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by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 17th 2008 at 12:14PM Wearable mice aren’t exactly a new idea, but it seems that Microsoft thinks it can do things one better, with a recent patent application revealing its plans for a desk-defying device of its own. As you can see above, this one is designed to be worn even while your typing on a keyboard, with the cursor movement able to be switched on an off with a simple hand gesture. That pointing itself is handled by some gyroscopic sensors, with an accelerometer and a magnetometer apparently also employed for further gesture and position sensing. Needless to say, there’s no indication of it becoming an actual product anytime soon but, unlike some of Microsoft’s other patent applications, this one seems like it could well find its way off the drawing board sooner rather than later.

[Via istartedsomething]

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Filed under: Peripherals

The Lenovo U110B and U110R will soon be available in the US, or so it would seem based on some recent listings at online retailer J&R. The small, but fully functional notebooks from Lenovo are a little more on the high-end side as compared to the recent rash of low-cost offerings we have been seeing, and would fit more in line with the X300 or macbook air.

Both the U110B and U110R offer similar features, but have a different color on the outer shell, the “B” is the black model, while the “R” is the red model. Aside from the color, the notebooks will both feature an 11.1-inch widescreen display with a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 processor, 3GB of RAM, 120GB hard drive, 1.3-megapixel webcam and be running Windows Vista. The U110 will also include the standard variety of ports and connectivity which include a Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n, Ethernet, Bluetooth, three USB ports, one Firewire, VGA-out and a built-in card reader.

The laptops weigh in at just 2.3-pounds, are only 0.7-inches high and are reported to have a battery that can offer up to 8-hours of life. Of course with all these goodies comes a decent price tag, the U110 IdeaPad will retail for $1,999.

Via [Laptoping]

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HP has recently released their highly anticipated Mini-Note 2133, and in some good news, reports are now trickling in that they have begun to ship. When originally announced, HP offered potential customers a choice of either Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic or SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. Even with a decent amount of choice available, a good amount of users would have liked to have seen and been able to choose Windows XP, simply because, as proven by other low-cost ultra-portable laptops it will run much better than Vista.

Sadly it seems that those who ordered early and would have preferred XP are about to become a little upset. HP has confirmed that it will begin to offer Windows XP as an installation option when ordering. As of now they have confirmed that XP will become available in May, but have not announced any specific date or just what the pricing will be or what models it will be available with.

Hopefully HP will offer XP drivers on their website for those who ordered the Mini-Note with another operating system and plan on installing their own copy of XP once the ultra-portable arrives.

Via [Laptop]

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If you were busy updating your Twitter this morning, you might have noticed that the service was running a bit slow. That’s because the creatures inside the Twitter are currently mulling over the possibilities of adding advertising to the site, weighing their options, which are actually pretty much “advertise or die” at this point. You might not realize it yet but Twitter has helped everybody with their service except for itself. Because aside from the occasional round of VC funding (the last of which was on July 2007, at $5.7 million), Twitter has never really made anything off their wonderfully addictive online service. Its only option may be to put ads on its site, which would in all certainty become the topic of many a debate since users have so far been using it 100% ad-free. For 2 years now, actually. So while I personally won’t mind having ads on Twitter, since there’s quite plenty of free space on the sidebars anyway, I think a lot of people would still find it hard to kick the habit of twitting in an ad-free Twitter. How about you? How would you feel if Twitter suddenly placed paid ads on its pages? Add your answers in the comments!

Via [TechCrunch]

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The Airis Kira 100, an ultraportable notebook sporting two traditional colors and two unusual colors has been released in Germany. The Airis Kira 100 looks similar to the previously released Norhtec Gecko which was being touted as an Asus Eee PC competitor. The Airis Kira 100 and Norhtec Gecko may have several things in common, but both are nonetheless two distinct notebooks with different specs.

The Airis Kira 100 was released in four color variants, the usual black and white colors as well as the brighter pink and white, and black and yellow combinations. It is currently available in Germany with a retail price of around $471. The notebook comes with a 7-inch display with a 800 x 480 resolution, 1GHz VIA C7 mobile processor, VGA output, Ethernet, 56kbps modem, multi-card reader and webcam. In addition, the Airis Kira 100 is powered by Linpus Linux Lite OS, weighs 2.2-pounds and measures in at 9.5 x 6.7 x 1.1-inches.

Via [Liliputing]

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Microsoft announced that its acquisition of Danger has been finalized. Although the current employees of Danger will continue to work in their current offices, Danger will be integrated into the newly formed Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) Team of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business unit. Roz Ho, corporate vice-president of Danger said that joining Microsoft’s PMX Team will enable Danger to continue delivering cool, new and fun mobile experiences to its costumers. Let’s just hope that statement proves to be true, otherwise we are going to see lots of angry Danger fans. Other details of the terms and conditions for the acquisition have not been disclosed by either of the two companies, it was however previously speculated that Microsoft paid $500 million.

Read [PR Newswire]

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Everybody seems to be making their own kind of blogging platform, although most of these are really based on old principles. And sometimes even existing blogging software. Such is the case with the new online service, BayWords.com, launched by the same guys who are responsible for The Pirate Bay, and enabled freeloaders to have a virtual home on the Internet.

And now, they’re all set to set you free through your words, with an uncensored blogging service that’s really just a Wordpress-powered blog deep inside. But it’s the thought that counts, they say, and with BayWords, there will be no limit to what thoughts you can publish. From the most recent blog post on their own BayWords blog, Brokep had this to say: “Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don’t break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it.”.

Could this be the end of censored blogs and limit in the freedom of speech on the Internet? Will this pave the way for a new generation of fearless bloggers who are inspired to write about the truth like no other, carefully taking the principles of true pirates to heart, who take everything, and I mean everything, sparing no prisoners just to do what they think is good? It’s possible. Especially taking into account the huge user-base of The Pirate Bay, who I believe are all very eager to have their own say about piracy cum freedom on the Web. BayWords.com will have basically the same features as the old version of WP, personalized of course with their own logo and styles. This new feature could be a hit, I think. They’re displaying ads on their pages? Ok, I take that back.

Via [Torrent Freak]

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With little details still yet know, an image has surfaced showing off what is looking to be T-Mobile’s Shadow II. Other than the sleek looking phone itself, which seems to be a nice improvement over the original Shadow, the image can tell us that it will offer support for MyFaves, but that is becoming fairly standard on T-Mobile’s lineup. Otherwise it is also expected that the Shadow II will retain the Wi-Fi and in turn offer support for the HotSpot@Home service. Otherwise little is know, hopefully details will begin to trickle in.

Via [TMO News]

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