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hmm... their palm announcements are hardly as cool as their other announcement (thanks glenn fleischman):

Sony's Wi-Fi equipped pocket Web server:
GadgetWatch identifies (and offers an English explanation of) a Wi-Fi-enabled portable fileserver! Nifty. 70,000 yen.

See here.

How hard is it to make a proper link? I mean, come on, are we geeks or are we geeks?

http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/cocoon/CSV-E7 7/index.html
http://shopping.msn.co.jp/softcontent/softcontent. asp?scmId=123

Also, something else I'd like add about pro gaming. Check out major gaming championships, like WCG. Which games are played there? Quake III, Counter Strike, FIFA, StarCraft... One of the reasons these games are chosen is because they are popular. Another - they can push the hardware to the limit and make gamers get interested in purchasing newer hardware. Yes, that's right - you need someone to sponsor those competitions. Most of these games are unplayable (seriosly) on the notebook.

I agree with your point about USB devices getting popular. But, if you will have to drag with you Genius PowerWheel with Pedals (don't tell me you play Colin McRay without it :)), Sony headphones, a proper mouse and keyboard for that matter, then using your notebook actually loses any sense. It becomes almost as easy to bring a proper box, using something like GearGrip Pro.

The main issue I found is running XP with all its spurious services that seemingly screw up the code-morphing cache. Fortunately, XP can easily be desugar'ed (which you presumably want to do anyway) and the result, as I said, is just plain awesome.

Cheers ...

The thing ships with a 16mb memory stick, and can take larger sticks. It also has USB and a cradle for faster transfers. 47 seconds is also for the largest format picture. It can also send video at several frames per second, or a VGA resolution snapshot in under two seconds.

Backing up, the point of Bluetooth isn't Raw Speed. The point of including Bluetooth in a device like this is automation: As soon as you come near the proper PC, this and the PC will detect each other and begin the exchange. You might not have taken the camera out of your pocket or done more than set it down on walking in the door before it finishes the transfer.

If you need the pictures more quickly, simply set it in the USB cradle, or pop out the memory stick and stick it in one of those PC drive bay memory stick adapters.

Later on, you'll be able to configure your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone as a conduit, so pictures can automatically ride a secure tunnel back to your machine wherever you are, giving you an effectively infinite amount of space for your pictures. That's what Bluetooth is for.

More details here for Japanese speakers.

It's all Flash animation, which means I can't run it through babelfish, but ...

http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/CSV/

Can someone who reads Japanese click on the "My Net Communication" and translate the text? Looks like it's programmable through the net (cool).

Also, what is this image all about? That's a weird looking GUI for a channel guide!

Its been said before, and it shall be said again, Sony's Really Small Notebook(TM) does kind of rock.

I wouldn't really want to read too much Kanji, let alone English, on it's display, and there are standard potential OS quarms, but it does have a certain coolness, and it is actually available.

Although I'm quite content reading about it on my iBook, which is about as small a computer as my hands can get down with...

16.1"? Why? Whats the point? Aren't laptops supposed to be /portable/?

Depends on your definition of portable. If your definition is "desktop in a briefcase", then the GRX line is for you. This GRX91G/P will do quite nicely as a Powerbook Ti crusher. If your definition is "as small as practical", try the SR, R505, or C1. In Japan, Sony has even smaller models, like the GT (think C1 with a much larger camera attachment) and the U (recently nicknamed "My First Sony" by the /. crowd). Of course, this is all based on Sony's Japanese and American lineups. Toshiba, Dell, IBM, Apple, HPQ... quite a diverse marketplace.

As for the GRX91G/P itself, it looks like the only major differences from the US-spec GRX500 are the DVD burner, the remote control, and the software bundle. Otherwise, it's the GRX500 with the core specs (CPU speed, memory, storage) turned up one notch.

I wonder if they are going to sell that USB remote in the States? I could use something like that.

Sony MEX1 Japan (japanese but plenty of pics)

1064$

Even more info

http://www.caraudioexpress.com/SONY2001.htm (typo or just old?)

What I think is really interesting though is that they have integrated in some software features to reduce the amount of typing that you have to do. As demonstrated in the link above (link above) you type the first phonetic character for the word you want (nothing new here) and then you can use the jog shuttle to pop up a list of kanji (this is new.) Generally, you have to phonetically spell out the whole word before you can do the kana->kanji conversion, but their little flash cut out the other "u" "syo" and "ku". Of course, you replace that with twiddling the jog shuttle, but still, if they are using bi or trigram based prediction you can bet that that method will speed up typing a lot. I don't know if it would be as effective for English, but my guess is yes.

Miniature?! This thing is bigger than a car!

There's a picture here, it appears to be a wireless card of some sort, only operating at 128kbps.

Here's more info on the card on the vendor's site.
Translated with the fish here.

It's designed for the "Thumb Generation", the Japanese who have taken to 3G wireless technologies with abandon. Because they use cell phones for messaging, they're developing amazingly adroit thumbing skills. The suggested thumb use for this Vaio is demonstrated here.

Any idea if it will be coming to the US? In an English version? (the keyboard has chinese characters).

And any idea what the "Zoom in" button does (on the monitor under power button)?
There doesn't seem to be a zoom out button either...

... if I mine comes with a cute Japanese girl hiding behind it. ;-)

in japanese.

Also Japanese keyboards have a weirdy, small space bar compared to our occidental and lengthy one.

And lest anyone be tempted to descend into racist genital-comparison jokes I should point out that the reason for this is that Japanese text does not have spaces in it, so it is only used when typing phrases in English.

On my recent trip to Tokyo what most impressed me was the new Vaio, model PCG-U1. You can check it out here.

Basically it's even smaller than the last series of Picturebooks (C1-XX series), but has even better stats- e.g. Transmeta over 800Mhz, 20G, 256MB etc- and the screen is finally the right aspect ratio.

Trust me, when you see it in the flesh you will fall in love... (I nearly broke down when I discovered I couldn't afford it despite the fact it cost only 750 UKP, which is probably less than half what it will cost me if it ever gets to the UK).

graspee

Sony just released a new PDA in Japan named Clie PEG-NR70 that may be even cooler than the Zaurus, even though it's not running Linux, but Palm compatibility means lots of cool software too !

You got an flippable keyboard with much bigger keys (the Zaurus ones are really tiny, I can tell you for I own one myself), and all the usual cool stuff (MP3 player, optional camera, acts a universal remote control, ...).

It sells for about US $500 in Japan, and no planned US release I could see...