We have already talked about Nokia’s MeeGo OS on a few occasions. Last week we learned that MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks and the Nokia N900 smartphone had launched. Nokia is expecting MeeGo to be adopted by other manufactures wince the OS is offered as an open source option for devices.

The Inquirer has sat down with Nokia VP Alberto Torres for a chat about MeeGo and the first Nokia devices to run the new OS. Strangely, with MeeGo being an OS under development in partnership between Nokia and Intel, the first Nokia device to use MeeGo will run an ARM chip.

The Inquirer reports that MeeGo isn’t for Intel Atom chips, which as a commenter below points out isn’t exactly accurate. The first Nokia product to use MeeGo will land later this year and will be aimed at rich multimedia use.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• MeeGo Available Now for Download Onto Your N900
• Intel and Orange to collaborate for MeeGo devices
• MeeGo for N900 and Atom netbooks later this month
• Nokia N900 gets Maemo 1.2 update; official MeeGo a no-go
• MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks and N900 launches, gets video demo

Back in February 2010 we spied a leaked roadmap from ARM that had something called Eagle listed. The processor roadmap showed Eagle to be a new CPU from ARM that would be aimed at the smartphone, mobile computing, and DTV markets among others.

At Computex ARM confirmed that Eagle was in fact its next generation core for high-end platforms. ARM also talked about other things during its conference at Computex reports CarryPad.

Other topics included the prevalence of ARM CPUs in a myriad of entertainment devices and Mali GPUs. There were highlights of ARM hardware combined with Android Froyo that has specific optimizations for ARM hardware. Those optimizations include Dalvik JIT for Thumb2, NDK3.0 for native debug and support, as well as V8 JavaScript acceleration.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• ARM shows off roadmap and reveals ARM Eagle
• Shuttle J3 to be Unveiled at Computex 2010
• 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon with HSPA+ launched
• Asus drops CG8490 gaming desktop along with G53 and G73 notebooks
• Acer Could Bring Chrome OS Device to Computex 2010

Apple leaving Flash out of the show when it comes to the iPhone and iPad devices was enough to get the DOJ interested in the practices of the electronics company. Reports are now coming in that the DOJ inquiry into Apple is extending beyond a look at the music practices of Apple and looking at the video practices of the company as well.

CNET News reports that the DOJ is now asking questions of executives in the film industry and other media sectors in a widening probe of Apple’s business dealings. An anonymous source told the New York Post, “The [Justice Dept.] is doing outreach. You can’t dictate terms to the industry. The Adobe thing is just inviting the wrath of everybody.”

The inquiry by the DOJ reportedly started as information was sought to determine whether Apple pressured Sony Music Entertainment and EMI to stop participating in a discount promotion that Amazon was running. The sources claim that for now the inquiry is merely a fact-finding mission and is not an official investigation. The banning of Flash is said to be the reason the inquiry was started.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Apple says the talks with Universal Music are still ongoing – there is no standoff
• Warner Music Group may not renew long-term contract with Apple
• Zune Battery Life Revealed at 12 Hrs Music and 3.5 for Video
• Universal confirms they will not be signing their iTunes renewal contract
• Video of Zune Player Sharing Music Wirelessly

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AVING Special Report on ‘Computex Taipei 2010′) — Systembase to attend at Computex 2010 in Taipei

I am a landlubber; I have never felt the call of the ocean. I haven’t even been on a cruise. Even if I were filthy rich, I can’t see myself buying a yacht to cruise the world in. If you are the yachting type and like the thought of a ship to carrying across the world’s oceans, the Strand Craft 122 is the most awesome yacht I have ever seen.

The beast is 38 meters long and the interior of the ship can be customized. It has four large staterooms along with various heads, staterooms, reception areas, and salon areas. Each of the rooms has its own 52-inch HDTV and Bang & Olufsen sound system.

The coolest feature of the yacht isn’t the rooms though. The cool feature is the garage behind the ship that stores an awesome handmade supercar called the Tender with an 880hp twin turbocharged V12 engine promising to hit 375kmh. The ship itself has 14,000 horsepower and can hit speeds of 50 knots.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Super Sky Cycle kits to be manufactured, sold to consumers
• Paper Mario, Not The Game
• WSJ goes inside billionaire’s $300M yacht
• See Through Concept Designer Garage for the Super Rich
• Sunseeker add Caterham garage to Predator 108 yacht

Silicon Power has unveiled a new external portable hard drive called the Armor A80. The new HDD uses a USB 3.0 interface and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 as well. The HDD is rugged, meets US military standards for drop survivability, and is water resistant to IPX7 standards.

The HDD can be submerged in water up to a meter deep for as long as 30 minutes without any damage. The USB 3.0 connectivity allows the driver to support up to 5Gbps of data transfer. Other features include a LED light to show drive activity and an integrated USB cable that tucks into the side of the drive chassis.

The drive measures 139 x 96 x 18mm and weighs 270g. The drive gets all the power it needs directly from the USB port so no AC adapters are needed. The drive is offered in 640GB, 500GB, or 320GB and it comes in blue color. Pricing and availability are unknown.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Silicon Power offers waterproof A70 external HDD
• Datel XBox 360 4GB Portable Hard Drive
• Fujitsu releases 300GB 2.5-inch drive
• Buffalo MicroStation SSD: USB solid-state storage
• Camera Armor is like a protective case for your DSLR

I remember when NVIDIA first started talking about its Ion platform. The graphics giant was big on talking the platform up, but had no products for us to see when the platform first debuted. The talk at the NVIDIA press conference about the Tegra 2 platform for tablets is very similar to that first Ion unveiling.

At the NVIDIA conference at Computex 2010, there were no demonstrations of products on hand for the attendees to check out. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang talked about the potential for the market and how excited he was about the platform reports CarryPad, but offered no devices to view.

Huang claims that the tablets running the Tegra 2 platform will be coming to market later this fall and asked people to “have patience” and wait for the platform to land. There is at least one prototype being shown off at the show, the MSI 110 tablet I mentioned before runs Tegra 2.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• NVIDIA Tegra 2 to go big time
• NVIDIA demo digital mag & Farmville on Tegra tablet
• Adobe demo Android Tegra tablet running Flash & AIR “flawlessly” [Video]
• ASUS Eee Pad tablet to use Tegra 2 chipset?
• ASUS Eee PC Touch Series tablet quietly shown at CES 2010

Computex 2010 is running full steam ahead today and there have already been some cool new gadgets debuted at the show. The MSI WindPad 100 and 110 tablets have surfaced. The WindPad 100 is a Windows 7 tablet that runs on an Atom Z530 CPU. The rig runs Windows 7 Ultimate, but MSI uses a custom UI over the top of the OS.

The machine has HDMI out and a pair of USB ports and it will have a webcam as well. The machine will retail for $499 when it lands on the market later this year sporting its 10-inch 1024 x 600 screen. Alongside the WindPad 100 came the WindPad 110.

The 110 is the more interesting of the two tablets with its 10-inch screen and power coming from NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 platform. The OS on this beauty is Android and it will sport a 10-inch screen, USB port, and video output. The Android version will sell for $399 making it more appealing in my book than the 100.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Windows and Intel tablets to take spotlight at Computex with Android tablets in shadows
• NVIDIA asks for patience in Tegra 2 tablet wait
• ASUS Eee Pad Tegra 2 tablet tipped for Computex 2010; eReaders delayed?
• MSI Slatebook due Q3 2010 with 3G carrier partnerships
• Intel bringing tablet & ultra-thin netbooks to Computex

By Andrew Liszewski

How strong is your average cardboard tube? Because I think that’s the only thing standing between this line of eco-friendly DIY furniture from being brilliant, or just an optimistic concept with one fatal flaw. The idea is pretty simple. The chairs and tables come disassembled like your average IKEA kit, but instead of including metal or plastic tubing, it comes with cardboard tubes. So in theory, as long as you have a reliable source of cardboard tubing, you can swap in longer pieces so the furniture grows along with your kids.

Of course since they’re made of cardboard the pieces you’ve swapped out are completely recyclable, and if you tire of the furniture altogether, the various plastic bits like the seats and corner pieces are all made from 100% plant-based resin, making them recyclable too. As an added bonus your kids are free to color or decorate the cardboard bits of the furniture as much as they like since they can be easily replaced if their crayola masterpieces end up clashing with the decor in their playroom. And if that wasn’t enough, apparently the company behind the furniture, HECMEC, claims that their manufacturing process reduces carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 40% since they’re not using steel.

Unfortunately as cool as it all sounds, I can’t really find any information on when or where the furniture will be available, though it’s clear that functioning prototypes at least do exist.

[ HECMEC Paper Tube Eco-Furniture ] VIA [ Inhabitots ]

Computex 2010 doesn’t kick off in earnest until tomorrow, but a few of the big name exhibitors have snuck in ahead with some early press conferences today.  ASUS are first out of the gate with their iPad competition, and they’re taking a three-pronged approach: the ASUS Eee Pad will be available in 10-inch (EP101TC) and 12-inch (EP121) variants, and offer Windows Embedded Compact 7 and Windows 7 Home Premium respectively, while the ASUS Eee Tablet is a monochrome digital notebook, packing 2,450dpi touchscreen input sensitivity and targeted at note-takers like students.

The ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC doesn’t have finalised specs as yet, but it measures just 12.2mm thick and weighs 675g.  The Windows Embedded Compact 7 OS promises the same flexibility and interface as existing users are expecting, but there’ll be more cloud-integration too.

As for the ASUS Eee Pad EP121, that gets Windows 7 Home Premium for everything you’d expect a notebook to run, powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo CULV processor.  That also means it’ll have the usual notebook connectivity, so expect USB and a webcam.  ASUS have apparently also developed a keyboard dock, similar to what Apple offer for the iPad, for when you’re deskbound.  Neither model is expected to hit the market until Q1 2011, with prices tipped at between $399 and $499.

Finally, the ASUS Eee Tablet is a good example of very specialised segment targeting.  It uses a non-backlit monochrome LCD display, not E Ink, and as such as 0.1-second page transitions.  There’s also a 2-megapixel camera, which ASUS envision students using to snap images of lecture slides and then annotate them with the high-resolution touchscreen and stylus.  Sync is via USB or microSD card, there’s a battery good for up to 10hrs and various apps that give the impression of using a paper notebook – only one that you can search through more readily.  The Eee Tablet is expected in September 2010, priced between $199 and $299.

Press Release:

Stay Connected and Multitask with the Eee Pad

Engineering excellence meets stunning design in the ASUS Eee Pad, an ultra-slim and light yet high-performance slate device designed to provide users with a real time cloud computing experience. The Eee Pad will be available in two configurations.

The 12″ Eee Pad EP121 is a full-featured slate computer that serves as a multimedia player, e-reader, and compact computing device. Powered by a CULV Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor and the Windows® 7 Home Premium operating system, it effortlessly handles multitasking tasks whether enabling users to check their email and calendars, have video conferences, or process Microsoft Word and Excel documents simultaneously. The ASUS Eee Pad EP121 offers two convenient modes of character input-an embedded virtual keyboard or an innovative hybrid keyboard/docking station design. All of this power is available in a personal computing device that delivers up to 10 hours of usage.

For users seeking additional mobility, ASUS is proud to present the 10” Eee Pad EP101TC that runs Windows Embedded Compact 7, which provides an engaging user experience and delivers instant connectivity to the Windows world. It also provides a familiar full-featured user experience across various connected devices and cloud computing services.

Press Release:

ASUS Provides Tomorrow’s Technologies Today at Computex 2010

Innovative Eee Pad and Eee Tablet extend ASUS’ leadership in Cloud Computing

ASUS’ leadership in innovation and design will once again be the focus at Computex 2010 in Taipei, Taiwan. ASUS will proudly showcase a wide range of products across five major categories: cloud computing, gaming, enthusiast-level PC components, multimedia and green computing. As a technological leader in cloud computing, ASUS offers a broad lineup of cloud-connected devices featuring on-the-fly data and multimedia sharing capabilities that consumers crave in today’s market.

The Notepad Goes Digital with the Eee Tablet
Innovation meets cloud computing at Computex 2010 with the ASUS Eee Tablet. With a 2450 dpi touch resolution screen, the Eee Tablet is one of the world’s most accurate and sensitive digital note taking devices, and gives the user the feel of writing on paper. Users can select one of the built-in notepad templates and have the option to store, sort and tag, organize or browse through them. Real time text annotations can also be made on-the-fly. The Eee Tablet makes reading easy, with text file page turns taking just 0.1 seconds-nine times faster than the page turns of normal e-readers. Reading documents or books remains easy on the users’ eyes even after prolonged viewing periods.

The ASUS Eee Tablet features a built-in 2 megapixel camera that captures detailed images, letting the user grab screenshots of lecture slides and write notes on them instantly. It easily syncs up with a PC or notebook via USB or Micro SD to ensure that all notes, content, and calendars are constantly kept up-to-date. With up to 10-hours of battery life, the Eee Tablet has enough power for a variety of tasks. At the end of the day, users not only have an electronic notepad, but a media player and e-reader as well.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Rumor – Asus is working on Apple’s Mac Tablet
• ASUS R1F Tablet PC user review
• ASUS Eee Pad Tegra 2 tablet tipped for Computex 2010; eReaders delayed?
• ASUS Eee Pad with 4-7 inch touchscreen tipped
• ASUS Eee PC Touch Series tablet quietly shown at CES 2010