Sorry, but it’s completely legitimate to mention Sony along with this story because RootKit is the premiere example of a privacy-limiting technology resulting in a large enough backlash that it eventually kills it.
In theory, this could be a great example of the “cheap and innovative” marketplace that seems to be all-overlooked these days. Assuming this little guy could pump a similar level of audio that your average notebook could; I can foresee a great number of uses for it. A single 2” driver may not be “ideal” for music (and might actually be quite painful), but for audio books and pod casts, I can just see one of these sitting on my bedside table, or “out” and around in a world I may not trust to my $300 ipod. Look at it like a cheap pair of sunglasses – for a DAP, its semi-disposable, which means that you’re not all that hesitant about throwing it in a bag and taking it with you, or all that worried about getting sand and beer all over it.
Plus, I’m fairy sure Orwell wrote of a “small, white box emitting the musings of Ann Coulter”, which in practice could be brilliantly creepy.
Add a small clock/alarm to this thing, and you’ve got a winner here Lenovo.
If anything, if these do turn out to be fake, the bar has been raised. The higher-res images are exceptionally well done - which raises my main skepticim as to the legitimacy of these. Becuase the high-res ones ARE so impressive, why weren't these released initially? I might buy the bandwidth agrument if this was 1994.
And unless Apple has stumbled upon I-Fusion, what's the battery life on these things going to look like? 20-30 minutes max? That's where I'm really not buying this - cause it all just looks (and sounds) far, far too good.
I have to admit, this is kinda neat, but at the same time the same solution could be had a dozen different ways...outlets on both sides of the strip....or small, simple extenders for wall warts...or outlets on all sides, for that matter.
Eventually, I would think that all manufacturers will figure out that it makes more sense to place the converter in the middle of the power cable. And as a matter of fact, most have - this just seems to just be a bane of the cheap and quick DC converter crowd; with the exception of Apple, who still believes that as long as the wart is cool looking enough, you won't have any grievances.
If we all would have just lisened to Edison in the beginning, this would have never of become a problem.
Duh, kids. Enron got out of California like, what, 3 years ago?
Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"I am trying to configure out a really dumbed down and intuitive PC for my grandmother. She recently had a stroke and while she is under my care I would like to repurpose a laptop for her to surf and email her children. Anyone have any experience with what input devices and UI's are really understandable for the over 80 crowd?"
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