Doug Aamoth…

Starting in June, we’ll see a bunch of ASUS laptops shipping with the Express Gate instant-on UI. The interface was created by DeviceVM and is called Splashtop, although OEMs can apparently change the name to suit their needs, hence ASUS calling it Express Gate. It’s branded as “a light-weight operating system that allows consumers to use their computers seconds after hitting the power button.”

We’ll see more in early June as Express Gate gets shown off at Computex in Taiwan, but the above video should give you a pretty good idea of how everything works.

According to UMPCPortal, these may be photos of the Acer Aspire One, a tiny laptop similar to the Eee, except that the first two E’s are replaced with the letters “O” and “N” to change things up a bit. The UI looks non-Windows-y, despite early reports indicating that Acer’s entrant would run XP. The UI shown above could be media center type software, though.

Details are a bit slim except that this machine is thought to carry a pricetag of $470 or so. Here’s some more info, too.

“…Acer’s Mini-Note is called “Aspire One”, running Windows XP SP3 on the 8.9 screen with resolution of 1024 X 768. The ODM partner is Quanta, the main notebook ODM partner of HP, DELL and Apple. The source thinks “Aspire One” is better looking than Asus’ EEE PC, however, no photo release yet.”

I’d think the screen is actually 1024 x 600 since it looks to be widescreen format. Availability (in Europe, at least) is expected “over the next few weeks.”

Hot damn, boys and girls. Either that’s a hilariously large novelty pencil or we’ve got ourselves an Eee-sized Dell notebook to look forward to. To which to look forward. Which to whom we will forwardly look. Grammar is hard.

Anyway, Michael Dell was spotted carrying this little guy around at All Things D by Gizmodo. Details are pretty murky but early photos seem to present a pretty standard miniature laptop. Hopefully it’s got a big enough screen and keyboard.

More details soon, hopefully. In the mean time, hit the jump for more photos.

Dell Blog via Gizmodo

Get this. You know how when you have to confirm your bank account with, say, Paypal or Google Checkout or any number of online services that want to make sure the bank account that they’re going to be depositing money into belongs to you? So you’ll generally receive two small deposits — pennies each — that you’ll have to confirm, right? Well some guy used an automated script to open up around 58,000 accounts with E-Trade and Schwab.com and collected all the little deposits using a handful of bank accounts. When all was said and done, he walked away with around $50,000.

The man, Michael Largent of California, also used the technique to nab over $8,000 from Google Checkout. He said he needed the money to pay down some debts. He hasn’t been charged by Google (maybe because Google doesn’t “prohibit multiple e-mail addresses and accounts”) but he’s facing computer, wire, and mail fraud charges for the E-Trade and Schwab stunts. Largent is currently out on bail.

via Wired

UPDATE: Oh man, you guys missed it. It was pretty awesome.

UPDATE 2: Three cheers for Jonny U!

To whom it may concern,

I watched the video you uploaded to YouTube titled “Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit” with great interest. Aside from the riveting and engaging content contained within the video itself, I thought your camera work was some of the best I’ve seen — it’s right up there with movies like Citizen Kane, GoodFellas, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and The Graduate.

I’m sure you’re quite busy with other equally stunning projects, but I’d just like to say thanks for your moving and enchanting addition to the short film community. I also found it refreshing that you made a small cameo in your own film, a la Todd Phillips’ appearance in Old School. There’s no shame in doing that and I think more directors should consider appearing in their own films.

Anyway, great work and we’re all looking forward to your future projects!

Sincerely,

Doug Aamoth, on behalf of the entire CrunchGear family

New York judge Joseph Teresi has found Dell to be guilty of fraud and false advertising, saying…

“Dell has engaged in repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct, including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms of warranties, fraudulent, misleading and deceptive practices in credit financing and failure to provide warranty service and rebates.”

The New York attorney general’s office apparently received around 700 complaints before filing the lawsuit a year ago and has received more than 1,000 additional complaints since then. It’s thought that of the roughly six million transactions that Dell completed in the state of New York between 2003 and 2006, only about 7% of those customers qualified for financing deals.

According to the Associated Press,

“Most applicants, if approved for credit, were offered very high interest rate revolving credit accounts ranging from approximately 16 percent up to almost 30 percent interest without the prominently advertised promotional interest deferral,” Teresi wrote…

The judge also noted many affidavits alleging long telephone waits on hold for technical support, numerous phone transfers among departments, the need for repeated customer calls to get through and “numerous instances” when Dell refused to provide on-site service before it had determined what parts needed to be replaced. Some customers said they waited weeks, months and even years.

The judge also faulted Dell for denying timely rebate requests that contained all required documentation and ordered Dell Financial Services to stop reporting payments were late from customers who offered documentation they had already returned equipment for full refunds.

Dell has said that it disagrees with the decision and “would be putting up a vigorous defense of its position,” but hasn’t yet appealed the verdict.

Looking for a friend this summer but can’t stand the thought of direct sunlight and/or human interaction? Then try the i-SOBOT. It’s a six-and-a-half inch robot that comes pre-programmed with almost 200 individual movements and can be programmed to perform up to 240 additional movements, should you get bored of the stock motions.

Best of all, it’s small enough that it probably won’t be able to kill you in your sleep. Just in case, though, better go easy on it until the two of you get to know each other.

DigiTimes is reporting that “Intel is planning to start the mass production of dual-core versions of its Atom processors in the second week of July, according to sources at PC makers.”

The current Atom platform will be able to support the new chips via a simple BIOS upgrade, too, which is good news for manufacturers.

Bad news for manufacturers, though, is that few people are going to buy single core Atom-equipped devices with the dual-core ones right around the corner;

PC makers are concerned the short gap between the launch of single-core and dual-core models could dampen the introduction of single-core Atoms and well as impact sales of traditional entry-level PC CPU platforms meaning PC makers will need to rethink their product lineups for the later half of the year.

Might as well just wait for the quad-core Atoms to come out in August, huh?

Air conditioned clothing company, Kuchofuku, has developed the “Suzukaze,” which I’m pretty sure is Japanese for “ass de-moistifier,” but don’t quote me on that.

According to Japan’s Corporate News Network, 

This Kouchou Cushion features a new material inside called the super spacer which has the strength to support the person’s weight and the shape of each spacers is specially designed to bend flexibly. If you place a soft cushion beneath it, it can transfer the softness of the cushion to the body. The continuous air flow traveling from the fan through the grid of spacers allows for a person to sit comfortably with no build-up of sweat or humidity within the cushion.

When the small fan that is built into the cushion rotates, over 170 liters of air per minute is sent into the cushion, thus dissipating the heat and moisture accumulated around the buttocks. The cushion weighs only 261 grams, and because of this lightweight design it can be easily rolled up and carried around in compact form.

Keeping your ass high and dry doesn’t have to cost a lot, either, as the cushion can be used all day long for about five cents worth of electricity. Finding and purchasing the cushion, though, is another story, as pricing and availability information is all but non-existent. We’ll keep a look-out for something, though.

Here’s a video of the cushion in action.

via Newlaunches

Whuh oh. Seems the only toilet on the ISS is busted and they can’t get a plumber out there until next week. Astronauts aboard the space station have been able to impose upon the nearby Russian Soyuz spacecraft, using its limited-capacity toilet in a pinch, and have now apparently rigged some sort of sack-like contraption to the toilet on the ISS. Sounds delightful.

The good news is that the problems are only occurring when going number one. The astronauts can go number two just fine, Lord o’ Mercy.

“While one of the crew was using the Russian-made toilet last week, the toilet motor fan stopped working, according to NASA. Since then, the liquid waste gathering part of the toilet has been working on-and-off.

Fortunately, the solid waste collecting part is functioning normally.”

Space Shuttle Discovery is set to launch this Saturday and will meet up with the crew at the ISS on Monday. NASA is “considering having some parts flown to Cape Canaveral, Florida, and placed in the shuttle during its countdown,” which is apparently a bit dangerous. After everything else has already been weighed and balanced, any extra weight could throw off initial calculations.

Come on, though. You gotta fix the toilet, right? That, or hang a sign above it saying “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”

AP/CNN via Switched