HP to launch EEE contender

It is getting increasingly clear that tiny notebooks are "in" this year. As a friend of mine would say, "it seems that every man and his dog is out to release one of these".

Since yesterday news and rumors have been going around that HP is going to release an ultra-portable notebook to compete with Asus' EEE PC. These rumors now seem to be firming up since Engadget received some pictures and even got a model number for it: 2133.

image source: Engadget

Though the HP 2133 looks very sexy it is a bit worrisome that it is said to have not visible screws. Unless it comes with 2GB like the MacBook Air, this is a bad move. Tons of people that have purchased the EEE PC have done memory upgrades, storage upgrades and all sorts of hacks to it. That is one of the things that make the EEE so attractive. You can get one with 512MB or RAM and on the way home stop by any shop and get a new 2GB board for spare change as memory is priced now.

One of the interesting items about the HP 2133 is that it is supposed to have a screen resolution of 1366x768. This would make it much better to use than the EEE PC, but would probably make it a lot more expensive. A new post, today, on Engadget mentions a price over $630, which in itself might not be too bad, depending on the amount of built-in RAM and storage.

This new ultra-portable looks very good and with this rumored screen resolution it may become an attractive alternative in this market.

MacBook Air, it might still be a hit

In a recent post I wrote about how the MacBook Air was a great product, but might have come out at a bad moment. I still believe that that is the case, as I think that a lot of people who would have been drawn to the Air will be pulled to smaller and cheaper machines such as the Asus EEE PC, the Everex Cloudbook (which is not getting good reviews) or a similar machine there are rumors that Acer plans to introduce later this year. All around, this seems to be shaping up to be the year of the sub-sub-notebook.

I might be willing to reconsider my initial feelings towards how well the Air will sell, however. From a personal point of view, I love it. It is elegant and lightweight and seems like a perfect candidate for being carried around for on-the-go work, for which I'm currently carrying around a Dell Latitude 620. A great computer, not too heavy, but not half as sexy as the Air (or light for that matter).

Today, I came across a post from John Gruber, about the Air, where he makes the case that thought the Air is not as powerful as the other MacBooks (and Pros), it is indeed powerful enough, as it beets one of the best Mac notebooks from just two years ago. Well, you see, I'd already reached that same conclusion while contemplating if I wanted to buy an EEE PC, or not. That it was capable of doing what I wanted to do, there was no question. I used to work, full time on Celeron 600MHz, not that long ago. Not to mention everything that came before that.

I've spent a couple of days working with an EEE PC, which I was evaluating. I can clearly do a lot of my work with it. This means that a dual core MacBook Air is certainly more than enough. Its full sized keyboard and much larger screen is, also, much better suited for use during longer periods of time than the EEE's smallish, though usable, keyboard.

My final conclusion is that both of these computers are representatives of two groups of notebooks which have similar goals, but which will be chosen will be a matter of personal taste and and deeper pockets. Smallest possible size or more "style"? Inexpensive or full sized?

Take your pick.

Microsoft going hostile on Yahoo

Microsoft does not seem to want to take a no for an answer. Company officials have said that regardless of Yahoo board’s response Microsoft plans to forge on ahead with the merger proposal, going directly to Yahoo shareholders. Mary Jo Foley who covers Microsoft, full time, at ZDNet has some more information on this.

Microsoft-Yahoo: They don’t call it a hostile takeover for nothing… by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley -- What's a hostile takeover without a little hostility? I still think the proposed take-over of Yahoo by Microsoft is nutty, but Microsoft seems set on making it happen, whether or not Yahoo's management and employees are happy to become part of the Empire.

Leopard update: Apple seems smarter than Microsoft

I could say that the recent release of a Leopard update (10.5.2) made me realize that Apple seems to be smarter than Microsoft, but I would probably be lying since I had figured this out a couple of years ago.

This latest update allows users to change some of the new features of the Leopard interface which were not an all around success. Some people like them but many do not. A good example is the transparency of the menu bar, at the top of the screen, which depending on the wallpaper used, caused readability to suffer. Now, you can dial the menu transparency down or get rid of it entirely.

There are many of these interface changes in Vista as well, but it seems that while Apple is ready to admit that it might have gone overboard on some changes, Microsoft considers all its changes perfect, even though a large number of users complain about how "improvements" were made to places which did not really need any.

Googlephone might actually be interesting

Some time ago an announcement was made that Google was developing, along with other companies, a software platform for mobile phones, called Android. While interesting per se the news did not attract much of my attention. I filed it way for later reference and did not do any follow up research about it.

Yesterday, while researching some other topics on the Internet, I ran into a reference to this and after a few clicks I got to the video bellow. This video shows a demo of the platform and of some of the applications that have already been built for it. If you like sophisticated mobile phones, smartphones, PDAs and similar devices, it is likely that you will like what Google is doing.

I believe that from now on I will be following more closely what is going on with the Android platform. It seems to be much more interesting than I, originally, gave it credit for.

Yahoo to reject Microsoft bid

An article posted today one The Wall Street Journal online, citing an unnamed source which is closely familiar with the situation, states that Yahoo's board has decided to reject Microsoft's $44.6Bi bid for acquiring the company.

This same source is said to have indicated that the board would not be prepared to consider any offer under $40 per share. Microsoft's bid was of $31 per share which was considered to be massively undervalued. If Microsoft is really after Yahoo with and decides to meet such a value, it would mean upping what is already a huge bid by more than $10Bi.

More Apple products in February?

A rumor has been going around on the Internet that Apple might be about to announce new products in an event to be held still in the month of February. All the speculation going around seems to be centered on the fact that the iPhone SDK was promised for this month and some supposed evidence that Apple is going through the moves, with contractors, for putting on a media event.

Considering that Apple introduced new iPhone and iPod Touch models this month, with very little fanfare, I am a bit skeptic about a new media so soon afterwards. I guess we will just have to wait and see...

Apple introduces new iPhone and iPod Touch models

Apple has just introduced a 16GB iPhone and a 32GB iPod Touch. We could say that these devices only add more storage to what was already available in the previous models, however, Apple updated the software for these devices in January.

The updated software already added new functionality to both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Considering that the update to the Apple TV that was announced by Steve Jobs in his MacWorld 2008 keynote has not been releases yet, one has to wonder why these devices were not announced then.

Microsoft and Yahoo: Is 1+1=2 or 0?

This week Microsoft placed a huge (44.6 Billion) bid to buy out Yahoo. I understand Steve Ballmer believes there is a bright future for online advertisement, but can it be enough to bet the future of the world's largest software company?

It is not as if Microsoft is king of online advertisement and has to defend its position against an aggressive opponent. Actually, this description would better fit Yahoo who has been slipping in past years as Google continues to grow and dominate the online advertisement market.

Microsoft itself has a much less than stellar record in the advertisement business so I wonder what makes them think that they can combine two second rate players and come out with something which will beat the undefeated champion. The logic of this move, at this time, totally escapes me.

This deal reminds me of when IBM bought Lotus. At that time I remember saying to a friend "IBM has just done Microsoft the best favor it could. They've effectively removed Microsoft's greatest potential competitor." This feels very similar to me. I am not sure if Yahoo can recover and start going up again, but I am sure Microsoft will not do a better job.

On the other hand, if I had Yahoo stock, with a 62% premium on the table, I would really be hoping that this deal goes through as fast as possible.