Hercules has a new range of eCAFE netbooks in the eCAFE Slim HD and the eCAFE EX HD. They are both ultra portable, and the EX HD will deliver up to 13 hours of usage. Both feature a Cortex A8 processor, with Linux as the OS.

They also have 512MB of RAM and 8GB of storage in the eCAFE Slim HD or 16GB of storage in the eCAFE EX HD, plus 50GB of online storage. Both feature a 10.1 inch LED backlit display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Ethernet, three USB 2.0 ports and a mini USB port.

Gigabyte has just added some new Netbooks to its lineup, the Gigabyte Q2005 and the Gigabyte M1005. Both feature an Intel Atom Dual Core Processor N550(1.50GHz), run either Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium and sport 10.1 inch 1024×600 LED backlit displays.

Other features include up to 2GB of DDR2 ram and a 1.3 mega pixel web camera on the M1005 or a 0.3 mega pixel on the Q2005. Each has 3 USB ports, D-Sub, RJ45, Mic-in, Earphone-out and a 4-in-1 card reader supporting SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro.

Toshiba is packing stereo Harman Kardon speakers with two watts each in their latest laptop, along with an Atom N550 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, a 250GB HDD, 10 hours of battery life, and a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 LED-backlit display. Finally a laptop that will wake the dead.

But if you want something quieter, there’s also the NB500, which has the same specs but without the sound system and stepping down to an Atom N455, while it rocks a lower price. Both ship in the first quarter of 2011.

The latest rumor regarding Acer says that Acer is planning to make dual OS netbooks a standard choice for all of its netbooks that have a dual-core processor. Google’s Android OS on the Aspire One D255 isn’t available to everyone, but it will become a standard feature in the future. There’s no reason not to offer it since the OS is cheap and can be easily added.

Android has been seen by notebook manufacturers as a way of providing a near-instant boot solution, though there were previously some issues getting the OS to work right since it wasn’t designed to support a mouse and supported ARM chipsets instead of Intel Atom chips.

Dell has partnered with Major League Baseball to celebrate the 2010 MLB All Star Game. Players and members of the coaching staff were each given a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook that came customized with MLB Teams, featuring fan artwork from the Dell Design Studio.

MLB fans can personalize their notebooks with one of 95 different MLB team designs. An optional Digital TV Tuner will allow owners to watch highlights of the games while watching the actual live games. The lid designs, available on Dell’s Mini and Studio laptops, range from subtle team logos in one corner to full-cover designs that scream fanatic.

When I first started using my netbook when I travelled for work I often ended up hitting the track pad with the palm of my hand. That made whatever I was typing end up in a place other than where I wanted it to be. I ended up having to turn the track pad off when I was doing lots of typing to stop that from happening.

Synaptics has announced new technology at Computex that will stop accidental activation of the track pad by the palm of your hand. The tech is called TouchPad-IS and is capable of recognizing up to four fingers.

When we heard about the Litl Webbook back in November of 2009, the thing sounded good but was too expensive in most books. The device was focused on simplicity for user looking to watch movies and video without having to mess with an OS.

The high price tag for netbook performance doomed the device and as of today, the Litl Webbook has received a significant price cut of $300. The new $399 price tag is where the device should have been to start with considering its capabilities.

The American Transportation Security Administration has informed travelers via it’s blog, that when traveling to, from, and within the USA, portable computers smaller than “the standard sized laptop” don’t have to be removed from their bags.

So what is the standard sized laptop? Well, they don’t really say. However, Kindles, iPads, Sony Readers, Nooks, and “Net Books” are named as being exempt from the requirement to unbag your computer for the X-ray scanners. Of course, there’s the disclaimer that staff might want to take a second look at odd-looking devices, but for the most part you can leave that e-reader in your bag.

Blogger Bob with the TSA announced recently that electronic items smaller than the standard size laptop should not need to be removed from their bag or case when going through airport security. They didn’t say specifically what that standard size is, but did name a few items specifically that would fall below the size threshold have having to be removed, namely iPads, Kindles, Neos, Nooks, Sony Readers and Netbooks.

This certainly doesn’t mean that you don’t need to take things out of your bag if asked when going through security, but it is good news to hear since removing and donning all your gear again is sometimes tough enough.

TSA via Engadget

While the economy has been bad consumers have still been buying and replacing computers. Rather than buying the expensive notebooks that they might have went for in years past, many consumers looked to cheap netbooks for computers.

Research firm StrategyAnalytics reports that netbook shipments in 2009 boomed with a total of 30.2 million units shipped globally. That number is a 79% growth compared to the previous year’s netbook shipments.

Do you love TV and radio? Want them in your netbook? Of course you do. Onkyo is launching some new netbooks that feature an AM/FM tuner and a digital terrestrial tuner card for receiving digital TV. The C411A6 has a miniB-CAS system so you can connect cable or an external antenna to the F-type connector for TV viewing. There’s also a recording feature using “PureSpace”.

The C411A5 has a miniPCI chip with an AM / FM radio tuner built-in. You can record your favorite shows with this one too. The PureSpace app sends signals directly to the “PDAP (Pure Direct Audio Path)” so don’t worry about alerts not being heard.

Looks like Creative will upgrade its ZMS-05 processor to a next-gen version called the ZMS-08. The new system-on-a-chip is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex-8 processor, with support for 1080p H.264 video playback, OpenGL ES 2.0 and Flash acceleration.

It will find it’s way into portable media players and offers “low power, high performance” to devices like netbooks, web tablets, TVs, etc. The chip is supported by ZiiLABS’ version of Google Android and the company’s Plaszma operating system. Shipping is expected in early 2010.

Netbooks have been very popular since they launched and the economy went bad. Many consumers are finding the low price point of the typical netbook to be hard to pass up. As sales of netbooks soar, overall revenues in the notebook category are slipping.

Research firm DisplaySearch has released its latest numbers for the notebook and netbook category and the value of the notebook PC market as a whole was $26.4 billion, up 10% quarter over quarter, but down 5% year over year. The netbook segment was the biggest growth category with an increase from last quarter of 37% and a year over year increase of 264%.

It’s finally here. Chrome OS will be an open source platform that can “power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems,” and they claim the OS will be virus free and run a newly-designed windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

It will be capable of running on x86 and ARM chips. It’s separate from Android, but there will be some overlap in concept and functionality between the two platforms. A large chunk of its Google Apps suite already supports an offline mode, so it’s all ready to go. The company says it’s currently working with several OEM manufacturers and it will initially appear on a number of netbooks coming to market sometime in the second half of 2010.

Soon Dell Netbooks, specifically the Dell Mini 10, will be available with a $69 Wireless 700 Card which will make the netbook navigation capable, just like your smartphone. The Wi-Fi enabled card would let you navigate just like with other devices.

The Wireless 700 card uses a combination of Broadcom’s GPS technology and Skyhook Wireless’ Wi-Fi positioning solutions. The integrated navigation software will provide 2D and 3D map viewing and will help save addresses for trip and route optimization. Users could also geo-tag photos to flickr and get weather updates for a specific location.