Meet the Laptop of 2015

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."

Re:In the future nobody touches anything

[plumby]

There's been plenty of research into tactile touchscreens already (Nokia seem to think they're on to something [redferret.net]). I'm sure there will be more within the next 7 years.

Re:small dual screens is kind of a dumb idea

[babyrat]

(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?)

Never is a really long time...advances in battery capability (or the replacement of what we call a battery by some other power source) coupled with advances in projector technology (ie http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2242734,00.asp [pcmag.com] ) may make this possible, perhaps sooner rather than later.

 

In the case of the DS, I get the 'flip-ability' is

[JSBiff]

I got to thinking about it more, and while my point is generally correct. I also realize that, perhaps in the DS' specific case, the advantage of having two screens is that they are built into seperate housings that are jointed, so you can flip the screen down for storage (much like a laptop design), but my basic point is that, outside of doing something like that, there is usually no inherent advantage to having multiple physically seperated screens, when you can just logically partition a single screen as necessary.

Re:In the case of the DS, I get the 'flip-ability'

[edwdig]

there is usually no inherent advantage to having multiple physically seperated screens, when you can just logically partition a single screen as necessary.

The dual screens reduces processing power needs. The 2D hardware on the DS requires far, far less power than the 3D hardware, and is also much cheaper to make. The DS design has 2 2D engines and 1 3D engine. Doing one screen would've required bumping up the power of the 3D engine substantially, and probably would require more RAM as well.