Slashdot Mirror
Sony PCG-U1
hexdcml writes "Just found this whilst browsing, Sony has now brought out the My Little Vaio range, (probably for rich kids..tsk) All I can say is WOW, this thing is tiny.
Makes me wanna ditch my lurvely little iBook and get this!
The site's in japanese, so you'll need to translate (for those how are non-japansese literate) using Babelfish or something." Dynamism.com has specifications in English.
Fate, chance, karma, whatever you wanna call it -- when Miss Fortune spreads her legs for you, you're already in over your head. Believe me, I know.
...
Bunny LaFever looked like a dame with more curves and venom than Reggie Peeler's Land O' Snakes. But she wasn't a real dame. She was a she-devil. That golden bush of hers was nothing but a welcome mat to hell.
But now I'm getting way ahead of myself. Bunny had a way of doing that to jerks like me. She twisted us inside out and turned our heads around so we couldn't think straight anymore. So lemme begin at the beginning
Carnies got a word for a crooked game operator like me. They call me "Flattie" cuz I'll flat-out rob you and make you like it.
My name's Randy Everhard and I've got a million ways to take your money. One of my personal favorites is the "hopper shot." It's tossing softballs into toilet seats, which you've seen on every midway in your life. I could gaff the joint to make it impossible to win.
But where's the fun in that? I work it so any chucklehead can win all night long. Cuz once I've hooked a live one into thinking he can take me for a ride, that's when I nail him with the "build-up." Caught up in the excitement of winning game after game, the rube's built up to play twenty games at two bucks a pop. And the only prize he's going home with is a teddy bear that cost me three shekels per, wholesale. You do the math, Einstein.
The problem with selling three-dollar plush for forty scoots is that the build-up only pays off if you've got a steady string of suckers. And that night was turning out to be a real larry. The Laff Riot carnival was a flattie's wet dream. The grab joints and flashy rides were a front for the real action: flat stories, alibi and percentage joints, crap tables, slot machines, fortune wheels.
The show was running wide open. Everybody crooked and every joint gaffed and nobody doing a damn thing to stop it. I figured the cops were greased slicker 'n Liberace's asshole. It should've been like shooting trout in a barrel. Too bad nobody was taking my bait. I was up shit creek without a paddle to piss on.
My first goddamn night with the show, and already I was itchy for a new angle.
I can't remember which one of them I saw first: the blonde come-on dressed like she had an exhibitionist streak a mile wide or the square in the coke bottle glasses who was eyeballing her like she was nothing but something to look at. Of course, that Coppertone beauty really was something to look at. She was turning heads and raising dicks all over the place. But I didn't like him getting his eyes all over this piece of 100 percent corn-fed cocktease.
She was stacked like a double-decker Ferris wheel with nipples that could cut glass. The red double-O's stenciled on her football jersey were stretched over humongous hooters. She looked like a shooting gallery, bursting at the seams. You couldn't miss those twin titty targets. I'm talking knockers so big you could still see them when she turned around. And believe you me, she was one woman who looked as good going as she did coming.
She wore a pair of daring Daisy Dukes that were so short and tight her crotch sucked them in. The denim over her ass was thread-bare, blown out like a retread. And if that wasn't enough, she was doing a number on a grape Popsicle to make your peter wish it was frozen on a stick. That girl was one carnival ride I wanted to jump on quick, and I didn't care how many tickets it cost.
In my racket, though, business comes before pleasure. And this looked like a golden opportunity to work the key scam. It's the oldest con in the carny book.
I jumped the counter and made my way over to the chump with the steamed-up glasses. I was like, "Hot enough for ya? And I ain't talking about the weather, fella." At first he didn't buy it when I told him I was the "manager" of this fine talent. He just stood there mopping his brow with a hanky.
"I don't fuck chickens and I don't shit feathers," I said, "and I wouldn't lie about a piece of ass like that, neither." I gave myself a hard-on feeding him the fast talk: screwing her would make a man think he died and gone to heaven, where the streets are paved with solid gold snatch.
"She's a sight for sore eyes, ain't she? And if you think I'm giving you lip, you oughta see her go to town on a dick. Life-transforming, friend. Life-transforming." I pulled out an old key I kept for just such an occasion. Dangling it before his bug eyes, I spieled how it was the key to her room at some motel outside of town. "I'm talking once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, pal. She's the reason hard-ons were made."
He swallowed it all -- hook, line and sinker.
Chuckling over what he was going to tell his wife when he came home minus his paycheck, I made my way over to the sultry sex kitten. She was throwing heat like a furnace. Melting chocolate bars at twenty paces. It was too hot to fuck, but next to her, that scorcher felt like a cool, seaside breeze.
"I just made you twenty bucks, and all you had to do was stand here looking gorgeous, Gorgeous." She didn't say anything, just looked me up and down and blinked those big baby blues. The sheen of sweat on her face glowed under the neon lights. She'd sucked all the flavor out of the end of the Popsicle, so the tip was white.
I fished out a crisp, new bill and passed it over. She let it rest in the palm of her hand as she stared at it, confused. She tried giving it back to me, but I stopped her. "See that guy over there?" I asked, stepping aside to give her a glimpse. "He just paid me a lot of money to sleep with you."
He what?" she goes, insulted. She threw down what was left of her Popsicle and took a step closer. Her eyes burned like a butane flame. Like most women, she looked better when she was steamed. But I didn't want her making a scene. She was liable to blow the act.
"Don't get yer panties in a bunch," I said, shutting her cakehole with my hand. I told her about the con and then nervously took my hand away. I was sure she was gonna blow up again. But she kept quiet. I told her we had to scram and didn't give her a chance to say no. I just put my arm around her waist and steered her toward the exit gates. I gave Pops a back-handed wave as we booked outta there double-time.
My dick is long and my cons are short. Cop and blow, that's my motto -- take the money and run. Otherwise things got a way of getting ugly.
Two minutes later, we were hauling ass down the highway in my supercharged Chevy Menace. It was an acid green two-door with cheetah seat covers, four on the floor and dual exhaust. Twin cams and 440 horses under the hood.
"Say," I said, "what's your name, anyway?"
I was hoping to get to know every inch of her better. She smelled like coconut oil. Her tanned skin gave off heat like asphalt that'd been baking in the sun all day.
"Bunny," she goes. "Bunny LaFever." She was a real piece, too. I couldn't wait to do all sorts of dirty things to her. "How much you take him for?" she asked. "Two-fifty." In actuality I scored three-fifty. But if there's one thing I know about women, it's never tell them exactly how much money you've got.
Back at my room at the God bless America Truckstop Motel, she showed me that that sweet and innocent show was just a put-on. I was glad, though. I prefer a girl with some experience under her belt.
Before I knew it, she was all over me like stink on shit. Purple from the Popsicle, her tongue sprung to the back of my throat and then snaked all over the inside of my mouth like she was mining the gold fillings out of my teeth. Despite all the tongue wrasslin,' her hands were nowhere near where I wanted them to be.
My dick had been so hard for so long I thought it would blast off like a rocket, but she kept her distance. The teasing was cute at first but enough was enough. I grabbed her hands and planted them on the tent pole in my pants.
She pulled away and took a few steps back.
"You trying to insult me? You think you can have this body for free?" Bunny squeezed her 'lopes together, serving them up for my hungry eyes: "These tits alone cost five bucks to look at."
I chuckled nervously. "C'mon," I go, "quit screwing around."
"I'm totally serious. Five bucks or I'm gone."
I started laughing for real, digging the little swindler. What else could I do but pay up? She had me right were she wanted me.
This was one of those times in a man's life when he knows his dick's doing the brainwork but he doesn't care. Whatever the dick wants, the dick gets. That right there's the whole story of my life.
I plucked a five-spot from my wallet and waved it like a flag of surrender. She just looked at it. "I don't want your money now," she goes. "Pay me later."
"Whatever you say." And I just eased back on the bed to enjoy the show.
She peeled off her T-shirt and out bounced those giant, all-natural juggs. She had razor sharp tan lines from the sling of a skimpy bikini top. You could tell from her nips that the air-conditioning was on full-blast.
Bunny danced around the room, wiggling and shaking everything her momma gave her. I looked her up and down until I could've guessed her weight. She had all the right parts in all the right places and then some.
She neared the bed and leaned over me to let those massive, all-American melons swing inches above my face. "Wanna taste them?" she goes. As if she had to ask.
I lifted my head to suck the tantalizing titties into my mouth, but she snatched them away.
"Five bucks," she goes.
"All right, five bucks."
"Five bucks each, big spender."
"You got it."
"Pay me later," she cooed, and moved closer to bury me beneath her treasure chest. "Mmm," she purred, "you suck real good."
"Damn straight," I mumbled. "You're getting my money's worth."
She only laughed as her fingers spider-walked down to my crotch and unzipped my fly. "You'd like a tit-fuck, wouldn't you?"
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. Some girls are mind readers, but Bunny LaFever was the first dick reader I ever had the pleasure to meet.
"Twenty bucks," she barked.
I was like, "A bargain at twice the price. Pay you later?"
"That's right, bright boy."
We switched places on the bed so that she was on her back. I kicked off my shoes and pulled down my pants and underwear. This dick of mine's got its own zip code and time zone.
When she gripped the shaft, her fingers didn't reach all the way around. She was like, "Lucky for you I'm still in my size-is-everything phase."
"Me, too," I said, dropping to my knees to straddle her. My hard-on slipped between her cleavage like a hot dog in its steamed bun. She pressed them together to make the sandwich good and tight as I began my strokes.
I humped her hooters harder to push my dick closer to her succulent mouth. She stuck out her pink tongue and tickled the tip. Back and forth it fluttered over the head.
"There's a freebie," she giggled. "But I won't take one in the mouth for less than twenty."
"How much to swallow?"
She had to think that one over. "Thirty," she answered. "And that's only cuz I like you."
I dismounted and stood beside the bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress to let her mouth get better acquainted with my cock. Her tongue twirled over my shaft until it looked like a monument of polished marble.
She blew me good and slow, repeatedly bringing me to the edge of orgasm and then stopping until the urge melted away.
The build-up felt so good it hurt. I never begged anyone for anything before. But tortured by her talented tongue, I was actually begging for mercy.
After some more tongue lashing, she finally let me fill her mouth. She swallowed, too, and it felt like my whole body was sliding down with it.
The miniature notebook, or the ultimate PDA? You be the judge! =)
FP
Seriously, the Japanese always seem to have cool small-form factor electronics that are not sold here. I guess there's no market for them.
--
Ask the Ya-Hoot Oracle Anything!
Sony == DMCA. Bad people. M'kay?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Looks nice, but why would you need such a thing? Does it do anything a palm or other pocket pc wont do?
Sony's latest prototype, the PCG-U1, is a wonderful and exotic piece of technology. The "U1" is the smallest and lightest model of the entire "Vaio" series. Indeed, it has long been Sony's conception to shrink a full-featured laptop into an always-carry device; they have succeeded with the Vaio U1. The entire package, including a Crusoe 867 MHz processor, 6.4" (XGA) TFT-LCD, 20gb HDD, 384mb RAM (max), weighs merely 1.8 pounds, and boasts an incredible footprint of only 7.3" x 5.5". The U1 is designed for easy operation even if the user is holding it in a standing posture. Assuming use with both hands holding the chassis, the PC has a "wide-stick" for the thumb of the right hand which functions as a mouse cursor. The left thumb rests on a button that works as the left and right mouse buttons. There is also a built-in zoom function, which works at the touch of a button. A scrolling "Jog Dial" is also mounted above the keyboard, and integrated ports include a PC card slot, firewire, LAN, a headphone/audio output. Additionally, a pair of built-in USB ports and a VGA output allow the machine to double as a desktop unit. The U1 demonstrates why Sony is recognized, even by hardened competitors, as the world's leader in miniaturizing consumer devices. Any individual, company, or organization could find a unique use for the U1. Whether the needs is for an eye-catching model unlike anything that has come before, or a powerful tool for use by a sales force out in the field, the Vaio U1 is an unprecedented and unrivaled powerhouse in an ultra-small package.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
All I can say is DAMN! Mommy mommy buy me one!
Then again it does look k3w1 and it has a Crusoe.. *wipes off drool*
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
I roll up to trolldot and what do i see? this shit cuz.
what up cmdrtaco? i thought we were homies? u wanna catch a fade foo? better watch your back ms mothafucka.
With a base price of $2199....umm...yyeeeaaaahhhh
A 128mb RAM upgrade is.....$399
A toy for the rich kids is right!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
Sorry, can't do it.
I hope high gas prices are depriving your children, you fucking dumbass.
tjhe kleybpoard ois a vbit as,mall
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
Up till now I was trying to rationalize getting a Fujitsu.
Lots of websites on how to put linux on it and it also comes with a DVD/CD-rw. That and 5 hours on the optional battery....
I'm not a laptop guy - they are like infants - although the actual package is small, all the other junk you need to bring along: power supplies, extra battery, mouse, network cord, phone cord, teething ring...
Right now I have a Dell c400 which is small, but still a monster next to the transmeta types.
Oh well, after the recession. I promise I won't waste the next upturn!
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
"Imagine a beow...."
Seriously, though, you could have a very powerful cluster in a very small space.
Seriously, I'd have to agree with the submittor here. I am all for giving your kids the best, but kids in the My First X demographic (under 8? at some point primary colors get embarrassing) don't really have a use for a laptop. Even if they did, a retired laptop (even from ebay) would probably a better choice than this product, which just screams "status symbol."
I didn't get a current system until college, always learning on and using yesteryear's tech. It's a good way to go, b/c you don't take the cutting edge hardware for granted. I think it made me more aware of issues like backwards compatability, which is important.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Nice and small... not quite as small as my libretto I don't think but still small enough to make it easy to take around. Plus I've noticed that the small sony keyboard layouts are much roomier than the Libretto layout (especially the one on my 50CT).
Unfortunately Dynamism is charging $2000 to import it. Then again, the Libretto 50CT cost that much when it first got here too.
For those of you who like large notebooks, large screens etc. surprise! this isn't the laptop for you! Unfortunately "Texas size" laptops are more popular here in the US and small laptops like this one and the Libretto series have had to stay in Japan.
I've made it my business to kickstart a sleaze revival on slashdot - the cut-and-paste rule does not apply. Therefore, my claim to the first post is legitimate.
k-thnx!
--
Sig: NO SIG!
Personally I would have prefered to try and decipher "Ú@ZíÅSEÅEÅOEy--Ê*ðZÀOE.
I'd buy one of these, makes me wish I hadn't just built a desktop system a few months ago for ~$1500. This little thing is COOL. Probably would do wonders for on-the-run workers like salesmen and road/transportation engineers.
I wonder, does the Crusoe have MMX/SSE compatibility, etc? Is it even x86 at all? I don't know much about those chips.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
... if I mine comes with a cute Japanese girl hiding behind it. ;-)
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
How on Earth do you control the mouse on that thing?
This always happens. It's no fair!
The guy is typing with his thumbs! And the icons look pinhead-size. This is all very neat how we can shrink things smaller and smaller, but... ergonomics anyone? How about keeping your eyesight past your 20's?
I think the whole PDA/Tablet PC/Subnotebook thing is in general pretty silly. For general use they are horrible. Better to get something like the Hitachi WIA with an input device like the Twiddler and keep your wrists and eyes healthy.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
but what was the deal with the "thumbphrase" what does that do, eliminate typing? Where's the mouse thing exactly, on the side? Anyway, here's the address. I don't want to mess with html, haven't done it in a while so here http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PCOM/PCG-U1/f eat2.html
If you are criticizing the major american corporations, the terrorists have already won.
I've had an IBM PC110 since 1994 - similar size machine but 486 era, much smaller disk/memory and only a 486 CPU. Its still vastly more useful in many ways than palmtoilets and the various other PDA devices that people use. The PDA's are slowly getting there but the PC110 has a real keyboard, runs X11, runs x86 binaries, supports every PCMCIA driver the x86 platform in general does and so forth.
Its close to pervasive computing - it lacks vga out to images projected onto mirror shades, it lacks a cable link down the sleeve to a chord keypad/mouse and it needs a nice microphone/earphone for voice/audio/encrpyted phonecalls via a GSM modem and 802.11 card
Even a kid's hand look too big on the keyboard. There's small and there's usable after fifteen generation of some, uh, serious genetic engineering.
Man, you're supposed to use a mouse to move the cursor, not to help you type by running over the keys.
Can you say "Tinkerbelle's PC?"
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Uhh, it looks nice, but it's almost useless. That Xmeta chip is hella slow on this dog of a machine. I had to work on one. Hate it, hate it hate it. but that's just my opinion...
But usable, no. Tiny keyboards only allow one finger at a time typing. You can't get much work done on it and it'll cramp your game playing.
I might even consider replacing my Newton if it weren't for the price
...if it had a built-in microphone
...and if it had decent battery life
...and if it had handwriting recognition
...and it didn't come with a bloated desktop OS
...and did I mention the price?
But the words "Windows XP" stood out in the Japanese text.
Thanks, but I'm alright with my TiBook.
I'll just have to bring along My Little Magnifying Glass to be able to do anything on it.
...but not so cool to have to lug a huge pair of bottle-bottom glasses to have to wear to see the screen! 1024x768 on a 6.4" screen?! I thought the smaller (normal) Vaios were a bit hard on the eyes, but this!...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Since when are you the arbiter of first post decisions? I am certainly not a senior level troll (yet), but from the looks of things, it appears that I have more clout than you. So, for now, my first post takes precedence, but I would be obliged to follow the command of a higher-level troll if he said otherwise. That said, you can get your consolation prize at this respectable publication.
I think i could give one of these a good home. Can't wait to remove Windows from it.
I don't know what kind of improvements Sony might have made since I bought my Vaio, but I can't imagine they're anywhere near up to speed with Apple yet. I'm comparing a powerbook and a Vaio that were bought around the same time.
These are all the reasons why I don't get excited about the ever smaller/flimsier/less expandable offerings from Sony. If you want the mother of all laptops, get yourself a Mac, and take your pick between Linux (haven't tried the new Mandrake PPc yet - looks sweet) or OSX (I'm a sworn Mac convert now).
since Apple obviously aren't interested in supporting even basic accelerated video drivers for it.
I feel sorry for the poor people who paid good money for an iBook.
This thing might have a small keyboard, but i bet it is at least able to repaint it's screen in a reasonable timeframe.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I have some hoes with pretty eyes cleft palates that I'm sure you will love.
Now, I have things to do Tuesday.
1. Conceal face
2. Attract deseperate web nerds
I'm typing this on a Sony SRX77 running Redhat 7.2 right now. IT'S AWESOME! 2.76 pounds, 4 hours of battery life, 1-1.5 inches thick, and fast as hell in linux.
.
The install was kind of a pain, but the end result is a fast, super-portable linux box that makes iBook folks drool. I've run Apache, MySQL, and mod_perl for client demos on this, and it's pretty impressive. .
I honestly wouldn't want a smaller laptop than the SRX77, though.
It's obviously targetted at the "Too small to use, still too large to carry" market segment.
the /. crowd is not the intended market.
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...
My 16-month old has already broken a cellphone and 2 DVD-ROM drives. Yeah, you can bet I'll be buying her one of these real soon...
That thing would make a very interesting PDA, looks like its running WinXP, wonder how hard it would be to put a decent os on it. And use it as a fold up PDA with thumb keyboard
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
I think there is a market for the size, just not for the associated price. I would love one of Dell's slimline notebooks, but my empty wallet says otherwise. I can get a powerful, standard notebook for much cheaper and deal with the size. Give time for prices to come down.
Um,
1
I have an ibook 2001 (the white 500 Mhz G3 model) and it redraws the screen just fine in X. The white ibooks use the Rage128 video chipset and the X drivers for the chipset work great.
Here's a nice kernel for these ibooks:
http://www.ppckernel.org/kernel.php?id=2
With mplayer I play DivX DVD rips in full screen using XVideo with less then 50 % CPU usage. The video is flawless as best I can tell.
Now that the internal modem is working as far as I can tell EVERYHTING in the ibook 2001 is now supported by linux.
The Japanese name for this thing is "Ichiban chiisai Vaio", which translates directly as "number 1 small Vaio". An idiomatic translation would be "The smallest Vaio", although in Japanese as well as English "Number 1" also connotes "best".
There's no suggestion in the Japanese name that it's aimed at kids; rather that it's ultra-portable, something you could put in your purse, fit into your 3-square-meter million-dollar Tokyo apartment, or use on a packed Shinkansen.
The English trademark "my first Vaio" gives a different impression of the device, at least to native English speakers, but native English speakers are not the primary audience for this.
Hypermedia, virtual worlds, human interface, truth, beauty.
It is Japanese instead.
According to my understanding, nowadays Chinese always use standard keyboard without any Chinese char.. One of popular and practical chinese input method is 'ping-yin'.
I can resist everything but temptation -- Oscar Widle
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.
i think just about everyone who is literate in another language is "non-japansese literate".
i could be wrong, it's happened before. twice.
The first generation of pen / tablet computers didn't go over so well, because they were too big. I think the wide acceptance of PDAs, combined with the miniaturization demonstrated by the this little VAIO, sets the stage for a second wave of pen computers.
At this size, give me just the screen, or give me two screens that fold up like a book. I could probably write graffiti faster than I could hunt and peck on that keyboard, to say nothing of the mouse.
I pulled up the .jp site to see what it looked like real quick, and the first thing I saw was:
Microsoft Windows XP??????????[six lines of 'junk characters' removed for lameness filter']
I think I'll pass on this one.
You already get 200MHz ARM-based handhelds (soon 500MHz to 1GHz) and a folding keyboard. With that, you get both more convenient handheld operation and a much better keyboard. And if you like, such a setup also runs Linux.
[n/t]
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
mmmm... oh yeh.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Would you buy a machine called a "play" station? it sounds like something for little kids!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
My friend has a touchstream keyboard which he used full-time for a couple weeks. His emails constantly looked like the parent post. He attributed this to lack of tactile or auditory feedback.
On the other hand, I use a small two-way alphanumeric pager (size comparison, closeup). You end up typing on it preying-mantis like, holding the front with your thumbs nad the back with your pinkies, and typing with your two pointer fingers. Typing is definitely slower, but you don't end up making constant mistakes like with the other keyboards mentioned.
May point is... as far as I know, mini keyboards are the best solution so far, there are worse solutions available.
I'm british, so it's not a big deal.
(ok, not really. But I prefer my asian chicks nice and americanized anyway)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
In a world where it seems that everything needs to be bigger to better, this laptop seems to fit nowhere. No doubt it may be cool, but in a world where SUVs are king and big modded out computer cases are the shiznit, computers that are continually shrinking don't really follow the trend. And these new small laptops are so freakin' expensive, too.
I could touch type on a ti-92, so I'm sure I could handle this thing.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
When I the ethenet card for my laptop, the drivers came on a floppy disk. Sure I could get drivers off the 'net, but not without the eth card.
A friend of mine happened to have a Sony digital camera that let you mount it as a drive on a PC. We copied the stuff over to the cam, and then used the stick to install drivers. Pretty convoluted but it worked...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
anyone else remember those little battery operated electronic 'laptops' for kids that were supposed to help you learn spelling and maths, etc? this is just that, gone mad. there's not enough built-in bits and pieces to do all the things that people expect laptops to do these days.
of course, what one expects laptops to do and what the actually can do for the size is rarely equal.
all the same, I'm very happy with my iBook for thesis writing, ripping audio, and watching DVDs. things i can't do on my desktop pc!
I once opened up the front pannel to see if I could fix a power problem (I couldn't charge it back up after I sent it electricity with the wrong polarity in a botched attempt to use a car adaptor... I couldn't fix the problem)
Anyway, the layout was pretty straight forwared on the sr33k I have. One little wire for the touchpad, and the RAM and hard drive were right there for you to remove/replace.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
He's not talking about people using Linux... (besides, if you're going to run linux why would you get an iBook? 500mhz g3? Um, yeh...)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I still have my PC110, and it still works well. I don't carry it around much anymore, but it still blows people away when I do. (All the moreso when I tell them that it's an 8-year-old computer).
Right now I'm working on turning mine into a sort of desk clock/weather station/wireless AP, since it doesn't really have the oomph to do much else anymore (esp. w/ only 8 megs of RAM), and my P-series Lifebook is at least an order of magnitude more powerful and only twice the size.
Anyhow, thanks, Alan, for putting/keeping the PC110 touchpad driver in the kernel! I still crack a smile every time I do 'make menuconfig' and see that option, even when I'm not on the wee beastie.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Seriously, I have enough trouble with my cell phone buttons :)
lets see something designed with BIG HANDS in mind.
It doesn't make anything easier, just lighter.
I've tried using laptops, the Sony C1VN, Palm Pilots, a Handspring, HP sci calculators, and even the short-lived HP Omnigo
It's already difficult trying to program on the beach with the C1VN, which already has the smallest keyboard I can imagine. You have to hunch over to see the 8"x5" screen, and only so many concepts can be conveyed on half a page of courier font. I have no idea how I would program in pages of code with just my thumbs on the PCG-U1.
I think the problem lies in the fact that programming requires undivided concentration, and when you're outside there's a world of distractions and glares from anything and anyone.
The portable device everyone really wants is the one they can carry a conversation with while walking in the park and having it turn that conversation into productivity.
However that's way off in the future. So for now, if I had the money i'd get a PCG-U1 to feel good even if I didn't use it much.
What the hell does this mean?
Babelfish is col and all, but I can't wait until AI's are advanced enough to translate thigns properly.
"Me and my girl named bimbo . . . limbo . . . spam" - Captain Beefheart.
... that dynamism.com stole images from Sony's web site and proceeded to watermark them with their own logo.
The Japanese use Chinese characters though... and all the Chinese keyboards I've seen have Chinese characters on them. See this one as an example...
The keyboard has hiragana on it, which is the Japanese syllabic writing system for native works. Shift (I think) outputs the equivilant katakana, which is the syllabic writing system for borrowed (foreign) words. An input system on the computer automatically replaces the kana with the kanji for words that can be written in kanji as you go.
:)
There are actually dozens of systems for inputting Chinese and Japanese in computers. That is the most common for Japanese today to my knowledge. In China the most common is to have a keyboard with special characters that represent the sounds in Chinese using a system called BoPoMoFo. Unlike the Japanese Kana, the BoPoMoFo characters are never used when writing; only for typing.There actually are Chinese keyboards with large arrays of Hanji (same as Kanji, but how the Chinese say it). Watch the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies to see Bond be intimidated by one
If anyone cares to know more I'd recomend this book published by Oreilly.
Oh, and PinYin is the romanization system for Chinese endorsed by the government of the PRC. The BoPoMoFo keyboard symbols represent PinYin sounds.
This keyboard is designed for thumbs... So many posts about how small the keyboard is and you don't realize the asian population is geared toward tiny electronics. They're thumbs are their most dextrous fingers nowadays as opposed to our index.
The Japanese use Chinese characters
The Japanese use Japanese characters (kanji) that resemble Chinese characters. They usually input them by spelling them out (using hiragana - the equivalent to an alphabet) and having the computer guess at the meaning, then correct that meaning. It usually works out alright.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Just to let you know, there are many of us that are lucky to have the internet access we have while viewing those with handhelds and notebooks as definitely 'rich' compared to us.
Not a sermon, but just thought people should be aware of that. On an interesting side note, that type of thinking blown way up and fed tons of illogic and ego juice is where we get these foolish socialists from. Thanks my latte sipping friend, but could you not try to relieve your guilt all over me and my friends n family to make yourself feel better? Please don't ever do anything to 'help' me except give me back my freedoms and money stolen from me by your friends on the Hill.(including voting for someone that does this)
Hey, anybody whose used any Sharp organizer like a Wizard (like myself) should be able to use this thing with a minimum of fuss. Thumbing the keyboard is a pretty effecient means of typing when they get that small, and I'm not just talking Asian hands, either. Once you learn what works, the keyboard will be the least of your problems.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Apparently the poster is non-english literate. (how=who).
"There's a madness to my method." -mthed
Looks like cd-rom/dvd-rom and floppy are optional, unless you can boot from the ethernet, better hope you don't nuke the OS.
(Other than taking the hard drive out)
WTF is lurvely? It's not in the dictionary.
I'm sure someone else will mention this before my reply gets submitted, but to clear this one up:
:) Certainly easier than for English in the average case.
:P But that's a different story.
Japan uses three ideographic alphabets, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are small sets, and non-ambiguous. On a japanese keyboard you use a shift key to choose which you're typing in, then input them phonetically.
Kanji is the set of imported chinese characters. Japan uses a small subset of traditional chinese characters called the "Joyou" character set. (My spelling could be awful on that) It's got around 1900 characters that are in common use, and an additional few hundred characters used just for names. (It's changed quite a bit in the past few decades since I last studied Japanese formally, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.)
The kanji _are_ ambiguous, that is, the same pronounciation can have multiple character representation. But with so many possible pronounciations and so few characters (relatively) it doesn't take long to tab through your options when you input one. Generally the way to input kanji is to type in the pronounciation, then the word processor guesses the one you want, then if neccesary you tab through the rest of the options to find the other one. It sounds a little slow, but the ai's are getting better and better, so it's really getting smooth and easy.
In general, Japanese is actually a very computer-friendly language. It's grammatically strict, making contextual inference fairly simple. It's non-tonal and non-inflexive, so voice recognition is surprisingly easy.
Now, Chinese is a whole different matter. It's the source of most internationalization angst for the pacific rim.
The Tiqit eightythree is similar in concept to the
sony gizmo, but even smaller. It runs any X86 OS,
has a cardbus slot, vga out, mike+audio plugs, 10G disk, etc. Screen might be smaller than the Sony, but is still very effective. Not in production yet, but may signify a trend. See www.tiqit.com.
I never have had the time to learn how to program a Palm. With one of these devices, I don't have to. For that reason alone, they're likely to be more useful... even though more costly at first
Even so, the money I wasted on two Palms would probably bring one home.
Personally, I want one of these (the top one =)): Fujitsu P-2000. The specs beat the Sony one hands down, it has a modular (!) cdrw/dvd bay that can be used for a second battery, built-in 100baseT/wavelan, faster Crusoe, all for an ultra-low $1800. The graphics adapter sucks, but I can live with that.
And it's 10.6"(w) x 7"(d) x 1.59"(h), which makes it only a tiny bit less portable than the Sony one. I admit the Sony can look more attractive, but you'll have to haul around an extra cd drive and pcmcia card for equivalent functionality.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
I took Japanese classes a few years ago. I tried looking at some web sites in Netscape 4.x on a Windows system. I even downloaded a few fonts to try to get it to work better. It never looked good.
Just now, using Galeon, I clicked on the link to the Japanese page, and oh my gosh wow! The whole thing looks like it should. Hiragana, katekana, kanji, English text, it's all there and it all looks like it should.
Kudos to the Mozilla and Galeon developers.
By the way, it still bemuses me how the Japanese like English words so much. They will use their Katekana phonetic alphabet and spell out English words by sound.
Their phonetic spellings look odd to English-speakers. In Japanese, the consonant sounds don't appear alone; you can never have just "k", it has to be "ka", "ki", "ku", "ke", or "ko". The sole exceptions are "m" and "n" (e.g. "Nisan" can end with just "n" instead of "nu"). There is no "l", so they use "r" for "l" when doing foreign words. They often swallow or drop the "u" sound, so a Japanese speaker pronouncing the word "mobairu" will say something like "mobile" (i.e. he will get it pretty much correct, even though the spelling looks odd to us).
Examples on that page: "katarogu PDF" is the link to the PDF Catalog; "rainuppu" is the link to the "lineup"; and the picture showing two hand thumb-typing says "mobairu gurippu sutairu" (mobile grip style).
Note that the name "Vaio" is very difficult for the Japanese to pronounce; the phonetic spelling is "Baio", much easier for them. Japanese doesn't have a "v" sound.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Sony is still makes up the largest percentage of funding for the RIAA out of any single company. They definately could influence the RIAA stance on my rights to play back music on PCG-U1 that I have purchased from Sony Records. But the RIAA still does not recognize fair-use rights to move legally owned content to another media such as the PCG-U1's 20GB hard drive. As long as Sony continues to fund such anti-consumer organizations, I see no reason to fund Sony.
The SONY video game system (PS2) has a controller that is compact and stylish.
The MSFT video game system (XBox) has a controller that is large, clunky and the very epitome of ugliness.
The SONY handheld is compact and stylish.
...I pray to the heavens that we never see an MSFT handheld.
DAMMIT! I JUST got my Sr. Exec's to quit their bitching about our gigantic (4lb.) IBM laptops by switching them over to Toshiba Portege 2000's. I wonder how long until I start to hear about this "lurvley" little toy. I'll probably have to order a 5th. grader along with it to fit the keyboard, but hey - anything to make their lives a little easier.
Seriously, this thing looks pretty cool. Nice specs, and even looks standard enough to put a usable OS on it with a little tweaking. Maybe work will let me order one to evaluate...
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
Dynamism clearly states it's a prototype. Which is at odds with the post that "Sony has now brought out" this very cool little box".
That would be the perfect for someone who's got to go to *sigh* school everyday. I can't read the site, cause it's in Japanese. But the pictures and concept are a great idea. I don't give a damn about screen size or carpal-tunnel syndrome as long as I can set the resolution to 5680x4240 like I do on all my other computers. I'll just go blind.
I hate those losers who can't come up with a decent sig. Oh, wait...
(paraphrased)
"We're sorry, but the fingers you are using to type are: TOO FAT. If you would like to aquire a special typing wand, please mash the keys: NOW"
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Everybody seems to be complaining about the keyboard being too small to touch-type normally -- maybe that's not what you're supposed to do. At that size, I can imagine holding it with two hands and being able to reach all the keys (and the pointing-device controls) with my thumbs. This seems to match perfectly with the Gameboy-generation it's targetted at.
but what I'd love is My First Sony.
Oh, I'm sorry, you said My Little Pony. Er, I mean Sony.
Great. Now that's two more reasons for me to gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
I guess it's comparable to an iBook in price, but with a tiny keyboard and screen, it seems more like a big PDA... I watch DVD's and do some coding on my iBook, but I'm not sure I'd trade it in for this toy (hey, you gotta admit, the thing's a toy even when compared with an iBook).
Oh, and does it run *nix? :-P
---
Open Source Shirts
I just wouldn't feel like I am part of the
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Crusoe, 30W, and up to 4 hours battery life.
So, the CPU isn't all...
Resemble them? C'mon, the majority of kanji as used in Japanese look identical to the characters used in Chinese. There are a few characters with minor differences, but they're still recognizable--on the same order as using a different font. You wouldn't say that Fraktur font characters aren't Roman characters, but only resemble them, right? Well, the difference between Japanese kanji and Chinese characters are much smaller than the difference between Fraktur and Helvetica. In fact, "kanji" () means "Han characters", i.e. "Chinese characters".
BTW, minor note to Oroborus: technically, kana aren't ideographic; they make up a phonetic alphabet.
But anyways, back to the keyboard... yeah, Japanese keyboards have mostly kana on them... they do have kanji on some of the special Japanese function keys though (halfwidth/fullwidth shift and the kana->kanji conversion key, for example...) That's what I was referring to...
At only 14 tons, I guess they qualified as luggables.
--
(if you're still looking for the point, it was back there, in the post. </sig>)
thanks again, and again! i have been looking at this for a few weeks, and at this price... ring me up. very cool little machine. it will drive a 21" monitor, and can take a 40 gig drive. and sorry, but my son has an ibook with osx.
I know it's a crusoe, and Linus is obviously working on Linux support -- but, how good is it? I was thinking of something like this as a nice little portable linux box, with GNOME or KDE running on it -- is this box up to it? How does it compare to other machines?
I was also thinking that this could be a nice little box for a network admin -- with the builtin networking, Linux, and the right tools, you can take this with you into those closets and troubleshoot on the spot. And when it's not being used, into the pocket it goes.
So, anyone have any feedback on the Crusoe and Linux in general -- or even better, Linux and this little puppy together?
dennis
Just in case you are interested in layout of keyboard using among Chinese in PRC.
1. Very few keyboard marked chinese char. on keyboards.
2. Pinyin is endorsed by Singapore government too.
3. Chinese inputting system based on pinyin modified standard 'pinyin' a little bit to be able to directly use 26 English char. Thus, needn't mark any Chinese char. on keyboard.
I can resist everything but temptation -- Oscar Widle
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.
try this link. It might just be a stylesheet issue.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I asked a Japanese co-worker why we don't have all the nifty technostuff Japan does. Interesting explaination:
In Japanese culture, women are not allowed to bring any money into a marriage. In centuries past, this made sense as they rarely had any money to bring. Today, Japanese women (like Americans) get married significantly older, and often have high-paying careers before getting hitched. Since they socially can't save that money for use in marriage, they have a relatively HUGE disposable income - coupled with miniscule apartments, no other big-ticket items (like house or car), and a fantastic telecom infrastructure (due to dense population) - they have the money & motivation to buy lots of really nifty communication-oriented (remember, these are women) gizmos.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
this looks the right size to do some coding & testing while i'm on the bus! regular laptops
way to cumbersome! you can compile & test on
this as well as type...
www.ibm.co.jp/pc/prod/ha/110.html
It's never made a diffrence that I've known, and I've been doing web stuff since '97
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.