Version 1.75 of the One Laptop Per Child laptop has passed testing at the FCC. There are no photos or advanced technical details on the FCC site (indeed, there’s a letter asking the FCC to keep all that information confidential for 180 days (PDF) to protect manufacturer Quanta’s trade secrets), but prior coverage from Engadget shows the netbook is very similar in appearance to prior OLPC models. (The planned OLPC tablet is apparently still some distance away.) The main difference from previous OLPCs seems to be that since OLPC has started using a low power Marvell Armada CPU, it...

Google has finally introduced the Chromebook, with models from Samsung and Acer. Google’s developers explained there’s a fundamental difference between the Chromebooks and netbooks. Chromebooks are essentially “tablets with keyboards,” whereas netbooks are shrunk-down Windows laptops. However, Google currently has no plans for putting Chrome OS on tablets without keyboards. The Samsung model will be priced at $429 for wifi-only, $499 with 3G. The Acer version will cost $349 “and up”. However, in addition to selling them outright, Google will be offering rental models at $28 per month for enterprise users, and $20 per month for educational users. (A...

Neowin reports that “a reliable source” has indicated that Google ChromeOS notebooks will be available for purchase around the end of June or the start of July, and that in addition to standard sales, Google will offer them on a monthly subscription basis. For $10-$20 per month, Google will replace faulty hardware for the life of the subscription, and will provide hardware refreshes as they become available. This essentially treats notebooks like a cable modem—a device leased from the cable company as part of your monthly fee in return for replacing it if anything goes wrong. I wonder...

In contrast to my review of Jolicloud from the other day, John Scalzi has posted a review of the other popular cloud-based operating system. Google sent him a Cr-48 with ChromeOS to try out, and he has set down his thoughts. Scalzi found a number of things to like about the hardware, and liked how ChromeOS was implemented largely to stay out of the user’s way. But he also zeroed in on a couple of the big problems with a cloud-based operating system. First, many of Google’s on-line applications simply aren’t “there” yet for heavy use. When he...

On his recent trip to America, Charlie Stross unfortunately discovered at the airport that, in the bustle of getting packed to head overseas, he had managed to forget his laptop. And he’d left his iPad and even his Bluetooth keyboard for his iPhone behind as well, since he wasn’t going to need them with the laptop around. But he found a novel solution: My wife, being sensible, hadn't left her laptop at home; rather than arm-wrestle with her for it, I bought an entry-level iPad on a buy-it-now-and-eBay-it-later basis. (An entry-level iPad (16Gb, no 3G)...

Plenty of hybrid tablet/laptop devices are on their way. Dan Ackerman on CNet reports on four prototypes that were shown at CES—tablets with keyboards that flip out from behind, or slide out of hidden slots, and so on. These could offer the benefit of tablets for easy reading and net surfing, then turn into full-fledged Windows netbooks with keyboards when more physical input is needed. Ackerman wonders what the best name for such a device would be, however. “What should one call a tablet with a sliding or foldout keyboard? A laptab? A keylet? A tabtop? A keyvertible?” ...

I was watching the Steve Jobs Apple event yesterday afternoon, but had to go to work too soon afterward to put down my thoughts at the time. It didn’t seem terribly urgent since there wasn’t a whole lot relevant to e-books anyway. It was interesting to note that they said the Mac accounted for 33% of their revenue over the past year. What this means, taken another way, is that iPods, iPhones, and iPads—products that didn’t even exist ten years ago—made up just over 2/3 of their revenue. That’s twice as much as Macs, formerly their core product...

The Gadgeteer has a review of an interesting-looking gizmo, the tyPad wireless Bluetooth keyboard case for the iPad. This $129.95 case combines a binder-style case and a Bluetooth keyboard, effectively turning the iPad into a laptop. (Although the review doesn’t mention Sena, the picture of this keyboard is identical to the Sena case/keyboard combo Paul mentioned at the end of August.) The review notes that the case is sturdy enough, and has a number of useful features, such as the ability to rotate the iPad 90 degrees to type in either a landscape or a portrait configuration. But...

On CNet, Erica Ogg poses the question, “So, who’s still buying Netbooks?” She posits that the netbook craze is a tech fad that has been fading over time, citing figures showing the number of netbooks shipped falling quarter to quarter as the manufacturers gear up to jump on the next fad, chasing the popularity of the iPad. Some have long complained that the netbook is a solution in search of a problem, featuring a too-small screen wedded to a too-small keyboard. The lack of built-in optical media renders installing software a challenge (I’ve spoken to a couple of...

My esteemed editor Paul Biba posted earlier about giving away his iPad---while I appreciate the numerous reasons Paul outlined and respect why this was the right choice for him, I have another perspecitve, and it is this: you can give away my iPad when you pry it from my cold, dead hands, thank you very much. I love my iPad, but I recognize that like all technology choices, what works for one person won't work for another, and it's important to consider what you actually plan to use it for. The iPad was...

Wired has a brief “Fetish” piece looking at a new Toshiba netbook that joins a number of other failed or issued dual-screen devices in replacing the keyboard with a second 7” touchscreen. Among its other uses is, naturally, that of e-book reader, with each pane showing a separate page. At $1,100, over twice the cost of the cheapest iPad, the 1.2 GHz device certainly does not lack ambition. What it does lack is much reason for buying at such a ridiculous price. You don’t need two screens to display two “pages”. The iPad manages it just fine. ...

In a related matter to Paul’s last post, I’ve just gotten off the phone again with my three local Kmart stores inquiring after the Augen devices. At the one where I used to work, it seems that they’ve gotten so many calls about it that as soon as I said nothing more than, “Electronics, please,” the customer service rep who first answered my call said, “If this is about that computer thing in the circular, we’re out of stock…” When I spoke to the electronics department anyway, the electronics associate said they had gotten maybe two of them...