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ASUS’ Eee PC 1201HA just went on sale here in the States earlier today, but already it seems that the debatable father of netbooks is looking to one-up its own with the 1201T. Shown off recently at an event overseas, this 12.1-inch netbook gets powered by AMD’s Congo platform and NVIDIA’s heralded Ion graphics unit, a tandem that should lead to a fairly nimble and multimedia-friendly machine. The 1.6GHz MV40 CPU was at the helm, followed along by 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 6-cell battery and an enclosure that looks pretty much like every other Eee PC announced within the past six months. Mum’s the word on price and availability, but we’re guessing both of those will clear themselves up in short order.

Last week, Google released ChromiumOS to the open source community at http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os.  ChromiumOS is a small, optimized OS whose purpose is to make it extremely simple and easy to browse the web.  Without a network connection, ChromiumOS is not very interesting. With a network connection, ChromiumOS shines.  The Chromium browser is extremely fast and makes for a great web-centric browsing experience.  Boot time appears quick too – about 12 seconds from hitting the power button.

Me and some other Dell folks noticed that Engadget recently got the Chrome OS running on a Vostro A860 netbook. I’ve been doing some timkering over the lat few days working to get our Dell Mini 10v up and running with ChromiumOS. As of late yesterday, I can report success.

I have released an USB key image file to: http://linux.dell.com/files/cto. The file name is: “ChromiumOS_Mini10v_Nov25.img.”  It contains a functioning image of my USB key loaded with ChromiumOS.  In addition, I have made a best effort attempt to get the Broadcom Wi-Fi adapter working in this image.  It’s definitely not perfect (read: highly experimental, untested, unstable, yada yada…) but it does appear to function.

Here are the caveats:

• It will take more than 5-10 *minutes* for the ChromiumOS network connection manager to “see” the access points and allow you to select and connect – be patient.
• Wired connections appear to work fine and appear quick to connect.
• There are currently issues with both the connection manager as well as the underlying components (wpa_supplicant) that can easily break or get hung. When in doubt, reboot and give it another try.
• Use this image at your own risk – it comes to you totally unsupported and very minimally tested.

It makes Sense that HTC would come to their Senses and started rolling out update for the HTC Magic that brings it the coveted Sense UI. It’s just Hong Kong for now, but we expect updates for other countries to become available soon too. In a Sense, it’s not quite the same Sense UI as the one Windows Mobile phones are getting, but it provides the same extensive features (check out the HTC HD2 review to see what we mean).

Forgive us the misguided “sense”-jokes, it must be something we had for breakfast this morning. Anyway, the Sense UI on the HTC Magic rumor has been floating around since the HTC Hero appeared and its fancy new UI was announced. A while back, Magic owners on Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom got the upgrade, though it was still unclear whether the other carriers or in fact the rest of the world will be getting it. The latter part is still unclear unfortunately.

But this new update covers Hong Kong and it’s out now. All it says on the download page for the update is: “This software is suitable for the following devices : HTC Magic”. Though when we tried it (with a device not meant for Hong Kong it didn’t work), so the update is regional for now.

What you’d need is HTC Sync and a Windows computer. Yup, just Windows is supported, which is bad news for OS X and Linux users. The whole update process will take about 20 minutes.

The download page offers detailed instructions how to perform the update.

They aren’t really tournaments. they are Awards that seek out the best products and showcase new and upcoming companies with innovative offerings.

The Best Mobile Broadband Handset/Device Award goes to Nokia N97 mini. After the break you get the rest of The winners of the Asia Mobile Awards 2009.

• Gameloft for ‘Hero of Sparta’

• Singapore Telecom Mobile for ‘SingTel AMPed’

• Telegent Systems for ‘Telegent Free-to-Air Mobile TV – TLG1120 Mobile TV Receiver’

• Smart Communications and Unilever – AXE for ‘AXE on Phone’

• Orascom Telecom Bangladesh for ‘Banglalink Jigyasha’

• Geodesic for ‘Mundu IM’

• Smart Communications for ‘Smart Money’s expanded mobile-based security feature for online purchases’

• Smart Communications for ‘Smart Islands Activation Program (IAP)’

• Grameenphone and Huawei for ‘Building a Greener Mobile Network’

When Sony isn’t busy adding Facebook functionality or potentially courting Firefox for its PS3, it likes nothing better than to dream of global all-encompassing online services and stores. A step toward that goal is the company’s recent introduction of the PS3 Video Delivery Service into the heart of Europe. PlayStation loyalists in Deustchland, España, France, and the United Kingdom can now use their beloved console (or the PSP) to grab movies from a selection that is set to grow at a consistent pace of 50 new films being added per week. Both SD and HD versions are available, with the cheaper variants going for €1.99 / £2.49 to rent or €7.99 / £6.99 to purchase, and you can see a trailer for the new service after the break.

New York: Motorola Inc on Monday said that it would buy privately held BitBand, an Israel-based video-on-demand technology provider, to expand its home video business.

Motorola said it would integrate BitBand into its Home and Networks Mobility unity, for which the company has reportedly been looking for a buyer willing to pay $4 billion to $5 billion.

Motorola, which is losing money on its mobile phones business, did not disclose the terms of the BitBand deal. It expects to close the transaction in the current quarter.

BitBand provides Internet-based television technology to 60 operators in countries such as Holland, Italy and Russia, Motorola said. Shares of Motorola rose 8 cents to $8.86 in morning trading on New York Stock Exchange.

Nokia’s N60 handsets are getting a boost in location positioning from Skyhook Wireless, which is offering a $2.99 fast location system called Maps Booster through Nokia’s Ovi app store.

Announced Friday, Maps Booster enables Nokia N60 users to pinpoint locations almost instantaneously, versus the existing location finder application that typically takes a full minute to determine a location. The slow location system was a major problem for Nokia in marketing its phones against Apple’s iPhone.

“You put in Maps Booster once and it will be as effective as an iPhone,” said Skyhook CEO Ted Morgan in an interview. “The location system quickly feeds quality location data to Nokia maps and all other applications that use location like I Parked Here, Google Maps, or Lifecasting with Ovi.”

Morgan said Skyhook developers worked with Symbian developers to develop the application for N60 handsets. Although Nokia transferred its ownership of Symbian to Accenture, the handset manufacturer still has a dominant role in the Symbian operating system.

Skyhook triangulates more than 125 million Wi-Fi access points, a million cell phone towers, and GPS technology to deliver its location applications to a growing roster of cell phones. The service is particularly useful in urban areas.

“As these mobile phones get more sophisticated, there will be a big question of whether users will need dedicated location devices,” Morgan said.