S3 Graphics yesterday blew the doors off mobile graphics by announcing a set of mobile GPUs that can work in the tiniest of places, including ultra compact devices like mini-note PCs.

Using the same core architecture as the desktop Chrome 400 series, the 400 ULP GPUs are DirectX 10.1 compatible and feature S3 Graphics' HD Chromotion video engine for playback of HD movies. And how can S3 Graphics go where no discrete GPU has gone before? Simple. Chrome 400 ULP chips use significantly less power than rival products. The 430 ULP uses even less than most IGP solutions.

After all, why should having an ultra portable PC mean sacrificing your gaming and HD video needs? Why not have it all?

While attending the IFA Show in Berlin a week or two ago I was asked by a journalist what I thought about the nascent mini-note/netbook market. Did I think that this was simply a fad? Would the recent buzz around these devices translate into real sales figures? What was the target market for these compact mobile PCs?

Well, I scratched my head for a moment and considered these important questions and considered that many of the latest mini-note PCs where available in a variety of colors with some quite unique and elaborate designs. To me, this is a clear indication of who these devices are aimed at. Young people. Especially young women.

I'm sure a lot of young women would love to own an ultra compact notebook similar to Sony's TX range of ultra portables, but with an ultra prohibitive price tag of a grand and a half or more, few actually do. Sony of course were happy courting the business types with a few bob in their expense accounts when they designed the TX notebook range, and this is my point. Small and sexy used to come at a price. A hefty price.

So when New York-based fashion designer Vivienne Tam teamed up with HP to develop the HP Clutch , I was far from surprised. It made perfect sense to me. Devices like the VIA C7-M based HP 2133 Mini have proved to be hugely successful. But who's buying them? Techy guys like me?  Gamers? Well, possibly. But I've a notion that there's a generation of young boys and girls out there that find being online a lifestyle necessity, and resent being without Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Flicker and the rest of the Web 2.0 diaspora for any peroid of time.

Computers are becoming fashionable and sexy for the first time in history. It's no longer just geeky boys and their toys. Girls need to be connected too. The rise of the mini-note as a serious consumer electronic device is simply an extension of this transition. They're affordable. They're small. And they're also becoming fashionable.  

So, yeah. How did I answer the original question?

Mini-notes are going to be huge. Massive in fact. And of course the experts agree with me.

Having not long returned from the IFA Show in Germany , I was just catching up on what I may have missed from being on the road when I noticed Tangent's Evergreen 17 PC. Using 72% less energy than the Energy Star 4.0 limit, the Evergreen 17 comes with either a 1.0GHz VIA Eden processor or a 1.5GHz VIA C7 and is designed to be a light, durable PC that can be powered by batteries and used in 'point of care' situations. I'm thinking hospitals, care centers and places where a PC can be wheeled around on a cart, perhaps attached to specific or specialized medical equipment, which perhaps explains why it's lacking the raw sexuality the Engadget crowd are used to.

Storage varies according to your needs, with anything from 1GB to 64GB of flash memory available as well as regular hard drives of up to 250GB. WLAN is built-in and there's also the option of a touch screen display.

Tangent focuses primarily on vertical markets, so unfortunately I wouldn't expect to see the Evergreen in high street stores anytime soon, although another option would be to attempt to create your own.

This article on Mini-ITX.com details the hard work and effort of one dedicated modder and his desire to create his own All-in-One PC. A testament to dedication and hard slog.

Although worlds apart, both these devices are both very much centered on the power efficiency of the VIA platforms that run inside them. One borne of blood, sweat and tears....the other designed to assist doctors and nurses in averting the appearance of such fluids.

VIA has today announced a competition where cutomers buying an ARTiGO Builder Kit between now and the 10th of October have the chance to win themselves a HP Mini . For those of you out of the loop here, the ARTiGO Builder Kit allows enthusiasts to construct their very own compact PC using the world's smallest x86 mainboard, the VIA EPIA PX10000EG Pico-ITX board. The kit includes a VIA EPIA PX10000EG board, custom designed chassis with power supply and the various cables you'll need to make it all work. Purchases made from today until October 10th qualify for the prize draw, in which HP's ground breaking Mini-note PC is the prize. Oh, and you can also invite your friends to join in the fun too.

Check out the details here:

VIA is attending this year's Taipei International Robots Show. From today until Sunday you can see first hand how VIA's ultra compact boards, including, most notably, VIA EPIA Pico-ITX boards like the VIA EPIA P700, are becoming the must-have component for robotics enthusiasts everywhere.

Most hobbyist robots are fairly small, certainly not the size of the Asimo from Honda or the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX-based BEAR from Vecna, and while size is a very important consideration, the platform architecture itself is also very important. That's where products like VIA's EPIA Pico-ITX boards have the edge. Not only are they super compact (a mere 10cm x 7.2cm), use very power and produce very little heat, but they are also x86 based.

The advantages of using the x86 architecture are that robotics developers can write and compile software much more easily and also take advantage of decades of software expertise and programming languages that have become mature. Today's robots, at all levels, are more sophisticated and realistic than ever before and that's largely due to software. The intelligence that developers seek to imbue in their creations comes from software, and when it comes to writing software, x86 is where it at. 

This is a video that we've put together, showing a few VIA EPIA-based robots strutting their stuff.

Enjoy.