RSSVulcan Demos FlipStart 'MiniPC' Running Windows XP
By David Worthington | Published February 17, 2004, 5:07 AM
Paul Allen is back in the entrepreneurial spirit. Allen's Vulcan Inc. is demonstrating its new FlipStart "MiniPC" at DEMO 2004 in Seattle, claiming the portable is the world's smallest form factor Windows XP PC.
FlipStart runs full versions of XP Home or Professional, but is engineered to exploit the nascent benefits that the size and flexibility of PDAs have presented to the mobile market.
Since FlipStart is a true PC and runs regular Windows applications, special mobile viewing applications are not required. This frees users from one drawback traditionally associated with handheld devices, however the Windows XP user interface was not designed with such small devices in mind.
Due to this fact, FlipStart comes preloaded with MiddleMan software that uses context-specific commands and supports thumb wheel navigation.
Battery life is addressed by Vulcan's Low-Power Interactive Display (LID) module. A small LCD screen located on the outside of the case provides "at a glance" information from variety of applications without having to open FlipStart.
The LID module can be set up to display Outlook e-mail, contact and appointment information; browse and play MP3 music; and make phone calls with the optional phone module. To accommodate the latest cellular craze, a 1.3 megapixel camera is built in.
The internal display is a 5.6 inch HDTV-quality panel with 3D graphics and 8 MB of video RAM.
Although Microsoft Outlook is fully capable of normal operation on FlipStart machines, the client is modified through a specialized plug-in called MobileMail that makes Outlook less demanding on battery life, while optimizing the client for low bandwidth connections. Vulcan claims a full-day use battery life.
Vulcan has integrated 802.11b/g support to provide wireless access wherever there is an available hotspot. Bluetooth wireless technology is also supported to provide additional connectivity as needed. Customers are open to choose what voice and data network providers they see fit.
The FlipStart measures in at 5.8" x 4" x 1". In spite of its size, the PC is powered by a 1GHz processor with 256 MB of RAM. Internal Storage maxes out at 30 GB. Other items of interest include a USB 2.0 port, and a full-function QWERTY thumb keyboard.
A Vulcan spokesperson told BetaNews that pricing will generally be comparable to that of a laptop. However, details have yet to be worked out. "We are just demonstrating the technology at this time. Pricing and other business announcements will be made at a later date," said the spokesperson.
hello, there is now a FlipStart enthusiast site up at http://www.mini411.com. keep up to date ont he latest news :)
Score: 0
|This is the perfect device for business if it only had a wireless telephone option. Isn't anyone listening out there? We need an inexpensive means to do business, access e-mail (from anywhere), (maybe take/make calls, but not necessarily), that's comes in a small yet powerful offering. Half a product doesn't influence me.
Score: 0
|it does accept a camera module, it's even a camera phone...
Score: 0
|It sort of looks like the Sony U101 for the japanese market. It's cool , but i don't think that it's revolutionary. Stuff like that is available overseas, just not in the US usually.
Score: 0
|The only on-board feature I can see as missing would be a photo-memory card reader of some sort (e.g., memory stick, etc.) as digital still photographers would be a good target market (the "built in" 1.3 mp camera is inadequate, but is better than nothing I guess).
Score: 0
|Ok I GOTTA have one! Very usefull little sucker if they don't end up costing 3000 bucks.
Score: 0
|I doubt the cost will be as low as 300 bucks, so I probably will let it pass. The Concept is awesome though, but it doesn't have full size keyboard..
Score: 0
|This looks unbelievably cool.
Score: 0
|This does indeed look very cool, Very much along the lines of the Libretto, a full featured PC in a PDA size case, I'm just afraid this product is going to suffer the same fate as the Libretto. and that is being too expensive to catch on,
Personally, I would LOVE to have a full XP powered PC in a PDA form factor, but the pricing for the libretto was so high (IIRC around 3 grand for a pc with less power than a $1,000 laptop) Most people would rather take the functionality hit of a Palm or WinCE powered PDA for $500 rather than spend $3,000 for a fully functional XP palmtop with 2 year old processing power (1ghz)
Still, If they can get the pricing right, this product could be Mind Numbingly useful.
Score: 0
|Where did you get those prices? I bought my Clie for $99, and my notebook for $650. Granted, these are not high end but they do a lot more than I need them to. LOL
Score: 0
|i was talking more about the price of Librettos, not Clie's, AFAIK the current Libretto's are pretty close to $3,000
Score: 0
|I really want one...
but how do you re-install windows? If i get one the first thing i'm doing is making a disk image. Wonder if you could install linux...
Score: 0
|