The idea and the affordability of mini-PC’s in non-laptop form have been around for years.  HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer have slim tower desktops but the recent trend has been going even smaller.  Technewsworld.com has an interesting article that points out some of the recent trend changes in the small computing world.  They call these new PC’s “Crossover systems” which is not to be confused with vehicle crossovers of course.  Some of these machines actually have started using laptop hardware in a desktop oriented computer box.  This not only cuts down on its footprint size but also on your electric bill since they are power sippers.

Another company has gone another route though.  HP has come out with the TouchSmart series which combines all of the normal desktop hardware into an all-in-one touch screen desktop PC.  So far, most people that see these PC’s are intrigued and even like the styling over Apple’s trend setting desktops.

Asus also has been attacking this front with their Eee PC’s starting a very attractive price of $349.  They dont come with a CD drive and only come with XP Home but these refinements make up for its incredibly small size, about the size of a softcover book.  It even comes with a bracket to hang it on the back of a monitor or TV.

Check out the article at Technewsworld.com for a more in-depth analysis of this trend.

We already knew the security features were useless right?  Of course we did!  Just a ruse to push hardware sales and decrease memory prices!  Just kidding.  At the Black Hat security conference this week, two researchers will discuss what they have discovered which may shoot Microsoft Vista’s new and improved “security features” to hell.  Microsoft has been spending millions of dollars promoting Vista as the most secure operating system yet but what else is new?  The exploits allow bypassing of Vista’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP, and several other security “features” by simply loading malware from a web browser.  The Inquirer reports.

Verizon Communications is three days away from the extended deadline for union contract expiration.  65,000 employee’s will go on strike if their conditions are not met.  That’s about 1/3rd of Verizon’s workforce.  How will this impact their customer support?  FIOS rollouts?  What about Enterprise users that use wireless devices for emails, calendars, etc.?  I haven’t had any problems with my FIOS but curse them if I have to go back to Comcast!

Intel has announced the official name for the upcoming Nehalem processors.  The Core i7, regardless of the processor or speed, will have a whole new model naming scheme.  Intel will debut 3 Bloomfield SKU numbers in Q4 of this year.  The benchmarks look promising, outperforming the currect Core 2 Duo architecture, but there’s a drawback.  There will be a completely new socket, no more backwards compatibility like in the previous processors and socket LGA 775.

Hey everyone.  I’m looking for volunteer technology bloggers to post on this site.  I haven’t had time to keep up with the site and could use some help.  Nothing big, even if it’s just a few posts per day or every other day.  Please go to the contacts page and send me an email if you’re interested.

Thanks!

-The Compaholic

Originally brought to attention by Gizmodo, I thought the video was worth a post.  Don’t try this at home kids.

Steven Spielberg is jumping on the social network bandwagon by creating a niche social network.  A social network catering to the paranormalities of Ghosts and UFO sitings.  It has been dubbed with a name called “Rising” or “The Rising”, both domain names have been registered while they figure out which to call it.  They’re probably sifting through trademarks and corporate catch phrases to make sure they don’t get sued first.  This social site will be a feeding ground for paranormal activities with users having the ability to share stories as well as upload photo’s and movies of such events.  The site is dubbed to be launched at the end of the summer.

Control Lights with Twitter from Justin Wickett on Vimeo.

So someone found another use for Twitter besides looking at some one’s everyday boring life.  This guy was able to to setup an INSTEON light switch hooked into his computer to turn his room lights on and off by text messaging “lights off” from his cell phone.  A useless setup for most(and i mean most by 99.9%) of all users because unless you have a dedicated machine(home server?) setup for this by the light switch, this just isn’t going to catch on.  Now if INSTEON or some other Home Automation maker happens to integrate this type of technology into their switches(802.11b/g integration maybe?) then I can definitely see this becoming popular.

The boys over at Engadget have spy shots of the upcoming Palm Treo 850.  Not a bad looking unit although when brisking through the comments some say it resembles Research In Motion’s Blackberry units.  But what do you expect?  Most cars on the road have the same usable features in roughly the same spots too.  In any case, the Treo 850 will be sporting a 400MHz CPU and 100MB of RAM as another contender in the Windows Mobile arena.  Now if only you can install Linux on it.

Google is holding a presentation party, or Factory Tour of Search, today at its Mountain View headquarters location.  They have invited the press as well as representatives from Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical School, MedCo, Quest, Walgreens, CVS, Longs, RxAmerica, and others.  Could today mark the day in history where GoogleNet(See Skynet) becomes self aware of its users medical records?  Maybe or maybe not since Google has been trying to release this project since 2006.  See more details about the event including what will be discussed, who was invited, and those that will be presenting over at Tech Crunch.

Although there’s currently no benchmarks or reviews to test the statement, Greenhouse has announced a new SSD drive that is currently the fastest SSD in the industry.  The DH-SSDGS series are supposed to read up to 130MB/s and write up to 67MB/s.  The capacities range between 16GB to 128GB at 2.5 inches.  The SATA flavors are supposed to be available late May in Japan.  No word on release dates in the US or pricing.

In another moveto keep their heads above water, AMD fires two executives, EVP of Computing Solutions Mario Rivas and Chief Talent Officer Michel Cadieux in addition to 1600 workers laid off worldwide.  The new engineering group will oversee the development and execution of AMD’s product roadmaps throughout their business units.  AMD seems to be focusing more on their business unit now as the Opteron series will be the bread and butter until the consumer sector picks up.  Hopefully the next iteration of processors due out later this year will pickup where the Phenom’s have been lacking to compete against Intel.

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) has been in talks with Hewlett Packard (HP) to be acquired for $12-13 billion.  EDS was founded on June 27th, 1962 in Plano, Texas.  Their revenue for the 2006 year was $21.3 billion and have 136,000 employee’s.  EDS has a wide range of services broken up into three service portfolio’s which are Infrastructure, Applications, and Business Process Outsourcing.  This acquisition will better place HP to go head-to-head with IBM.  If the acquisition is to go through, it will be HP’s largest acquisition since the $19 billion buy-out for Compaq Computer in May 2002.  EDS shares surged as much as 28% while HP’s shares fell 5.7% when the buyout was first reported minutes ago.  Marketwatch.com reports.

As the Web 2.0 era rages on, Microsoft is late in the game with its Messenger TV service.  Take what You Tube currently offers but transform it into a real time chat and viewing of videos with your friends.  You will be able to watch the same video in sync with users on your messenger list and comment about the video in real time chat.  Pretty cool concept except it has been launched in 20 countries except the United States.  Although the guys over at Arstechnica fixed that by changing the language option in IE to en-CA(Canada language preset) and were able to use the service.  Imagine watching your favorite TV show, in real time, with friends, family, and co-workers.  Surely a distraction for everyone to turn the service off!  Just kidding.  I’m sure porn buff’s will love this service though.

The Asus Eee PC 900 has hit the online e-tailers today for purchase.  Engadget reports that Buy.com and ZipZoomfly have the units readily available on their sites for purchase.  ZipZoomfly has the XP version for $600 while Buy.com has the Linux version for $566.  As of this writing, Newegg.com has yet to put them on their site for sale.  If they sell like hot cakes and the demand outstrips supply, be prepared for price hikes in the short term.

There have been complaints in Austrailia that the XP version is selling for $50 cheaper than the Linux version according to Technewsworld.com.  Not sure what exactly this is about but I’m sure the details will surface soon.