Technologizer » Psion

Like Symbian, Only Good

Harry McCracken — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:23:35 +0000

When I pick up a phone based on Nokia’s Symbian operating system, I get a little teary. (I exaggerate, but only a smidge.) Symbian is the modern-day descendant of Psion’s wonderful EPOC PDA OS from the 1990s, but it doesn’t show a decade’s worth of improvement. Actually, it’s backslid in some ways: It’s not as usable as EPOC was, and current Nokia Symbian devices sure don’t feel as snappy as my trusty Psion Series 5 did.

But here’s reason for at least guarded optimism: Engadget has grabbed some images from a Nokia presentation that previews a 2010 version of Symbian. It has an all-new user interface. And it looks…pretty good. The presentation only shows still images, so there’s only so much you can tell about the future of Symbian from it. But consider my appetite whetted.

5Words for Monday, June 1st, 2009

Harry McCracken — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:45:42 +0000

Greetings from LAX, tech lovers…

“Netbook” trademark spat is over.

Advertising invades the Kindle. Sorta.

Should YouTube charge for uploads?

Hey, it’s Space Invaders soap!

U.S. may get streaming BBC.

Om Malik’s Palm Pre impressions.

eMusic gets older Sony music.

We May Need a New Name For Netbooks

Harry McCracken — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:02:37 +0000

Back in the mid-1990s, I loved my Psion PDA as much as any gadget I’ve ever owned. But Psion stopped making consumer products years ago, and I wasn’t even positive if the company–which spun off its software unit into phone OS powerhouse Symbian–was still in business.

Well, it is. And JK on the Run is reporting that its lawyers are sending letters to netbook sites telling them they have until the end of March to stop using the term “netbook.” That’s because Psion once made a subnotebook called the netBook, and apparently still has a trademark on the name.

Back in the day, Psion was in many ways a visionary company, and its netBook was very much like a modern netbook–it was an undersized, solid-state notebook designed primarily for going online with.I was tempted to get one at the time. But I hope that its attempts to suppress use of the generic “netbook” go nowhere. I’m no trademark lawyer, but until it started siccing lawyers on people, the current Psion apparently had so have so little interest in its netBook that it’s consigned to a page of discontinued products, and the link for more information is dead. If we’re talking about a dispute between modern-day Psion and the rest of the world, I’m taking the side of the rest of the world.

But the possibility remains that Psion (which calls itself Psion Teklogix these days) may succeed in squelching use of “netbook.” Which would mean we’d need a new name for small, cheap notebooks. The only existing alternative I can think of off the top of my head is Microsoft’s dreadful acronym ULCPC (Ultra Low-Cost Personal Computer). Understandably enough, nobody uses it except for Microsoft.

A few ideas, just in case we need them (tragically, all of these stink):

Webbook (or Webook)
Internetbook
Netnote
Cloudbook (except for the fact that Everex would complain)
Cloudnote
SIN (Small Inexpensive Notebook)
Websub
Subtop
Cheapbook

Or we could simply call them…notebooks. Which is what they are.

Any other candidates?