My dream computer is coming together. I want a computer that fits in my pocket with all the power and usability of my desktop PC. Today I see that one more component is about to arrive :D
Think of an iPod-like device that carries your OS and files, that has a built-in projection keyboard and a built-in miniature projector. You set the hand-held device on a flat surface and out of one side it projects a gorgeous video display onto a nearby wall or other vertical surface, and out of the other side it projects a keyboard and touchpad mouse onto the table or desk on which it sits.
All that's missing now is ubiquitous wireless and that's probably not far off either. I can't wait for the future ;-)
Oh, one other feature I forgot to include, and that's the ability to just hijack the peripherals from any desktop I happen to be near. If I set the device down next to a machine with a nice keyboard, mouse and monitor, it should just be able to wirelessly (bluetooth?) connect to those and "borrow" them.
Posted by asa at March 7, 2004 10:50 AMAsa,
pretty cool concept. How about voice recognition? Why should we type on a keyboard in the first place, rather than talk to the little thing and hear it back on a bluetooth earset?
themask, 30 people in a room all talking at their computers would be pretty painful. Unless we get "whisper recognition" technology I'm not a big fan of speech input :-)
I hear lots of people talking about other-than-typing input mechanisms, but I happen to like typing and think it's a fine input mechanism. Voice recognition has its place and I certainly wouldn't object to having it as a part of my "dream machine" but typing is good enough for me.
Posted by: Asa Dotzler on March 7, 2004 04:28 PMI think the flipstart PC is near to what you're takling about, but to my mind it has problems.
Rubbish fiddly keyboard
A full blown windows would be bad to use for simple pda functions like agenda, note taking.
http://www.flipstartpc.com/
Gids, I'm not the least bit interested in pda functions. I don't have a PDA and I don't want one :-) I want my big fat desktop PC and all the peripherals I need to use it effectively packaged into a device about the size of an iPod.
Flipstart PC would be close if it didn't have that silly keyboard and screen :-)
Well, maybe it's not so bad. Hook up the video projector and the projection keyboard and it's getting pretty close. I suspect that they could trim it down in size to something closer to iPod if they didn't have that bulky screen and keyboard.
Posted by: Asa Dotzler on March 7, 2004 11:58 PM