fmv-u8240
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TUAW's Daily App: The 7th Guest
You might have missed the fact that this classic adventure game was released on iOS, but just in case, here you go: it's available now for iPhone and iPad. According to reviews on the store, this is a faithful recreation of the old full-motion video game from back in 1993. The game has you wandering around a mansion trying to solve puzzles, with a story slowly displayed through video clips featuring real actors in a real setting. The game was quite innovative for its time, being one of the first games to be distributed on CD-ROM. Unfortunately, the main reason for that was because the videos took up so much memory, and weirdly, iOS device owners are currently facing that same problem -- the game needs 623 MB free on your device to install. But it is an interesting game from the start of the modern PC gaming era, and if you're already a fan of The 7th Guest, you'll definitely want to pick this up and play it on Apple's platform. The game is US$2.99 on the iPhone and $5.99 on the iPad. Andy Williams actually sings about "spooky ghost stories" for Christmas, so if you need one of those to play through this holiday week, try your turn at being the 7th Guest at Old Man Stauf's house.
Hands-on with Fujitsu's FMV-U8240 UMPC
Akihabara News got their hands on Fujitsu's new FMV-U8240 UMPC and have posted their impressions from using the device over a three day period. The first point worth referring to is the enclosure, which is undoubtedly compact but which also gives off a distinct mid-90s gadget vibe. (One of the machine's quirks are two little LEDs for night typing: cute.) If you can stomach the style, you've got good ergonomics to make up for it: apparently the keyboard is acceptable, which is the closest you can get to a compliment for a keyboard that's just under 7 inches wide. As is to be expected in a UMPC that only weighs 1.28 pounds (584 grams) the feature set is a bit of a compromise, with an 800MHz A110 Intel CPU appearing to be the weak point at first, although it's apparently capable of playing 720p DivX video flawlessly. Battery life is a rather disappointing 2.5 to 3.5 hours of real world usage, and the reviewer had issues with the swivel screen and the touchscreen: he hopes that these are pre-production problems, and at $1,190-$1,360 a piece depending on configuration, we'd hope so too.
Fujitsu gets official with FMV-U8240 UMPC
Fujitsu's first foray into the UMPC market has already made itself known at this week's WinHEC conference, but the company only seems to have gotten around to officially announcing it today, trotting out the device in all its convertible splendor. As we knew before, this one boasts a 5.6-inch 1024 x 600 display, an 800MHz Intel A110 processor, and up to 1GB of RAM, although the 40GB hard drive we first heard about looks to have been knocked down to 20GB. Underpinning the entire system is Intel's recently-announced Ultra Mobile Platform 2007, which should give it a significant leg up over earlier UMPCs. What we didn't know before was its model name, now revealed as the FMV-U8240, or when it'd actually be available and what it'd cost. On that latter point, we've got good news and bad: the device will be available fairly soon (mid-June), although only in Japan (at least to start with), where it'll set you back ¥144,000 or ¥164,000 ($1,190-$1,360) depending on the configuration . A third model running Windows Vista Business will follow in July -- those first two get Windows XP Professional instead.[Via Laptoping]
