We’ve heard of studies that suggest texting could lead to the deterioration of English skills in children. Some teachers will even tell you they’ve seen text lingo such as shortenings, contractions, acronyms, symbols, and non-conventional spellings appear in homework assignments. A new study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology contradicts these thoughts and claims texting could have beneficial effects on children’s language skills. The study considered 88 children between the ages of

Today we’ve got a detailed look at the latest revision of the Asus line of Eee PC 1000 series netbooks – the Asus Eee PC 1000HE.  Asus continues to refine their hugely successful 10” netbook family.    Here’s a snip: The fit and finish, build quality and overall allure of this machine isn’t all that different versus its closely related family members. And, as you can certainly tell from the model number, Asus didn’t intend for it to be any huge departure from the norm. In fact, the 1000HE leads

It seems Google can’t catch a break. Just hours after Google’s Gmail service was hit by an outage that lasted several hours, Google Talk became the victim of a phishing scam. Users of the instant messaging service received a TinyURL link that appeared to be from friends on their buddy lists. When a user clicked the link, it would take him to a webpage that asked for his Google username and password. After doing so, the program would send similar messages to everyone on the user’s contact list. While many consumers

VIA Technologies today announced the launch of VIA's first embedded box computer; the VIA AMOS-3000. Ideal for a variety of embedded applications, the VIA AMOS-3000 is a robust, custom-designed system based on the ultra compact and versatile VIA EPIA-P700 Pico-ITX board. Inspired by classical Chinese architecture, the VIA AMOS-3000 chassis combines heavy-duty steel, aluminum and copper in a unique heat fin design that offers superb heat dissipation. Using a total of only five mechanical pieces – top cover, bottom plate, front and rear I/O access plates and DOM module – and measuring only 13.5cm(w) x 4.5cm(h) x 13.1cm(d), the VIA AMOS-3000 is strong, durable and heat efficient, yet tiny enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The VIA AMOS-3000 can be installed easily using simple table, wall and VESA mounting options.

The VIA AMOS-3000 is based on a VIA EPIA-P700 Pico-ITX board, powered by either a 1GHz VIA C7 processor, or an Ultra Low Voltage 500MHz VIA Eden processor coupled with VIA's VX700 Unified Digital Media chipset, supporting up to 1GB of DDR2 SO-DIMM system memory. Both DVI-D and VGA outputs are supported through integrated the VIA UniChrome Pro II IGP, which also provides MPEG-2/4 and WMV9 hardware acceleration for smooth media playback. The VIA AMOS-3000 has a certified operating temperature of -20 to 60 degrees C, vibration tolerance of up to 5Grms and a shock tolerance of up to 50G.

Intel plans to launch two new ultra low voltage (ULV) CPUs by the end of March this year mainly targeting the company's consumer ultra low voltage (CULV) platform for ultra-thin notebook products, according to sources at notebook makers. The two CPUs are the Core 2 Duo SU9600 with a core frequency of 1.6GHz and priced at US$289 in thousand-unit tray quantities, and Core 2 Solo SU3500 at 1.4GHz and US$262.

The two CPUs join the previously launched SU9400, SU9300, SU3300 and Celeron 723 under the CULV product line. All can be pared with the GS45 IGP chipset. In addition the sources detailed that Intel plans to separate the CULV platform into three levels single-core entry-level which consists of Intel's ULV Celeron processor; single-core performance consisting of ULV Core 2 Solo processors; and dual-core performance with ULV Core 2 Duo processors.

If you thought Shuttle’s idea of “small form factor” was small, wait until you wrap your mind around this. Today, VIA has introduced the first Pico-ITX fanless embedded box computer with its AMOS-3000. The hand-sized computer was designed to handle industrial environments, but this could also be tweaked in order to fit within a vehicle, a wall, rack, etc. In other words, with a box this tiny, your options are close to limitless.The unit is also VIA’s very first embedded box computer of any kind, and it’s based

Here recently, all the buzz surrounding AMD has involved its Dragon platform or newly spun The Foundry Company. Needless to say, it’s about time we got back to the basics. Advanced Micro Devices has today announced that it recently completed live public demonstrations of its upcoming six-core 45nm AMD Opteron processor, which is currently carrying the codename “Istanbul.” Said chip is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2009, and while we’re left to assume that “launch” translates to “ships” (right, AMD?),

You don’t have to search hard to find signs of the economic downturn. Just look at the newspaper, or your favorite website. But a new report on Americans’ search behavior by market research firm comScore emphasizes the FUD of Americans during this recession. Check it out. Searches for: Coupons, up 161%Unemployment, up 206%Bankruptcy, up 156%Unemployment Benefits, up 247%comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said: “Online behavior has come to reflect the interests or concerns of Americans, and we are certainly seeing

Super Talent has managed to cram 16GB of storage in a mind-bogglingly small package. It used to be that drives so small suffered when it came to read and write performance, but has Super Talent managed to break this perception and provide decent performance with its Pico 16GB drive? Read on to find out what this little drive can do!

Until this year it’s been $0.99 for all tracks at iTunes. However, at Macworld, Apple announced tiered pricing was coming soon. And now another option has been announced: the iTunes Pass. According to the iTunes Store description page: Get an iTunes Pass from a hand-picked selection of your favorite artists. iTunes Passes can include songs, albums, music videos, and more. They may also include content that is exclusive to iTunes Pass.Everything is in iTunes Plus format, meaning no DRM and 256kbps AAC encoding.