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An Atom-powered Intel? Not a chance

With Intel's focus on the new Atom-brand processors being described at the Intel Developer Forum this week, "Atom-powered" is the obvious description of the mobile Internet devices (MIDs) these chips will go into... and it seems like half the IDF stories on the Internet this week are using that phrase.

Intel, however, seems to want even more hyperbole-- it expects people to believe that Atom will recharge the whole company. CEO Paul Otellini reportedly said "This is as important to Intel as the launch of the Pentium in the mid-1990s"-- but that's ridiculous.… Read more

What was so great about the Newton?

I used an Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 pretty much every day for about seven years (see my previous blog entry about my Newton experiences).

What was so great about it? What kept me using it?

Well, I used the Newton to keep track of the good things about the Newton--and the bad things too. So to write this article, I just powered up the unit (which still works fine, along with a Farallon Ethernet PC Card, a 24MB linear flash card, and two of the three nickel metal hydride battery packs, plus another pack for AA alkaline batteries) and reviewed … Read more

My Newton story

Today the iPhone is the alpha gizmo, the one item of consumer electronics that dominates all the others.

But in 1993, the hot new gizmo was Apple's Newton, and it was a whole different thing.

Not very many people had Newtons. Apple sold fewer Newtons over the whole life of the product than it sold iPhones the evening of June 29.

Also unlike the iPhone, the first Newtons weren't even very useful. Although called "personal digital assistants" (PDAs), using a Newton was significantly more difficult than using a Day-Timer. The original MessagePad had very poor handwriting … Read more