Intel's Moblin OS for netbooks and MIDs gets a boost from Taiwan

Posts with tag taiwan

We'll be honest -- Dave has run into a magnificent problem to have, but it's still an issue in need of an answer. And before you get too engrossed, may we remind you that you can send in questions of your own to ask at engadget dawt com. 
Might as well get this right out in the open: Fujitsu's forthcoming U2010 UMPC is slated to cost just shy of $1,300 when it lands in Taiwan this July. Yeah, that's even more costly than the Gigabyte M528 that got priced earlier this week. Nevertheless, those with coin to chuck can look forward to a rotatable 5.6-inch 1,024 x 600 touchscreen, integrated 3.5G WWAN / GPS and a six-row keyboard. Sure, there's not much else at 1.34-pounds that we'd want in our left cargo pocket, but a family's got to eat, you know?
According to Bill Chen, General Manager of Motorola Taiwan's Mobile Device business, the second generation Linux-based Ming handset won't launch until Q2 of 2008. Not February as initially rumored. What's more, the handset will be introduced in high-end and entry-level configurations -- unfortunately, both are GSM/EDGE, not 3G capable. DigiTimes says that Inventec won the manufacturing contract of this MOTO Beijing designed handset. Given the unusual (for MOTO) use of a lower-case vowel in the name, there's a good chance this was never meant for Stateside consumption anyway. Too bad, eh?
While the first generation (and second generation for that matter) of UMPCs fell well short of the bloated origami hype, Compal sees big growth from Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) in 2008. According to DigiTimes, this belief has prompted the giant, Taiwanese ODM to dedicate an entire team to the mobile platform unveiled by Intel in April 2007. As such, MID devices will receive special attention, away from their laptop and UMPC efforts. If nothing else, we find it reassuring that somebody out there can understand the difference between a UMPC and MID device with such clarity.
Check out the MTube. Sure, the name is weird and maybe a little pointless, but the device itself is pretty interesting. We don't have a ton of detail on the little guy -- which was put together by Taiwan's Science and Technology Advisory Group -- except that it's built atop VIA's Mobile-ITX motherboard, features a 2.8-inch, 640 x 480 touchscreen, 8GB of flash memory, a 1GHz VIA CPU, and is running some form of Linux. The new, miniscule ITX form factor apparently also includes a CDMA baseband chip, which opens up wireless connectivity possibilities for devices of this type. Right now this is just a prototype, but production is planned for 2009, and once VIA's credit-card sized motherboard hits the market, we suspect we'll be seeing all kinds of new gadgetry like this popping up.








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