The MacMini form factor is perfect for the vast majority of home users. We check email, surf the web, blog about the new James Bond, etc. In the PC world, the Mini is the Mini ITX form factor. Many variations on the housing have been seen, and many more are to come. The newest offering on the street is the Idol from Voodoo. Consider it a a MacMini for people who don’t Mac. The red color makes me think Apple should consider getting back into color cases. White is nice but red, well, it says “hey, look at me, I’m red. You may now begin coveting”.
As prices plummet and MiniITX moves to the forefront as a very useful home PC, we might see more gigantor desktops head to the scrap heap. Why take up 4 cubic feet with a super tower when all you want to do is suft the web for Lindsey Lohan pictures.
The car PC enthusiast will see this as an excellent option that could not only do everything they want with up to 2.1Ghz but also look cool. It’s nice to see some of these smaller units sneaking in some higher power CPUs.
Car PCs
Not “news” per se but I came across a good resource for in-car keyboards. As much as we want to be all “I don’t have use for such things as my touch-screen satisfies all my needs”, we still need one once in a while.
Car PCs
If you’re a reader of this site, you know about the Microsoft TBox. The short-attention-span-Hollywood-pitch is, windows can run your car, it will be like the Matrix meets I-Robot meets The Odd Couple. Ok, no that didn’t work. Ok, its 2001 A Space Odyssey meets Maximum Overdrive meets Gigli. Yeah, that’s it. See? Good.
Fiat has already signed on and will be including the Microsoft OS in their dashboards. I wonder if the Italian version of Windows has a Ciao button.
Apparently, MS is releasing a new version of the OS, or at least a very upgraded version. From everything I;ve heard, the old one was pretty good. With as many people making smart remarks about reliability (compounded by their first partnership with Fiat) I’m sure they’re throwing a lot of QA at the project and it’ll be pretty great.
The features they’re touting are better NAV with 3D mapping, simple media integration and simple phone integration. I’m sure that’s a small sample of their offerings and they’ll be adding more very soon.
My question is, will you be able to upgrade existing systems once you buy a car? Am I stuck with the 2007 operating system when it’s 2010 and new cooler stuff is out? The cat is out of the bag, you can’t offer things that you cannot upgrade anymore or people think its disposable. If any MS folks are reading this, I’d love to share some answers with our readers.
Car PCs