Vizio's new all-in-one PC

Vizio, the popular television manufacturer, has always been set on making high-quality TVs at relatively low prices. Now they aim to do what they did for TVs to personal computers.

At the current Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Vizio announced a new line of personal computers, all running Windows, something that nobody would really expect from a television manufacturer. However, Vizio had been testing the waters of the more personal device market last year, when they announced their tablet device. They did not give much details as to the specs of the new devices, but CES attendees did get to play around with the new devices.

Vizio announced it's all-in-one PC. The computer is slick and has a minimalism design, and comes with a wireless keyboard and trackpad, stereo speakers, one for each side of the small base, and a remote.

The new Vizio all-in-one PC

The keyboard has a nice design, with large island style keys and a cool, modern-looking typeset. The large trackpad shares the same modern look as the keyboard. Technology blog The Verge reports that the touchpad was a bit finicky and didn't support multi-touch, but they say that those problems will probably be ironed out by the time the device is released.

The speakers are also beautifully designed. There are two individual stereo speakers, and a sub-woofer integrated into the base. Although we don't have too much experience with the device, we can assume that Vizio, also a manufacturer of home theater sound equipment, would put great care into the audio aspects of their computers.

The screen is available in 24 and 27 inch models, and is attached to a small base, where the "brains" of the computer are kept. The base has an SD card slot, a headphone jack, four USB ports, an Ethernet jack, an eSata drive, and a couple of HDMI ports. The HDMI port feature is interesting, as it allows the computer to be  used as a TV, great for something like gaming or even watching regular TV (although the screen is quite small for that). However, Vizio decided not to include a TV tuner in the device, claiming that only 8% of people use the tuners in Vizio's actual television sets.

Vizio also announced a few laptops, but details on that are confusing. When asked about details, Vizio responded, "those are to come".

Overall, the new Vizio all-in-one seems like a great product, we still have no idea of the specs inside the device, or the price. Vizio does say that the all-in-one will be out in "Spring 2012".

Samsung's ChatON arrives in the AppStore.

Samsung's SMS-free text messaging app, called ChatON, has finally hit the Apple AppStore, making it available on Android, Bada, and iOS. Blackberry, Windows Phone, and web support is still to come. Check out the app on the AppStore here, visit the website here, and read about what it does below.

Samsung is getting into the market that Apple, the maker of the iPhone, RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry, and Facebook are already in. Samsung, the maker of many popular mobile phones, "smart" and otherwise, introduced it's ChatON instant messaging service.

The ChatON service will allow users to send short messages to each other for free, including texts, photos, contacts, and calendar. The service will be available at first on Samsung devices running their "semi-smart" mobile operating system, called Bada.

A Samsung
device running Bada.

The service will later come as an app on Android and iOS devices. While the users of the Bada version will get the basic capabilities mentioned above, the users of the Android and iOS app will get some more advanced features, such as commenting on their friends profile pages, create special "animation messages", and keep track of how often they instant message.

Ho So Lee, Head of Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement, "With ChatON, Samsung has vastly simplified mobile communication by allowing users to connect to our upcoming feature phones and all major smartphones in the market. Users around the world can now enjoy easier and richer interactivity with whoever they want, in the format they want."

While the ChatON service seems like a pretty good idea, like I mentioned at the beginning of the post, Samsung is competing with some pretty big contenders. RIM's BlackBerry Messenger was recently revamped to become more "social", Apple has a similar service coming out soon on all iOS devices, called iMessage, and of course Facebook, with more than 750 million users, recently launched it's Facebook Messenger app for iOS, so Samsung's app will have to be pretty good to compete.

Samsung's ChatON service will make it's official debut later this week at Berlin's IFA Conference, and will be available in over 120 countries with 62 languages.

So, the ChatON service has a lot to compete with, but it's one of the only services available on more than one platform, with it's Bada, iOS, and Android apps. Overall, it seems like a great service, and I wish it luck in succeeding in the large world of IM services.

 Check out the original article here.

Logitech Cube: Part computer mouse, part presenter, all great design.

Since the computer mouse became mainstream, not much about it has. Multi-touch has probably been the latest change to the computer mouse. Until now. Computer mice were never more than computer mice. Until now.

The Logitech Cube

Logitech, the maker of many computer accessories, including keyboards and mice, wants to reinvent the computer mouse, or at least make a really cool one. They recently announced the Logitech Cube, a mouse/presenter hybrid with a really slick design.

Unlike any other mainstream mouse, the Cube is, as the name hints, a cube. It has a small and sleek rectangular design. Available in both black and white models, the Cube has a nice striped design. It uses an optical sensor at the bottom, and connects to your computer via a wireless USB dongle. The front of the device sports a on/off switch so that the device doesn't use power while not in use, as well as a USB port for easily charging the device.

To enable presentation mode, just lift the device off of the surface it's resting on, and the Cube will make the switch automatically.

No physical buttons are visible, but the entire top surface of the device is multi-touch, so the gestures you are familiar with from a smartphone will work seamlessly.

The cube will cost $69.99, and is already available for pre-order on the Logitech website.

Overall, the cube seems like a great device, with good features, a beautiful design, and a not-too-expensive price point. Now all we need is a matching keyboard so it doesn't look too out of place.

Read the press release here.