New technology in old Taipei

Computex 2000 Each day of Computex, we'll try to bring you a roundup of companies and products that caught our eye at the trade show.

MP3 players. Some people swear by them but an awful lot of folk swear at them. We saw a couple of models which to us, at least, were new. Addonics was exhibiting its Lobo MP3 player, available to OEMs everywhere, the firm hopes. This number offers optional built in memory, expandable memory, weighs 65 grams excluding the batteries, and is 83H x 58W x 17D (millimeters). It claims 12 hours of continuous playback time. Addonics was also showing a number of other devices on its stand including the eZ GO S2000, which has two line LCD display, is upgradeable to 96MB, and also includes FM tuner autoscan. It will record radio content while listening, the firm claims. Pine was also showing an MP3 player V a curious circular jobbie called the Palmp-3. It has a seven band equaliser, 32MB of memory, and comes in some "groovy colours", with a USB interface.

Remember Rise from last year's Computex. Then, the firm was showing its latest microprocessors but something went terribly strange along the way and now it is concentrating on supplying its CPUs for the Information Appliance market. So we saw the Millennium iDragon Wave, which Rise claims is one of the lowest power X86 system on a chip solution for IA.

The skirling of the bagpipes. What's that got to do with Computex? Well, walking down one alley we came across a piper dressed in full Scottish regalia playing a lively little number on his bagpipes. Sure enough, our old friends from Locate in Scotland have a stand at the show yet again. Hoots and jings. On Thursday, we're due to hear a pitch from the Welsh Development Agency so it looks as though the Celtic fringes will be hammer and tongs over attracting investment to their shores once again. ®