I do enjoy a bit of Om Malik. He cuts through the crap well and has a great sense of humor. He also seems to like mobile computing. Both he and Stacey Higginbotham write good detailed mobile computing articles that you know they are passionate about.

This morning I read an article from Om about netbooks and cloud computers. He’s not happy with the general design of netbooks.

So far, all they have done is cram traditional notebooks into smaller, maybe-lighter-to-carry bodies. They’re neither good for computing nor for communication.

You know what, I think there are two types of Internet people out there. People that have discovered mobile Internet and people that haven’t. Om is obviously of the mobile persuasion and he, quite correctly, points out that netbooks really aren’t a massive leap forward for mobility and, very importantly, require some form of mobile Internet connectivity. Fortunately for netbook manufacturers, most people haven’t discovered the mobile Internet yet and will probably be happy with a netbook. [It also raises the question of whether netbooks should tend towards ultra mobile PC designs over time?]

Om goes on to list his Cloud Computer requirements which, if you ask me, has ultra mobile PC written all over it. – apart from one thing. But first, his specs:

1. Instant On
2. Doesn’t generate too much heat.
3. Minimum 5 hours of battery life.
4. Must feature at least four communications options: WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth & Wireless Wide Area Network connection to, say, an EVDO or HSPA Network.
5. Less than three pounds (Batteries included).
6. Screen size of 3.5 to 8 inches (wide-screen proportioned)
7. The primary function of the computer should be cloud-based activities that can include everything from listening to live music, reading blogs and watching videos. Writing research reports or cranking out spreadsheets isn’t the primary purpose of these machines.
8. It should cost no more than $300. This isn’t a computer; it’s a communications device. It should really be an on-the-go device. It is a device for the moments when your cellphone isn’t enough, and laptop is too much. An iPhone should qualify.
9. Its innards, ports should be geared for Internet-based activities — from making calls on Skype to consuming RSS feeds — though it should be able to handle external peripherals.
10. In the future it should move away from the keyboard and have a touchscreen interface that allows one to sift through large amounts of data (or web pages) quickly, as cramped keyboards and touchpads can be hard to use.

Spot the problem feature at #8. Sorry Om, you aint going to get a device like that for $300. 3G modems are still very expensive. Touchscreens too. Then there’s the scaling cost to consider for a market that, compared to the smartphone market, is tiny. You might see a device offered by a carrier for $300 but you’ll have to sign up for 2 years of data to get it which, in this fast changing mobile Internet world, is an eternity. Expect to wait another 12-18 months before a sub $400 3G-equipped ultra mobile PC hits the market. In the meantime, us early adopters will have to be prepared to pay.

At least we have a choice though, just two years ago you could count the number of ultra mobile PCs on one hand. Today, you have over 100 to choose from.

Source: What Makes A Cloud Computer?

It looks like Engadget had a slow news day on Sunday as they highlighted the full-fat video presentation I’d prepared for the visitors here. “Gigabyte M704 unboxing video excites reviewer, may put you to sleep” was the title. The cheeky monkeys! Fortunately, people that are actually interested in UMPC’s appear to have got something out of it and see that it’s quite an interesting UMPC. The refresh over the U60 has turned this tiny 7″er into a rather useful and good-value device. Where the 1st-gen Gigabyte U60 had an 800×480 screen, this one has a far more useful and much brighter 1024×600 screen and where the mouse pointer on the U60 was difficult to use, this one is far more useable. Add the noticeable performance improvements that the 1.2Ghz CPU brings over the former 1Ghz version and the device has turned from borderline option to serious top-5 ultra mobile computing choice.

I’ve been using the M704 non-stop for the last 3-days and can’t really find any show-stopping problems with it. The fan could be quieter, the keyboard could do with a backlight, a little more styling would help and a weight reduction down to sub-600gm would help with the long-term two-handed use that is often the case due to the nice split-keyboard but that’s about it. The XP-based system (it’s a special Gigabyte build optimised with larger font sizes and pre-installed software which, as I understand it, means it can be sold until Jan 2009) is swift enough for all browser-based work and most media files. I was surprised to see a 6mbps WMV file playing with very few frame drops in the Nero8 demo software. Battery life is a true, working, 3 hours. The slider mechanism seems to be tighter than the one I tested on the Medion ultra mobile PC (version) the WiFi is strong and with the docking station, it turns it into quite a nice low-end home PC. I’d even argue that the M704 is more suited to netbook-style operations than netbooks themselves as it’s half the size, 75% of the weight and is far, far more fun although that really depends on how much typing you want to do.

Old and new. Gigabyte U60 and Gigabyte M704. Note the control key changes.

In Europe, the pricing seems to be very competitive. Certainly in Germany, if you buy an M705, you’re getting a device that’s more useful than a Q1 Ultra for about 75% of the cost but it’s double the cost of most netbooks here Sure, you get the touchscreen, 60GB disk, XP, Bluetooth and ability to add the GPS and DVB-T modules and docking station, but you’re still paying a few hundred Euros for the extra portability and niche nature of this device. As for U.S. pricing, we’ll have to wait and see what the local pricing is.

I’m continuing to add my testing notes and thoughts to this forum thread but the video, while long, probably gives you a better overview. [Click through to full article]

StreamMyGame is a fairly new service enables high end gaming on low end hardware by using a host computer to run the game then playing it remotely from another computer. The service, which offers a free and paid version, has been demonstrated as working well on the Eee PC among other netbooks and UMPCs. Today a news post on the StreamMyGame website says that a new version of their software has been released that targets UMPCs and netbooks, and claims compatibility with over 100 devices. Additionally they mention that similar performance should be seen on upcoming MID devices. The software is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, and even Linux.

“The Linux player has been requested by our Eee PC members and has been optimised to run on both the original and new ranges of the Eee PC. The Window’s player has also been optimised.” — Richard Faria, StreamMyGame’s CEO.

The video below shows Crysis and Quake 4 being played on an Eee 701. Crysis is an extremely graphically and CPU intensive game which requires a beefy gaming rig to run at a good framerate. Crysis runs at a respectable framerate on the 701 to say the least. Of course performance is mostly reliant on the host computer, but this demonstrates the ability of the software quite nicely.

The video is rather impressive, but I can’t seem to think of a situation where this would really be practical. I don’t know many people who have a $2k+ custom gaming rig who would prefer to play the game remotely on an 800×480 Eee 701 screen.

I suppose true remote play (over the internet, not through your home network) would make it possible to do some mobile gaming while you are on the road, but I don’t think it is a real replacement for fast paced FPS (first person shooter) games. You could make the argument that it would be convenient to be able to play World of Warcraft while away from home, or maybe a slower paced RTS (real time strategy game) like Starcraft would work well. Surely a touch type-able keyboard and USB mouse would be required for a good gaming experience with most games.

What might be useful for some (though I’m not sure if it is cross platform) would be the ability to play Windows games on your Linux based netbook or UMPC. Whatever the situation you may need to remotely play your high end games, StreamMyGame seems to have a solid platform set up to help you do just that.

I gave this a try about a week ago using my Dell desktop as a host (not a gaming machine by any stretch of the imagination), and my Sony UX180 ultra mobile PC as the client. Setup was pretty confusing, and in the end I couldn’t get Day of Defeat: Source to play on my UX180, but I’ll give it another shot, maybe with a non-Steam game, and try to get some usage experience to share. Give this a shot on your own device and let us know how well it works.

Its Friday, I have some cool beers n the fridge and a new ultra mobile PC to unbox. If you fancy joining me, asking questions or just watching the live video and chat from the sidelines I’m happy to host a live session.

As I mentioned, I have the new Gigabyte M704 UMPC which has just arrived in Europe at Mobilx (aff.) and I also have Ubuntu Mobile Running on the Q1 Ultra UMPC. As usual, i’ll try and answer all your ultra mobile PC questions, just don’t leave it too long otherwise the fridge will be empty and i’ll be in bed!

Camera is on now at UMPCPortal.com/live where i’m just going to run off an unboxing and intro video then we can chat a bit later.

JKK, Sascha and I review the main MID, ultra mobile PC and netbook news that came out of Computex. We talk about the top players in the netbook market, pricing and the new platforms from VIA and AMD. Its another long podcast that could have been much longer!

Direct download: MP3, 48 Minutes, 33MB

Subscribe to the Ultra Mobile Podcast RSS Feed

Origami Experience 2, or OX2 as Origami Project calls it, is the second version of Microsoft’s touch orientated software for UMPCs, and if you can’t wait for its release, swing by the Windows Vista Experience blog for a preview of OX2’s RSS features.

The RSS reader in OX2 allows for easy subscriptions to RSS feeds from any site. Your feed list across IE and the Origami reader will be common. So if you subscribe to something in IE it will also appear in your OX2 feed list, and vice-versa. Podcasts and videos can be played right inside the RSS reader, and you can access the original site through the OX2 internet app (essentially IE with a touch optimized skin over it). The nice part about this is that you are still within the OX2 software, you aren’t just using it as a software launcher like the first iteration acted as. You can also flag feed items you’d like to come back to just like you can star items in Google Reader.

I’m actually a bit excited for the new version of Origami to come out. It seems like Microsoft has taken at least a little bit more care this time in making a decent touch interface for some of the common tasks that users deal with on UMPCs. Unfortunately I’ve gotten word that it will be Vista only, which isn’t surprising considering Microsoft’s foolish desire to get low-power UMCPs running Vista. An ambitious independent developer is attempting to make a clone of OX2 that will run on XP; more on that later.\

[Chippy says: It’s a shame that it’s IE7-based. Firefox 3.0 is so much faster that it’s hard to go back to an IE7-based browser now. I think i’m also right in saying that OX2 is only available to licensed partners so only new ultra mobile PC owners will get it…on Vista!]

Jenn from Pocketables.net notes that the Sony VAIO UX490 has gone missing from SonyStyle.com. This isn’t abnormal for Sony. It’s been seen before, however this time it seems a bit different as Sony has completely removed the UX section from their website. This is the first time that there hasn’t been at least one UX model for sale on SonyStyle. Without the UX490 there is nothing under that category, so the whole section has been removed from the site.

I think the big question is whether this is an indicator of Sony moving away from the UX line and instead replacing it with the netbook. Sony is rumored to be taking advantage of VIA’s OpenBook design which would help them bring a low-cost netbook to market in a relatively short period of time. Does that conflict with the UX line? I would say no. The two are in completely different categories. The netbook is a low-power, low-cost device targeted toward first time PC users or users who don’t need a lot of power. The UX line, on the other hand, is a high-power premium device targeted toward mobile professionals. Sony managed to pack enough power into the UX490 to make it one of, if not the most powerful ultra mobile PC to date, and in one of the smallest packages.

So what could explain the removal of the UX490 from SonyStyle.com? Sony is often very mechanical about the way it does things when it comes to pricing and online sales. When the UX180 was first released it was only on shelves for a few months before it disappeared entirely and was replaced with the UX280. The UX280 sold for the same price as the UX180 but had double the RAM and a larger HDD. Then of course came the UX380/90 models which were slightly upgraded versions of the UX280 for the same price. Consequently the UX280 faded off into the background. The same thing happened with the UX380 before the UX490 came out. If anything, I would say that removal of the UX490 from SonyStyle.com has more to do with marketing and sales than telling us whether or not the line is going to be discontinued in favor of a netbook. It’s quite possible that Sony stopped producing the UX490 because they new a new model would be coming to market soon, but something has prevented them from bringing the new model on board at the right time.

So the way I see it, the two are not going to interfere with each other. Sony will probably continue its incremental updates of the UX line. Sony is large enough that it can experiment with a netbook while continuing to manufacture the UX series of computers. Its anyone’s guess as to when they will update the platform that the UX runs on. They have been using the same powerful Intel hardware since the series started with the UX180. There has been some fishy activity on Sony’s support website which may hint at new models. I’ll be keeping an eye on that and keep everyone posted.

As we discussed on last nights Computex round-up podcast, Linpus have also announced that they will be using the Intel Moblin core as their base for the Linpus Linux Lite OS. Linpus might not be a Linux distribution you’re familiar with but if Acer get their way, it could be on millions of netbooks by the end of next year as it will be shipped in the Linux version of the Aspire ONE.

Taipei, Taiwan – June 3rd, 2008 – Linpus, a leader in the field of Linux solutions for low cost notebook and ultra mobile devices, announced today plans to deliver Linpus Linux Lite to support netbooks, a new category of simple, affordable devices for the Internet. Linpus Linux Lite with its ultra intuitive icon, tab-based interface and high performance on low cost hardware is well suited for this category of devices. Linpus will join the moblin.org project and will develop their products by adopting the Moblin Linux stack, optimized for the Intel® Atom™ Processor to unlock longer battery life, fast boot performance, better internet and media experiences on these devices.

With Xandros and Canonical also announcing support and Wind River and Asianux already on board, the Moblin core and toolkits could provide an interesting opportunity for application developers.