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AMD doesn’t really push the low cost laptop idea as I think they should. AMD could have taken the Geode based OLPC and produced millions of commercial versions of it by now, but they don’t do it. AMD doesn’t like the idea of large quantities delivered at low if not non-existant profit margins to replace their own existing market share in much more expensive higher power processors.

If you need this size, then you’ve found the small laptop that is for you. But I don’t like that small keyboard, and to me 7″ is just too big for the pocket, and it’s too small for being really productive. For watching videos while on-the-go 7″ is a good size, but the latest AMD Turion based laptops probably are going to be much more expensive the similar size and weight 7″ Archos video playing devices which also have basic browser and WiFi for casual browsing.

That is my basic complaint with the whole Microsoft and Intel name that is the UMPC, or the netbook. Too big for pocket, too small for productivity.

What I want in a laptop, is at least 14″ and a full sized keyboard. Otherwise it’s just not going to be confortable to do stuff like posting this message to this blog post. Then I also want a pocket device that does everything while on the go in situations that I don’t want to use a laptop, such as in public transportation, while not going to/from work, while not going to/from study, while walking in the streets, while walking around in the city without having to carry a bag for the laptop.

And if I want to be slightly more productive using a pocket device, I want to use a full sized foldable USB or Bluetooth keyboard at least.

Small keyboards are not for adults to be productive. For children to play games and explore the web, given their small fingers, and given that they probably will not type text very fast before being at least semi-teenager, then small keyboards are ok for young children. For those types of children that do not want to type this type of post on this type of blog.

This very compact video player has a 2.4″ screen, VGA to Full DVD resolution DivX playback, 20GB, compact flash, TV output, games. Someone even found a way to install a Nintendo NES games emulator.

This video was originally released in 2004 at http://archosfans.com

- WiFi and HSDPA built-in to upload my HD videos directly to an FTP server without needing to use a laptop. API to interact with online services to then publish that video to video-blogs and Youtube.

- Live streaming using WiFi or HSDPA of the camera feed in a low resolution and bitrate all the while the camcorder is recording the HD quality to the Internal storage.

- Built-in 2.5″ hard drive (up to 500GB) as well as SDHC storage.

- Built-in bluetooth or VHF to use for cheap but high quality wireless microphones. Multiple microphones should work with one camera.

- USB keyboard support to enter filenames, description, tags for when publishing the HD videos directly from the camera to the Internet.

- Voice recognition service (could be online), can automatically transcribe title, description and tags from voice recordings made to be linked up with the main HD video file recording.

- On screen live chat from live video viewers in the same way as the Qik live chat works on the Nokia N95.

- Live video feed should be able to go to services such as Qik.com, Mogulus.com, Ustream.tv, Kyte.tv as well as live p2p streaming systems using live Bittorrent protocols, pplive or sopcast.

- Wacom touchscreen for annotations.

- Unlocked HSDPA and WiFi.

- Available worldwide subsidized with Kindle Store content subscriptions.

- Access to Project Gutenberg and other free ebook content

- Access to all RSS feeds in a built in RSS aggregator.

I’d say this is probably better then the stuff Asus has (Similarly specced Asus Eee 901 is $589 in USA while Acer Aspire One is $379). MSI Wind might have a slightly larger screen and a hard drive, but it’s also 38% more expensive.

Acer Aspire One is available at 289€ from France: http://www.rueducommerce.fr/ordinateur/showdetl.cfm?Product_ID=436637#xtorAL-25

Dell is coming with perhaps even better value in September.

Of course, these Atom notebooks are over twice the price of the 7.5″ sunlight readable AMD Geode based OLPC at 120€ (you can buy two get one worldwide in September, the second laptop you buy goes to a child in a developing nation) and about 4 times the price of the ARM based laptops that are also coming up in the next few months.

But if you absolutely are considering getting an Atom based laptop, this Acer Aspire One does look like pretty good value to me. The slightly cheaper Asus Eee 700 has a much less usable smaller LCD screen and a much less usable smaller keyboard as well.

Here’s a nice french video review comparing this 8.9″ netbook with 12″ and a 15″ laptops, to have an idea of the size difference, Acer managed to make the keyboard about the same size as on the 12″ laptop that is shown, just so you aren’t too surprised of its small size when you receive it: http://dailymotion.com/video/x628dx_lesnumeriques-acer-aspire-one_tech

This is definitely much better value then any of the 2000€ Fujitsu, Sony or Flybook small laptops which were the only ones available at this size about a year ago.

It might be worth waiting a few weeks to see if Acer will release an Aspire One with built-in HSDPA.

This JL700 laptop is from some unknown Hong Kong company, but it does prove that $100 ARM based laptops are coming.

But this is certainly the type of laptop that is the laptop of the future.

Archos could make this using their nearly unaltered DaVinci platform and simply cramming it into a laptop form factor with a keyboard and trackpad mouse and a normal cheaer non-touch LCD. Archos could sell it below $200 and try to provide Google Android on it as an open platform, while they develop Google Android for the rest of the Archos line of products.

ARM based laptops cost less then half the cost of X86 based laptops, they consume less then half the power, take up less then half the size and weight.

I am sure we are going to see ARM based laptops very soon based on all kinds of ARM chips be it Texas Instruments DaVinci, Marvell Scale, Samsung, Qualcomm, Nvidia and others. Those are all going to be half or a third of the cost of any X86 based laptop, they are going to consume lower then half the battery power, they are going to fit in half the size and weight, they are going to be much faster at booting up and at doing basic tasks compared to X86.

More about this $100 ARM based laptop at:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/27/keepin-it-real-fake-part-cxxvi-jointechs-99-jl7100-rips-eee/

http://www.jointech.com.hk/jl7100.html

Of course, this means the end for Intel, Microsoft and potentially the end of several large PC and laptop makers such as Dell, HP, Apple, Fujitsu, Asus, Acer, MSI, Foxconn and others, all of which see no profit in selling laptops at $99: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/technology/21pc.html

A plugin to watch all the videos from my http://techvideoblog.com directly on your HDTV or standard definition TV, with the remote control is available here:

http://labs.divx.com/node/1320

I think that the DivX Connected set-top-box standard is the beginning of the mass media revolution. Soon the box will cost below $100, currently it is available for £130 at Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-DSM-330-Connected-Wireless-Player/dp/B000X4F7RO.

Currently the DivX Connected hardware requires a Windows based computer on your local network to function, it uses a Windows software to stream content from the Internet to your TV using HDMI on a HDTV or using composite, scart and component connections. But there is probably a next version of DivX Connected hardware in the planning that would also provide the option to work without the need to have a desktop or laptop computer in the home, which I think is crucial to reach mass market penetration, to reach and change media consumption for consumers who aren’t using broadband Internet much to watch videos yet.

You can watch my Interview with the DivX Connected products manager Dan Salmonsen demonstrating the technology at IFA 2007: http://techvideoblog.com/ifa/divx-connected/

Taiwaneese cheap camcorder manufacturer Aiptek might actually become the first to provide a 1080p HD camcorder at consumer friendly prices of around $200-300. Today as far as I know, the cheapest 1080p camcorder costs tens of thousands of dollars at semi-profetionnal levels. Sony and Panasonic have always only provided interlaced HD camcorders so far.

So it seems to have no mic input, at least it’s not mentioned, too bad for that.

Hopefully they improved sound quality at least a minimum so one can stand listening to interviews and conversations recorded with it and not think this was filmed with a lame mobile phone type audio-recorder.

I’d like to know the bitrates. I guess 720p stays around 4mbit/s and 1080p becomes around 8mbit/s perhaps. That would be just very COOL. Much more usable bitrates considering the storage space used on SDHC cards and the possibillity of uploading the HD videos directly to the Internet. At least I think those bitrates are much more usable than Canon’s 17mbit/s for 1080p, Sony and Panasonic’s 15mbit/s for interlaced recordings or Sanyo’s 9mbit/s 720p content or 12mbit/s 1080 interlaced content.

Actually 1440×1080 progressive 30fps would be very awesome. I guess the pixels would be recorded in non-square fashion to provide 16/9 aspect ratio. Sony and Panasonic has been providing 1440×1080 resolution interlaced video for all of their HD camcorders for the past 2 years. It’s only just recently with the latest models that Sony and Panasonic started to do 1920×1080, but still they provide ONLY interlaced video recording so far. The first camcorder to provide 1080p recording at consumer friendly prices MIGHT actually be Aiptek as far as I know.

Canon just announced a nice looking 1920×1080 30fps progressive camcorder the Vixia HF10 but it won’t be out till March or April. Samsung seems to have announced a 1080p camcorder also the HXM20 but it seems not to be immediately available. Sony and Panasonic so far are NOT providing 1080p camcorders at consumer friendly prices as far as I know. Sony and Panasonic want to force semi-profetionnal users into buying their $5000 HD camcorders if they want to get 1080p recording. Which is the only format usable for editing, for computer screens, for HDTVs, for the Internet, for encoding to other formats and more. So thanks Aiptek for bringing $200 1080p camcorders, even though its not square 1920×1080 pixels.

I’m just hoping the sound quality has become more usable for interviews and that some of the rolling shutter has been fixed. If that’s the case, then the AHD300 will be mine, and then I think Aiptek has a shot at completely disrupting the whole HD camcorder market and taking all the big companies by surprise. Then I think Aiptek could become one of the number 1 most popular HD camcorders. Though if sound quality remains unusable and rolling shutter still makes the video look like it was taken using a cell phone, then people will still choose to pay more for Sanyo, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony and Panasonic.

The only coverage so far of these new Aiptek camcorders was posted at http://www.krunker.com/2008/01/13/aiptek-shows-off-new-hd-digital-camcorders-at-ces-2008/ and a discussion is going on about those new Aiptek HD camcorders at http://forums.steves-digicams.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=584700&forum_id=92

I just asked two questions to billionnaire Youtube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen through Robert Scoble’s Nokia N95 when he was taking in questions from the live audience broadcasting live video using http://qik.com.

I asked them the questions “When are people going to be able to make money on Youtube” and “When is Youtube going to be in HD”.

Watch more awesome live CES 2008 video coverage at http://www.mogulus.com/podtech_ces_live http://www.qik.com/scobleizer and some of the clips are stored at http://podtechceslive.blip.tv/

I think that the big studios in all categories of media know that their days of controlling media are counted. With such disruptive platforms as Youtube, BitTorrent, DivX, $200 HD camcorders, Miro, Video-blogging, it’s just a matter of time before the cool writers and composers get directly together with the cool performers and producers and decide to release the shows directly to the viewers without any need of big media moguls interfeering and taking the largest part of the revenue and destroying a lot of the creativity in the process.

$100 video-on-demand set-top-boxes, cheap, open and unrestricted portable media players (700mhz, WiFi, WiMax and HSDPA) and other open on-demand Internet access hardware will make it completely user-friendly for everyone to get those independant shows delivered instantly over the Internet from the show creators themselves.

In France once the parliamentarians suggested to pay the artists through taxes, such a thing as a $5 tax on average per citizen was suggested, which could fund much more than what all artists combined are paid today. Thus providing a system for many more talents to express themselves and create even higher quality content with complete creative freedom.

The quality and popularity of the shows being measured very precisely through the Internet connected on-demand system and through social networking tools and some popularity and quality measurement tools provided by the state which also neutrally redistributes the culture tax money directly to all the artists who deserve it.

Anyways, it’s not I guess useful to think about this right now, cause all those shows have to stay on media giant tv channel networks for now, but I would guess everyone should prepare themselves for this probable media revolution coming up. Especially a new administration such as when Al Gore “invented the Internet”, probably could set the reform agenda on the table which would take away the control on the media from the established studios (that is, unless all the candidates are corrupt or media conservatives).

Image source: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne

I posted this at the Writers Guild of America forum: http://www.fans4writers.com/forum/index.php?topic=810.msg9036#msg9036