ASUS Eee PC Seashell 2 spotted with removable battery, pretty in pink styling


Acer loves it some Google. And unless Google's trying to stamp out your revenue stream, who doesn't? Now Acer chairman, JT Wang, says that he expects to be first to market with an official Chrome OS netbook -- sometime in the second half of 2010 according to DigiTimes' sources. In fact, JT says that Acer's been working on a Chrome OS device since mid-2009. This despite admittedly weaker than expected demand for its dual-boot Android netbook, the Aspire One AOD250. Guess even the Google halo isn't enough to shoehorn its smartphone OS into a market dominating position on cheap ultra-portables. It's worth pointing out that DigiTimes' moles aren't saying anything new with the launch time-frame since Google's target for its gold Chrome OS build has been 2H of 2010 ever since the lightweight OS was announced. Not that the timing matters too much since we'll likely be seeing plenty of Chromium OS netbooks flooding the grey market long before the second half of 2010.
In one year alone we've seen robots shaking things up in such far-flung fields as fashion and interpretive dance. That said, our concerns are generally more prosaic -- that's why we're most excited by the industrial strength autonomous sweepers developed by the likes of Fuji Heavy Industries, Sumitomo, and Subaru. Like last year's model, their latest sweeps the floor, picks up the trash, is able to operate modded elevators, and comes equipped with laser sensors for avoiding obstacles and may even be outfitted with a camera. In addition, this new guy has slimmed down to about half the size (better for slipping into tight corners) and sports a twenty-four volt battery that gets about 2.5 hours per charge. The best news, however, is that it's finally for sale! It should hit the streets of Japan by the end of next year for a price somewhere in the $35,000 to $46,000 range. We'll take two. [Warning: PDF source link]
If you enjoy the decimation of an industry as much as Google does then you're going to love the latest rumor sourced from DigiTimes' manufacturing moles. According to the Taiwanese rumor rag, personal navigation device R&D teams at the manufacturing powerhouses of Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai) and Wistron have been shifted to other devices in the face of "declining PND orders." Seems logical as GPS-equipped smartphones snuff out their dedicated forebears with the same converged precision that turned wrist watches into items of fashion. The strange part of this DigiTimes rumor is that said manufacturers have shifted those PND teams to focus on e-book readers and (are you ready?) MIDs. Man, if the world's largest manufacturer of consumer electronics sees MIDs as a more economically viable option than personal navigators, well, maybe things are more dire for TomTom and Garmin than originally feared.
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Love him or hate him, it seems destined that the FCC's Julius Genachowski will leave as big of a mark on the agency he's leading -- if not bigger -- than his predecessor Kevin Martin did, because he's hell-bent on shaking up the wireless airwaves and landlines he oversees in some pretty huge ways. Pushback from broadcasters is apparently quite strong, but he's reiterated at a conference today that he intends to investigate freeing up TV spectrum for to make room additional wide-area wireless services, a move that certainly seems to make sense on the surface considering that universal broadband to the home -- which could carry all the TV you'd ever need -- is also high on Genachowski's to-do list. The Universal Service Fund, which every American phone subscriber pays into and partly finances rural landline telephone operations where profits are harder to come by, is looking like a ripe target for renovation to bring broadband into the fold, theoretically making high-speed data more accessible to folks of all demographics and geographical affinities. Like the TV spectrum move, the USF realignment is meeting its fair share of detractors -- mainly among rural landline operators who rely on the funds for operation, of course -- but we're definitely gaining confidence that this dude isn't taking "no" for an answer in the long term.

Correspondences from Team Engadget out into the Twitterverse.



Segment of single women who said their next computer purchase would be a laptop.
Of 1,000 single men and women polled, 47 percent of women said they'd buy a laptop, while 47 percent of men were looking for a desktop.

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