Forget the Palm - Give Me The Finger

Handheld computers are cute. Someday I'm sure I'll find one that will wean me away from my treasured pen and pad for fast notetaking, and at least partially from my laptop computer. But I don't think a Palm or even a Linux PDA like a Yopy or Agenda will do it. I'm waiting until someone gives me The Finger.

I've played with a number of the current handheld toys. None of them do me much good. I can't use them to do online research in any meaningful way; their tiny screens just don't cut it, especially with my aging, bifocaled eyes. I keep my important contact information in an alphabetized text file that I print out periodically and shove in my pocket on a couple of stapled-together pieces of paper that can be folded, bent, spindled, and even mutilated without doing them any great harm.

You can always print out a new (updated) homemade paper contact list or calendar in a couple of seconds -- at virtually no cost -- if you spill coffee on it, but if you get caffeinated liquid into a handheld computer or forget that it's in your rear pants pocket and "bend" it when you sit down, you are screwed.

I am reasonably satisfied with pen and paper for notetaking. I have been using them happily for over 40 years. I type rapidly enough that moving the words I am going to actually use in an article from my notepad to my computer is not a big deal, and I prefer to type on a decent-sized keyboard with "deep action" keys, due to my upbringing back in manual typewriter days, and doubt that I could ever adjust to the thin fold-up keyboards some of the more ardent handheld fanatics use. (I spent a long time finding a laptop that was not only 100% Linux-compatible, but also had a keyboard with a "feel" I liked well enough to type on it for hours on end, and I think it will be many years before anyone makes a foldup keyboard that will give me pain-free typing.)

I currently carry three main pieces of electronic gear with me when I travel: a notebook computer (with wireless modem, telephone modem, and NIC); a cellular telephone with a "national" activation plan (long distance included); and a full-featured Olympus microcassette recorder.

I often use the recorder as a handy note-taking device, not only for interviews but to dictate notes to myself while I'm driving or engaged in other hand-occupying activities. My new recorder is reliable enough (and I am careful enough about making sure that my batteries are fresh and that I don't run past the end of a tape) that I no longer take backup notes when I am using it as an interview recording tool. (The latest pro-grade microcassette recorders are so much better than the ones available only a few years ago that I am amazed not only by their reliability but also by their ability to record conversations intelligibly in noisy rooms.)

The one thing I would dearly love, that isn't quite "there" yet, is true voice-to-text automatic transcription. Olympus has a digital recorder that purports to do this if you use the Windows version of IBM's ViaVoice, but when I tried one the results were (shall we say kindly) somewhat disappointing -- and the thing only had a 30 minute recording capacity.

So what features in a handheld computer would really make me want one?

First, it should replace my cellular phone. That way, instead of being an additional piece of gear to carry, it would merely replace an existing item.

Second, it should have audio recording capability, and I don't mean a toylike 30 minutes, but two hours or more. If this means a snap-in audio tape or memory module of some sort, so be it. Voice-to-text dictation would be even better. This would be the handheld "killer app" for me -- and for many others, I'm sure.

Third, it should have a way I can see the equivalent of a laptop-sized screen, which probably means some sort of LCD "eyepiece" device similar to a modern camcorder viewfinder, but with higher resolution.

Fourth, easy hookup to the rest of the world. A wireless Internet connection would be best. Even if it only ran at current dialup modem speeds it would be 95% of what I would ever need, and 100% of what I need when I'm away from my office.

Fifth, the thing should be tiny. With no onboard viewscreen or keyboard, I want the main unit to be no larger than a large man's finger.

The funny thing is, I don't think it's going to take long for a device this small, with the level of technical sophistication I've outlined above, to be available in the sub-$500 price range. With some of the "stripped" Linuxes out there, and Open Source developers starting to think more about handhelds and other tiny computing devices combined with the continuing shrinkage of electronic circuitry in general, I expect to see something close to what I want in no more than two or three years.

So I'm in no hurry to get a PDA. I really don't need a current-generation Palm, not even the Claudia Schiffer model with all of its (hopefully unintentional) masturbatory overtones. I'd rather wait until one of the computing device manufacturers decides to give me The Finger, thank you.

Comments

Re:Techno-weenies won't be happy until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a world where everyone has an antenna implanted directly into your head for wireless net access.

Dude, that would be too many antennas in my head. I'd rather if everyone had an antenna implanted directly into their heads.

A finger would be too small

[iabervon]

If this is going to replace a cell phone, it had better be long enough to reach from your mouth to your ear. If it's not big enough to have at least a 3x4 grid of spots you press reliably, you're not going to have much fun dialing it (let alone putting in other information). Current cell phone size is essentially constrained by the interface requirements.

A lot of wishlist items aren't going to come true simply because if they did, the device would then be useless.

Re:Techno-weenies won't be happy until...

[KFury]

And you thought handwriting recognition was bad. Just wait until your 'thoughtputer' starts misreading your thought patterns, or worse yet, picks up on the thoughts you don't want anyone, even your PDA, to know about.

How long would it be before someone wrote a 'keystroke recorder' for the neural interface, and emailed transcripts of your every thought to someone else. Bye-bye last vestage of privacy...

Kevin Fox
--

Techno-weenies won't be happy until...

[hardaker]

... we have a wireless direct neural intererface with a heads up display and thought recognition.

The interesting thing is that most complaints about devices or opperating systems are about the interface and the way in which you interact with it, not about its actual functionality.

Imagine a world where everyone has an antenna implanted directly into your head for wireless net access.

Re:Techno-weenies won't be happy until...

[Grab]

Someone quoted Neil Stephenson (got the wrong book, but anyway). I'll quote as well - "Diamond Age" suggests that nanotech is good enough to do direct neural interfaces, but most ppl don't use them bcos of hackers. From memory: "Bud knew a guy who had an ad for roach motels flashing 24 hours a day in his peripheral vision until the guy whacked himself." Later on in the same book, it shows a torture session using nanotech to interface directly to the nerves to cause pain.

Controlling you isn't likely to be an issue - the nervous system is a hub network requiring the brain to process inputs and issue commands based on those inputs. But someone could spoof the inputs, so someone who can crack your direct neural connection could hijack your visual field or cause you as much pain as they liked. Not good...

Grab.

Re:Techno-weenies won't be happy until...

[Kingfox]

Read Diamond Age. Those antennaes come at a cost...

Actually, you've got the right author, the wrong story, I think. You're thinking about Snow Crash, an earlier work of his.

But getting back on topic, the 'gargoyles' described in that novel would be incredible. We're quite a few jumps away from researching through the Library of Congress while zipping up to Alaska on a motorcycle, but even some of the stuff that Hiro did offline is but a step or two away. This technology sounds like one of those steps.

Re:Techno-weenies won't be happy until...

[tb3]

Then you're brain-browsing the web someday, and some script-kiddie hacks your cerebral cortex, and POW! you're working at McDonalds.
Or worse, M$ gets their hands out it, and your short-memory becomes a 'subscription-only' feature.
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A counter arguement to the paper and pen..

[xtal]

I used to have a little leather bound notebook back-in-tha-day, for storing all sorts of little infos I had stumbled across. Then, one day, my little notebook met mr. mud puddle. Stupid of me, yes, and a PDA would suffer the same fate..

But it's a lot frickin' easier to backup a palm than it is to photocopy paper notes!

That's the main reason I use & love my PDA. And there's the jack-of-all-trades, master of none problem, too - and when the magic all-in-one device (inevitably) breaks, you're left without everything. I've got a mp3 player, a palm, a cell phone, and a leatherman, and I wouldn't want any of them crossbreeding. (yet). Might want the mp3 player to do voice record though. My batman factor is kinda high though :).

As for the notebook.. I'll sing in the streets when someone (perferably the manufacturer) releases the specs to the HP 720 so I can have a machine to read usenet and code on. Gotta run a real OS though :). There's a market for subnotes out there that is being axe murderered by WinCE ineptness.

real life FPSs

[The Queen]

What you'd really need to watch out for, though, is getting arrested for shouting "I'm gonna frag your ass, you sorry fsck!" while running through the outdoor atrium of your local mall. Would you shoot your imaginary gun at the cops as they chased you down, and further, could they add that to the list of charges? ;-)

"Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton

great line :-)

[bmabray]

I often use the recorder as a handy note-taking device, not only for interviews but to dictate notes to myself while I'm driving or engaged in other hand-occupying activities.

And the title of the article is "Forget the Palm - Give Me The Finger."

I'd make a joke, but nothing I could say could compete with that...

(BTW, the lameness filter just told me I had to wait 2 minutes before submitting another comment -- even though I haven't submitted any comments yet. There couldn't possibly be a bug in Slash, could there?)
human://billy.j.mabray/

Re:great line :-)

[Segfault 11]

RMS also uses the recorder, but to play notes -- notes and incantations to soothe the GNU kernel when it panics, while magical butterflies and fairies work hard on hacking Emacs version 87.32.46.123-pre12.

Sure, one day.....but until then, what's best?

[Atomix8]

Palms, and dare I say, PocketPC's are still the best choice out there for many people. Even though my Palm Keyboard has about 4 mm key travel, it still makes it a hell of a lot more useful.

/me clutches and pets Palm IIIxe, whispers, "It's ok, you'll always be my favourite...."

Furthermore, PDA's are quite durable.....I mean to say that 10 years ago, such technology as to make a palm would be many times larger, but also very delicate likely. Hell I have a Toshiba laptop....with 286 :-D....that has a read/write head that locks to the center every month or two....if I actually use it. My Palm on the other hand, glass screen and all, has been dropped plenty of times, been hit in my pocket, has survived a few impromptu wrestling sessions, and still looks like new.

Ok, maybe I'll just wait for a neural net, plus carrying around a severed human finger won't exactly make you popular

Another Candidate for Happydale Home

[bill.sheehan]

I remember the first time I heard someone speaking loudly on a bus. I heard no reply, but he answered as if there were. Moving slowly so as not to alarm him, I turned and found he was talking on a mobile phone.

Cell phones are now ubiquitous. Many people now have headsets and no longer assume the standard pose of holding one hand to the jaw which identifies the cell phoner from the raving nutter.

Soon, it will be impossible to tell the sane from the mentally MIA. We'll be seeing things that no one else can see, talking into the empty air, and scribbling notes on our finger. This is progress?

Psychotherapy is great! Just look at what it's done for Woody Allen!

PDA in a pen

[SWroclawski]

British Telecom already made such a device in 1998.

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/40/ns-5698.html

It's not exactly what you talked about, but close enough.

- Serge Wroclawski

warning: bad jokes ahead

[The_Messenger]

The Finger is truly a wonderous advancement in digital communication. :-)

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Why not Handspring??

[manual_overide]

Most of the features he wanted are already available, or could be easily implemented with a handspring visor and it's module slot. There is already a cell phone module. A module could be easily created to record and playback voice using something like smartmedia, a speaker, and the built-in microphone. Really, the only thing would be a better designed fold-up keyboard, but if you want all this functionality in a small package, you'll have to sacrafice something. If it didn't have the screen already attached, it could probably be made almost as small as he wanted, but why deal with a cyborg eyepiece?

Harris used to make a ruggedized (waterproof) PDA!

[JCMay]

Harris used to make what ammounted to a ruggedized Newton called the Access Device 2000. It was changed to WinCE when Apple quit licensing the Newton OS.

The AD2000 was water- and sand-proof and had a two-week battery life (better than Apple's beasties). Imagine a Newton 2000 that could be dropped onto concrete with no ill effects, and that's what the AD2000 was. The AD2000 was aimed at the telcom field-service people, wasn't offered to the general public and was *expensive*.

I briefly thought about getting one (hey, check my User Page for the reason why), but their cost and bulk made them unattractive, even if it did say "Harris" on it.

Looking through the external Harris pages I can't find much on it; perhaps it's been dropped. I don't work in that area, so I never dealt with it.

wearable computing or gameboy maginifiers

[firewort]

Robin, I'm with you on wanting a small device-

But you've asked for a lot of features in one device- I prefer devices that do one thing well versus devices that do many things, but are master of none.

I think I'd much prefer such a device to display on the inside of a pair of eyeglasses, or a wearable head teleprompter, to the camera eyepiece you've mentioned.

If it has to be something non-wearable, let it be a clip on magnifier like those used on gameboys- I cant stand looking through a viewfinder for great lengths of time. It's great on my 35mm SLR, it's fine on my nikon 990, where I also use the LCD. It's lousy to look through the viewfinder on my Canon zr10 for great lengths at a time.

I recognize that you're talking about only having to look at the thing from time to time, but goshsakes, don't make it a viewfinder if you expect to look at it when you record while driving!

Wrecked limosines are no fun.

A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close

Size

[Alien54]

Fifth, the thing should be tiny. With no onboard viewscreen or keyboard, I want the main unit to be no larger than a large man's finger.

Irony of ironies.

that would make it about the size of a common pen or pencil.

Just don't try to sharpen it.

;-)

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Voice Recorder

[boing boing]

For your short term needs in voice recording, I would recommend dumping the tapes and going with something like the Olympus DS1000. I have a DS150, but wish I would have gotten the DS1000 (it was not quite out when I needed it). It accepts SmartMedia (which I have cause of the digital camera), so essentially the amount of voice you can store is unlimited. USB interface to put on your laptop. I archive the old recordings on CDs. The format is very well compressed so you can fit a lot on, etc.

Anyway, it works for me.

It's been done...Look!

[ackthpt]

Topper Six Finger

Yeah, showing my age, but hell, when you had toys this cool as a kid, even PDA's have to wait in line.

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Wha?

[BigumD]

So waaaaait.... you want a recorder/computer, but you're complaining that "Palms and Pocket Computers" fizz out when you pour coffee on them?

Duh, whatta ya think your "finger"'s gonna do then? ;).

BTW, the funniest thing about this article was that it was put in the humor category to begin with...

Re:Always moving forward...

[NineNine]

Buying it for the sake of telling manufacturers that we want better. Nah. It doesn't work like that. If all of the Slashdotters took your advice, we'd all be using Palms as they are forever. The only way for a company to know that we don't like their product is NOT to buy it. Look at American cars. Many Americans buy American cars because they're American. As a result, the quality of American cars still sucks.

sounds great but

[ConsumedByTV]

I doubt its going to happen any time soon.

The question I have is: What about all the people that havent been using a pen for 40 years?

I know I havent been doing alot of hand writing as of late. I type as fast as I think. I cant even begin to write in a readable format when I try and write that fast. Its ineffectiant...


Are you on the Sfglj (SF-Goth EMail Junkies List) ?

Just dont lose one.

[LordArathres]

Have you ever lost a pen? or a pencil? I think we do have the technology to make something so small and useable as you describe. I would hate to have one because I would be afraid to lose something so small. Plus at $100's of dollars a piece it would get expensive. I cant lose my laptop so easily unless I forget it but that is another story. I'm talking about it falling out of your pocket etc. You talk about it being small and functional which is fine, maybe you could throw a GPS thing put in there to keep track of it.

Arathres


I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!

How 'Bout This...

[CrazyLegs]

Anyone here ever used a Crosspad? I've played around with one and found pretty darn useful. For the uninitiated...

- interface = pen + paper
- pen has radio xmitter, pad (under paper) has receiver
- write, draw, whatever and pad stores everything (up to 50 pages I think)
- plug it into your PC and upload everything verbatim
- handwriting recognition s/w translates your writing into text

Like I say, I've only played around with one, but was impressed with the functionality (including the handwriting recognition). Very cool yet very 'legacy'!

Always moving forward...

[isa-kuruption]

Sure, there are a lot of things we'd like. Ten years ago someone said "Hey, i want an electronic device I can write into and it will interpret my hand writing and keep notes." Likewise, 20 years ago someone said "Hey, I want to be able to take my PS/2 with me between home and work."

Technology is always moving forward. However, keep in mind... we need to buy the current technology in order to provide manufacturers with the income to develope new, smaller, and better ways to make these things. If we don't buy a Palm today, then Palm Inc. won't be able to afford research into anything smaller (or better).

Complaining about what we don't have now won't get you anywhere and this concept isn't exactly visionary (heck, Palms now are smaller than tricorders on Star Trek... although they do perform less functions, but anyway...). What everyone needs to understand is that newer and greater things are coming before you know it and in order to get these things, you need to buy the current technology.



-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
w00t w00t raise da r00f!

The real source of Slashdots income?

[Nurgster]

I often use the recorder as a handy note-taking device, not only for interviews but to dictate notes to myself while I'm driving or engaged in other hand-occupying activities.

I knew it!

Slashdot is really a cover for a pre-recorded phonesex company. Think about it.... VA(saline) Linux own it....