Tomorrow night at 10PM, Food Network kicks off Alton Brown's latest TV show, Feasting on Waves, where the Mensa-smart kitchen geek and his crew hop into two 50-foot catamarans and sail around 15 different Caribbean islands in search of quality cuisine, shooting and editing the hi-def episodes right there on the boats. It turns out, despite his disdain for specialized kitchen gadgets, Brown depended on regular high-end tech to make a cooking show on a boat happen.

How do you produce a TV show from a sailboat?

One of the things about the Feasting shows in general is that they have a very small crew, and we are moving with very little space. We are extremely packed and technology dense. We had two 50-foot catamarans—it sounds fun but it wasn’t that fun.

So you shoot and edit as you go?

This year we decided to go completely tapeless: Panasonic P2 cards on 200s. We’re downloading them into our portable Avid edit system. We take as much audio equipment as we take video equipment. The funny thing is, professional audio hasn’t gotten a whole lot smaller. Although hi-def cameras have gotten smaller, lenses have gotten better and battery time has gotten better, audio is still the tricky part of the process for field reporting.

I see you were also using a little Panasonic?

I was lucky enough to be one of the first people in the US to get Panasonic’s HDC-HS100 AVCHD camcorder. It’s got a nice little Leica lens on it. We take everything through a DaVinci color correction system. Once we do that, you really can’t tell the difference between my little camera and the big cameras—it’s all 1080i. We have some scenes that were 100% shot with just my camera.

How did you connect to the internet?

It’s kinda funny, the entire time that I was in the islands, I had perfect e-mail with my iPhone. The entire time. I think there was once, during a midnight crossing, the Anegada Passage, where I lost internet for about half an hour. The rest of the time, I was getting e-mail through either EDGE or something else [probably GPRS].

I did not even take a computer with me on that trip. I decided I just didn’t want to see a computer for a while. And at the time, I figured you know, computers, boats, water, scuba diving. I thought about taking the ToughBook along, and then I thought about taking the Asus because that’s a great little box. Then I thought, the hell with it. I took a few pads of paper, some pens and my iPhone.

You also carry GPS everywhere, right?

As a motorcyclist, as a hiker and as a pilot, I’m pretty sold on Garmin. In the first Feasting on Asphalt, I had a touchscreen weatherproof version of the StreetPilot for my motorcycle that even worked with gloves on. I just really love how their interfaces work. You don’t even need manuals for most of their stuff, the stuff is so intuitive.

In New York, I use Google Maps with my iPhone, because I know where I am—I don’t need GPS. If I was going some place where I needed GPS, I’d use my Garmin Colorado [shown in top pic], which I really really like. It’s a really great marine box. It’s splashproof, but it comes loaded with all the marine functions, so it’s really easy to do marine chart info if you get the right cards for it. You can sail the world with one.

So it was your navi on land and sea?

Everywhere. We basically documented the entire Feasting on Waves journey in the Colorado. Every place we went, we popped a waypoint. It’s got so many easy functions for calculating distance it made navigating around the island easier. Even islands that didn’t have roads at all, we could get good topographic information.

Do you adhere to the old sailor’s adage that you should never have just one form of navigation?

Abso-stinking-lutely. When I fly, I may have full GPS on the plane, but I got a full set of charts too, and I keep the charts out while I’m flying to make sure I know where I am. In this day and age, if I have a major power outage, I just whip out my handheld, the 496, a spectacular handheld aviation GPS. But there could be a catastrophic satellite failure, different things could happen that could make GPS unusable—I guess.

I think your unit would fail before the satellite did.

Something could happen to satellites, you never know. So I always want to know where I am on paper, too.

And on the island, what was your backup?

There were a lot of times where I didn’t have a backup. On islands, I sometimes didn’t have anything else, because there aren't reliable paper maps for those places. The only time I wasn’t using Garmin to navigate was when we were underwater—I don’t think they have an underwater unit yet. We did a fair amount of scuba diving, and you’re still on your own under water. You still gotta use a compass.

I think you just invented something.

Underwater GPS would be spectacular. I don’t know how deep you can go with that technology without having serious problems. Even 50 to 70 feet would be useful. I wonder why they haven’t done that yet. I’ll ask Garmin when I can get that. For rec diving, having that kind of application would be fantastic.

Note: I asked Garmin why there wasn't a scuba GPS, and I got a quick reply: "The reason for no scuba GPS is simple... the signal is deflected by water."

So how do you keep everything charged up?

That’s a problem. Especially on the boats, it was really difficult. We got down there and realized that the power systems on the boats which were all 220V—the power wasn’t clean enough for our editing computers. On St. Martin, we had to go buy a Honda generator to run on the back of the boat to give us good steady clean 120V.

The Colorado runs on AAs, so I took a batch of rechargeable AAs. I ran the recharger for that in the cabin where I also charged my iPhone and my little camera batteries. I had to have three chargers. My other camera only runs on regular batteries, not rechargeables.

What kind of camera is it?

It’s an old metal Canon EF—about 30 years old. I also carry a 35mm Leica point-and-shoot with a fixed 40mm lens. I was shooting slide film in the Canon and print film in the Leica.

So you’re not shooting digital?

Not on this. I wanted Ektochrome—nothing looks like Ektochrome. I’m old school that way. I have a pretty decent Canon digital, and a Leica digital as well, but I didn’t want to have to deal with the chargers, and I wanted super robust technology, so I went film. I like film. You can’t beat it. I spent most of my career as a cinematographer before I went to culinary school, so I just got a thing about film emulsions. It’s still the way I think. I just don’t appreciate digital photography as much as I should.

I know, I know—we managed to get through an entire discussion about a food show without talking about the freakin' food. Good thing there are already clips of the show (alas, non-embeddable) up at Food Network's website, so take a look. The awesome photographs of Alton were shot—digitally—by Marion Laney, ForgottenGulf.com.

The computer runs Windows XP SP3 on a Celeron 1.3GHz, Intel 852 chipset, 512MB of RAM, and 40GB hard drive, with wireless access, digital video output, three USB ports, and a fan that he stole out of a F-35 STOVL fighter yet. At least, it sounds like one:

[A9VG via Kotaku]

The worst: that two-headed furry blue monster that moved his heads, feet, and eyes while holding the system's display. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

Although the project seemed threatened in early 2006 from all sides these were minor compared to the problems to come. The biggest concern at the time was lack of an LCD panel manufacturer, but Negroponte and CTO Mary Lou Jepsen managed to charm another eccentric Taiwanese billionaire. Wen-Long Hsu—founder of southern Taiwan’s Chi-Mei conglomerate—is the owner of the world's largest collection of Stradivarius violins, and he played one for them when they visited to sign contracts.

By the fall, everything was working great in prototype form. Quanta agreed to run its first batch, and even agreed to run a suspend-resume hibernation test cycle 1000 times on each test machine. Normally, test units were give this cycle four times, so it was a particularly unusual request. Then, at 3am on the first day of mass production, Jepsen got a call. Everything was shut down; the laptops were going to sleep and not waking up.

"All hell was breaking loose." She hauled ass to the manufacturing lab with a few other guys and started pumping the caffeine.

Eventually a Quanta guy named Gary Chang and an OLPC guy named Richard Smith ("He's from Arkansas, looks like surfer dude") solved the problem. "We were calling it the second shot from the grassy knoll," says Jepsen. Apparently, as the system was shutting down, electromagnetic noise was corrupting data, screwing up the instructions that told the thing how to wake up again.

At around the same time, the maker of the wireless chips, Marvell, decided to update the firmware for the radio, and they started to crash. "We had four people in four time zones working on that problem," said networking engineer Michail Bletsas. "Mark Foster in Taipei, me in Boston, someone in India, and someone in Santa Clara. We had to program a workaround on the fly: It's in the radio, something you're not supposed to touch under normal consequences."

"A lot of those stories weren't told," says Jepsen. "We weren't hiding it, everybody knew, but we weren't broadcasting it. We figured it all out, and shipped a million of them."

Threat Level Rising
By late 2006, Intel had finalized its specs for the Classmate PC. Though it would cost $30 to $40 more than the XO—the "$100 laptop" in the end cost $188—the Classmate had a faster processor, Intel brand equity and the option of Windows XP as the OS. (Bulk buyers could also opt for Linux.) It was seductive in that it wasn't the revolutionary product that the XO was, but something more familiar, and in line with what ministers of education might have been considering already. What's more, it was a reference design that regional companies could license and customize to fit their needs. And, perhaps, countries rife with pirated software infrastructure had plenty of free programs to run from the black market.

As it began pilot program, Intel's strategy was seen as more traditional too: Laptops could go to teachers, or loaned to students. It did not enforce Negroponte's logical but strict mandate, that the laptops be given to the children, and that they should only be deployed when there are enough to go around.

In the middle of 2007, Intel and OLPC entered into a partnership that was probably more of a hindrance to each other's initiatives than any sort of help. From the start, the deal was vague, more of a mutual appreciation society than a true strategic alliance. Six months later, it had dissolved in acrimony. OLPC accused Intel of pitching Classmate to would-be XO customers; Intel griped that OLPC wouldn't stop asking that the Classmate be discontinued in favor of the XO.

Meanwhile, Intel's more profit-minded operatives were hanging out in Taiwan, spinning the baby laptop idea to one of Quanta's arch competitors, a little known company called Asus.
On June 8, 2007, while both the XO and the Classmate were still deep in pilot testing, Asus introduced the Eee PC, a $400 mini-notebook running a warm-n-fuzzy flavor of Linux. Not only did it resemble the Classmate more than a little, it was unveiled at a press conference hosted by none other than Intel. It would be ready for sale worldwide by that winter, and when it did become available, boy did it sell like hotcakes.

Sales Figures, Sales Facts
"Selling like hotcakes" is an expression that doesn't mean anything in particular. In many cases, "selling a million" doesn't really mean anything specific either. I've heard OLPC people say they've hit the million mark, but in terms of actual shipments, it's not true.

Due to issues that have nothing to do with hardware—and largely to do with Negroponte's greater mission of educating the world's poor—the XO spent most of 2007 in beta testing. In early November, OLPC launched the "Give 1 Get 1" $400 charitable promotion for US buyers, but the first real bonafide XO deployment happened in Uruguay in on December 1. Confirmed orders might have topped a million at this point, but the number of existing XOs, both sold in the US and deployed en masse to schoolchildren in Peru and Uruguay, hovers around 500,000.

Ask Intel how many Classmate PCs are out in the wild, and you get a vague stat, somewhere in the "hundreds of thousands." Intel, too, promises large numbers to come. Portugal will be buying 500,000 of them for the coming school year, for instance.

The Eee PC, though, is already nearing 2 million sold, having hit 1.7 million in the first half of 2008. It is on target to reach a promised goal of 5 million by the end of the year. (By contrast, OLPC will most assuredly not reach 1 million by the end of 2008.)

The success of the mini notebooks has largely been due to price (even expensive ones rarely touch $600) and their intentionally internet-friendly design (you're not going to load up Photoshop CS3, but browsing and email checking work fine). They are also boosted by the negativity surrounding Windows Vista: By running Linux or Windows XP, they present a desirable alternative to the bulkier, more expensive, resource-heavy machines required to run Microsoft's latest OS.

In the wake of the Eee's success, over 40 mini notebooks have hit the market over night. The top four best-selling notebooks on Amazon fall into this catetgory.

At this point, even if the millions of third-world students eventually get laptops, it's unlikely that the XO will be the one they receive. Still, the past two years are definitive proof that Negroponte can take credit for the birth of an entirely new kind of PC.

And Negroponte does claim credit for the Eee PC's success. In fact, he says it's why he introduced the next version of the XO laptop—a radical two-touchscreen device aimed at a $75 pricetag—so early.

Encore?
I asked him why, with the first XO so clearly in its early stages of shipment, would he show off the XO-2. Sure, he doesn't have customers at Best Buy who may hold off because they know what's coming, but it seemed to take away from the momentum of the original device, not to mention confirming some of its criticisms (underpowered, cramped keyboard, etc.).

"When we announce something now that will be in play two years from now, it's partly to give the manufacturers something to start copying now," he says, elaborating, "If you go back two years and you look at the press, [the XO] was dismissed, it was not possible. Then came the Classmate, then Asus. If I underestimated anything, it was how fast people would [copy] it, even if they didn't get down to the same price or didn't have the same features. It was a movement—a hardware trend—that happened because of OLPC."

He also hopes that the announcement of the XO-2 concept, one that only exists in pictures, will stimulate small developers who work on components. Jepsen's new company Pixel Qi will focus on the next-generation of LCD touchscreen, one that can be made as cheaply as current screens today, but have capacitive touch built right into the active matrix, making it thinner than an iPhone screen. Others who saw the XO-2 renderings have already begun pitching solutions to the group.

Not a Manager
If there's one criticism made against Negroponte that's indisputable, is that he changes his tune.

In the beginning, Negroponte repeatedly affirmed that the XO was to run "Linux or some other open source operating system." After a long struggle that could easily be the subject of another series, the XO has recently been made capable of booting both its own Linux OS with Sugar interface, as well as Windows XP. (Critics say that Negroponte never allowed OLPC's Linux OS to mature so that it could stand up to pressure from the Windows advocates.)

Likewise, he was adamant at the beginning that his laptop be the only one shipped to these third-world educational programs where there isn't so much a "market" as there is a case for charity. He says now that if there is a true market—schools and families with the means and desire to buy their own laptops—others can serve it.

Inside OLPC, the leader's mercurial nature and changing priorities proved too much for the talent he had assembled. On the software side, Walter Bender and Ivan Krstic left after open disagreements with Negroponte—mostly pertaining to the adoption of Windows, but also to the overall goals of the program. Jepsen left in January 2008 in what she says was an amicable split, though other hardware experts including laptop maestro Mark Foster had abandoned ship earlier, possibly because they couldn't get along with Jepsen. Most people seem rankled by the credit that Yves Behar took as the "OLPC designer," most notably in a Wired article that would seem laughable to anyone who read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

When talking to staff members, there is a sense that no one really got along, and that the religion that Negroponte had instilled in his lieutenants, enough to get them to hang together for two years, has dissipated. The rocky Intel alliance and the move toward Windows were just the final disillusionments. Negroponte spoke the painfully obvious to BusinessWeek last March: "I am not a CEO. Management, administration and details are my weaknesses."

Pulling an Obi-Wan
Still, Negroponte and whoever has stuck by him charge onward. He said, to us and to others, "OLPC is not a laptop company." He himself said that to be taken seriously, you have to build hundreds of thousands of laptops every month; Quanta currently outputs a reliable stream of around 50,000 per month. Now that the mini-notebook movement is in full swing commercially, perhaps the focus should veer from hardware development. Why then stay in the hardware game? Perhaps it's telling that, on the OLPC website's own "Progress" page, nothing is mentioned after December 2007.

Bletsas—who remains hard at work on OLPC today—says that if OLPC does not stay in business, the laptop makers who followed the XO design cues will start doing what they do best: bumping the specs, upping the prices and keeping product too expensive for the foundation to use it in its educational mission. "Unless we keep designing, showing the world it's doable, I don't think they will follow in that path," he says. "If we stop at this stage, they are not going to come down enough for us to use their machines. We have to push them at least one step further."

Want more on OLPC's secret origins? Jump back to the earlier sections:
Part 1 - Genius, Hubris and the Birth of the Netbook
Part 2 - US and Taiwan's Hardware Lovechild

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Bit-tech was also a bit concerned about the scratch prone brushed aluminum finish and what they considered to be shoddy craftsmanship in spots—but they still regard their overall first impression to be a positive one. No matter how you look at it, the XB01 case is definitely a lot bigger than the 360, the look is a matter of opinion, and it is not completely silent, so it really comes down to whether or not it does a good job of cooling down the console. Bit-tech hopes to have a temperature test up soon. [bit-tech]

Yeah I think they are. I think that if you went in and could see what's going on in their minds, though they may never say that stuff and I'm not saying there's some conspiracy or something like that—but I think the thing is they realize that trading content, copyrighted or not, is an expected benefit of owning a computer.

That's a very interesting point, albeit a bit one-sided seeing as it comes from a content (in this case games) maker. There's the trusted computing push, which has resulted in manufacturers shipping systems with "Trusted Platform Modules" which includes BIOS support at the root level. But will manufacturers use this to lock down their systems so people won't be able to pirate games or watch episodes of Burn Notice they torrented? It's unlikely, because of the huge user revolt that would follow. [GamesIndustry.biz via Wired - Image Credit]

That pic is of the guts of the beast—it's all glistening plexiglass and copper plumbing. And in my mind that sets off a "steampunk-meets Buck Rogers-style retro sci-fi" feeling, complete with flashing lights and lurid plastic colors, but without Tweaky. But that name isn't catchy enough. Over to you guys...

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The most irritating aspects of current twin-card configurations (well, aside from the fact that you had to buy two cards in the first place) are the high cost and disappointingly low performance gains. HYDRA, which Lucid claims could scale to up to handle four unique GPUs, could remedy both of these issues if it ever comes to market. The company says it'll be soon, but that's as specific as they're getting for now. Visual learners can check out a detailed diagram of the system below. [PcPer via Slashdot]

The M528 contains a 4.8 inch screen with a 800 x 480 pixel resolution, a 800 Mhz Intel Atom, 512 MB RAM, roughly 4GB of storage space, and an 11 hour battery in a case that weighs about three quarters of a pound. It also boasts 3G, which makes it a possible replacement for the Nokia N810 if you think 3G's worth paying over double for. [UMPC Portal]

The Price: $60

The Verdict: The results speak for themselves. I'm shocked at how much fun I had giving my co-workers beautiful new lady looks, so I can only imagine how much a girl who actually was interested in makeovers could get out of it.

The program was easy enough for youngins to use but still kept some important features like zooming, rotating and adjusting the size of add-on accessories, while also being able to import your own photos. I did find the available styles to be somewhat, well, homogeneous. The program promises downloadable updates, though, so hopefully they will add more diverse hairstyles and accessories.

Sadly, the hardware component isn't that great. The built-in webcam took blurry pics. The drawing pad wasn't very responsive and I didn't really find the need for it. Then again, I'm not used to putting on makeup.

All in all, it's a fun computer program and an okay gadget, not to mention a fantastic new way to imagine Jason Chen as a surfer chick. [GirlTech]

Nobody's arguing that it's not easier and more efficient to track a criminal with a GPS tag than by trailing him with a man in a car, Herc and Carv style (even though they like GPS tags, too). What is being questioned, though, is whether this practice can be put into place to track anyone, without having prior consent for a warrant. Currently the answer is an unofficial (ie: a largely unchallenged) yes, as long as the vehicle is tagged on public property and not, say, in the garage. What privacy advocates are arguing, however, is that GPS tracking without a warrant is now approaching invasive, 24-hour surveillance state levels as the gear gets cheaper and more widespread by the day.

A recent ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court is among the first to swing the balance toward requiring warrants for tracking. But until a more definitive ruling, you'll have to stick with dubious GPS bug detectors if you're paranoid. [Washington Post via Slashdot]

• CPU: AMD Turion 64x2 Dual Core 1.2GHz, 1MB L2 Cache
• Graphic: ATI RS690E +64MB DDR2 Side port Memory, Full DirectX 9.0 support
• Memory: 1GB DDR2
• OS: Microsoft Window XP Home
• Display: 7-inch
• Dual monitor: supporting external display up to 1920x1200
• Storage: 60GB 1.8 inch HDD/UDMA100
• Wireless Connectivity: 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
• Camera: 1.3M pixel CMOS
• Media Card: SD/MMC Slot
• Audio: ALC262 HD Audio
• Expansion Slot: 2xUSB host, 1 x USB mini, 1x mini PCIExpress Slot, USIM card slot &l
• Battery life: 2.5 Hours for web-surfing
• Size: 7.87 x 4.65 x 1.08 inches

It's due in Korea and North America from early September, price still to be confirmed. [Aving]

See? Aren't you glad you watched that? [Lego Computer]

The average Mac desktop sells for about $1,000 more than the average PC desktop, which sells for a mere $550.

"But wait," you say, "that's because people interested in higher-end machines buy Apple, while cheap idiots buy PCs." Eh, maybe. But that doesn't explain away the discrepancies.

Specifications often vary sharply for these systems, with Apple often focusing on faster processors than some rivals in notebooks but at the expense of memory and hard drive space. Its insistence on using mobile processors and custom designs for desktops, however, has created feature discrepancies where a Dell Inspiron 518 tower nearing the $700 mark features two more processor cores, three times as much memory, and twice the hard drive space of an $1,199 entry-level iMac despite both coming with near-equivalent LCDs.

While the average price for Windows-based systems is described in the NPD data as having largely flattened and unlikely to drop further in the near future, the disparity between these and Macs has only widened in the last few months, according to eWeek. Apple's general policy of refusing to alter prices until its next hardware revision has reduced the value of its systems relative to Windows competitors.

So while Apple's marketshare has gone up quite a bit in the last few years, analysts don't think they'll be able to keep up the growth with prices so much higher than their PC counterparts. There are only so many video editors, bloggers and rich fanboys in the world, after all. Sooner or later, they'll need to appeal to those cheap idiots as well. [Electronista]

• Integrated 1.3M Camera
• 2 stereo speakers
• Multi-touch Pad & near full size Keyboard (85% full size)
• Integrated Wireless 802.11 b/g,10/100 Ethernet, Bluetooth
• Express card slot for WWAN expansion
• Up to 2-GB Memory
• 4in1 Multi-card Reader
• Form factor: 250.2 x 183 x 22-27.5mm, lightest configuration of 1.1 kg
• Large Panel 10.2” wide, LED backlight 1024x600 WSVGA
• Intel Integrated Graphics GMA 950
• Intel N270 CPU 1.6 GHz & Intel 945GSE Chipset
• Large HDD capacity 160G 9.5mm 2.5” SATA HDD (5400 rpm)
• Battery up to 3 hours with 3-cell battery, and up to 6 hours with 6-cell battery

The S10 also comes with a dedicated Lenovo graphical UI for best energy management options so you can optimize its battery life, and a "one-touch" rescue data recovery system. With Lenovo's might behind it, does it sound like an Eee PC killer? What do you think, chaps? [Lenovo]

[PC Watch]

It makes sense that Microsoft is going for a more conceptual ad here, rather than tick off a list of everything that people should perceive Vista is good at (they already do that on the page the ad points to). I can think of a lot of other future installments, like "At one point, everyone thought witches walked among us" or "At one point, people thought they could turn lead into gold," or "At one point, people thought that it was a good idea to shit into ditches alongside the city streets." The campaign basically writes itself—why don't you guys give is a whirl. [ZDNet via CrunchGear]

To offset the costs of the cloud server, short ads are inserted whenever you open a program, but appear at no other time, to remain relatively unobtrusive. Though the device only has a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT processor and 256 MB RAM, its user experience factor doesn't drop off because most of the work is done in the cloud. In fact, you are hardly exposed to the Linux-based OS because nearly everything is run from a modified version of Firefox.

CherryPal PC also has a 4 GB NAND Flash storage, 802.11g Wi-Fi, two USB 2.0 ports, 10/100 Ethernet, VGA out, and headphone out. It has a footprint of roughly 6 inches by 4 inches and is about an inch tall. It also comes out of the box with programs like iTunes, Open Office, custom media player and IM client, with more programs to appear. Each computer has a cloud storage limit of 50GB, which is likely to be expanded.

Max Seybold, the CherryPal Founder and CEO, said the hardware is nearly indestructable, and claims you could play tennis with the box and it would still work fine. He sees the CherryPal as a computer for developing nations, schools and/or teenagers who only need a computer to write a paper, listen to music, or browse the internet.

The CherryPal is available now and will start shipping at the end of the July for $249.

CherryPal Announces World’s First Two-watt, $249 Personal Computer
Ultra-green PC has no moving parts; 80 percent few components

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (July 21, 2008) – CherryPal, Inc., maker of green, affordable, easy-to-use personal computers, today formally launched its CherryPal™ cloud computer, the most energy efficient and affordable desktop computer available. CherryPal is a completely new type of PC that has no moving parts, contains 80 percent fewer components, uses only two watts of power, and is highly secure. The CherryPal, which is currently available for pre-orders, retails for $249 and requires no monthly subscription fee and no other hidden costs.

“Today’s typical PC is based on a computing model created 25 years ago, before the Internet, web browsers and global warming,” said CherryPal CEO, Max Seybold. “We have developed a new computing model that makes CherryPal the easiest to use, greenest, most affordable computer available today.”
CherryPal is the Greenest and Most Affordable

The CherryPal desktop consumes just two watts of power, compared to the 65 watts of power used by the average desktop machine, delivering a 97 percent decrease in energy consumption. In addition, it also uses 80 percent fewer components, dramatically reducing the amount of resources it takes to manufacture a PC. And because there are no moving parts, the CherryPal desktop can last a decade or longer, eliminating the need to replace a computer every 2-to 3 years.
CherryPal is the Easiest PC to Use

The CherryPal desktop is dead simple to set up and boots in 20 seconds. Users simply enter a username and password to access the CherryPalCloud, which offers an incredibly simple, intuitive interface. CherryPal has no exposed operating system, so all application and functions are managed solely by a Firefox-based browser. CherryPal does all operation system and application upgrading and installation, meaning there is no maintenance required. Because there are no moving parts, there is little possibility of hardware failure. CherryPal also offers a free 24/7 helpline.

The CherryPalCloud™ Innovation

CherryPal has removed the hassle from personal computing by moving most of the software and data that traditionally sits on the desktop to the Internet. Instead of accessing programs and data from your desktop computer, the majority of information is processed and stored on the web in a highly secure environment called the CherryPalCloud™, which is automatically accessed at boot-up.

The CherryPalCloud removes many of the headaches typically associated with traditional personal computers, including: application downloads, software upgrades and crashing operating systems, because everything is maintained in the CherryPalCloud by CherryPal administrators;
viruses and hackers, because the user’s hardware is no longer exposed to local bugs and viruses;
lag time, because the majority of cumbersome software applications are stored in the CherryPalCloud, the computer operates just as fast – if not faster – than a traditional PC.

CherryPal HyperCloud™ Technology

CherryPal is the only company that provides a patent-pending combination of both hardware and software encryption, making it highly secure. The CherryPal also offers a patent-pending single software layer technology. This collapses the operating system and browser into one layer, where there had traditionally been three separate layers. It makes the computer exponentially faster and virtually eliminates any risk of bugs or viruses for the user.

CherryPal is also the first company since Apple Computers to use a Power Architecture-based processor in a personal computer by employing the Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT processor. This chip allows for built-in graphics and audio processing, all while consuming only 400 MHz of power.

The CherryPal Hardware Specs:
Freescale’s MPC5121e mobileGT processor, 800 MIPS (400 MHz) of processing
256MB of DDR2 DRAM
4GB NAND Flash-based solid state drive
WiFi 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
Two USB 2.0 ports
One 10/100 Ethernet with RJ-45 jack
One VGA DB-15 display out jack
Headphone stereo audio out 3.5mm jack
9vDC 2.5mm10 watt AC-DC adapter power supply
10.5 ounces
1.3” high, 5.8” x 4.2” wide

CherryPal Software

CherryPal’s operating system is based on a version of open source Debian/GNU Linux that has been highly customized; the browser is based on a version of open source Firefox.
The user applications currently available are:
OpenOffice.org office productivity suite;
iTunes;
A CherryPal-brand media player that supports all common files formats;
A CherryPal-branded instant messenger that supports all common IM programs.
More programs will be added on an on-going basis. The current storage limit is initially set at 50 gigabytes (GB), although the limit will likely be increased in the future.

CherryPal’s Business Model

CherryPal is rolling out a robust “Brand Angels” program that uses advocates and users as its sales force. Brand Angels will communicate their honest experiences with the CherryPal product in exchange for a free CherryPal desktop. Brand Angels receive a small commission for each system sold; buyers also receive a small discount when they purchase their CherryPal from a Brand Angel.
CherryPal’s revenue model is based on advertising, which will be rolled out later this year. However CherryPal’s technology does not allow anyone to view any information about its customers.

Pricing and Availability

The CherryPal is now available for pre-orders in the United States for just $249, with no monthly subscription or hidden fees at www.cherrypal.com. Orders will begin shipping at the end of this month.
For more information on CherryPal and its desktop product, please go to www.cherrypal.com, where its new web also launched today.