What Is New

Had a fun time playing with the homemade multitouch box yesterday. Here's a picture with it hooked up to a Lenovo x60 Tablet PC while I'm playing with Smoke. Loren goes into detail about how built the little multitouch box.

Tips:

1. Use a small box, such as 7"x7"
2. Cover the hole for the cord with duct tape to block extra light
3. Use a picture frame as the "lid" to the box. If you use paper alone press lightly or else your lid will cave in 🙂

According to the Computex website Sambest Corporation of Taiwan will show a model 800, rugged mobile PC with resistive touch display. Sambest has several mobile PCs with digitizer support.

• Compact A4 size with bumper and Magnesium-Alloy Housing in high strength and rugged structure
• 10.4” XGA (1024x768) TFT with resistive touch screen
• Intel Core Duo Processor Ultra Low Voltage 1.2GHz Processor
• RAM: 1GB DDRII 533 and optional 2GB upgrade
• Storage: HDD - Shock Proof mounted 80GB and optional 100GB/120GB
• Optional Solid Slate Drive 8GB/16GB/32GB
• Windows XP Tablet PC SP2 Edition / Windows Vista Business ready
• Built-in WiFi 802.11 a/b/g; Bluetooth Class I; CF/PCMCIA card slots to support UMTS/HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS/GPS Card
• Meet IP54 standard and compliant MIL-STD-810F
• Wide temperature range operation (-20℃ ~ +60℃)
• 7 hours of long operating battery life
• RS232 port for industrial device connection

According to PC Pro's Bob Harris, ARM is looking at the convergence zone of PCs and devices as an opportunity. ARM's Coretex-A8 processor could be its first step in the low cost PC direction. Energy efficient and very competitive may be the key to the successful expansion of this new category.

Recently, I've received questions about what application teachers can use on a Tablet PC that would be like a transparency or overhead.

Check out WriteOn, a project out of Virginia Tech. Teachers can annotate and "play back" to reveal information. This would be particularly useful for complex formulas, equations, and staging labels.

Building environmenally friendly PCs would potentially include reducing chemical byproducts, clean manufacturing, lead-free components, use of rapidly renewable materials, biodegradable plastics, rechargeable batteries with good method for disposal, longer lifetime of the complete product, reduce packaging, reuse - when possible recycle - materials, and the PC would need to be energy efficient.

Energy efforts alone range from reducing consumption by individual components, such as display and CPU, to improving software efficiency. Some PC manufacturers now have Energy Calculators available so you can know the amount of energy consumed by certain models. Here's a list of a few calculators and places to go for information. Please post resources that you use.

• Dell Energy Calculator
• Energy Star Guidelines for Energy Management
• Guide to Greener Electronics by GreenPeace has info on some general corporate policies
• Lenovo Project Big Green for IT 

Don't overlook consumption by specific models too. For example, the Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC consumes low power for a powerful mobile PC, and you can save a few trees by using the pen to handwrite quick notes.

So, tell me, are you ready to buy "green" PCs?

Very straight forward advice for college students from college students.Two students from University of Louisville Speed School of Engineering cover Dell Tablet PC, HP 2710P Notebook, Lenovo x61 Tablet PC, Gateway, and Toshiba. Find out their favorites for general use, budget, and all the bells and whistles.