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Handhelds Hardware

Psion's über-Gadgets 45

Posted by Hemos from the fun-looking-stuff-for-your-body dept.
OberonX writes " Psion has issued some new PDA concepts which are quite breath-taking. My favourite is ACE but HALO looks quite neat too. Both of them are concepts, many situations are still to be taken care(like battery life) but they sure look promising. "
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Psion's über-Gadgets More

Psion's über-Gadgets

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  • eBookman is still better (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the eBookman [franklin.com] from franklin is still much better, and much cheaper.

  • same graphic artist? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My question is: were these "concepts" Adobe'd up by the same graphic artist who "produced" the promised but recently cut Symbian-based Odin phone [infosync.no] and the promised but recently cut GPRS wireless [infosync.no]?

    We're talking about a company that makes revenue by popping up full-page Get Rich Quick ads [hightrafficads.com] when you visit their site. Taking these guys seriously is a bit of a stretch.

    Fuck, if I could afford $50k for a decent Adobe workslave, could I get on the front page of Slashdot too?

  • Re:same graphic artist? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We're talking about a company that makes revenue by popping up full-page Get Rich Quick ads when you visit their site. Taking these guys seriously is a bit of a stretch.

    Try and remember that the ad is launched by infosync, not Psion... This is a news piece based on _concept_ sketches - seen anything like this from Palm have we?

  • Re:EPOC - SYMBIAN - WE ARE YOUR FUTURE! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One word: Documentation. Where is it for this wonderful Symbian Platform? I know some exists within the companies developing for Symbian and Symbian partners, but the SDK's help-file is just nowhere near the amount necessary for rapid development. There exists only one book, which was written for the previous release of the OS, and is very superficial - like the SDK docs - to say the least. And unlike for Linux (or - gasp - even Pocket PC), you can't find any information by using google etc.

    I know this because I am a former Symbian developer. I've been keeping up with the OS since, but as I last got an inspiration and started writing for Crystal, it hit me again. The documentation sucks. The OS itself has a nice, clean architecture but could use some more standard libraries to make application porting easier (or possible).

  • One where nothing happens in the bottom left of the screen..

    Maybe the three bits can be arranged into a wide-screen format arrangement?

    Baz
  • you can get a Tricorder here [starland.com] or at lease see a close up of one - the one with 'blinking lights' costs $150 extra.

    In unrelated news, you can get a (the?) BigFoot film for only a cool mil here [ebay.com].

  • WARNING: Blatent Plug for My Employer Follows!

    Although it's not a pad, the TI-83+ Silver Edition does include an organizer. See:

    http://education.ti.com/product/tech/83pse/featu re s/features.html

    (As to future developments, I'm not allowed to comment, but let's just say we're well aware of the potential...)

    Jared
    http://education.ti.com/
  • yes, if you get on a Wimbledon train at Earls court at about 8.25am. Hey, you could even use their armpit if you'd rather. Lovely.

    :-O

    ;-)

  • Fun and Games with Halo (Score:5)

    by rleyton ( 14248 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @05:00AM (#120562) Homepage
    I like the projection idea, although I can't see the projection onto the palm of the hand being ideal. I get enough stares on The Tube [tubehell.com] as it is when I pull out my Palm pilot, but projecting my appointments onto my hand ("what IS he doing over there?") the roof (remember when the laser pens first came out? Oh the fun we had), or the forehead of the person opposite me ("Why's everyone staring at me"), could lead to fun and games on a packed District Line in rush hour....
  • Gee, I love having a huge sweaty, smelly uncut member of a browser-exploding popup ad thrust in my face.

    Hello hightrafficads.com, and congratulations on getting your whole fscking website included in my junkbuster .block file.

  • Google caches practically every page, so I would assume that they had this legally tested.
  • Slashdot should seriously consider during the editorial process to cache certain site's pages.

    It's one thing to send thousands of click through to CNET, quite another to send that same bandwidth vacuum over to a little site in Norway.

    -- Rob

  • While all of this is lovely as far as pie-in-the-sky stuff goes, what about desperately needed updates to current models? USB anywhere on their product line (promised for nearly a year now)? How about a Macintosh connection suite that doesn't look like it's been ported from the Apple IIe? I think Psion should get cracking on things that will restore them to financial health *today* rather than throwing money directly down the sewer by investing in concept art which, as we all know, will never result in a physical product.
    Oh, and I *DO* like Psion's products. Moderate flame levels accordingly.
  • What like PSION?

    Yeah....

    Think that's weird try figuring out why car brands and models are named the way they are. That's why I drive cars with numbers in their names like revision levels.

  • movie? (Score:2)

    by cxreg ( 44671 )
    It says you can combine all 3 screens on the ACE to watch a movie...

    I dont know what kind of movie you'd want to watch on a screen like this [infosync.no]

  • Perl and Java (Score:4)

    by chrysalis ( 50680 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @08:27AM (#120569) Homepage
    I have a Psion 5 MX for a while, and what I love with Epoc is the presence of native Java and Perl interpreters. And they work very well. When I worked as a programming teacher, I checked algorithms in the train on the Psion. Really nice.
    Another great thing : Opera. I've never seen IE on Windows CE devices, but Opera for Epoc renders very well.
    Last great thing with Epoc : you can find a lot of freeware. More than on Palm (a lot of shareware) and much more than Pocket PC (almost no freeware at all) .

    -- Pure FTP server [pureftpd.org] - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.

  • AT LAST Slashdot recognises Psion! (Score:4)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @05:45AM (#120570) Homepage

    My god, its a miracle after reams of articles pushing inferior competition and vapourware, Psion gets a pat on the back.

    Psion has _always_ been ahead of the game in the PDA world. A proper 32bit RTOS, the links with the mobile companies. And of course the new Nokia Communicator (the first decent phone to be available in the US) runs the EPOC OS, developed by Psion and spun off into Symbian.
  • Actually, most of the recruiters that I deal with want resumes that long. It is considered a project based resume, the more information the better. As a contractor, I work on a shit-load of projects, most short-term.

    --
    microsoft, it's what's for dinner

    bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com

  • SlashDot DDOS (Score:4)

    by vbrtrmn ( 62760 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @06:26AM (#120572) Homepage
    The authorities are still baffled as the SlashDot DDOS claims yet another site. Why must SlashDot continually attempt to hinder these small sites, possibly causing the owners to have to take them down, because the can't afford to pay for the bandwidth?

    If I ever get SlashDotted, I'm gonna sue :P

    --
    microsoft, it's what's for dinner

    bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
  • That's why I love Konqueror so much. Check the box that says "Disable window.open" and you get rid of popup ads forever. I wish all browsers had such an option...

  • More concepts... (Score:4)

    by dostick ( 69711 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @05:56AM (#120574) Homepage Journal

    ..check out this page [wirelessinanutshell.com]for a lot more very nice gadgets! It's impressive, i renmember half year ago there was couple of them by Ericsson/Nokia, today there are tens of those.
  • kids, ignore this post.
    anybody who takes a car full of kids onto a crowded
    subway is asking for trouble.
    PDA or no PDA.

  • Are you sure the forehead of the person opposite will be far enough away?

  • Psion has _always_ been ahead of the game in the PDA world

    No, No, No. Psion always fell at the first hurdle because they fell for the "what fits in my hand must be a palm sized PC" and the reason that Palm shipped so many units was their one innovation, recognising that the problem domain was not "how to make PCs smaller" but "how little do I need to put into a PDA". Methinks they got it right (well at least more right that Psion). The number of units sold tends to support this.

    Before someone comes up with the "many better technologies fail" response, I shall respond with a sufficiency test. I will concede that the Psion/EPOCH may well be a better solution in technical, or even functional terms, but the Palm provided "sufficient" funcionality for the problem domain of PDA and anything more became overkill (Beta was always more expensive than VHS and VHS had a killer app, pr0n).

  • Odd that you would end your advertisement with the words "have a pleasant ad-free day"...
  • Mark this down again, it's not Psion's site - it's not their ad-campaign ...

    The Odin device was shown at Symbian devexpo last year. I played with it. It did exist - but was sadly cut due to Motorola doing weird things.

  • You _do_ know that a Psion Revo outdoes Palm in all aspects .. ? _With_ a keyboard ..

    And yes, it's on sale, has been for a long while.

  • EPOC - SYMBIAN - WE ARE YOUR FUTURE! (Score:4)

    by Troed ( 102527 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @04:56AM (#120581) Homepage Journal
    Psion's über-gadgets. Based on the Epoc operating system. Now known as the Symbian [symbian.com] platform. Made by .. Symbian [symbian.com]. Symbian [symbian.com] is owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Panasonic and Psion. Other licensees are Sony, Kenwood etc.

    There's your smartphone and PDA future. Epoc is truly a wonderful operating system for these kind of devices, and it's wonderful to program for. Yeah, I've done it for a few years now.

    Symbian Devnet [symbiandevnet.com] - start downloading the SDKs. They are possible to run on Linux also with a little help from Wine.

  • You could watch 3/4 of Timecode [imdb.com]
  • Correct Link:

    http://www.infosync.no/en/news/n/419.asp [infosync.no]

    The Pop up full size ad page is annoying.

    I remember the old Star Trek Tricorder that was sort of like a PDA with sensors, but was the size of a 5x8 book. (Book? what is this thing called a book?) What is funny, looking back, is that it was not believable that something would be highly functional, while being really thing (like a clipboard) That is more believable now.

    I must say that certain form factors will tend to be used more often, just by being more traditional, such as a tablet, etc.

    I like the attempt to get into more exotic form factors and display options

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • I recently got a Psion Revo. The thing is amazing. It's got tremendous power packed into a thing that I can put in my pocket. Then I pull it out and type email on it. Stylish. Daring in design. I'm damn impressed.
  • do one hang our Halo on our bedpost at night? :-)
  • ...I've thought it myself many times.

    How 'bout it Cowboy and company...how hard would it be to cache a few links. We all know and joke about sites being Slashdotted, but I can't imagine that the process is all that funny if it is happening to your site/server. Besides -- it can be frustrating as a reader to want to see the original story/link and have the site be down because of all the traffic.

    Would there be IP (intellectual property not the other kind of IP) issues that would make this a big no-no?

  • ACE Link (Score:3)

    by anpe ( 217106 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @04:54AM (#120587)
    There's a typo : ACE [infosync.no] is the correct link
  • What, no laments/rejoices about how this machine does or does not run Linux ? Just exactly who is running this show ?
  • Three screens sounds cool, and the authors make a reasonably good rationalization for their use, but in the absence of real photos of the 3 screen device, I think I might prefer having one larger screen with a windowing system that let me display multiple types of information, rather than 3 single small screens...it would let me see more when I needed to. For instance, a 21" monitor costs well more than 3 or 4 15" monitors, but who wouldn't prefer the one larger monitor ? I guess there would be power savings when using only one of the screens, though. I suppose figuring out the strengths/weaknesses of various approaches is the whole point of building concept devices.
  • I also wonder how long the hinges on the screens would last in the environments PDA users typically find themselves in (crowded subway stations, in the car with kids, etc.)...
  • I recently had the opportunity to play with one of the new TabletPCs [microsoft.com] being released next year by the Evil Empire [microsoft.com]. While I usually avoid MS products at all costs (I haven't fired up VMware now in nearly 2 months), this thing was very impressive.

    8 1/2 x 11 with very good hand writing rec, and a decent interface to insert text into non-reco enabled programs. It seems like an ideal machine for a bunch of the most common computer uses I have at home. It's also got PCMCIA, USB, Firewire and VGA out, so you can dock it if you get the itch.

    Unfortunately, at $1500-2500 (US), it's going to be a bit price-heavy as a PDA replacement, but I see people sinking all kinds of moolah into their PDAs. What's the actual cost of a new m-series Pilot, or iPaq once you get a keyboard and 802.11 and microdrive and... ?

    Now, if someone can get Linux with decent handwriting reco running on the TabletPC hardware (TabLinuxPC?), I'm all over it.

    That is all.

  • PSION have always made great products ... (Score:3)

    by GreenEggsAndHam ( 317974 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @05:54AM (#120592)
    ... but have never had the recognition they deserve.

    Right now they're desperate, all their efforts have collapsed so all that there is left for them is to generate concept art.

    It's sad to say but they have no money left and they're laying off staff like mad.

    It's sad to see them fail because they had the best h/w, the best OS and the best s/w.
  • Perhaps it blacks out the bottom-right section and uses the top two?
  • Currently connecting to the sight, like the products I'm supposed to see there, is just a concept. ;o)

  • Re:School PDA (Score:3)

    by the bluebrain ( 443451 ) on Friday June 29, 2001 @05:25AM (#120595)
    I still mourn the Newton/eMate [apple.com].
    The smallest integrated computer which was big enough to act as it's own development environment, and had no legacy issues in the OS. Closest thing to the Sandbender [mostlyfiction.com] (Idoru). *sigh*
  • Well, you can get PERL [cpan.org] and a Shell [dyndns.org]
  • Someone should really develop a PDA for school use. It should have a looseleaf paper sized monochromes LCD screen, DataPlay disc readers (put textbooks and workbooks on DataPlay discs!), and maybe hand-writing recognition. They would only cost like 200 bucks too.



    "People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
  • Yes, one screen might be cheaper, but until we get those bendable OLED screens, they won't fit into this form-factor. If you tried to fold an 8" glass screen small enough to fit in your pocket, you'd end up with a bunch of very sharp, jagged, unreadable screens.

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