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HP has announced that they will begin deploying more than 7,000 HP Mini-Note PC’s to K-12 students in the Fresno United School District in California.

“The HP Mini-Note is a powerful laptop that is small enough to fit on students’ desks along with their textbooks and papers, allowing them access to the Internet and educational content from around the world without leaving their seats,” said Kurt Madden, chief technology officer, Fresno United School District.

Certainly a nice perk for students in that district, it seems like they will be given regular access to the computer, which should in turn make them a little more computer literate, especially at the younger ages, but also be able to be used as a tool to aid in their education.

No information was given on what OS these Mini-Notes will be running, or just how they are being spec’d out. I would imagine that the school district would have them running Windows, but if you remember the Mini-Note offers an option to have either Linux or Windows installed.

Hopefully we will see some additional announcements coming from HP.

Read [HP] Via [GottaBeMobile]

Asus may be a little optimistic, or maybe just cocky, but they believe that they can make a 1430% increase in sales this year over last year with their Eee PC. Yes, they are predicting that they can make 5 million sales this year, and although it is unclear as to whether this just includes the Eee PC, or if this prediction incorporates many of the other products that have been given the Eee PC label, it is still very optimistic either way.

Or is it? Last year Asus had the whole of the market, which considering their 350,000 sales wasn’t massive; however the market for low cost ultra portable computers has increased massively, and Asus president Jerry Shen (who made the above prediction) also said that they expected this marked to grow to 10 million sales overall. If you then consider that HP’s Mini-Note has only been available for a few months, that Acer and MSI have yet to release their Eee PC-competitors, and Dell hasn’t even officially announced its entry into the marketplace, they may just have a good chance at getting the predicted 50% of the market.

I personally think that although they may get 50% of the market at most, 10 million sales is probably a bit to many, but we will see.

Via [Liliputing]

Here we go again: a new survey about security and devices that is brought to you by a company with a vested interest in providing companies security for their devices. Nevertheless, it’s probably true that if you’re using a Blackberry cell phone, Windows Mobile phone or other smartphone for your work, you’re not using the same kinds of password protection you have for your company laptop.

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2008 - it seems to be the year of the UMPC. Following the success of the low cost Eee PC from Asus, other companies have been queuing up to create a worthy challenger. Although it had been expected that Sony would release a competitor soon there has not been any official announcement. Following in the path of the recent leak of the Dell mini notebook, the Quanta stand at Computex revealed the latest Sony mini notebook to the masses.

The properties screen on this mini notebook not only displayed its admirable specifications, but also that its manufacturer was none other than the Sony Corporation. As for the specifications, here is what we currently know; it’s powered by a 1.6GHz C7-M processor from Via Technologies which in this case was running Vista Home Basic. It also had a 8.9-inch display with a 1024 x 600 resolution, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 60GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and also has built-in support for WiMAX.

So, if the price is up to the standards set by the Eee PC then this should become a welcome addition to the market, but if its in the Vaio lineup, then it will probably become the most expensive low cost laptop on the market as well.

Read [PC Advisor]

It was way back in February when we first learned that AT&T was beginning the process of taking over the Wi-Fi offering at Starbucks. With that announcement came the word that as long as you have a Starbucks gift card that you are actively using you will be able to receive two free consecutive hours of Wi-Fi a day. Well since then we have seen lots of Wi-Fi coming and going, sometimes with stories about the offers and sometimes it was related to the access being live. Well it turns out that two free hour offering is just about ready to go live.

According to Dave Zatz:

“the system was configured a few days ago and they’ve confirmed it works. I saw the back of the store memo and the manager says they’ve got signage behind the counter ready to go in conjunction with the June 3rd launch.”

And, just in case you have something against using the Starbucks card, those two hours of Wi-Fi will set you back just $3.99. In addition to this offer, those Laptop Connect customers are also able to get free Wi-Fi at Starbucks locations as well. Sadly this offer has no mention of whether that free iPhone Wi-Fi offer will be returning, but with the launch rumored to take effect tomorrow, we will not have to wait long to find out. Hopefully this roll-out will be for all Starbucks locations, however its possible that it may be a limited roll-out on an area by area basis.

Read [Zatz Not Funny] Via [jkOnTheRun]

Originally priced at $399, the ultra-portable RazorBook 400‘s price tag has been slimmed down by $100. The Linux powered ultra-portable laptop boasts a less than 8 second boot up time, but unfortunately, the RazorBook 400 isn’t quite up to par with the Eee PC 701 performance wise. Granted neither notebooks can be considered “powerhouses”, however, the Razorbook’s $100 price difference might just be enough to offset its lackluster performance for casual users. Whether or not its sudden price cut is related to its performance woes, it seems 3K Computers is fed up with bloggers comparing it to the Eee PC and has therefore released a statement defending the RazorBook’s measly 400MHz processor:

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Via, the company that brought us the NanoBook, has a new reference design; a computer called the OpenBook.  This design is changed from the previous iteration, modeled to compete with the Asus Eee PC which has launched since the original NanoBook was unveiled.  The computer sports an 8.9-inch display, with a 1024 x 600 resolution, three USB ports, VGA out and two 2-megapixel cameras. Additionally, it can connect to the internet via HSDPA, WiMAX or EV-DO. For the small form factor, a colossal 2GB of RAM and a 2.5-inch hard drive is squeezed in. You can run Windows Vista, XP or any Linux distro as your operating system. The OpenBook is based on the C7-M ULV processor and the VIA VX800 chipset, and you can get around 3 hours of battery life; in optimal conditions.

Via is putting the CAD files of the hardware up for download under a Creative Commons license, OEM manufacturers can have a go at making this the best they see fit.

Via [UMPC Portal]

Even the smallest dirt, if blown at the right spot (the eye), can make a grown man cry.

Asus used to be known as a maker of motherboards –- now, the company is known worldwide as the maker of pioneering, low cost, ultra portable computers: the Eee PC.

Asustek Computer shipped around 1.4 million notebooks in Q1 of 2008 and ranked number eight in market share.  Entering Eee PC to the equation, however, adds an additional 700,000 units—surpassing even those of Fujitsu and Apple, and propelling Asus to sixth place, and within striking distance from 5th place Lenovo, who shipped 2.2-2.3 million units.

Other computer companies are taking notice.  Acer, Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP) are all rushing to tap the low-cost PC market—leading radical changes to market share rankings.  And the future is ripe for it.  IDC estimates that the total low-cost PC shipments in 2008 will reach as much as eight million units.

Via [Liliputing]

IT giant HP has taken the fight to their competitors’ home turf – by releasing its Mini-Note for sale in the land of the rising sun. Japanese OEM’s such as Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba are beset with HP’s latest value-rich offer.  It’s nice to see that the pricing will remain similar to what we have seen here in the US, the high-end Mini-Note packs 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and comes with Vista Basic for less than $800 and the lower-end Vista configuration will sell for less than $600.

Via [jkOnTheRun]

A truly one of a kind XO Laptop is currently up for auction with all the proceeds going back to OLPC. The XO Laptop was signed by a collection of geeks and internet celebrities as they wandered around the recent ROFLCon event. The XO has been dubbed the “One ROFLaptop Per Child.” Some of the highlights include Kyle the One Red Paperclip guy, the Tron Guy, Firefox, the JibJab guys, iJustine, the Average Homeboy, Scott Beale from Laughing Squid and many, many more. As of this writing the XO currently has just about 2 days left and is sitting at just over $500. Keep reading to check out another image along with a video showing off some of the signatures.

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