that we’ll be getting more Intel-based devices in for testing and sending out some of our devices for hands-on with other bloggers so stay tuned!

Engadget still haven’t sussed-out that neither the S7 or the Vaio P are netbooks…

Also small is that keyboard, which is one of the most painful we’ve yet experienced on a netbook

Given the size, it’s actually one of the best keyboards. Up there with the Everun Note and way better than the SC3. With 8hrs battery life, CPU options up to 1.8Ghz and a Windows XP option, expect this to win in a bang-per-buck comparison with the Sony and with a rotated, flipped screen, reading websites and RSS feeds on the sofa will be one of the most relaxed experiences on any PC. Style and build quality are not, however, up in the Sony league. Engadget extracted a price from Viliv but ‘less than the Vaio P’ obviously means that the marketing department will make sure that 1.3Ghz model is $100-200 below the Vaio P price. We’ll have to wait to see how much the loaded pro version is. Short video also available in the Engadget article. Via Liliputing. More info and links for the Vaio P here, and the Viliv S7 here.

Someone leaked HTC’s roadmap for 2009, and among the low quality slide images was this one:

Looks pretty good, I like the glossy screen – it looks a bit like a digital picture frame. It’s hard to tell if the keyboard is the same capacitive one or if HTC is back to mechanical keys. Camera is still there, and there appear to be no buttons on the front. Regardless, we’ll be on the lookout for more “Thoth” info. Perhaps HTC shoved an Intel Atom in there? Ahh, one can dream… The possibility of it running Android is always present however.

There is also a nice looking Whitestone W device. Again, waiting for more info. 

The Sony VAIO P [Portal page] was a big deal at this year’s CES. Sony teased us with visions of a computer that would fit in our pocket. While the device is certainly small, I don’t think it is a realistic pocket machine (even the flash ad on sony.jp seems to agree). My three year old Sony VAIO UX [Portal page] is more pocketable, which is why I was somewhat baffled when they released the P which isn’t even close by comparison. Here are several pictures from Engadget China poking fun at the pocketability of the VAIO P that I chortled at. I find the one with the desktop to be particularly funny. First shot is official from Sony of course.

The Viliv S7 has been in the pipeline for a while now and is way up there on my personal ‘watchlist.’ We heard that the S7 would be on display at CES so thanks to some group digging (hat tip to the great bunch of people in the live chat room as I type) we’ve found the official info. There’s a couple of nice pics there too. Strange perspective but you get the idea….tasty! Far nicer than the ‘raw’ version I saw, but still enjoyed, at the Intel Developer Forum last year.

Read the full story

Taking the industrial route is the i7300 ultra mobile PC from TabletKiosk. Dual hot-swappable batteries. Image and details over at Gottabemobile. Expect more soon as they’ve had a meeting with them.

TabletKiosk’s eo i7300 7 inch Active Digitzer and Touch | GottaBeMobile.com.

OK, it’s the Compal design again but the important thing here is that Velocity Micro are a U.S. company and they’re talking about a sub $500 price, 3G, and availability through major retail channels in the U.S. making it only the second MID to become locally available in the U.S. (The ClarionMiND was the first.)

The press release is here. I assume it’s going to be similar in specs to one of the other Compal JAX-10 devices so check out the details on specs here.

Via MobilitySite. Source Geek.com

The word ‘concept’ is not an easy word to write here. I want to say ‘product coming’ instead!

This image is from Pocketables.net who have a few more that you should take a look at. I have a feeling that by using the best available display technology and platforms like Menlow designers could come up with some incredible umpcs and e-reader devices. And when I say connected e-reader devices I mean everything from locally stored ebooks and PDFs to live webpages. The modern-day newspaper. I’m imagining a slick UI and a capacitive touchscreen and an OS and hardware that offers the normal desktop PC experience. MmmmmID-Tastic!

Check out Pocketables for more pics.