Well if not fake; the 'arrrrgghhh (of impending doom)' before the notes chime is much more realistic for an Intel product...

How to push forwards the boundaries of... ? Sometimes it takes an extreme idea to show the concepts and then 2 years down the road Apple will have patented it, and iPhones will be projecting their tedium...

Now if Google put some resources into getting Wine (or equivalent) to work - and used all their ex-Microsoft employees knowledge of hidden API's,,, then that would truly make it stand out. It would enable free; effectively open source and compatible with a load of known programs. Now that would be nice.

And how long / well does it work on bootup. Great if you are someone with it on 24/7 - but these days we try to save power by being off when not needed. Then it needs to be nearly instant on. My old Qnap takes a good few seconds...

Could learn a lot from this... combine it with the touch screen on the ASUS eee keyboard and data entry / windows / mac will be come MUCH cleaner... allowing more space for all that DRM rubbish.

All that begs the question though: why cant the gui / OS on a PC behave in the same way? Ok many more processes / threads running... doing erm... what? Network access... well its also on the phone (ipod or this). Disk access... well it should be fast with todays data rates... oh right its indexing, defragging and other stuff.

Perhaps its that Virtual memory space? or those bloat ware device drivers...

Competition time: Who is the first person to port an iphone / Palm OS to PC as the main OS.

David Who?

He exits as Tennant of lost BBC corporation

The logo looks like REG should be relabled BBC

It would be really interesting to get some comments on the reflectivity of the screen for both pro and non-pro versions. The new 24" desktop Mac's have great graphics; but I find are too reflective to do much photographic editing :(

OK most semi-pro photographers will use a separate screen; I have a one with DVI input; but it would still be interesting for reviewing in the field.

What more can one ask... thanks for the other icons returning!

Otherwise how else can we quickly surf to the reg and have a good laugh?

Oh dear - the new Paris Angle. Either someone got a pack of lawyers letters or she had a make over to improve herself.... What have you done?

You outlook not so good icon should see some flames licking the flag - not a white space... or is it a hint at the fixed width issues?

Wheres the tinfoil hat icon? The blue bloke looks right - but wrong comment line.

And now with smaller text to make my poor eyes finally give up.

That said - like all Web2.0 things. Good ideas but implementation still needs tweaking (widths, text sizes, white spaces, PDF look alike).

Neither beavers nor field officer are yet in place. Quarantine restrictions mean that the former are being rounded up (in Norway) over the next few weeks – whilst advertising for the field officer will take place over the next couple of months. Or possibly vice-versa.

Quarantine restrictions mean that field officers are being rounded up (in Norway) over the next few weeks- whilst advertising for the beavers will take place over the next couple of months.

Krikey, Idiotic Saving of Silicon?....

Or lets clear out our (or subsidery) stocks of memory / components / and we can best do this by offering upgrade options to customers. Scratch that.

and we can best do this by offering a bewildering array of monikors, which will drive people insane by trying to track them... but make Redmond happy by having default versions with XP. The geeks will know what the options mean....

silly really... they made the market and then effectively decided to hand it over to others with clean simple options.

Come on... where else is Micro$hite getting rid of its Vista licences....

Now there was a strong strong hint that there must be outtakes... perhaps each time she took off her clothes and had to start again...

Wheres is that reflection coming from?... seems to be dappling her face and body alot... Perhaps there is another glistening pool somewhere off camera.

Unfortunately - there is actually a seed of something in what she says. If only the pres-candidates would rise to the challenge and endorse her thoughtfulness.

Actually it sounds like a great way to make some quick Dosh. Perhaps we should submit alternative photo schemes with 'glittering' effects to make it look like a Damien Hirst Diamond Skull.... or encode a "hello Michael" voice synthesiser of "Kitt"... complete with 'virtual' remote control of your car.

A 'dont panic' button on the screen to bring up the latest HHGTTG comment for "Earth".

Does this mean the touch pad could also be a display?...

So extra series of icons which could be accessed... as well as a desktop. E.g. in photoshop the 'context menu' appears on your touch pad instead of a separate menu on the screen. Now that would be really neat.

Or how about a list of emails on the touch pad... but opened on the big screen. Watching video... the touch pad displays the fast forward / rewind buttons. Want a fast boot...? the touch pad displays your mail etc without requiring the full CPU to be on (like some of the fast BIOS solutions on HP machines)..

No fanboy - just Apple tend to be much better switched onto what the user experience is about than Microsoft. But each has advantages and disadvantages... Use the best tool for the job

If the SSD is for storage then great. If the SSD is for 'OS' then it is a different kettle of fish.

Storage with SSD is excellent: open a file; make lots of changes and save. The changes need to be stored somewhere _temporary_ and not on something with a limited r/w cycle. Use throw-away USB sticks. Actually thats the way my EEE will be configured.

As many point out - overtime the 'OS' has developed the need for virtual files, often due to limited memory. Actually since the available RAM is now 2-4GB and expanding, do we really need an OS which still requires *MORE* virtual space. Oh wait - modern 'OS's are not designed to be light weight and small footprint any more.

Need to stick with Windoze...? Start getting your admin's to look towards embedded OS systems which have been designed to work on solid state (Compact Flash) systems for sometime. XP Embedded... or some of the new variant Penguins'.

Changing the SSD technology to use a 2-4GB ram to mirror regularly used files would solve the problem of hot exchange (e.g. switch a HDD to SSD). Getting the OS redesigned to use less RAM and HDD thrashing (or cached space; remember the good old RAM Discs of MS-Dos) would make much more sense.

Longing for the day microsoft wakes up to small, light weight, fast modular operating systems.

So how long will it be before this is unlocked, running new linux software and acting as an interesting dumb nas or something...

And of those how many were unique IP's logging on - or various robot, malware, net hacks?

why use a top-of-the-line graphics chip for rendering Windows XP's UI, for instance?

Short answer... short question!

I understand it....

arghhhhhhh Pity I dont get the lady...

I agree....

Why is it only the OLPC system has the option to switch between b/w and colour? How many people in their daily work (not including coders and colourful keywords) really need to have colour working? I would much rather have the OLPC option to swtich colour on for the tasks that require it, and then switch off for reading el-reg (ok friday photo might require a switch on); writing thesis (Latex keywords can be in grey) etc.

I got the 701 and 900. The 701 was lost to my girlfriend within 4 hours; the 900 is my work on train machine. Battery is a laugh though (ahem - Asus f*ck up) but it just does its job. The small keys are a little too small... I would rather have slightly wider keyboard (but not deeper) and an even more widescreen ratio; with with internal SATA (e-sata) for the new CFast Compact Flash devices which are coming soon. Perhaps the community should design and build one - and then stuff M$FT when they ask for XP to be installed.

Is there a second email stating that in order to get access to the product, you need to wire a transfer to a Western Union account somewhere?. Perhaps their phone number contains 419?....

Ok perhaps it is also a serious enterprise. Many SOHO NAS systems use similar chips and are quite powerful these days; except they are often limited by clumsy implementation designs (fixed ram, slow bus, no video etc). It would be great to see it outperform the new Atom in terms of battery life.

There was some talk that hyperthreading was disabled in early versions of the Xandros OS which Asus let slip for the 901. Dont know if it was fixed for the release version - but worth checking out.

A real-world test with the 900 on the same sized battery as the 901 would be interesting - especially since the 4400 appears heavier then the 5800 version - and hence probably older technology.

The 900 and UK battery sizes produces a bad mouth feeling for Asus - and hopefully it can be resolved with the 901. However the price would need to drop consdierably to make it special again. Indeed the 'eee' monikor which a year ago would make you think of a cheap mini-laptop-pc (R) is now so dilouted (eeebox, eeetv, eee.... ) that it seems Asus are possibly loosing their sense of direction and market share.

Overall a great product - I like my 900 and already had good use from it - the 901 will be the logical upgrade - in 6 months. By which time there will probably be another version...

[Quote]You might need the caculator[/quote].

Yep nothing better for the Jesus Phone 2.0. ;-)

it seems that in Europe / rip off UK we get the option: choose Windows and 12GB or Linux and 20GB. However with the battery we were given NO choice - and indeed no advance warning. Mine was preordered before the full UK battery specs were released.

Please El-Reg - give them some more stick. this is an easy cop-out and it is an obvious one most people will try to wriggle from. it will also be interesting to see if all Europe really does get the 4400 or whether it is just UK?

Next time I will import from USA or wherever best deal comes from.

Oh and make sure it has a big battery. All UK customers of the 900 got shafted with a small one and no intention from Asus to give a better sized battery. Perhaps they think we will watch the girl picture and our batteries (well generally male ones) grow in anticipation.

Im sure PH knows how to add extra charge to make her batteries grow...

Perhaps he has some old genes in him. The Aurochs was a breed of cattle often hunted in prehistory which was much larger than our current breeds...

Ill get my red coat and run for it.

Its a brick... power supply that is. Oh and it looks nano-itx sized. iei world did nano itx with celeron processors and 1gb ram for oh 2 years. i have one on my desk. 12V only (on board regulator) and IDE and floppy etc.

Or if you want real small - the Wafer models are 3.5" drive sized with SATA and DVI options. Via are not the only small (read embedded) processors out there.

The music was good... then her voice became Whine-House... long before Drugs kicked in. Pity the poor soul... and then ask about the people dealing and supplying. Our version of Brittany...

After wondering if this was a Windows Geuine Article... my colleague realised there was a mac at 2:11... the cringing bit-locker scene...

It sure looks like an Apple to us... oh yeah... I wonder if it is on SP1

Now I have to take a cold shower with a Penguin...

For a friday afternoon this is excellent. Can we see a new El - Reg round up of the weeks events in Playmobile / Lego? This is much better reporting than BBC New 24 staged re-enactments; and the models have much more life than most 24hr news programmes.

Perhaps there is scope to make models in their own image... (PH with a Laptop to make the IT angle?)

Oh and piece de resistance - well the French are in town and 'Resistance is Futile'. Im off to play with the Germans

And if you need the IT angle I could suggest looking at the Virtual Lego software.

I remember the days at school spent loading early versions of cad software... printing dot-matrix versions... rattle rattle whizzz... rattle rattle whizz... turn over the floppy for the 'other side'... sigh

rooms full of networked BBC's which we used to programme turtle devices... sending naughty messages via the echo commands and wondering at the geek power which did fancy things with assembler. Hey I even remember writing some assembler... for some fancy function or two.

Then along came the Achimedes... doing my 'GCSE Business Studies' course on the nice devices and spending more time helping as a techie than actually doing my trivial boring work. Three button mice... nice software installations and wow music! (popcorn was popular back then)... The poor Business studies teacher had no clue... she was the old school 'Typewritters are best' variety. I certainly remember some nice DTP packages; and can put myself back into the computer room at Corfe Hills... That must be what... '89 -91... and Mr Cornick the BBC Master Guru.

Hopefully it will be full of stars, as you pass to the next world - wherever you dreamed that my be. Not many people can live to see their dreams become a reality; and im sure many more of yours will be achieved sometime.

So long.

I think she was either trying to make whale song... or was having a 'whale' of a time when the rebranding Joss-Stick man demonstrated the latest moves of the logo...

In fact I think it sounds more like a hum of a well known SMS ring tone...

has anyone concered that it might have been designed to fail in order to give a chance to destroy with new "save the earth" technology?

Well I heard that after having to return so many faulty X-Box 360's, Santa had decided to invest in new flying creatures which had more pulling power than poor old Rudolphe. Guess he forgot to check their flying specifications...

Looks like a rotated touchscreen monitor - even down to the buttons on the buttom right of the frame. Hide the SVGA cable down the arm sleeve and hey presto it is a new giant touch pad...

But the Penguin Knows more then the Paris.

Why do all the faces

Look like a holywood actor undergoing various Church of sssology experiments?

PH because surely thats already a composite of many average faces and abilities.

Official numbering is in the world of BG. 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista. Although there is a number somewhere it seems that it is all arbitrary. Besides what Bills says is always true, so perhaps 10 does follow 7, as 7 ate 9.

Whoaa...

Reminds me of many happy hours listening to Magic Roundabout. Is the happy Penguin explaining how the new Android operating system is used for these Segway reincarnations...

At least we know where all the Segways went...