Asus expected to shake up tablet market with eee Pad Transformer
06.09.11
So, when Apple redefined portability with the iPad in 2010, Asus was expected to be one of the first challengers. And, indeed, it hit the market mere weeks after the iPad, confusingly announcing an e-reader it called a Tablet, and a tablet it called a Pad. The fact that Apple didn’t immediately take them to court may well have been an indication that these devices posed little challenge to the iPad at the time. Fast-forward a year, and Asus has a device on the market that goes beyond the iPad.
It’s called the eee Pad Transformer, a 10.1” tablet running Android 3.0 or Honeycomb, and offers an optional docking keyboard that also boosts battery life from 9 hours to 16 hours. Well-priced at $399, its first production runs – estimated at about 100,000 – reportedly sold out immediately in some markets, and in June it shipped a further 300,000 units.
Source: MarkLives.com
Time For A PC That Runs Only Off RAM?
06.09.11
Google's newly announced Chromebook comes with 2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD drive, the first netbook, the Asus Eee PC 701 came with 512MB RAM and a 8GB SSD Drive. With the price of RAM at an all time low ( you can pick up 24GB RAM for under £100 ), it might make sense to build a computer that relies on RAM exclusively both for long term storage and system memory.
The advantages of moving to RAM only are multiple; much faster read/write speeds compared to SSD and hard disk drives, simpler layout (basically just multiple memory module slot), no fragmentation, very little heat dissipation, and much easier upgrade path.
The only hardware issues would be long term data retention, although that can be solved by re-engineering the battery circuitry that's on every computer motherboard as well as the ability to dynamically alter the amount of memory dedicated to the system.
Source: ITProPortal