Sneak is often puzzled by the neologisms seized upon by IT suppliers. The latest oddity is Qosmio, imminently about to become the new brand used by Toshiba in what sounds to Sneak like an attack on Sony’s better-established Vaio range. New Qosmio laptops will offer integrated TV, DVD and audio functions and will benefit from being able to play multimedia files without first having to boot into Windows XP Media Center Edition, apparently. Vaio is of course an acronym, standing for Video Audio Integrated Operation, but Qosmio appears not to be. So what is the thinking? To Sneak’s eye at least, the new brand is a very short lexical hop from the name Quasimodo. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was of course kind-hearted by nature but pug-ugly to look at - making for an oddly inverted comparison to Windows-powered laptops for the style conscious. Then again, maybe Tosh is simply trying to say that its new products will ship with all the bells ... and whistles.

16 Jul 2004