Teclast X98 Air On Pre-Sale Tomorrow

Announced via a Weibo communique that reiterates the hardware can do Windows (so, like the X89HD, there will be a Windows 8.1 version announced in a week or so):

The Tmall listing [Google Translate]. The price, at post time here, is 1,299 yuan — but scrolling down shows Teclast says it should be 1,099 (as does today’s Weibo). A 99 yuan deposit will be taken, with the payment balance due on July 31st (that’s likely the shipping date).

Previously here:

Teclast Adds X98 Air To Their Site
Teclast X98 Air Coming
Teclast Teases T98 Air
Teclast Makes AnTuTu Score Claim For P98 Air
A Glimpse Of The Teclast T97 Air?

Five Shows iFive Mini 4 Box

In China, they seem to have A Thing about packaging. Even reviews review the damn boxes tablets come in.

But what to make of this, transmitted via a Weibo communique:

It looks like it’d contain a bunch of colored rocks and shells, not a tablet!

Previously here:

Five Technology Announces iFive Mini 4
iFive Mini 4: More Official Details
iFive Mini 4 Specs Released
iFive Mini 4 Teased
iFive Mini 4: New Information
Rockchip 3288-Based Retina-Class iFive Mini 3! [Updated: Mini 4!]

The Silicants

The tech utopia nobody wants: why the world nerds are creating will be awful

The backlash against Glass is the implied rejection of the kind of casual sociopathy which leads a person to become a surveillance camera, to put a computer between themselves and their every interaction with other people. The philosophy of Glass is inward looking. It improves the life of the wearer at the expense of those around them.

And:

A simple fact remains: there is something intrinsically repellant about a world in which our food, jobs and personal relationships are replaced by digital proxies in the name of ultra-efficient disruption. The geeks, with their ready willingness to abandon social norms, are pulling us toward a utopia nobody wants.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me throughout.

Silicon Valley is a very, very sick culture populated not by human beings, but by a new digital deviant hybrid species: Silicants.

Previously here:

Our Jules Verne Ant-Like Future
Babylon Lives Again

The Xiaomi MiBand: US$13