Laptop upgrades are not difficult to complete yourself, and there are three key upgrades that you can easily accomplish to make your laptop run faster.  These will also give your laptop a higher resale value when you decide to replace it.

One of the most simple laptop upgrades to complete yourself is to upgrade your operating system. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Media Center, upgrading to Windows Vista is a good idea.  You will be able to take advantage of the many features of Windows Vista, as well as enhance the speed of your system.  An upgrade to Windows Vista for the Home Basic edition is under $100 and is worth it to enhance the efficiency of your system. (More…)

Microsoft has now made it possible to enjoy the wireless fredom of their official Xbox 360 controller on your UMPC (or any windows PC, really). A new controller skew is on its way that combines 1 wireless Xbox 360 controller and 1 wireless USB dongle.

Designed by the Xbox 360 gaming team, the controller features the following:

• 2.4 GHz wireless technology with up to a 30-foot range

• Adjustable vibration feedback for longer battery life

• Precise thumb sticks

• Two pressure-point triggers

• Eight-way direction pad for enhanced PC gaming

• Integrated headset jack for PC headsets

The new Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows is a superior wireless gaming controller that works with Windows XP-based PCs and the Xbox 360 system to deliver a consistent entertainment experience across Microsoft’s gaming platforms.

Sounds awesome! We can’t wait to play iHangman with this!

I have no idea what USB Duet technology is, but the developers of it are making a pitch to include it future UMPC specs.

USB Duet HD/MTP provides a direct and fast connection from an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) to home PC for transferring digital media. It also allows for easy synchronisation with the home PC for new e-mail, music and other digital content. USB Duet Technology performs much faster than the current Bluetooth or WiFi connection.

I”m betting adoption will be ultra-low. For all the technical nitty-gritty, check out the press release.

I’ll admit that I may just have missed this announcement, but it is new to me. And I imagine it is new to some Ultranauts readers too. Bottom-line? If you are contemplating the Samsung Q1, it may pay to hold off a bit:

Samsung also plans to release the Q1b, a version of the UMPC that uses a 60GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and more significantly Via’s C7-M processor — which could help prolong its miserably short battery life.

Sounds good! You can read more abut Samsung’s mobility plans at Cnet.

It has been quiet on the UMPC news front lately. Very quiet.

We’ve heard that several new UMPCs are headed our way during “the holiday season.”

I’ve seen at least one of those yet-to-be announced models.

And then there’s that whole DELL thing. Are exploding UMPC batteries just around the corner?

Lot’s of possibilities for the future… so, is this the calm before the storm?

Or did the UMPC die quietly in its sleep?

Earlier today, we posted about the incredible sums ($50,000 USD) paid for two Chinese UMPC domains. Kicking myself needlessly for not registering ultranauts.cn earlier, I went ahead and checked out those Chinese domains, including UMPC.cn. And low-and-behold, this little site showed why it was worth the big bucks!

UMPC.cn has unveiled the Apple UMPC to the world. Sure, it’s all rumor an innuendo at this point. And it’s good rumor at that! A great mock-up, realistic specs, a high-price domain and home-base to all Apple manufacturing adds a certain air of credibiltiy to this. Either that or we’re being sensationalist. And when have we ever done that?

Google effectively translates the Chinese site and offers up these tidbits about what Apple will launch under their “UMPC products”:

UMPC size only palm size screens are mostly about seven inches, and all of its configuration and interfaces with a few ordinary notebook, and coupled with Wi-Fi wireless, Laya and other functions, regardless of sexual performance and portable, are quite attractive.

Well, that just maybe one for the history books, folks… and you heard it at Ultranauts first. Not only does Apple have a UMPC headed our way, but it will apparently be “quite attractive” regardless of and despite your sexual performance. This is truly a UMPC that the geek crowd can get behind.

Where do I pre-order? Read it all here.

Yes, that is not a typo. Two UMPC domain names were autctioned off for just under $50,000. Unfortunately, Ultranauts.com was not one of them. In fact, you probably haven’t heard of either of them. They are both Chinese domains.

A pair of sites named for ultra-mobile personal computing (umpc.cn and umpc.com.cn), one of the hottest technologies around, fetched an eye-popping 390,000 yuan ($49,000).

Excuse me a moment while I go register ultranauts.cn. Read the whole heart-warming story via CNN.com.

This doesn’t have much to do with true UMPCs. The ad depicted above focuses on a super-small Sony Vaio, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see the device above replaced by a UMPC.

It’s a fun, funny commerical. Let’s see this kind of cleverness and creativity directed toward the mighty UMPC. WARNING: Though this is a Sony ad, it may not be safe for all work environments.