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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, January 31, 2005

Taking the Pulse of Technology at Davos

New York Times:

Nicholas Negroponte, the technology guru from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, prowled the halls of the World Economic Forum holding the holy grail for crossing the digital divide: a mock-up of a $100 laptop computer.

The machine is intriguing because Mr. Negroponte has struck upon a remarkably simple solution for lowering the price of the most costly part of a laptop - the display - to $25 or less.

The device includes a tentlike pop-up display that will use the technology now used in today's rear-projection televisions, in conjunction with an L.E.D. light source.

Advanced Micro has been working with a variety of mainstream applications for low-cost computing, ranging from inexpensive Web surfing terminals to digital cash registers.

The PIC, which sells for $185 without a monitor and comes with a stripped-down version of Microsoft Windows, is housed in a rugged sealed case without a fan. The box, which Advanced Micro hopes to shrink to the size of a deck of cards soon, has generated a good deal of interest.

I've been meaning to write about the AMD PIC, which out-mini's the Mac mini with a totally fanless design, a true embedded-type OS (Windows CE .NET), an arguably nicer and more durable design, and a cheaper price, go figure. It was also out before the Mac mini.

Granted, the PIC isn't a true PC. There's no Ethernet, for starters, though that'd be easy to add. But with the insane rise in speculation about the Mac mini being used as a DVR--a task to which it is uniquely unsuited--I think the PIC has a lot of potential as well. Here's a PICture (ahem):

[ Posted at 8:26 AM | Permalink ]