Swedish company Medison has unveiled the first $150 laptop called the Celebrity. It comes with the Fedora Linux Operating System pre-installed and takes 4-6 weeks. The $150 unbelievably includes the shipping and handling too.

Medison Celebrity™ is a high quality laptop for the everyday user. It is adapted to functionality that does not demand the highest performance, but rather to everyday tasks such as e-mailing, surfing the Web, word processing and working with spreadsheet programmes. Built-in Wireless and slim design makes this a truly flexible and mobile laptop for the active user.

Is this likely to be too good to be true? Is it a hoax? Many have asked those questions including Larry Dignan (ZDNet) and Matthew Elliot (CNet Crave). In fact, they did order it last week. We’ll just have to wait and see in 4-6 weeks. Orders are fulfilled through 2checkout.com.

At this price, it is even cheaper than Nicholas Negroponte’s $175 OLPC computer and Intel’s Classmate PC.

Here is Medison’s CEO Valdi Ivancic take on why it is so cheap:

“We see this from a democratic point of view where we believe everyone should be able to afford to have a laptop. The other reason is that we have our own plants where we assemble our laptops.”

As for the computer’s specification:

# CPU - Intel® Celeron® M Processor 370 (1.5 GHz, 90nm, FSB400, 1 MB L2 cache, uPGA478)
# DISPLAY - 14.0″ WXGA (1280×768) TFT
# HARD DRIVE - 40 GB
# DIMENSION - 333(W) x 243(D) x 24/33.(H)mm (front/back), 2.2Kg with 6 cells Lithium-lion battery
# MEMORY - 64-bit wide DDR data channel, One 200-pin SODIMM socket, supporting DDR 333/400, 256 MB Expandable up to 1GB, based on SODIMM Modules
# STORAGE - One changeable 2.5″ 9.5mm(H) HDD, Supporting Master mode IDE ATA-33/66/100/133 (Ultra DMA), One changeable 12.7mm(H) CD/DVD Combo
# VIDEO CONTROLLER - VIA PN800 integration, Shared Memory Architecture up to 64MB, 128 bit 3D graphic engine, Support analog monitor pixel resolution up to 1920×1400, Support two displays dual view
# KEYBOARD - A4 size keyboard, Built-in Touchpad with scrolling function
# SOUND SYSTEM - AC’97 2.2 Compliant Interface, 3D stereo enhanced sound system, Sound-Blaster PROTM Compatible, S/PDIF Digital output (5.1 CH), 1x Built-in Microphone, 2x Built-in Speakers
# I/O PORTS - 3x USB 2.0 ports, 1x External CRT monitor output, 1x Headphone jack, 1x Microphone jack, 1x S/PDIF output jack, 1x RJ-45 port for LAN, 1x Line-in jack, 1x DC-In jack
# PCMCIA - 1x Type II PCMCIA socket
# COMMUNICATION - 10/100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet on board, 802.11g MiniPCI Wireless LAN
# POWER - Full Range 65W AC adapter - AC input 100~240V, 47~63Hz, DC output 20V, 3.25A, Removable 6-cell Smart Li-ion battery pack, 4000/4400mAh

Company Links:
Medison Corporate Website
Medison Celebrity Product Page

Headquarters Address:

Medison Europe Limited
27 Ruffets Wood
Gravesend, Kent
DA12 5JQ England

V12 Design in Milan has come up with this innovative dual-touchscreen concept notebook called the Canovo. The idea behind the notebook is to create 2 touchscreens monitors on the computer where one of them can double up as a virtual keyboard.

Valerio Cometti, Managing Director of V12 Design has said that the design concept came about two years ago but it wasn’t taken to the next level due to lack of interest from manufacturers and the the complexity of the project. However, we may actually see a working design by a European computer manufacturer in the future:

The project captured the attention of a European computer manufacturer and together with its Taiwanese sister company, they started the development of the electronics. The complexity of the fully custom made electronic components has slowed down the development of the product as a whole.

Without doubting the usefulness of having two touchscreens, I am not sure how I would like typing on a flat screen. Call me old fashioned but I like the feeling of typing on a real keyboard. A sensitivity adjustment may be needed on the second touchscreen as one resting his hands on the virtual keyboard might trigger a key or two. I believe the biggest area they would have to look into would be how to minimize battery life as running two monitors at the same time will surely drain the battery.

As project development is at such an early stage, computer specifications has not been released yet.

Booq has released their newest MacBook Pro bag range. Called Vyper exo, the new bags are designed to fit the 15 and 17 inch Mac laptop versions.

These trendy and sturdy bags are made of semi rigid ballistic nylon with two layered foam, non-scratch fabric, oversized zippers and a tough seatbelt shoulder strap. The Vyper exo comes in black (with red, orange, and beige accent color stitching) and has a big enough interior for your power adapter, phone, cables, iPod and more.

Two features that make it stand out:

• its ability to open 180 degree so that you can use your laptop while it is still in the laptop compartment.
• an electronic identification number service called TerraLinq. This is a unique id that corresponds to you bag and linked to you when you register it. If your bag is stolen, booq can help you locate it.

Specifications:

Vyper exo M
Fits: 15″ MacBook Pro, PowerBook, PC
Laptop Compartment: 14.2″x10.9″x1.5″ (361×277x38mm)
Exterior Dimensions: 15.75″x12.5″x4.25″ (400×318x108mm)
Weight: 3.6 lb (1.64 kg)

Vyper exo XL
Fits: 17″ MacBook Pro, PowerBook, PC
Laptop Compartment: 15.75″x11″x1.8″ (400×279x46mm)
Exterior Dimensions: 17.25″x15″x4.25″ (438×381x108mm)
Weight: 4 lb (1.82 kg)

They are both retailed at $175 and $195 respectively, a small price to pay for style and rugged refinement.

Or should I say a brighter screen? The Next-Gen Mac Book Pro will have a brighter screen! As if the picture wasn’t beautiful enough on this great line of laptops. How do they achieve the brighter screen? Easily, with new underlying backlight technology,
Read more

Apple continues to break records for revenue and profit thanks to a surge in sales of Macs and the illustrious iPod. Apple announced first quarter earnings for fiscal year 2007, ending December 30, 2006. They managed to push through over 21 million iPods during the quarter (that works out to about 162 iPods per minute!) and 1.6 million Macs. These numbers represent a 50% and a 28% increase respectively for those products versus Q1 2006. I personally helped to contribute to that number by buying 2 iPods (one video, one shuffle) as gifts for the holidays. All those Macs and iPods add up to a 78% revenue increase versus Q1 2006.

The bottom line is that Apple, the company that was pretty much written off the map 10 years ago, posted a profit (yeah, that’s actual money in the bank) of $1 billion. To me, that’s simply amazing. I know that other companies post bigger profits than that, but think about the size of the market that Apple caters to. As far as computers are concerned, Macs are barely on the map at like less than 5% of the total market. And I know the iPod has a huge market share in the mp3 market, but it’s still amazing what this company has been able to pull off in a fairly short time span.

And let me insert my disclaimer here, I am a Mac user. Yes, I am probably the biggest Apple fanboy out there (I ordered my Apple TV as soon as it was available online at the Apple Store) but you have to respect a company that has made all the right moves to become a dominant force in the computer/technology industry. And now that the company has dropped the “computer” from it’s name, I can only think they will be venturing forth into other areas.

But will Apple be able to maintain the dominance as a consumer electronics company? Could they be the new Sony? Time will only tell, but we could get a hint of that dominance in June with the (proposed) release of the iPhone (or whatever they may have to call it). I’m looking forward to seeing what Apple will do. However, my credit card is not so hopeful…

Read [Apple] via [DailyTech]