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I know I know....where have I been, blah blah blah.  I won't bore you with excuses, just know I have been up to some interesting things around here lately.  Hopefully I will be able to post about that soon and you will fully understand why life had come to a grinding halt for the last month and a half.

In the meantime, I had to post something about this.  I have always been a hard-core Sony fan, although I may not always like the proprietary nature of some of their hardware.  However, when it comes to sleek, sexy electronics, you can't beat Sony.  Sony recently started shipping what I think is one of the absolutely coolest devices on the planet, the UX-50.  This thing is incredible.  The full power of Windows (no wise cracks, yeah - windows), in the palm of your hand, and I don't mean a Windows mobile device either.  Sony claims that the UX50 is Vista ready as well (they know something I don't know? - I would love to see Vista Beta 2 on this device).  The guys over at MicroPCtalk.com have documented the unboxing of their UX50 in what is probably the most thorough display of ultimate geekdom I have seen yet.  Over 180 images of the entire process.  I love it.  Now if Sony would only come back to planet earth and make that price point a little more realistic...they might have a chance at selling a few of these.

What really intrigues me about this device is that lately, I really haven't been using my laptop for anything more than email, basic surfing the web, and reading my RSS feeds.  For the heavy-duty design work, I stick to my Dual 2.5 G5 at home, which just cranks beyond any laptop out there at the moment.  So my big beef right now is with portability and not having to lug around a huge laptop case when I go to the local Starbucks. I love my Powerbook, but lugging that 15" machine around, with accessories, can become a bit much at times.  Having this UX-50 would allow me to carry a simple messenger bag with things like the computer, a book and misc. odds and ends, while keeping the weight to a minimum.  I'm all about portability right now.  Not even a tablet can offer this kind of flexibility.  This little device connects to the online world in almost any way you can think of (Wifi, Bluetooth, WWLAN, etc).  That WWLAN is an interesting feature too (only available on the higher-end UX180P).  Provided you fork over the cash for Cingular's data plan, when you aren't within reach of a Wifi Access Point, you can use Cingular's Edge Network to connect to cyberspace from anywhere you can get a cell phone signal.  Lets not forget there's also EVDO out there, which is even faster (although I haven't read all the specs on the UX-50 to see if it can handle PCMCIA cards).

So now the real questions will start to flow concerning this new trend in Micro PC's.  How will this affect design trends for the future?  As these devices become more popular, will users demand content formatted to fit within these devices screen constraints?  How will the User Experience and overall usability be affected? Just when you thought you were making progress with going beyond 1024x768 designs, are we going back to the retro small screen real estate of yesteryear?  Or now with all the new Web 2.0 sites and CSS making huge progress on the web, will designers have to "think different" in how they present content to their users?  In theory, if the site has been coded correctly, we could address this issue with something as simple as a Micro PC style-sheet.  But who is going to determine what those Micro PC standard screen sizes will be?  Will the rest of the industry follow Sony and adopt their screen size as the new standard for Micro PC's?  How will banking and other critical sites render on these smaller devices? I suspect a lot of these questions will start floating around the design scene within the next year as more players come to market with similar devices.  I think it's safe to say that even software vendors should take a good hard look at their applications and see if they can incorporate an option to run an alternative UI based on the device you are using.  Imagine something like Outlook on that tiny screen.  Yes, you can connect an external monitor to the device when you are in the office, but the whole point of the Micro PC is to get AWAY from the office while still maintaining productivity.  Could Microsoft feasibly create alternate UI's for these devices?  I suspect the answer is yes, but the question there is whether there will be enough user demand for the feature.  You gotta love technology, it gets more interesting every day!  Until next time...

Technorati Tags: Mobility, Portable Devices, Design, UMPC, PC, Windows