No, not me in a speedo… Although… Nah… Microsoft wants to wrench Tablet PCs out of the niche marketplace and into the mainstream! To do that, new tablet format factors are being developed that will see the (not so) little buggers (any more) drop into the $1500-$1600 –and that, according to Microsoft, should make them only $100 (or so) more expensive than comparable notebooks. First up for the consumer market will probably be the Toshiba Satellite R15-S822 at about $1599.

Yes, we know that Averatec marketed a $1350 Tablet PC in mid-2004. But did you know that the MS folk in Redmond took their corporate credit card, went down to the local COSTCO, and bought out the inventory?

Even with Microsoft offering Windows XP PC Tablet Edition (or maybe because of it?), PC World pegs Tablet sales as maybe a “blip” on the chart. (See? All you folk expounding the virtues of Tablets? You’re all there are.) The key market indicator here? Dell. Those folk have no interest in marketing a tablet PC at all and, trust me, if there was a buck to be made off of it, Dell would sell it.

Kano Technologies introduced Tuesday its HardBox 800, a compact external portable hard drive unit with storage capacities from 40BG up to 400GB. A model without a hard drive installed is also available for a user to make use of spare hard drives.

The desktop unit measures 5.75 x 8.75 x by 1.5 inches. The HardBox 800 has an internal universal AC switching power supply, and quiet cooling fan. According to the company, the HardBox 800 achieves data transfer rates up to 800Mb per second.

The HardBox 800 supports FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 interfaces. It comes with cables, a portable travel case, a user’s guide, and IntelliStor Data Backup and Recovery software for Windows.

The HardBox 800 is available with a list price starting at $149.

(Although the pricing seems a bit high…)

The Register has a good piece on a bug that floods a tablet PC’s memory until it conks out. Here’s what they said: “The culprit is the application Tabtip.exe, the site Tablet PC Talk confirms - The program Tabtip.exe increases in size due to a memory leak. It starts out at approximately 10MB. I have seen it zoom up to over 150MB after a couple of weeks of suspend/resume.

“So figuratively speaking, the computer fills up with ink - until it can take no more. Tabtip.exe is quite an important application - it’s the built-in ink digitizer responsible for handwriting recognition. Without it, you must buy and install a third-party recognition software, or plug in a keyboard. This bug isn’t new. Users first discovered it last spring, and even patched together a crude batch file which killed and restarted the ink-continent digitizer process. But it’s been causing much more ire of late, with fans furious Microsoft won’t so much as acknowledge the issue.”

Of course my take is that there aren’t enough tablet PCs in the world for Microsoft to bother doing anything, but that will unleash the angry hoards of tablet zealots who jeered and called me names the last time I dissed a tablet.

Yeah, I know. But it’s the first of a 3-parter!

Over at Extreme Tech, there’s a report about two mysterious new trademarks that Intel just registered: “Intel Inside VIIV” and “Intel VIIV.”

In incorrect Roman numerals, VIIV can be loosely translated as 64 (VI = 6, IV = 4)as Intel prepares to roll out 64-bit technology later this year. Another theory claims that the logo will be two Vs separated by the II pipeline symbol, meaning the Pentium 5’s dual core chips. In either case, both scenarios prove that we all have too much time on our hands. Late breaking clarification from Intel: “Sorry I can’t help you out here; we don’t discuss speculation regarding brand activity we may or may not have in development.“

“But what do you mean by that, Bill,” you ask. Hey, don’t ask me. It’s the livedigitally.com gang at it again. Asher Saeed over there has his shorts in a bunch over the quality of the LCD screens that accompany (in particularly) Sony notebook computers. Says the VAIO high-end line is plagued by dead pixels. (Could that be why Sony bought International Display Technology earlier this month?) He didn’t like one of the IBM Thinkpad models either.

Obviously, it would seem that Mr. Saeed must be a young and inexperienced gentleman when dead pixels (IBM had hotspots) on only 6 laptops in a row get his shorts in a bunch. Why, in my day, we were so glad to be able to carry around our lightweight 26lb portables that we had no reason to complain about their 5-inch CRTs at all, no matter what they looked like. Ah, those were the days with the Osborne 1s, KayPros, and the like! We knew what a real portable was! Not like today. Computers are for tough people… We knew when to keep our mouths shut too.

Following in the tradition started by Bose nearly 2 decades ago, Klipsch Audio Technologies is introducing a compact, high-performance speaker system designed exclusively for iPod fans.

Engineered to maximize the Apple iPod and iPod Mini listening experience, the Klipsch iFi system is a “plug and play” setup that fits almost anywhere and in any type of environment. This 2.1 configuration comes equipped with two unobtrusive Klipsch Reference Series RSX-3 satellites, a dedicated subwoofer, docking station and RF remote.

The RF remote can send signals through walls and floors and up to six remotes can be used to control the iFi and a docked iPod from virtually anywhere in the home.

The subwoofer, designed specifically for this system, has a built-in Class D amplifier that distributes 200 watts of peak system power to successfully drive all the channels. It also features a slot port and line level input. A unique tuning approach is used to achieve a sound character typically found in much larger subwoofers.

Each RSX-3 satellite is a two-way, magnetically shielded speaker that employs a 3.5-inch aluminum woofer and a 0.75-inch titanium dome compression driver coupled to an exclusive round MicroTractrix™ Horn, which creates the company’s dynamic signature sound. The woofer is a long-throw unit driven by powerful ceramic magnetic motor structures. The Cerametallic™ cone is lightweight with excellent rigidity, which dramatically reduces any resonance.

If these come even close to the typical audiophile quality speaker that Klipsch produces they should rock –and I don’t use that word easily.

Motorola will give a special limited-edition Razr phone to some nominees at this year’s Oscars. Apparently, the Celebs need to continually text message each other. The most anticipated message? “Luzr!“