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Sharp have an LCD screen which can deliver a different image to each eye. These screens allow each eye to see alternate columns of pixels. Combine this (or any other stereoscopic system) with the Liquid Crystal Lense and you'd have a very convincing 3D effect. LCL could also have Occ Health & Safety benefits. Your eyes could be exercised by each window having a different focal depth. Fitter eyes = less need for glasses.

Let me clarify my previous statement: all that stuff I said, but with a 1024x768 (or higher) screen and a real QWERTY keyboard, like on a laptop.

In other words, this except with a swiveling digitizer screen.

Transmeta has one better:
http://store.sharpsystems.com/product.asp?sku=2488 398

compared to:
http://www.dynamism.com/r4/pricing.shtml

The transmeta is smaller (both size and specs-wise) but is significantly cheeper as well ($1200 vs. $2000+)

It's not like this guy invented the technology anyway. These screens are intended for use as true autostereoscopic 3D displays (natural 3D without glasses, like a hologram). They are much, much cooler when put to this use. You can buy a 3D-display laptop from Sharp that gives a pretty neat effect, and I've seen a lenticular plasma display that was really awesome under the right viewing conditions (it could actually display 7 distinct images at once, so you could "walk around" the displayed image a bit by moving your head from side to side). I guarantee that an autostereoscopic 3D display is going to attract more attention than one simply displaying different images from different angles.

Unfortunately, those lenticular screens cut your resolution and brightness in half or worse, with some bleed-through from the other pictures, not to mention the screen-door lines effect. Usually, the optimum viewing range is quite narrow, requiring you to be a certain distance away and near the center of the display. A room with controlled lighting is also necessary due to the brightness problems.

Why is it news when another company jumps on the 3D using parallax bandwagon?

Sharp has done it, Toshiba has done it. All three are using the same layered LCD technology. Slashdot has covered each one now

BB

I''ve been trying to find out if it is possible to get the Sharp Actius AL3DU laptop to run 3DS Max in autostereo mode together with a plugin for a 3D haptic input device called the SensAble PHANTOM Omni. It also might be cool to add the 3Dconnexion SpacePilot input device for navigation.

I think this would be the ultimate interface for 3D design. Has anyone had any experience with this? I've been emailing all the companies involved and have gotten responses saying that there are problems with this setup. I'd like to try it out on my own, but putting it together would cost a fortune and I don't want to blow all that cash just to find out it doesn't work.

You can see it here.

More to the point, are there any applications that make sensible use of this ?

Sharp has had 3D Displays that don't require glasses for some time now.

> > How exactly does Emporer Linux justify chargin $500
> Your business is to decide whether or not you want to pay for stuff.

It is his business also to ask how stuff justifies the gap between $3499 and $4000.

Thanks for that LoneCabbage.

How do you like it so far?

I've been thinking about getting the MM series' successor, the MP30.

Not to mention there are 3D monitors and most mice have wheels now (might be a bit cumbersome to use the wheel to move in the z axis, but it's usable).

Darn, and all this time I've been wishing they'd make a convertable tablet Actius MM20 -- and now it seems that they have!

Too bad it doesn't run OS X. : P

[I bought an iBook because I couldn't find a MM10 at the time, and now I'm spoiled]

...even on my G4 PowerBook (which incidentally makes any PC laptop I have yet seen look like a brick when you see them side by side).

Thanks, but no, that's not it. What I'm looking for would have a 4:3 screen and no keyboard (unless it was laptop-sized, and actually big enough to be usable). Basically, I want a digital 5"x7" notepad. The main issue is that I want a decent sized screen, one big enough to be a whole "page." If you can imagine the PADD from Star Trek, or a slate tablet version of this (note the dimensions), or just the screen part of a thin-and-light laptop, you've about got it.

For the money, I think the Sharp Actius MM20 is a better machine. Same 1GHZ Efficeon processor, but 512mb of RAM, built in ethernet, wifi, pc card slot, and 2 usb ports, and the screen is 10.1" instead of the tiny 7". It still only weighs 2 lbs, and costs quite a bit less. By itself it's $1500; there's an optional external USB DVD/CDRW drive for $99, and for an addtional $200 you get a long run battery which gives up to 9 hours of runtime.

Best of all, everything works in Linux -- Emperor Linux sells this as the Meteor, although IMO they tack on too much of a premium. But you can find do it yourself Linux install instructions for several distros at Linux on Laptops.

Do you notice anything in common?

Perhaps Microsoft is making some deals under the table to prevent Linux from getting into the laptop market.

I'm using a 12" iBook right now and I'll tell you it wouldn't work for a tablet (it's a great laptop though!). It weighs almost 5 lbs and it's too thick. To make an Apple tablet work, they'd have to start with a Powerbook (aluminum is ligher and thinner than the acrylic on the iBook) and take out the optical drive, at the very least. It might even help to move to a 10.4" screen so they could use a smaller battery, and switch to an iPod-style 1.8" hard drive.

Now, a laptop that would make a damn good tablet with little to no modification is the Sharp Actius MM20. It* weighs only 2 lbs and is about half an inch thick, and has a 10.4 inch screen. That's really the biggest thing I would want to use while carrying around. A tablet PC needs to be more similar in weight to a clipboard than a textbook!

*I've only actually seen the old version, the MM10. I assume the new one is the same, though.

. . . but this could be the gamers new dream toy.

I think you mean wet dream. But hey, if you wanna drop $1500 on a LCD (yay dead pixels) monitor so you can 'be better at video games', kudos to you.

Oh btw, it has a 25ms response time, not quite high-end gaming material.

The Sharp Actius MM20 gets some pretty amazing battery life. With the extended battery they really do get 8 or 9 hours running most anything.

Would somebody please tell me why they can't just make a Sharp Actius MM-10 (or -20 now, I guess) with a swiveling screen?!! That would be the best palmtop/tablet PC ever, since it's so much thinner and lighter than all the tablets I've seen so far, and it has Wi-Fi and no useless CD-ROM! It's sad that the company that makes the Zaurus can't figure this one out...

(link, by the way)

Microcenter has had them in Sharp Notebooks. The display model looked like a very nice ultraportable (reminded me of a Toshiba Portege - wish the Portege came with one). Apparently Sony has some VAIO models with Transmeta them as well.

You can find some retail Transmeta systems at Transmetazone.com.

Though no one seems to be doing much but complain about the memory (stop reading hype and benchmark your usage), I'm loving this notebook. I still need to check if I can get my Windows Refund, but other than that -- With the normal battery, it lasts 3-4 hours and looks incredibly sexy. With the hi-cap battery, it looks somewhat less sexy and lasts 9-10 hours.

Upsides:

1. long battery life
2. small
3. powerful enough (won't play movies or games, which is good, because I take it to school)
4. seems durable (dropped it from desk hight, still works fine)
5. usb2 sync cradle, like everything else, is standard -- usb mass storage. Works fine with Linux. I just leave my home dir on the laptop and mount it on the desktop, backup to a server.
6. If the performance bothers you, stop using Windows -- Linux 2.6 owns on this.

Downsides:

1. The dvd/cdrw combo drive (which they give you free), although nifty in all other respects (usb2, can be booted from), needs its own power source.
2. No floppy drive, unless you want to spend another $99 -- but I consider this an advantage (less legacy), and with the cdrw drive, who needs floppies?
3. 256 megs ram max. Trust me, you won't need it.
4. 1 gHz crusoe. Crusoe has questionable benchmarks, but it makes up for the lack of horsepower with efficiency -- fanless and insanely long battery life
5. Keyboard has "/" key too far to the left. I use Linux, and this is annoying.
6. LCD screen is really only visible dead on, unless you turn up the brightness, which eats battery life. I also consider this a plus, because it is a security measure -- even if my friends were Linux ninjas, they couldn't see what I was doing anyway.
7. Smallness can be a problem. It weighs less than 2 pounds with the small battery and is shaped slightly like an airfoil. I live in Iowa, so sometimes it wants to blow away.
8. Too sexy. I get asked way too many times a day "Is that a computer????"

If you think you deserve this, you don't. But you may want to buy it for yourself anyway. And use Linux -- enough people ask for a Windows Refund and they'll pay attention.

• Entry level models are sub-$1000
  
• 3.07 lbs
  
• Bigger disk in the higher-end models
  
• No integrated cdrw - buy an aftermarket one if you need one for the road
  
• Yeah, outdated Pentium 3 technology. Read the reviews - it beats some of the castrated P4 notebooks you see (ok but not the P4M a.k.a. Centrino minus the wifi)
  
• Bad-ass extended battery for 7 hours claimed life
  
• Compact-flash slot integrated ... kinda neat
  

• 1 Ghz Transmeta chip (go rooting for the underdog)
  
• Nifty sync-up thingy for another pc if this is not your main one
  
• All the wifi goodies
  
• $1500 or so
  
• Probably runs Linux too
  

• Entry level models are sub-$1000
  
• 3.07 lbs
  
• Bigger disk in the higher-end models
  
• No integrated cdrw - buy an aftermarket one if you need one for the road
  
• Yeah, outdated Pentium 3 technology. Read the reviews - it beats some of the castrated P4 notebooks you see (ok but not the P4M a.k.a. Centrino minus the wifi)
  
• Bad-ass extended battery for 7 hours claimed life
  
• Compact-flash slot integrated ... kinda neat
  

• 1 Ghz Transmeta chip (go rooting for the underdog)
  
• Nifty sync-up thingy for another pc if this is not your main one
  
• All the wifi goodies
  
• $1500 or so
  
• Probably runs Linux too
  

(sorry if I sound like a commercial in this post)

If you're looking for laptops with 12" screens, take a look at the Sharp Acticus MV series. It has all the features of the other 12" notebooks without the $2000 entry price. (Though its a P3 1.13Ghz machine, not a Centrino)

I picked up an MV 12 a few months ago and I love it. I would've been disapointed if i went with the Viao r505 and I'm not sure I would've liked the ibm x series over this.

1" thick, 3.6lbs, built in DVD/CDRW (one of the few 12" machines that doesnt need an external drive), built-in 802.11b (with two black antennas on the sides of the display), 40Gig drive... 256M ram standard.

Dual boots of linux / XP work flawlessly... No wireless problems, etc...
After picking up a 2nd mem-module (for a total of 512M ram) it cost $1300 :)

If you want something even smaller, (and about $150 cheaper) check out the MV10. It's basicly the same machine but the DVD/CDRW is moved to an external adapter

(sorry if I sound like a commercial in this post)

If you're looking for laptops with 12" screens, take a look at the Sharp Acticus MV series. It has all the features of the other 12" notebooks without the $2000 entry price. (Though its a P3 1.13Ghz machine, not a Centrino)

I picked up an MV 12 a few months ago and I love it. I would've been disapointed if i went with the Viao r505 and I'm not sure I would've liked the ibm x series over this.

1" thick, 3.6lbs, built in DVD/CDRW (one of the few 12" machines that doesnt need an external drive), built-in 802.11b (with two black antennas on the sides of the display), 40Gig drive... 256M ram standard.

Dual boots of linux / XP work flawlessly... No wireless problems, etc...
After picking up a 2nd mem-module (for a total of 512M ram) it cost $1300 :)

If you want something even smaller, (and about $150 cheaper) check out the MV10. It's basicly the same machine but the DVD/CDRW is moved to an external adapter

Check out the Sharp Actius MM10. It's basically a 10.5" screen and keyboard with integrated wi-fi. Just over 0.5" thick, 2.1 lbs and fanless. I saw it at Fry's for about $1300, but if you just want a machine that is basically a wi-fi terminal, this is the one for you.

It's all a trade-off between power, size, and cost. And it doesn't look like Vulcan has any better technology than anybody else.

• I've been waiting for YEARS to see the pixels get so small you cannot see them.

"Apple currently has the thinnest/lightest laptop on the market with an optical drive." What about this notebook from Sharp? It's 4.13 lbs with a CD-RW/DVD Combo vs. 4.6 lbs for the 12" PowerBook G4. It's also about the same volume as the Powerbook G4 (110.6132 for the G4, somewhere between 103 and 113 for the Sharp). It also has an external PC card slot, FireWire, 2x USB, Integrated 802.11b, Integrated 10/100 LAN, TV and VGA out, An integrated modem, a P3 1.13GHZ, 256M of memory, 40G HDD, XGA secreen, etc. Very comparable to the 12" PowerBook G4, except perhaps for the GPU. The PowerBook starts at $1,799. The Sharp system starts at $1,799. So, when Apple says they have the "smallest fully featured notebook", the're lying. Unless a "fully featured notebook" has to be a Mac.

I too have this monitor after reading a review in MaximumPC (not online?) of the 18" model.

Amazing for a 16" 1280x1024. monitor. Sharp also just released a 20" model. Supports 1600x1200 with _dual_ DVI -- no analog without (included) adapter.

Sure, there are cheaper monitors, but these Sharp LCD's are quite amazing. Too bad they are so hard to find.