Algiz XRW is a Rugged Netbook PC to Land Soon

A rugged netbook with a 10-inch display, an Intel Atom processor, and the ability to withstand a number of very rough environments: that is the Algiz XRW from Handheld for you to get hold. This amazing device is operative in temperatures even as low as 4 degrees Fahrenheit, or as hot as 131 degrees.

Handheld, at present, proffer a model with an Intel Atom Z550 processor. Nonetheless, as per reports from the FCC website, a new model with a higher-performance through Intel Atom N2600 chips just the current week.

The Algiz XRW has a 1366 x 768 resolution pixel display which has with it a resistive touch screen. It has a range of ports including Ethernet, VGA, RS232, USB, and SD card ports, and pogo-pins for a docking station. It has 2GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state disk, a webcam, and space for an optional 3G module and SIM card. The notebook has a 5200mAh 57.72 Whr battery.

This device is not the sort of netbook that could be picked up for use at the local net hub. In lieu thereof, it is designed for the work outside including military, utility, or forestry works … or perhaps folks making expeditions to the Arctic. As to how much, no news has been confirmed.

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Asus VivoBook X202E touchscreen notebook review

Asus has been offering affordable portable notebooks for a while. The company practically invented the netbook by introducing the first Eee PC mini-laptop in 2007.

Now that netbooks are out of fashion, Asus is taking a few different approaches to the affordable portable space. Asus is one of the biggest players in the Android tablet space. The company recently introduced a line of Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets. And then there's the VivoBook line of notebooks.

The Asus VivBook X202E is an 11.6 inch, 3 pound notebook that sells for as little as $499. It's not quite thin enough to be called an ultrabook — and it doesn't have a solid state disk, which is another ultrabook requirement. But with an Intel Core i3 Ivy Bridge processor it's a pretty zippy little notebook.

It also has a built-in touchscreen display, which comes in handy when using the new touch-friendly Windows 8 user interface. The X202E also happens to be one of the cheapest touchscreen notebooks on the market.

That's a bit of a mixed blessing. The screen has an unusually large bezel… and wobbles a bit when you touch it. If Asus skimped on anything else, it might have been the battery. The notebook gets lackluster battery life, and the battery isn't user replaceable.

Still, if you're looking for an inexpensive (and portable) Windows 8 notebook with a touchscreen, the Asus VivoBook X202E may be one of the best options around.

Overview

Asus loaned me a VivoBook X202E for the purposes of this review. It features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel touchscreen display, an Intel Core i3-3217U Ivy Bridge processor, Intel HD 4000 graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive which, for some reason, is divided into two 250GB partitions.

The notebook features 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 10/100 Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0, an SDHC card slot, 2 USB 2.0 ports, and 1 USB 3.0 port. There's a front-facing VGA camera, a headset jack, and VGA and HDMI ports.

The VivoBook X202E measures 11.9″ x 7.9″ x 0.9″ and weighs about 2.9 pounds. It has a 38Whr battery, which Asus says should last for about 4 hours, which is about what I managed to eke out in my tests — although you'll probably run down the battery more quickly by watching videos or playing 3D games.

Asus ships the laptop with Windows 8 64-bit, and you can use the touchpad, touchscreen or an external pointing device to navigate the Windows 8 user interface.

Design

While the Asus VivoBook X202E has some premium features such as a touchscreen display, a light-weight case (made of metal and plastic), and an Ivy Bridge CPU, this notebook clearly isn't in the same class as a high-end ultrabook.

At nearly an inch thick, it's a bit too chunky to be called an ultrabook. You don't get a backlit keyboard. And while premium touchscreen devices tend to have edge-to-edge glass to support Windows 8 gestures that involve swiping from the edge, the VivoBook X202E does not.

Instead the display is surrounded by a plastic rim — and there's an extra-wide bezel around the display area, which gives you room to swipe from the edges of the screen.

The result is that while the VivoBook X202E has an 11.6 inch display, it's a little larger than some other notebooks with similar screen sizes. In fact, the laptop is a little wider than the 12.1 inch Asus UL20A notebook I bought in 2009.

Front: Asus VivoBook X202E / Back: Asus UL20A

That's not to say that the X202E is extraordinarily large or unwieldy. Its just a tad wider than you might expect an 11.6 inch notebook to be thanks to that extra-large bezel.

Asus also made sure to include an extra-large touchpad below the keyboard, giving you plenty of room to perform Windows 8 gestures including two-finger scrolling, 4-finger app switching, and swiping-from the edge (much the same way you would with the touchscreen).

Unfortunately I found the touchpad sensitivity to be a bit hit-or-miss. It's certainly not th

CyanogenMod 10.1 nightlies brings custom Android 4.2 to more devices

The CyanogenMod team is now offering nightly builds of CM10.1 for more than a half dozen devices including most Google Nexus phones and tablets and a few additional devices such as the Samsung Galaxy line of phones and the Asus Transformer Pad.

CyanogenMod 10.1 is a custom version of Google Android 4.2 which includes performance and behavior tweaks. More importantly, it offers an unofficial software update for devices that may not always get the latest features directly from the manufacturer.

At this point, most of the devices that have official CyanogenMod builds are Nexus devices -- which means you can also download Android 4.2 directly from Google. But CyanogenMod gives users more control over their devices -- and if you happen to have another supported device then CM10.1 saves you from waiting for your phone maker or wireless carrier to offer an official update.

Bear in mind, right now we're talking about "nightly" releases, not stable or even beta releases. That means you shouldn't be surprised if you find bugs or performance issues.

But the only major issue the CyanogenMod team is warning about right now is that if you upgrade from CM10 to CM10.1 the clock app may behave erratically. You can fix this by hitting the "clear data" option for the Clock app in the Settings -> Apps menu.

As of December 17th, CyanogenMod 10.1 nightlies are available for the following devices.

• Google Nexus 10
• Google Nexus 7
• Google Nexus 4
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Samsung Galaxy S III International, T-Mobile, AT&T
• Samsung Galasy S II International
• Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700T

Additional devices should be added to that list in the coming weeks and months.

After updating or installing CyanogenMod 10.1, you'll also probably want to install the latest gApps package which includes the Google Play Store, Gmail app, and other software. The latest build if 20121212 and it's available for download from the CyanogenMod wiki and from goo.im.

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Asus Taichi 21 dual-screen notebook hits the FCC

The Asus Taichi 21 is an unusual notebook with two screens: one on either side of the lid. With the lid up, the Taichi looks like a typical 11.6 inch notebook. Close the lid and it looks like a slightly bulky Windows 8 tablet.

Asus hopes to ship the dual-screen notebook by the end of the year, and this week the Asus Taichi 21 slipped through the FCC website on its way to store shelves.

There aren't a lot of surprises in the FCC documents. Asus has been showing off the tablet for a while and we already know it has a starting price of $1299, an Intel Ivy Bridge processor, up to 256GB of storage, and two 1920 x 1080 pixel displays.

You can use one screen at a time, display the same content on both, or display different content on each screen. That means you can set up the laptop on a tablet and play a game or write a document on one screen while someone sitting across from you watches a presentation or a movie.

Only the screen on the lid has a touch panel. The screen that faces the keyboard is just a normal display.

The FCC photos do confirm that the laptop has a 35 Whr, 3200mAh battery. Asus says the Taichi 21 should get up to 5 hours of battery life.

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Pi Store is an app store for the Raspberry Pi mini-computer

The Raspberry Pi is a tiny, inexpensive computer which has been making waves since it launched earlier this year. The price is part of the appeal: you can pick up a model B for $35, or a stripped-down model A for $25.

But another thing that makes the Raspberry Pi exciting is its open nature. It can handle a range of open source operating systems and run thousands of apps. Now the folks behind the little computer are trying to make it easier to find some of those apps in one place.

Raspberry Pi, IndieCity, and Velocix have launched the Pi Store, a place to download games, utilities, and other apps.

At launch the pickings are kind of slim. There are 23 apps available. The good news is that most are available for free. The Pi Store also supports paid apps though. There's also a tip jar for folks that want to donate to support the developers of free apps.

The Raspberry Pi project was initially designed as a way to get low-cost computers into the hands of students, and in keeping with that, the founders of the new store are hoping the Pi Store gives young folks a chance to create software and share it with a large audience.

Anyone can submit apps to the store -- but the Pi Store is moderated, which means that apps can be rejected.

The Pi Store will also distribute books, magazines, and other content in addition to software.

You can browse the store by visiting store.raspberrypi.com in a web browser. Or if you want to use the store on a Raspberry Pi computer, you can download a version of the Raspbian Linux operating system with the store included or install the "pistore" package using apt-get.

More details are available at the Raspberry Pi blog.

Pi Store is an app store for the Raspberry Pi mini-computer is a post from: Liliputing

Pioneer Computers Unleashed DreamBook T14 Touch Ultrabook

Computers, laptops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, convertibles, ultrabooks, etc., these were the very trend and passion and fashion of a lot of people nowadays. It was like as if nothing will come to be an easy way of life without at least one of those.

True to every word, consumers and producers have it with them; the characteristic of innovation: wanting and developing it. Following the number one producer boost move for a mark up and profitable day, the Pioneer Computers Australia is on the go. Just recently, it had its new ultrabook unleashed to the public; the DreamBook T14 Touch.

The DreamBook T14 Touch is an ultra-portable system. It is packed with a 14-inch 1366 x 768 touchscreen display, a 1.9 GHz Intel Core i7-3517U dual-core processor which is powered up to 3GHz. Also, it is expandable up to 8 GB of a RAM and is equipped with a 500 GB hard drive or 240 GB SSD.

The said Dreambook device from the Pioneer is made to acquire a webcam, a DVD or Blu-ray drive, a 4-in-1 card reader, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 port. It runs on either Windows 7 or 8 operating system. It could be bagged starting from $799.

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Amazon Kindle Fire HD update adds Swype keyboard, camera app

Amazon's latest software update for the Kindle Fire HD add support for the company's new "Kindle Free Time Unlimited" subscription service for kid-friendly books, movies, and apps. But it turns out that's not the only new feature the update brings.

Amazon is also adding the Swype keyboard to the latest Kindle Fire tablets, and offering a camera app for models with a built-in camera.

The Kindle Fire HD 7″ software update notes mention that once software version 7.2.2 is installed, you can use the front-facing camera to snap photos without first installing a third party camera app.

The update also lets you use the popular Swype keyboard to either type out text or slide your finger from one key to the next without lifting your hand from the screen.

If you've got a 2nd-generation Kindle Fire (the $159 model) that doesn't have a camera, you get Swype and Kindle Free Time Unlimited, but there's no camera update in the latest software.

Meanwhile the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ software update page doesn't say anything at all about new features, but the update should add the camera, Free Time subscriptions, and Swype.

Amazon tends to push out software updates to Kindle Fire tablets automatically, so most users should see the new features soon. If you want to avoid the update, your best bet is to disable WiFi indefinitely... which might be a good idea if you've rooted your tablet.

That's because Kindle Fire updates invariably break root access, and you might want to wait to see how easy it is to re-root your device once the new software is installed.

via The Digital Reader

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Root Transmission: Root your Android device by tethering... to another Android device

There are tools available to root nearly every Android phone or tablet released to date. Many of those tools require you to hook up your mobile device to a PC with a USB cable and run a utility on the PC.

Root Transmission removes the PC from the equation. You can use this app to connect two Android devices together with a USB cable and root one by sending commands across the cable.

Root Transmission requires a rooted Android device with USB On The Go (OTG) support to work. You'll also need a USB OTG cable to link your devices.

For many users, it's probably still simpler to just connect the device you want to root to a PC. But if you don't have a computer handy, Root Transmission presents an interesting alternative. It also demonstrates that basically your phone or tablet is a mobile PC.

Right now the app is capable of rooting a handful of devices including the first generation Amazon Kindle Fire, Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III, international Samsung Galaxy Note II and a few more phones by running the appropriate scripts.

Bear in mind that running the wrong script can break your devices -- both of them. So you'll want to make sure you only download scripts from trusted sources and/or know how to create your own scripts before using Root Transmission.

You can find more details, download links, and instructions at the xda-developers forum.

via xda-developers

Root Transmission: Root your Android device by tethering... to another Android device is a post from: Liliputing

The Times is offering £50 Nexus 7 tablets to digital subscribers

UK newspaper The Times is the latest publication to try to get readers to subscribe to their digital magazine by offering a subsidized tablet. But unlike the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times is offering a decent tablet: The Google Nexus 7.

Here's how it works. If you subscribe to the paper's digital bundle for £4 per week (about $6.50 US), you can pick up a 32GB Google nexus 7 for £50 (about $80 US). That's £150 off the list price.

 

The Times

Customers can also pay £299 up front to snag the Nexus 7 and an 18 month subscription all at once, which saves a bit of cash in the long run.

The Google Nexus 7 features a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. It runs Google Android 4.2 and features access to the Google Play Store -- which means there's nothing stopping you from installing other news apps.

via The Verge

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OLPC XO-3 tablet is canned, XO-4 convertible still under development

Almost a year ago One Laptop Per Child started showing off a tablet designed to offer low-cost touchscreen computing to students around the world. The plan was to sell the XO-3 tablet for as little as $100 per unit.

Now it looks like that plan has been cancelled.

Network World reports that the XO-3 won't ever see the light of day, but that some of the technology from the prototypes could show up in future products, both from the OLPC group and from other tablet makers.

The XO-3 prototype featured a 1 GHz ARM-based processor, an 8 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel Pixel Qi display, and a rugged rubber back.

OLPC is still working on an XO-4 device, which is basically a minor variation on the existing XO Laptops. Like earlier models it will have a rugged design, a low power display and processor, and a body that lets you rotate the screen and fold it down over the keys to hold in tablet mode.

But unlike earlier models, the XO-4 will have a touchscreen, so you can use it like a real tablet, not just an eReader. The XO-4 is expected to ship in 2013.

Meanwhile, the lost cost computing space is a very different place than it was when Nicholas Negroponte first started One Laptop Per Child. When he promised to deliver a $100 laptop (which was a little ambitious -- the final price was closer to $200), there was no such thing. Today you can find dozens of inexpensive netbooks and tablets which sell for that price or lower.

Not all of them are optimized for use in developing nations where access to electricity may be spotty, and where outdoor readable screens and dust-resistant keyboard are key advantages. So it's good to see OLPC still kicking around new ideas... even if they aren't all as ambitious as they once were. But you can make the case that without the original OLPC, netbooks would have never hit the streets... and the average price of a mobile computer would be much higher than it is today.

via The Digital Reader

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