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ASUS EPad: like the EeePad, but with less ecstasy — Well, isn't this typical ASUS. Yet another Eee Pad, or this time an 'EPad' as the placard says, has shown up on the Computex show floor. While the company introduced two Eee Pads at its press conference earlier this week -- the 10-inch EP101TC with NVIDIA Tegra 2 / Windows Embedded Compact 7 and the 12-inch EP121 with Intel / Windows 7 -- this new 10-inch version has popped up running Windows 7 at the Intel booth. We'd be lying if we said we knew what was going on here, but to us it looks like ASUS shot out a working Windows 7 model -- perhaps just to have a functioning device to display on the show floor. There's no telling if it's being powered by Intel's Atom Moorestown platform or a current Menlow Z Series CPU, but the design looks very similar to that of the EP101TC. We've sent off an inquriy to ASUS' PR team, but you'll still want to check out the video after the break of a very slim slate and real live "booth babe."

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ASUS EPad: like the EeePad, but with less ecstasy originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a tablet. It comes in a box nearly identical to the iPad. Yet, one letter makes a big difference: it’s called the iPed, and it costs only $105 – approximately five times less than Apple’s original, the iPad. And of course, you can only buy it in China.

Although cheap and visually quite similar to the original, the iPed sports far weaker hardware. It’s based on an Intel chip, and has 128 MB of RAM and 16 GB of storage space. It runs on Android, but from what we can see in the video below, it’s quite slow, probably hampered by the low amount of RAM it possesses.

However, given the fact that Apple’s iPad is not yet available in China (it took iPhone years to reach China) and the attaractive price, the iPed will probably find its audience, unless Apple manages to sue it out of production.

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Tags: apple, china, ipad, iPed

Intel Considers Hardware Acceleration For Google's WebM Format — CWmike writes "Intel is considering hardware-based acceleration for Google's new WebM video file format in its Atom-based TV chips if the format gains popularity, an Intel executive said on Thursday. Announced last Wednesday at Google I/O, WebM files will include video streams compressed with the open-source VP8 video codec, which was acquired by Google when it bought On2 Technologies in February. 'Just like we did with other codecs like MPEG2, H.264 and VC1, if VP8 establishes itself in the Smart TV space, we will add it to our [hardware] decoders,' said Wilfred Martis, a general manager at Intel's Digital Home Group."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple opens iBookstore to self-publishers —

Apple has opened the floodgates for aspiring authors by revealing a system that allows for self-publishing on the iBookstore without having to sign up with a publishing service like Smashwords or Lulu. The new service, which was brought to our attention by the folks at MacLife, allows anyone to sign up through a Web portal as long as you are able to meet several fairly straightforward requirements. This is definitely good news for new, independent, or undiscovered authors.

To take advantage of the service, you must first have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for each work you wish to make available for sale. Obtaining an ISBN isn’t as difficult a process you might think; it can take as little as two weeks. Second, you must have a copy of the work in ePUB format. There are a variety of different ways to convert text into ePUB format, many of which are free (a list can be found on the LexCycle website). You must also have a valid iTunes Store account as well as a US tax ID.

The last requirement is that you, as the author, must have access to a modern Mac. In order to participate, you must encode your eBook with Apple’s software, which needs an Intel Mac running at least OS X 10.5. The encoding process most likely adds Apple’s very own brew of DRM to the book, ensuring that your writings won't be distributed outside of the iPhone or iPad.

It's not clear whether Apple takes a cut of each sale, but the company does allow you to set your own price and choose which countries to publish in. 

If you are an aspiring writer and give the service a spin, drop us a line. We’d love to hear about your experience.

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Alex Williams Now Managing ReadWriteEnterprise & ReadWriteCloud —

This month we're quietly re-launching our ReadWriteEnterprise channel, with a new sponsor: Intel and Microsoft. We've hired Alex Williams full-time, to manage both of our enterprise-focused channels: ReadWriteEnterprise and ReadWriteCloud. We will also be introducing a new daily writer to ReadWriteEnterprise shortly.

I'd like to formally welcome Alex to his new role. He has been doing a lot of traveling in recent times for us, attending enterprise and cloud events. He will continue to be out and about in his new role. Indeed this week Alex is at the cloud computing focused Gluecon in Denver, where he'll be moderating a session entitled "Managing Complexity in the Cloud." You'll also be able to catch up with him at the Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston in June.

Sponsor

You may be wondering what the difference is between ReadWriteEnterprise and ReadWriteCloud.

ReadWriteEnterprise is a resource and guide for IT managers and business people in the Enterprise. The channel will profile online solutions and outline best practices within the enterprise.

ReadWriteCloud is aimed at a more technical audience. It is dedicated to helping software architects and engineers understand the strategic business and technical implications of Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

Discuss

Is this the new Macbook? [Video and Images] —

Now this is starting to get fun.  Apparently Vietnam is the area for tech leaks lately.

What we’re seeing here is a 13″ Macbook update, with some pretty serious hardware upgrades from the previous version.  According to the images, the Macbook is carrying a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM.

For those who aren’t willing to lay out the full price on a Macbook Pro, they’ll be missing out on the higher resolution display and of course the Unibody design.  But this is looking like it could be a great trade off.

We’re watching this really closely, so you know we’ll let you in on anything we find.

Mac gamers are in for a treat today, as the Steam client for Intel-based Apple systems has finally been released. We had fun playing with the beta, and now, with the full release, anyone can jump in. Here's the best part: the list of games available is much wider than we had anticipated.

Portal is available as expected, but so is Civilization IV. So are a bunch of Lucasarts adventure games. You can pick a copy of Torchlight, newly on sale for $10. You can buy Braid, or Peggle, or City of Heroes. Right now there are 63 games for sale in the Mac store, and it looks like all of them feature the Steamplay logo, so if you own the PC versions you can download and play the Mac versions for no extra charge.

Just to get you started, you can play Portal for free on your Mac or PC until May 24. The prices for games are all over the place, and of course there are some sales going on (and more coming), but for a launch this is pretty damn exciting. No Left 4 Dead yet, but we'll be patient. If support continues and the game selection continues to grow, this is going to be an easy way for Mac gamers to enjoy their hobby.

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In the world of Macs, there are two choices – buy one or don’t.  Apple is notoriously tight with its software, and until recently there simply was no way to get an Apple operating system to run on anything other than Apple hardware.

That’s changed, somewhat, since Apple started using Intel chips.  A new breed of machines are being Frankensteined together, using PC vendor parts and Apple’s OS X.  These freaks of computing nature are lovingly referred to as a Hackintosh.

Apple does not officially support any use of its OS on anything other than an Apple computer.  However, the company also doesn’t do much to prevent it.  This lack-of-action has created a homebrew fantasy world that has gained some relevance, but I’m here to give you 5 reasons that Apple should not only accept but maybe even support the Hackintosh platform.

1 – Being more open

Steve Jobs addressed why Flash wouldn’t be supported on some Apple devices and gave part of the reasoning as Flash was a closed platform.  But honestly, there really is no platform of device that is as closed as anything Apple.  If the company wants to show itself as being more open, then accepting the Hackintosh would be an easy step toward proving it.

2 – Profit

Not like Apple is hurting for cash, but extra is good, right? If Apple would accept the Hackintosh, there really isn’t any added cost. By supporting it, of course, there would be additional attention that would have to come its way. It’s a toss-up, but I still see it as a possible winning scenario for Apple.

3 – Taste test

Business such as Best Buy help out a lot of us by allowing us to touch a product before we buy it…elsewhere. One of my largest concerns about purchasing a Macbook (aside from the money) is that question of what happens if I don’t like it.

Having the opportunity to run OS X on a Hackintosh would allow people to do a try-before-you-buy scenario. If the product is as good as it seems to be, the logical next step would be to purchase the hardware that is designed to run it. Open this door and you have a chance to win more customers.

4 – The money

Let’s face it, Apple products aren’t exactly on the bargain end of the scale. Though I too have sipped the Kool-Aide, looking at Macbooks longingly and thinking to myself “hey, that’s not so bad…” However, I am the first to admit that I’m a fool.

I can get an equally (if not better) equipped laptop from a major vendor for 1/3 of the price. And I’m not talking about some black-box POS. The one that I have my eyes on at the moment is loaded, and includes Blu-Ray.

I’m not saying that Apple should pander to the poor. I am saying, however, that the company should consider the finances of its potential customers.

5 – Credibility

This is sort of like the money point. It’s not that Apple is lacking in credibility, but more is always better. If you’re giving the geeks from the other side of the fence the ability to use your product, without the fear of it going dead with the next update, you’re going to get some brownie points.

There are scores of people who would use OS X, if only given the opportunity to do so without breaking any sort of moral or ethical boundary. They know that making a Hackintosh violates a TOS agreement somewhere, and therefore they just won’t. If you could add those people to your overall user base, well…the more the merrier.

So that’s it, in a nutshell. Now, do I think that Steve Jobs is going to read this and change his mind? Not likely. However, I think that the Hackintosh is a viable platform for a wide range of users and I think that the company is ignoring a potentially substantial group.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have a WiFi driver issue to get sorted…