If the tiny 7″ screen of Asus Eee PC is big enough to work on, it’s certainly big enough to act as a secondary mini-monitor for another computer. That’s exactly what Asus new UFOTO UF735 will do.

Sold in the guise of a music playing digital photo frame, the 800×480 UFOTO will also act as a “Sub-Display”, letting you either mirror the computer’s main screen, extend it, or just select a part to display.

The specifications list only a USB port for connection, so I assume that it uses some kind of DisplayLink-like tech to send the video signal via USB.

The metal frame also has slots for the major memory card formats. Whether this is actually useful or not depends largely on the price. If it’s cheap, it’s a surefire winner.

The trouble is, you can pick up a whole 22″ LCD monitor for not much more than $200.00 USD, and most LCD picture frames are over $100. If it’s $50, I’ll buy one, even if it does look like a turquoise Etch-a-Sketch.

Source: The Asus UFOTO UF735 Press Release

Open hardware specs seem to be catching on. After the OpenMoko released CAD design files for all of its handsets, Via’s gone and done the same thing with their new OpenBook. It’s only the outside that’s being released as an open design, but that’s not a bad start.

The OpenBook site spells it out like this:

The external panel CAD files for the VIA OpenBook Reference Design are being released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license giving customers the flexibility to bring their own innovative style and brand value propositions to the Mini-Note market segment. This also helps customers reduce product development costs and speed time-to-market.

This is really cool, however I suspect that once you give people a taste of what’s possible, they’re going to demand the whole enchilada, not just the external design, but the internal boards, the BIOS, everything.

I’m convinced that we’re now seeing changes in the way hardware is created and marketed that emulate the way open source software has been produced, not just in the sense of making things available for other people to re-use, but in the sense of how that changes where the real innovation will be taking place.

There’s always going to be room for people like Apple, whose designs are patented (i.e., closed) but typically groundbreaking but there also ought to be a place for folks like Asus, where the design is just a place to start.

Krusell has a new line of unisex laptop bags launching next week and its pretty nice looking too. Now you don’t have to worry if your girlfriend or wife dislikes the colours in this range of bags since they are unisex and even you can re-use it.

The laptop bags come in a variety of fashionable colours in one size to fit 15, 4” laptops. The Radical bag is made of 100% Terylene weave and comes in three different unique designs. The Breeze laptop bag is made of high quality embossed cow leather. It comes in four different designs to match the already existing Breeze mobile phone case and neck strap collection. Both bags are equipped with a trolley function with zipper closure at the backside.

You can get them in stores March 2008 onwards. Radical messenger bags go for a price of EUR 64,90 and Breeze for EUR 189.

below : Krusell Breeze bags

below : Krusell Radical bags