[Leaplist] Intersting!

[Andrew]

On Jan 7, 2009, at 1:35 PM, Ram K. Singh wrote:

> I just found this on dealnews.com. Any reaction/comment would be  
> appreciated.
>
> http://dealnews.com/Sylvania-G-Netbook-VIA-C7-M-1-2-GHz-7-Ultra- 
> Mobile-PC-Laptop-for-240-free-shipping/272445.html

I cannot comment on the netbook itself, but I have a system with one  
of the VIA C7 processors in it.  One of the interesting things about  
it is the "padlock" feature (http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/ 
padlock/hardware.jsp) of the processor -- it has hardware AES and SHA  
encryption built into the CPU, and OpenSSL of any recent distro  
should support it (http://www.logix.cz/michal/devel/padlock/ has the  
details of what software versions support padlock).

The VIA CPUs are targeted at low power consumption applications, so  
they are not speed deamons, and mine only has 128Kb of cache, so  
other than its built-in encryption support, just about anything else  
is going to leave it standing in the dust.  But, it's a neat  
platform, and I hope to be able to get my hands on one of VIA's 64- 
bit chips to replace it when that time comes.

Andrew

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