[Geek] Techno lust

The consumer electronics show is on in Las Vegas and the news sites are full of babble about techie toys. Some are already retro on this side of the Atlantic, like joysticks with built-in games consoles and a handful of Atari classics, or mobile phones with (gasp) cameras and (whooo) folding keyboards for these new-fangled "text messages". (Bless the dear little Colonials and their quaintly low-tech ways.)

But one name has reappeared, 2 years after it was announced. The Oqo PC. And it's changed... rather a lot. 2yr ago, it was a very very fat PDA with a small touchscreen; you could use it as a handheld PC or dock it in a bay allowing you to attach a standard monitor, mouse and keyboard.

It's evolved. Now it's a 1GHz Crusoe with a 20GB hard disk, onboard Bluetooth, 802.11b, Firewire and USB; the screen is an 800×480 touchscreen with a no-contact stylus and handwriting recognition, and it slides upwards to reveal a miniature keyboard. It's like a tiny, hingeless laptop, small enough to slip into a pocket; it's got a headphone socket, so you can use it as an MP3 jukebox which can also play DivX movies, and when you get to a desk, it becomes a full-function PC.

Specs, Photos and a rather cool little Quicktime movie. Retro geeks can have fun playing spot-the-vintage-hardware in the intro.

Last time around, I thought it looked like a curiosity but of little use. Now, I want one, desperately.

An iPod and a PDA and a laptop? Why carry three devices?

A smartphone? With one of these, who needs one?

Looks like a replacement for my trusty Psion 5mx at last.

I reckon the chances of blagging one of these for review will be infinitesimal, though...

Do you like Woking?

I couldn't remember, I hadn't Wokked in a decade.

But I did last night: a visit to my mate and former lodger Andy, who's renting a friend of mine's house off me in Woking. (A friend's house? Long story...)

The town Wetherspoons was heaving. The Rat & Parrot across the road had about a dozen people in its cavernous interior, thumping chart ch00nz, but no real beer whatsoever. Not even a bottle of Dog. Lots of alcopops, though. I drank snakebite'n'black, to my colleague's disgust and the bar staff's consternation. ("I'll have to serve it to you in 2 glasses, sir.") We didn't stop long.

Woking's clubs look utterly dire and the Friday night populace are appallingly rough. Lots of pudgy shaven-headed lads in tracksuits and girls in tie-back tops and miniskirts with no tights. In January. Classy. (Not that 1 or 2 of them weren't quite decorative...)

The Sovereigns had ale, though, including Rosy Nosy, and being 10min out of the centre, it wasn't heaving. Odd how, just across one road from the shopping district, some places were thronged, yet a few doors away, others were standing totally empty with the bar staff kicking back and having a smoke. Pizza Express is clearly THE place to be seen, which says a lot, really. (And none of it good.)

Then a fairly decent curry at Bombay Nights, for <£20 a head, and back. Odd to be sleeping there again; the last time was in 1996, helping its owner move out, and that was the first time I'd been out there in some years, as he'd been letting it get into a very bad state. I first stayed over probably back in 1990 or so, when he was still very houseproud and it was immaculate.

Andy's looking after the place well. It's clean, tidy and homely. It'd be better still if we could find someone for the spare room, though.

Anyone know anyone who wants to rent a cheap room 10min from the station?

How come I'm renting out someone else's house, then?

I said it was a long story... ( Read more... )

[Geek] Slashdot number

Today's poll on /. asks how many digits there are in your /. user ID. I had to look up mine; it is just over 6,000. This apparently makes me something of an early adopter. I'm amused that at least 387 people claim to have a single-digit ID though.

Have you got your own Slashdot account? If so, how many digits are there in it? Just curious...