Tech Gadgets Reviews

Walter Bender, Former President of Software and Content for the OLPC project, has stepped down due to his disagreement with founder Nicholas Negroponte, who wants to abandon Linux in favor of Windows XP in order to increase the marketability of the XO laptop. Bender had led the development of XO’s Linux OS, called Sugar. Before his resignation, he had been reassigned to oversee deployment of the organizations low cost laptops to children in developing countries. He had this to say in his exit statement:

“After more than two years without a break at One Laptop per Child, I have decided to take some time to reflect on how I can best contribute going forward to the goal of giving children around the world opportunities for a quality learning experience. The OLPC Association is making headway getting laptops into the hands of children and it is encouraging to see that other non-profit and for-profit organizations are following suit. My personal interest is in helping build a community of developers, educators, and learners dedicated to advancing the quality of free and open source software for learning and the sharing of pedagogical approaches in this community by adopting the spirit and methodology of the open-source movement.

While my goal is to create a complementary effort to broaden the reach of the software and pedagogy–a free and open framework in support of “learning learning”, I hope to continue working with the great team at OLPC as well as the various groups that have formed around the world in support of one-laptop-per-child deployments.”

Negroponte told BusinessWeek earlier this year that he felt OLPC had been operating “like a terrorist group” and that it needed to be run “like Microsoft”, remarks that apparently did not sit well with Bender, who is an ardent supporter of Open Source projects. Negroponte also told BusinessWeek that he is looking for a new CEO to take over for him so he can take on a more “visionary” role.

Via [CrunchGear]

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I find it pretty hard to believe that a company might actually want to piggyback on the success of other brands and even franchises. Case in point - the Matrix-NEO LCD monitor from Dao Korea. This glossy full HD lcd monitor will feature a ho-hum dynamic contrast ratio of 7,000 to 1, and will be released on May 1st. I wonder what the legal eagles from Warner Bros. have to say about this - will this Matrix-NEO LCD monitor actually stop time and “bullets” from your boss, just like how Neo managed to do so in the movies? I guess not, but at least you can choose from 17″, 19″, 20″, 22″ and 24″ varieties.

Patio Heater
Bring summer evenings back to your garden with this mega powerful patio heater.

You can have this for ?399.00

by Nilay Patel, posted Apr 25th 2008 at 5:22PM

Let’s preface this by saying that we honestly have no idea what’s going on with the hot BlackBerry 9000, but Fortune is reporting that it’s delayed due to either a) AT&T concerns over call quality; b) AT&T concerns over launching a 3G Blackberry and the 3G iphone at the same time or; c) or something else entirely. That’s news to our homeboy Boy Genius, who thinks Fortune needs to start double-checking its model numbers and code names before it starts rumor-mongering, and points out that he’s been on top of power-management-related 9000 delays for a while now. Testy! We’re a little more inclined to trust BGR on this stuff — the man’s got a point when he says he’s gotten pre-release versions of every RIM device since the Pearl 8100, and if the 9000’s faster processor and 3G are indeed causing power problems, he’s likely to notice. Let’s just hope this all gets sorted soon — we’re ready to move on up.

Read - Fortune: “Delay seen for RIM’s new blackberry“
Read - BGR: “Cleaning up those BlackBerry rumors”

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Filed under: cellphones

It is a time of celebration for Firefox fans disappointed with the lackluster performance of Mozilla’s mobile browser Minimo; all thanks to its cleverly-named mobile browser project Fennec. That is, of course, if Mozilla can deliver on the promises made in Mitchell Baker’s keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, where she said, "Access to data, sites and applications on the internet shouldn’t be limited by the type of device being used, and Fennec will make that possible."

Naturally, hope springs eternal for the Mozilla fanboy. But a point made by Baker during her speech seems to indicate they won’t be disappointed: "While technical constraints affect mobile browsing, psychological constraints affect the experience on the PC, caused by usage habits formed over decades."

And they do indeed. Mobile browsers can take some getting used to for the less-than-tech-savvy, forcing users to change their deeply ingrained browsing habits. A mobile browser that eliminates (or at least reduces) this period of adaptation — backed by the people at Mozilla and the open source set — could throw open the doors of mobile Internet access to the throngs of people that don’t yet know they need it.

Mozilla: Fennec to Revolutionize Mobile Browsing [Yahoo via Crave]

Photo of a fennec fox by Kuribo/Flickr

Everyones favorite love-to-hate retail chain is now celebrating their grand re-opening with 15 current locations and a new one to top it off. While 13 of those are located in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico will also share in the joy of everything that CompUSA has been lacking to offer in the past.

If you remember back when the CompUSA demise first came about, they were being snapped up by Systemax, who is better know as the owner of Tiger Direct. Sadly the Tiger Direct retail locations have not been know for a stellar in-store experience, which is reminiscent of the CompUSA’s of the past. Hopefully the re-grand opening, which is promising “lower prices’” a “new wider selection” and “amazing new deals” will prove to be better than they were in their past life.

Via [Engadget]

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In most places across the world, at any given time of day, you can walk up to any random person and be sure that he/she owns a Nokia. Then when you ask that person why he/she owns a Nokia, you’ll be given an anecdote about its user-friendly interface, nice styling, satisfactory performance, etc. And it shouldn’t surprise you, because those are the reasons why Nokia skyrocketed in the mobile phone making game.

Another thing that’s not surprising is Nokia’s apparent low profile in the North American handset market, mainly because it just would not succumb to the carriers’s requests to modify their phones in order to match some “specific criteria.” This will soon change, however, as Nokia finally decides to change it’s tactics in order to recover their stronghold on the US market.

“We are literally repositioning our entire approach to the US,” says Mark Louison, the company’s North America chief. And they had better do it soon. Unless they want to keep seeing underdog Motorola beating them at their own game.

Read [Business Week]

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While there aren’t any Android handsets available in the market just yet, this has not stopped the folks at QuickOffice from writing a Microsoft Office compatible editing suite for the soon-to-be-released smartphone platform. QuickOffice for Android does pretty much what its desktop counterpart does - it supports Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, edits documents from Google Docs, and can even remotely access documents on your computer with the help of technology from SoonR. Guess this piece of news makes waiting for the Android handset to be released this year all the more agonizing.

Ping pong is a sport that requires great skill, but Mike has actually managed to condense the game into an audio version, and it sure looks (sounds) like fun!

When you put on the headphones, you hear a sound that is cycling through a sequence indicating its approach. The sound is somewhere on the left-right axis in the headphones. If the sound is to your left, you have to tilt your head to the left until the sound is centered. If you tilt your head (the paddle) to the right position in time, you hit the ball an continue, the ball’s approach speeding up each time. If you fail to hit the ball a buzzer and light go off to punish you and the game is over.

You’ll be the coolest headbanger on the block whenever you play Audio Ping Pong over a Bluetooth headset.