Asus netbook with slot-in mobile phone on the horizon?
Asus is apparently planning to launch an Eee PC netbook that will come with a built-in mobile phone. The phone will double as 3G connectivity for the device so that you have access to it whilst in the netbook and when you’re out and about you can just take the phone out and use that instead (this means you can use the same SIM card for both devices).
The phone module is already on sale from an Israeli company called Modu, who also provide a number of feature-phone shells that it can slot into. You can have a number of different shells depending on what you need i.e. one shell is in the form of a photo frame displaying pictures stored in the phone.
Andrew Tse, head of UK distributor Purely Gadgets, says that a Modu-equipped netbook follows a similar concept: “If you don’t want to take the netbook out for the evening you just pull out the phone and take that.” This approach will allow you simply to slot the phone into the netbook.
Via The Inquirer.
Share/SaveIntel N550 Atom: 1.5GHz dual-core CPU lands in Q3
Intel will launch the dual-core N500 Atom processor series during the third quarter of this year. The first CPU out of the block will be the 1.5GHz dual-core N550 Atom. It will support hyper-threading and come with 1MB total L2 cache (2 x 512KB per core).
The TPD (thermal power dissipation) for the N550 is 8.5W, which is around 2W higher than the single-core 1.83GHz N475 Atom. More detail on these new chips should be expected at Computex in a few weeks time.
Via Fudzilla.
Share/SaveAcer prepping Chrome OS netbooks for Computex?
Acer really wants to be first out of the door with a Chrome OS device. According to a report from VentureBeat, Acer will be launching new Chrome OS devices (most likely netbooks, smartbooks or tablets) sporting the new OS at Computex Taipei in early June.
Acer may not have the Chrome OS limelight to itself though. Samsung has also talked of developing ARM-based smartbooks powered by the Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset. Google is expected to release Chrome OS during the second half of the year. Techcrunch says that Chrome OS is coming along quickly but isn’t ready as things stand, they’ve also got some images of what the OS is likely to look like.
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