The Intel Classroom notebook certainly qualifies as a netbook due to the small size and relatively low price.  The Classroom is aimed squarely at the education field, young children in particular, as the name implies.  Laptop Magazine reports that Intel will be showing a convertible Classroom at the upcoming CES in January.  The convertible Classroom is a typical 8.9-inch netbook with a twist.  The screen swivels around to tablet form and can be operated by touch.

We are not fans of touch-screen netbooks unless the device can assume a slate configuration so it’s good to see Intel approach this from the swiveling angle.  What remains to be seen is how well the palm rejection works since the touch-screen is meant to be used for handwriting in addition to the touch controls.  Windows XP Tablet Edition, Microsoft’s only version of XP that supports handwriting and touch, is no longer available to OEMs so Laptop reports that a specially developed interface and utilities have been produced to take advantage of the tablet capabilities.  They were impressed with how well this worked which sounds very promising.

The pictures we have seen of the convertible Classroom show a nice slate form with the screen swiveled and while that is nice there is no indication of the weight of the netbook.  This device is designed to be used by small children and since slate mode usually requires handheld operation the weight will be critical to its success.  It looks over 4 pounds heavy in the photos but let’s hope it’s much lighter than that.  We’ll try to get a first-hand look at this new Classmate when we attend the CES in just a few weeks.

We are seeing NAND flash memory in all sorts of products these days and the high demand for the cheap memory saw Toshiba and SanDisk enter a joint venture to build an expanded production facility in Japan.  This facility was scheduled to go operational this year to allow the two giant flash memory makers to ramp up to meet demands.

Then came the failing economy and accompanying price freefalls that has many memory makers running in the red.  This climate has worsened to the point that Toshiba and SanDisk are cutting back their production of NAND memory, Toshiba by a tremendous 30%.  Both companies are claiming that demand has fallen dramatically resulting in over-supply which has caused memory prices to tank.

”Recession in the global economy and the slowdown in consumer spendingare having a significant impact on demand for semiconductors,”according to Toshiba in a statement. ”This is particularly notable inNAND flash memories, where decreased demand for applications such asmemory cards and MP3 players has generated excess supply.”

What is unclear is how this global flash memory situation will impact Apple.  Apple is one of the largest consumers of NAND flash memory in iPods and iPhones and it’s not clear how they would be impacted if a major consolidation of memory makers were to take place next year as some experts predict.

(eeTimes via engadget)

Consumer Reports is a great publication, online or print, that does a very thorough job testing, rating and reporting on various consumer products.  They usually are good at defining what is important to the consumer and designing criteria for rating products in a given category.  It was with great surprise when Matt Miller pointed out that Consumer Reports has released their list of the top 5 smartphones.  The surprise is two-fold- some of the phones that made this short list and especially those that didn’t make the top 5.

Here’s the top 5 smartphones according to Consumer Reports:

• Samsung Blackjack II
• T-Mobile Wing
• Motorola Q9C
• T-Mobile Shadow
• Blackberry Pearl Flip

These phones are all fine smartphones but it is surprising that only one Blackberry made the cut, and where the heck is the iPhone 3G?  The iPhone 3G was further down the list and actually tied with the T-Mobile G1.  Interesting list to say the least.

ST-NXP might not be a household name, but they’re under the hood of phones you would recognize. The company has shipped over 120 million EDGE chipsets but knows that the future is in 3G and beyond. That explains the new 7210 UMA chipset the company just announced. They claim it’s the first single chipset solution that combines 3G connectivity with support for UMA, or Unlicensed Mobile Access. UMA is used to seamlessly move cellular phone calls over to wireless networks like WiFi, which benefits consumers by using fewer calling plan minutes. Of course, it helps the carriers too since it offloads traffic from their cellular network.

The 7210 UMA isn’t just a voice and data chipset though. ST-NXP is packaging it in a "Cellular System Solution" for handset makers, offering the following features:

• ARM926-based GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS platform
• Fully integrated 3 Megapixel camera-sensor interface
• Display sizes up to QVGA resolution and 18-bit color
• Video recording and playback: H.263, MPEG-4 30 fps CIF
• Video playback: H.264 15 fps QCIF
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA

Last I checked, T-Mobile’s UMA service (known as Hotspot @Home) only worked with a few handsets like the BlackBerry Curve and Samsung Katalyst, so perhaps the range of devices will be expanded more quickly based on the news.

Well that was quick and slow at the same time. Just yesterday, I penned some thoughts about Palm’s Nova announcements coming in a few weeks at CES. One of those predictions, admittedly not much of a stretch, was that Palm would follow Apple and Google by launching their own application store. Turns out that Palm quick did just that last night. It’s also slow because Palm practically invented the smartphone market earlier this decade, but is now playing follow the leader, which usually isn’t good.

Palm should have leveraged their vast array of in-house and third-party applications long before this as they had a clear, competitive advantage. Namely, the number of Palm OS titles and smartphones on the market as early as 2002… anyone remember the Treo 180? Now Palm has over 5,000 applications (over 1,000 are free), which Venture Beat notes is half that of the Apple’s iTunes App Store and ten times more than Google’s Android Marketplace.

Numbers and strategies aside, Palm’s store is here now and available for download. The company has partnered with PocketGear, a long-time handheld software vendor; I haven’t yet seen any details if developer terms are modeled after that of Apple and Google.

Update: Mobile Crunch indicates that developers will see 50% of software sale revenues, which is far less than Google, Apple and even RIM are offering.

Considering my iPhone is ringing off the hook with CES meeting requests, Trinket Software’s latest application has me considering a move to Windows Mobile. Their Do Not Disturb software is still in beta, but it’s just what I need right now. Using the software, you customize settings for your WinMo 5, 6, or 6.1 phone to force incoming calls to voicemail without your handset even ringing.

Do Not Disturb allows you to set which contacts, phone numbers or categories are allowed to disturb you… or not. You can also set profiles for contact groupings as well. It looks handy, but you’ll want to get in now on the beta since the application is due for general release next month and is expected to cost between $5 and $10.

(via Jason Langridge)

Toshiba has introduced a new docking solution for notebooks and netbooks that packs a ton of utility into a slim tower form.  The Toshiba dynadock U is a USB docking solution that contains a high-res graphics processor allowing the usage of big monitors with any notebook.  The dock packs a punch by providing a lot of features for even the most demanding user:

• One cable connection from your PC to all your devices
• Universal compatibility with all Windows-based PCs
• Built-in HD Digital Video card supports up to 1920×1200 resolution
• Built-in Digital Audio card adds virtual 7.1 surround sound through S/PDIF port
• Space-saving upright slim design reduces cable clutter
• View up to three displays simultaneously
• Provides six USB 2.0 ports–two front Sleep-and-Charge USB ports supplying power even if PC is off
• Hot swappable – add or remove most devices without rebooting the PC
• Easily and safely undock with undock button
• Dimensions and weight: 1.8” x 3.1” x 8.75” ; 1.13 lb
• Ports: six USB 2.0, S/PDIF, LAN, VGA, DVI, microphone, headphone and lock slot
• In the box: One Toshiba dynadock, base plate, USB cable, AC Adapter and CD-ROM

The inclusion of the HDMI and S/PDIF ports means the most sophisticated monitors and audio systems can be used with even the lowest netbook.  We particularly like the two USB ports on the front of the dynadock which are powered even when the laptop is not running allowing the charging of phones and other gear.  $150.

I won’t go on record to say that the Stacks feature in Mac OS X 10.5 is the best feature in the OS, but I do use it on a regular basis. If I didn’t like it, I’d simply turn it off and go back to folders, I suppose. Having said that, you can easily add the same visual navigation feature to Windows XP or Vista using the free StandaloneStack application that Download Squad just highlighted.

Once installed, you can easily create or customize your own stack groupings in the Taskbar: just click ‘em and you can simulate the grid or fan views on a PC. I find that I can navigate a wee bit quicker using Stacks than I can with the standard Windows menu system, but I offset that with the QuickLaunch toolbar to a large extent.

It’s no secret that landlines are getting replaced by mobile phones. As soon as Verizon lights up the dark fiber they put in my front lawn five months, I’m cutting the landline cord myself. Unless I keep running out of juice on the mobile phone that is. So if phone calls are generally moving from fixed lines to mobile lines, is there any impact on international calls? Turns out that the trend follows suit, perhaps even more so thanks to low cost VoIP or other web-based global call rates. The report from TeleGeography shows that 45% of all international calls are mobile to mobile and we’ve seen a number of companies launch web voice services at low costs.

The report timing just happens to coincide with more relevant news from TruPhone. Earlier this month, the company launched their voice calling client for a non-phone in the iPod Touch. However the iPod client was limited to other TruPhone members on the iPod Touch or Nokia handsets. Today, TruPhone announced a new feature for the client, enabling your iPod Touch to call any mobile phone or landline in the world over WiFi at reduced calling rates.

You don’t have to look far to find signs of the poor economic climate.  The global climate is as bad as it’s been in a very long time and it seems each day we hear another indication that points to how bad it really is.  Forbes has reported that mobile phone sales are down 58% in Japan, a staggering decrease in phone shipments.  Japan is typically one of the hottest markets globally and this decrease is staggering.  This huge drop in phone shipments makes the recent Nokia decision to pull out of Japan understandable.

We often complain in the US about the business model we have to live with where carriers subsidize the phones in exchange for long contracts.  We might want to think twice about that according to Forbes based on what experts blame for the Japanese phone slump:

The figures underscore the deepening slump in Japan’s mobile phonemarket following the industry-wide introduction of a new business modelunder which carriers charge more for handsets in return for lowercalling fees.