Asus just gave out a press release about what they already call 'the world's smallest desktop PC'. They will probably beat their own statement (if the rumors are true) with their own Asus Eee desktop. But although very likely to also be in a different price class, the Essentio has some impressive hardware specifications that just scream 'Media Center'. Everything inside the small, glossy, black box is focused on silence (23.9 dB when idle), high definition video (powerful video (...)  read more

This certainly makes more sense than the WiFi detecting glow-in-the-dark t-shirts we've been seeing around. The Soyntec WiFinder (not to confuse with a bag that finds Nintendo game consoles) has a little LCD display on the side to show you hotspot activity. Now you don't have to boot your laptop to search for open hotspots but you can simply check your laptop bag. If the signal is strong enough you can choose to boot your laptop and get online. Prices are between $52,- and $101,- (...)  read more

If you ever used or planing to use a computer or an old no-longer-in-use computer in your living room as a media center (HTPC), you know silence of the machine is a big factor. You don't want anything that sounds like it could take off any second while reading a book. Cooling (fan noise) is one thing, but often hard drive noise is very noticeable too. A lot of hard drives are specialised in being silent and there are some smart tricks and tools to damp noise even more but it will still have (...)  read more

Samsung unveiled its new UMPC, the SPH-P9200. It's very compact, looks awesome and it has some nice hardware inside. But the folding keyboard is probably what makes it most interesting. This way you have a compact PC with a touchscreen AND a full size keyboard  for typing. And lets face it: all good intentions aside, there hasn't really been a proper replacement for a full sized keyboard for text input. The Samung SPH-P9200 runs on Windows XP, has a 1 GHz processor, (...)  read more

The man shaped USB hub got a lot of attention on all Cool and New and shows that a hub can be more than just a box with four inputs. The same goes for this Medusa hub. Something that looks more like a weird white flower than anything else but is in fact a hub with four USB 2.0 sockets, two FireWire 400 connectors, a fan and a light. You can bend and shape the 'twigs' in any way you like. The price: (...)  read more