Slashdot Log In
Meet the Laptop of 2015
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Mar 26, 2008 03:22 PM
from the o-hai-laptop dept.
from the o-hai-laptop dept.
cweditor writes "Like concept cars at auto shows, the computer industry designs 'concept notebooks' to imagine the machines of the future. The 'concepts' may not come to market as-is, but it's likely some of their ideas, components and features will. Take a look at systems you might be using in 7 years. In one, a touch-sensitive screen acts as the system's keyboard and mouse, allowing you to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential. Their associated image gallery includes a prototype for a dual-screen laptop."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
That's nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's nothing new (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
With vibration, haptic advances, visual, and audio feedback, what is wrong with a second touch sensitive screen as the keyboard?
Then when you don't need it as a keyboard, it can become a tool-kit, palette, and any other interface you need.
Parent
Re:That's nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
For the typical road-warrior that totes a laptop around, you need a keyboard that you can type on without having to look at it.
Touch screens work adequately for systems like the iPhone where you need to be looking at the display anyway, but are useless on a laptop where you need to be able to type quickly and move on and off the keyboard without having to look at it all the time.
Parent
Re:That's nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's nothing new (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
small dual screens is kind of a dumb idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally think it probably comes down to cost - it's cheaper for Nintendo to buy two smaller screens than a single large screen. My understanding of LCD technology is that, apparently, it's difficult to grow the crystals without bad pixels, so that as the screens get larger, they rapidly get more expensive, because it's decreasingly likely that you'll get an LCD panel of a particular size without flaws - so all the flawed ones either get thrown away, or maybe they can cut them down to smaller displays (that is, cut out the bad part and end up with 1 or 2 smaller panels) and sold more cheaply at the small size?
Anyhow - *my* laptop of the future has a simple white (or neutral color) flap onto which a display can be projected, and the flap can be folded under the laptop when I want to project onto another surface, like a projection screen or white wall. That is, a laptop with built-in projector, not an LCD. (I suppose, ultimately, for power consumption purposes, you'll never have a projector built in, because it would take too much energy to run, but I can dream, right?)
Parent
I'll be dead by then (Score:5, Funny)
In the future nobody touches anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Even better, with a touch screen, EVERYWHERE you put your fingers, initially, is the homerow.
Parent
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is why a combination of the concepts presented in the article would be far more attractive than any of them separately (I'm surprised the author of the piece didn't pick up on this): One of the laptops is billed as being "for blind people" because the surface can deform to generate bumps that the blind can read. The rest of the laptops have flat touch-screens for keyboards. Which is great for dynamic layouts but sucks for typing.
But combining them would be amazing. Imagine a keyboard that can reconfigure not only what is displayed on each key (like the Optimus), but also the keys themselves. If this "surface deformation" technology was good enough (and could be integrated with flexible displays) then you could have a surface that acts as a flat screen some of the time (for reading e-books, as a drawing pad, etc.) but generates the tactile relief of keys when typing is required.
More generally, it could reconfigure to generate new keyboard layouts as required. This would also solve one of the criticisms with the iPhone and iPod touch: you can't operate them without looking directly at the keys. Imagine if in addition to visual changes on the screen, there were bumps and grooves that dynamically appeared so that by touch alone you could feel the current key layout.
This, to me, is the ultimate future for compact computing devices: we will have screens that can vary both display and topography. Of course the technology to do this will be difficult to "get right" (key topography is only half of typing: you need the keys to "spring" properly)... but there is nothing impossible in principle about having deformable surfaces with integrated flexible displays.
Parent
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only do normal keyboards provide an excellent method of interfacing with a computer, they also cushion the fingers as you type so you don't experience pain and pressure by tapping away at a hard surface all day.
It looks pretty as a rendered image, but functionally I'd never own a computer for regular use that didn't have a normal keyboard - unless you could speak to the computer as you would in Star Trek land.
Parent
Re:In the future nobody touches anything (Score:5, Funny)
As in, when you hit another car, it gives you obvious physical feedback, such as smashing your face in with the dashboard?
No but seriously, I'm curious what you're talking about here.
Parent
Not to poo-poo, but... (Score:5, Funny)
One thing I noticed... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the whole "gee, look, with touch-sensitive screens we can paint a keyboard on the screen that you can use instead of an actual keyboard!"
How the heck are you supposed to touch-type on something that gives you no tactile response?
Re:One thing I noticed... (Score:5, Funny)
May I introduce you to my wife?
Parent
Hardly "futuristic"... (Score:4, Interesting)
With a flexible LCD that rolls up when not in use, coupled with a flexible keyboard that likewise rolls up, one can escape (at least partially), the limiting factor of computer design...that is, having a system that a human can interface with comfortably.
Confidential....riiiiight (Score:4, Funny)
Will it automatically hide the box of kleenex and bottle of hand lotion, too?
Worst ideas ever (Score:5, Insightful)
The one that turns into a book viewer if you turn it 90 degrees is a total joke. Seriously, take your laptop right now, turn it 90 degrees so that the break between the two "halves" is vertical, and tell me that's a comfortable way to handle reading material. Unless it's laying flat on the table (in which case it better be quite small) it's completely unmanageable.
The one they showed slung over the steering wheel of a car, that's just bad. BAD BAD BAD! Hey guys, here's a piece of crap with a touch-screen keyboard you have to stare at in order to use that you can hang right on your steering wheel! And then what, drive and type? That looks like the most uncomfortable thing ever even if you're parked.
I give all these "laptops of the future" an EPIC FAIL out of 10.
I don't want a laptop at all (Score:5, Interesting)
The various Linux-on-a-thumbdrive distributions and products are a step in the right direction. What we really need now is for vendors to design stations that these doodads can plug into.
Re:Obvious question (Score:5, Funny)
Parent