portable computing

I was about to tell Sandee how foolish these people look with their laptops stuck to their torsos, but she hit me with “that looks like something you’d use.” Ouch. Worse, I’m not sure she’s wrong. Double ouch. Maybe the company could send me one. Then I could have these conflicted feelings for real. » about 100 words

Gizmodo‘s reporting the Nokia 770 is in customer’s hands and getting some buttons pushed. Now we’ve got Nokia and Pepper exploring this space. Where to next? internet tablet, internet tablets, mike cane, nokia, nokia 770, pepper, pepper pad, portable computing, ultraportable, web pad » about 100 words

I’ve been doing a lot of talking about the coming information age and how it depends on access technology that is as cheap and easy to use as our cell phones (and applications of it that are as appealing as people find their cell phones). But I’ve been slow to mention the MIT Media Lab‘s […] » about 200 words

My week with the Pepper Pad is over, and the UPS van just drove off with it, but I’ve still got a lot to report. My testing ran into problems when it turned out that the WiFi network in the library was on the fritz. I did some netstumbling today and found that only two […] » about 300 words

The Pepper Pad (available at Amazon) has a very clean out of box experience. There’s nothing to assemble and no questions about what order to do things in. Just open, unwrap, plug in, startup. I attempted running through the configuration in my office, but the WiFi propagation is very weak there and Pepper Pad couldn’t […] » about 700 words

The Pepper Pad‘s technical details — a lightweight Linux powered device with an 8.4-inch SVGA touchscreen, Wi-Fi auto-configuration, Bluetooth device support, multi-gigabyte disk, full QWERTY thumb-keypad, stereo speakers, and more — are already well reported. But I’ve been arguing that attention to such details runs counter to the purpose and intended use of the device. […] » about 200 words

David Rothman pointed me to Michael Lasky’s PC World review of the Pepper Pad. Lasky bangs on Pepper, saying he can’t recommend it. Too often, I think, technology reviewers approach a new product without understanding it. Lasky tells us how the Pepper performs when playing music or videos before comparing it to “notebook computers available […] » about 300 words

That headline might seem a little late among the folks reading this. But we’re all geeks, and if not geeks, then at least regular computer users. Regular computer users, however, are a minority. Worldwide, only around 500 million people have internet access, and fewer than 100 million people in the US have internet access at […] » about 500 words

I’ve been babbling like a stoolie for Pepper here for the past couple weeks, but after some prodding by Roger Sperberg I’ve started to take a serious look at the Nokia 770 linux-based internet tablet. To get me started is Mike Cane’s hands on report from some time spent with it at LinuxWorld Expo. Nokia […] » about 200 words

The most amazing thing about the Pepper Pad is how easy it is to pick up and use, how easy it is to walk around with, and how it’s available when you want it and gone when you don’t. The Pepper Pad‘s portability goes far beyond that of laptops. I mentioned previously that laptops move […] » about 600 words