Several computer makers were showing off netbook and smartbook prototypes running Google Android at the Computex trade show earlier this month. While the operating system was originally designed for cellphones with small screens and relatively slow processors, Google Android can be tweaked to play well with larger displays, and a decent array of processors. And according to at least two…

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Research firm Gartner has put out a report claiming that this will be the “year of the mini-notebook” in the Asia Pacific region, with netbook shipments expected to grow by 82 percent from last year. You’ll have to pony up $1295 to read the full report, but the Cliff Notes version is available in the press release. In a nutshell,…

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Research firm Gartner says PC shipments were up about 1% during the 4th quarter of 2008. But revenue from computer sales was down by as much as 20%. According to Computer World, that’s because low cost netbooks are cannibalizing sales of more expensive computers.  But I’m not sure that’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from these numbers. I…

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It’s been a while since anyone referred to the OLPC XO Laptop as the $100 laptop. You know, unless they were joking. But once upon a time, that was Nicholas Negroponte’s dream: to produce a notebook for under $100. Now, the OLPC project never planned to make a profit off of these notebooks, but a lot of folks swooned at…

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