Small Supercomputer, XPC, Notebook, and Gaming Thingy

kidgenius, SpinnerBait, and anonymous readers wrote in with four fun tales of small devices doing cool things. IBM has built a supercomputer the size of a TV, using 1000 PPC-based CPUs. Shuttle recently began shipping their AMD Athlon 64 based XPC, the size of a breadbox. Sony has a new 0.4" thick VAIO notebook (scroll down). And a European company is about to introduce the Gametrac, a handheld WinCE gaming gadget with 3D, Bluetooth, SMS, MP3 playback, MPEG4 video playback, camera, and -- interestingly -- GPS tracking. "The system allows the parents to establish 'fences,' which, when entered by the child, cause a notification to be sent to the parents in the form of either an SMS message or an email." Hmmm.

Tracking me

[Hi_2k]

I have parents. I have a love of techno gadgets. I have a real problem, however, with my parents using my techno gadget to tell where I am. Sometimes people want privacy, especialy when they're playing games.

Re:GPS tracking

[Wireless Joe]

"Alarm is sent to parents when device is carried outside of prescribed zone." Uh, won't that simply teach children to set the device down before wandering off?

I can just hear my parents:

I wonder why Joe has been hanging around the vicinity of those airport lockers for over a week now?

Thank god

[Lord_Dweomer]

""The system allows the parents to establish 'fences,' which, when entered by the child, cause a notification to be sent to the parents in the form of either an SMS message or an email." Hmmm."

Thank God. For a second I was a little scared. I mean, my parents need me to program their VCR to stop flashing 12. My dad thought his shift key was broken, when in reality his entire keyboard wasn't working. My guess is that the kids are going to be able to either change the "fence", disable it, make it so it doesn't notify the parents, or simply not take it with them.

Just goes to show, digital rights management isn't the only easy thing to crack, organic rights management is too.

Re:GPS tracking

[product byproduct]

Yes, smart children will set the device down, but *geek* children will wrap the device in tin-foil and continue to play with it.

Parent fences

[Anonymous Coward]

The system allows the parents to establish 'fences,' which, when entered by the child, cause a notification to be sent to the parents in the form of either an SMS message or an email.

When I can shock the little tykes who violate the perimeter, they just might see some of my money.

Re:400 dead or so

[Anonymous Coward]

where are the WMD's
What a fraud Bush is

Sir, are you suggesting that this and all similar WinCE handhelds are WMDs, or that microsoft software is the cause of all the world's misery?
I concur!

Re:vaio not so thin

[mikehoskins]

"...the size of a TV..."
"...the size of a breadbox..."
"...notebook..."

I know exactly what the size of TVs, breadboxes, and notebooks are! Good thing were talking about precise, scientific dimensions here -- unlike NASA's problem with converting standard to metric.... :-)

Was that a 13" black and white or a 57" HDTV rear projection supercomputer?

Re:Thank god

[aliens]

Of course they could just ya know, turn the power off too.

These gaming systems are a godsend!

[teamhasnoi]

As a member of the Hysterical Mothers Society of America, we've found these game systems to be worthy of our highest honor - Five Golden Slaps!

Please think of the children, and purchase one immediately!

Signed,
Cindy Lou Anderson, High Screamer

Re:Size of a television....

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think 1 televion ~= 0.0012 VW Beetle.

Tracking

[El_Smack]

I'm generally against this type of thing, but any parent who has been enjoying some late afternoon intercourse on the living room floor only to be surprised by their child coming home early from a friends house will see this for the godsend it truly is.

And no, that's not a hypothetical situation above.

Re:vaio not so thin

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that a 13" black and white or a 57" HDTV rear projection supercomputer?

The breadbox was a WinnaBagel 9000, with fold-out dinette and a tow-bar for your SUV.

Re:Tracking

[El_Smack]

"Maybe if you have kids that could barge in on you you shouldn't be having sex in your living room? That would be a much more sensible and much more correct way of stopping it. Not to mention the last time I had sex, I wasn't exactly about to glance at a computer screen in the middle of it."

I am willing to bet the last time you had sex, you were ALREADY looking at a computer screen.

OK, that was uncalled for, and I'm sure you are a nice guy, but the straight line was too much to resist. Hope I didn't hurt your feelings. :)

Kid Fence

[lotho brandybuck]

SMS Message or email? Couldn't it just shock my kid into compliance w/o bothering me about it?

Re:1000 processors? Probably 400h.

[sketerpot]

Computers don't understand 1s and 0s. They only understand voltages.

We're just arguing semantics here.