Andrew weighs in on the ways in which the web and the world are changing
Cliff Biffle has a post on the ASUS Eee PC that’s as impressive as his name, and more impressive than ASUS’ regard for free/open source software.
ASUS is bound by the GPL to make the sources for the software they’re distributing available… ASUS has posted a 1.8GB ZIP file on their website that they claim is the sources, but it’s not.
I’m inclined to apply Hanlon’s razor and so to view ASUS as a fool rather than as an evil penguin-molester. Hence, still stands my plea: Eee PC for me!
GigaOM guest Samuel Dean ponders the effect the ASUS Eee PCs will have on pricing for portable computers. At under $300, the low-end Eee PCs will be much cheaper than other Windows-based miniature computers.
Actually, the reference to “other Windows-based PCs” is misleading. The first Eees to ship in the USA will do so with Xandros, although Windows Eees (WindEees?) are also expected.
The appropriately-name gadget blog Crave reported on the Eee USA announcement a couple of weeks ago. The 2-pound, 7-inch, Linux-based laptop will be available in three configurations priced from $299 to $399.
The lowest-priced of the three, the 4G Surf, looks fine to me. With wireless, Firefox, and OpenOffice in less than a kilogram, I’d be good to go, maybe even better than I would with a Nokia Internet Tablet.