The Dream Handheld

Reader samjam sent in an interesting piece about his dream handheld PC, sort of a cross between a subnotebook and a wireless web pad, with the kitchen sink thrown in. Mmmmm, light-emitting polymers. I can't decide if this kind of thing is right around the corner or just a fantasy - after all, normal notebook computers sell, and at a nice high premium - and web pads are less than successful - why would anyone spend the money to develop a device like this? samjam writes: "My dream handheld is not available though some things come close. The technology is becoming available.

Though it may take a few months, here is what I would put together if I had the chance. Including Bluetooth, IButtons, solar panels and light emitting polymer screens...

For links to other linux handhelds, try linuxdevices.com.

My ideal handheld is the size of an A4 pad of paper, so I have to hold it on my left forearm with the fingers of my left hand curled over the end. A4 gives me plenty of screen space for watching real TV, reading real books, writing real emails, browsing real web pages and doing some real showing off.

The front cover is a solar panel, but I can't decide if the cells should be on the inside or the outside to help charge it while I use it or while I'm not using it. Hard one that.

The screen is not heavy-breakable LCD but LEP (brief technical primer, more on Google) or perhaps Xerox Electronic Paper seemingly available under the name Gyricon, pictures here and slight details here.

The choice of processor doesn't bother me much; I'd like to think there are many versions available of my handheld by many manufacturers (to drive the price down) and so many processors will be available but let's pretend the first release will run on a Transmeta just to keep excitement running high.

60 GB or so should be plenty of disk space, 2.5" IDE to keep weight down.

Input via stylus or sticky finger of course, with support for Graffiti, as used on the Palm and many others, also Quickwriting as featured on Slashdot as well as regular handwriting recognition (take your pick) and other pluggable input modules with popup keyboard for those times when you just can't manage to input a tilde (~) or backtick (`) properly.

Connectivity will be provided via a multitide of USB ports (where real keyboards can be plugged), Bluetooth (useless link) in action (good link), wireless ethernet as well as perhaps as many as 4 PCMCIA slots for things that change a lot like GPRS adaptors &c, or radio and TV tuner cards. Yeah! Why not add some Compact Flash while I'm at it? And boring 100 base T ethernet.

In fact I'm going to use the mobile phone card, along with my sound system to make the whole thing into a mobile phone for voice, not just data access. Talking of phones, the built in web cam can be used for video conferencing with (for example) Gnophone.

Better stick some firewire ports on there, too, for good measure, along with a few IRDA ports pointing in a few different directions for those more subversive inter-classroom networks as well as controlling my grannies telly to show off. And talking to my old non-bluetooth mobile which I can't afford to upgrade cos I spent it all on my handheld.

It will have integrated Ibutton support for security and authentification, maybe even built into the BIOS.

What more do I need? Oh yes, an Operating System. Pick your own.

I shall be running Linux with Ximian Gnome because it looks cool (and Bill Gates was nearly right, eye candy counts for a lot if only not to distract you by means of ugliness). I will be running redhat because I find up2date (or redhat channels of RedCarpet) invaluable effort-free way to remove those exploits, and I will finally get round to playing with Rebol.

The first thing I will need to develop is some network scavenging software to grab internet connectivity where it can for syncing imap folders and news, updating "offline web pages" [yikes! MS concept there]. Code to hi-jack available SMTP relays (*cough*). Does this smell a bit like Jini or something like it? I'll need to register my changing location for Gnophone so callers can find me. Perhaps the first thing for company visitors in the future will be to checkin their Ideal Handheld to the company network.

I will load all my favourite books into it as well as the entire classical Mormon works, copies of conference talks Doctrines of Salvation, Journal of Discourses etc, along with the Bible, Book of Mormon, and all of Project Gutenberg.

What will you do with yours? Have I missed any gizmos out? Or gadgets even?"

Comments

A4 size?

[bogado]

This size is good for using the handheld, with plenty of screen space and etc.But when you are not using it it would be a nigthmare. Where would you put it? Shure you you could keep a special pupose bag, much like the ones for laptop computers. But then it would be a laptop computer, not a handheld.

I think that a true hand held have to fit your pocket, this way you could take it wherever you go.

Re:A4 size?

[OblongPlatypus]

Screen size is why I don't own a PDA. It seems to me that's the only thing keeping PDAs from being truly useful these days... you just can't do much on such a small screen. As a student, I carry around a lot of A4-sized stuff anyway, much of which could probably be more or less replaced by the Ideal Handheld. So an A4-sized Ideal Handheld would be just perfect.

But of course, if the big screen is the one thing making the Ideal Handheld huge and unwieldy, it'd be great to lose it, wouldn't it? Seems something like this would be the perfect companion for an Ideal Handheld. Losing the big screen would probably increase the battery life quite a bit as well.

Re:A4 size?

[bogado]

Well I not saying that the big screen per see is a bad thing. I realy think that big screen are cool . :-) But the way I use my PDA, carring with me where ever I go, they would hurt more than make any good.

Now if I had a laptop computer, that I would use in selected ocasions, like in work or in classes. Then I think that A4 screen is a must go. This device would not acompany me everywhere, only where it would probably be needed.

But there could be some solution for handhelds with big screens and protables also, a folding screen? How feasible is that?

Why IButtons?

[theCoder]

Why use IButtons instead of a standard smart card interface? In other words, what's the advantage of an IButton over a smartcard?

Otherwise, sounds neat!

Re:Why IButtons?

[Archfeld]

IButtons are INCREDIBLY tough and resilient. Smartcards die like crazy and are very sensitive to external magnetics. We use IButtons at work and I've actually dropped one down the elevator shaft and it survived just fine, from the 10th floor no less....

Solar Cells and Bluetooth

[macemoneta]

I'd suggest making the cover clear, and using back-to-back solar cells, so the unit charges open or closed.

Skip bluetooth, and use low/high power 802.11b. Low power when you're close to the access point to conserve power, high power when you need range. Bluetooth seems redundant and unnecessary these days.

Sounds fine

[redhotchil]

As long as you don't come to my door on a bike with this thing in one hand and Mormon flyers in the other hand, its fine by me.

Star Trek

[Alien54]

Of course everyone wants a Tricorder, which could do almost anything. Or one of those other Star Trek devices.

Strangely enough the form factor on those was more like a 5x8 piece of paper. (about half the size of an A4, etc)

Strangely, I have not really seen a PDA in that form factor, although it is reasonable. Usually they are in pocket size (or so), or else migrate to an actual laptop.

probably would not mind something in that form factor although I would have to think about it.

Re:Star Trek

[Alien54]

That'll be A5 - none of your silly Letter, Legal, Foolscap nonsense here please.

Ah the pleasure of being a provincial usian lost in the world.

just ignore the usians, they are just so much rabble anyhow ...

;-)

How is this different from a notebook?

[ankit]

Thys would be a good description of a dream notebook.. not a handheld.

I would like a handheld that I can keep in my
pocket, and carry in my backpack easily. I dont really care much for the screen size. An A4 size is not really practical, and a smaller size would be suitable for must purposes.

This doesnt mean the idea is not good. It is a great idea for a notebook. A notebook without a keyboard... and the option for connection a standard keyboard. the keyboard is rarely used for web surfing, reading mail, and most day to day work. The only use of a keyboard is, well... coding. So, when you need the thing for coding, just carry a little keyboard along :)

Re:How is this different from a notebook?

[mcelrath]

How is this different from a notebook?

The point is not to replace the notebook computer, the point is to replace the tablet of paper, which, despite it's apparently ungainly form factor, is in widespread use. This will require an innovative pen-based interface, and dumping many of the things you might want to do with a notebook computer. A tablet should be for reading and writing documents, and that's all. If it does anything else, that's gravy. People are already good at using the pen/tablet paradigm, it's just a matter of not fucking it up with too many buttons and "wizards".

I imagine something that would use PDF's as its internal format, and would let you annotate them with the pen. The primary input mechanism should be drawing letters, trying to recognize them is secondary. You should be able to upload documents (including html) from your computer, and download handwritten things to your computer. The tablet should give a much better means of organizing little slips of paper than the pile-on-desk paradigm, now widely in use.

Remember, don't think it's a computer...it's an upgrade to paper.

-- Bob

more stuff...

[lrohrer]

First use solar panels that work in either a front or back direction: http://www.ebarasolar.thomasregister.com/olc/ebara solar/bennies.htm

Micro accurate GPS. By triangulating cell phone and wireless ethernet you should be able track if the pad is "on the table" or "under couch". Further by placeing mems on all of your portable possesions you could then FIND anything you might have lost.

Airline seat mount bracket: A simple velcor device that allows hand free viewing in an airline seat.

tsk tsk, history must repeat itself

[8bit]

harddrives, PAH. The guy is on the right track though. A thin peice of work that contains little more than an LCD that size of a sheet of paper. EXCEPT, it's wireless, and it uses a mainframe/terminial paradigm. A lightweight processor impliments a very lightweight, compressed X11 protocol. A relatively small flash memory will provide sufficent space for the OS, and custom window management software. Everything will be stored and run from a mainframe, allowing access from anywhere, and limited loss if you happen to drop your pad. W/o a harddrive and all the assorted goodies of an overly powerful CPU, the pad would be much much lighter, and wouldn't need as much juice. Of course it could be docked into a cradle for charging, fast wired networking, and mayhaps a keyboard as well.

It think it's time for people to seriously re-consider mainframes. PCs are great, but if you're on the go, methinks having fifty thousand copies of the same document is NOT the way to go.

Re:Hmm... one problem solved ;)

[Colin Bayer]

Better yet, we can power it entirely off the aura of smugness generated by the lucky user. Man, I'd like to see the battery life on this thing...

my version

[macpeep]

Nice.. A little too big for my taste tho. Even the Sony Picturebook is smaller - and that's a notebook, not a "handheld" really.

Here's my version:

A5 sized (half of the article describes), screen only with virtual keyboard and touch screen with a GOOD metallic stylus (obviously softer material for the tip). WLAN, Bluetooth, GPRS and tri-band GSM (900, 1800 and 1900 MHz) plus HSCSD are all a must in my dream handheld, but I'll add to this that the antennas for all must be internal. Also, for the times when no wireless connectivity is available, a normal phone and LAN jack would be needed. Basically, as you can see, connectivity is priority #1.

Moving along, I'd throw out your hard drive and replace it with a set of compact flash slots - say 4 of them and let's say two PC card slots. In those, you could put hard drive's (IBM microdrives in the CF slots and higher capacity drives in the PC card slots). You could also slam in 4 1GB CF cards in those for a total of 4GB. This is less than the hard drive in the article, but remember that this is a *handheld* and that it has net connectivity so it can use a drive somewhere else, like on a file server.

The device would have at least 64MB of RAM and a Strong ARM CPU. If battery was no issue, I'd consider a Transmeta CPU instead but the ARM based CPU should be better for a device like this.

TFT is fine for me. I saw some TOTALLY kick ass EL-screens on an exhibition in Tokyo last month tho. Maybe one of those.. I'd have to look more closely at the power consumption cause I'd like to get at least 24 hour battery life from this thing.

The OS would sit in ROM. What the OS would be is a little unclear to me. You can forget Palm OS right away. Pocket PC (especially 2002) is *great* on iPAQ type devices but this one would be larger than that. Windows CE, which Pocket PC builds on, is quite nice and stable too, contrary to what you would normally hear on Slashdot. EPOC is a bitch to code for, so I think I'd skip that. For a device like this, I'd pick Linux, I think, but the GUI would have to be something custom made especially for this device because I haven't found any existing Linux GUI to be good for handhelds yet.. :/

Speaking of GUI.. It would *NOT* be frame based. ;)

Re:my version

[macpeep]

Well, this was a dream setup. I prefer CF because it doesn't suddenly break on you while on the road, it's completely quiet and easier to handle than a PCMCIA HD. Still, I had the PCMCIA slots there so you COULD use PCMCIA HD's if you wanted to.

less than successful???!@#$#$???

[IceFox]

"less than successful", I doubt it. More like they are *never* ever released. I keep looking every few months for webpads, but they are _always_ 6 months away. And every month they have more and more features, but still with a pda interface, when they have more then some laptops nowadays!!! It is crazy. What every happened to the $250 webpad that was nothing more then a X-terminal? No sound, hd, usb, 1GB cpu, fan, floppy, keyboard, serial, parallel, firewire, scsi, and kitcken sink. Back when web pads were the rage their was a good reason. They *were* cool. They were a thin as my Palm 3x. They ran forever because they only had to power the wirless network, a small ass 486 cpu, and a screen. I looked cool and it was cool. They ran QtEmbedded or some other embeded Xish thing and you could make cool little apps for it. As a X terminal you had as much power as your server did. You could write little gui apps that would control you mp3 server that pipes to your living room. (don't need no stinkin laptop speakers now!) I have been temped to try to build one myself, but I just don't have the money or the time right now. (see kinkatta.sourceforge.net) And if I was to do it myself it would be a whole lot bigger then some of the webpad/crappola laptops that are out there. So were are these? Does anyone know? One idea I had was to merge 3 or 4 palm into 1 and then write palm software for it, but there are still issues with that...

Re:How much would one of these bad boys cost?

[Colin Bayer]

I can see the MasterCard commercial now:

"Next-generation PDA: $10,000
Micropile to power extraneous features: $500,000
Watching the person next to you trip and drop it on the subway tracks as the train pulls up: priceless."

A4?

[delmoi]

Isn't the definition of a 'handheld' something you can fit in your hand? Wouldn't that disqualify something the size of an A4 peice of Paper?

Basicaly what your asking for is a laptop without a keyboard. Not terribly exciting.

I'm all for features up the ass, but most of all give me something I can slip in my pocket without any trouble.

My dream handheld

[SCHecklerX]

In addition to what my palm pilot already does, would simply have:

• 80x40 high resolution display in the same area as my current palm (I use mine frequently to telnet to another box to do things like read usenet while lounging around on the couch)
• Wireless ethernet (goes hand-in-hand with bullet #1).
• Voice navigation so I can browse the memo I wrote directions into while driving.
• Programming manuals and compilers for popular platforms included with the pilot.

  All that other crap this guy mentions pretty much defeats the purpose of what a handheld is.

  For what he wants, he'd be better off with a toshiba libretto.

  Preview mode is broken. Ugh. Why can't these guys stop breaking the production system?

Handheld... err... Armheld

[DzugZug]

Let me get this straight. He wants to send and recieve "real" email and browse the "real" web etc. He wants a full sized screen and doesnt want to have it fit in his pocket or in the palm of his hand. Ths new "armheld" would be big enough that it has to be carried in a briefcase. These things are on the market right now. You can buy them here

Guess what. They are called laptops. Unless I missed something the point of a handheld is that it can fit in your pocket. If you want something that big then you might as well use a keyboard since it's faster than pen input anyway.

forget about electronic paper....

[randal_hicks]

...unless you are in advertising.

According to Xerox's Gyricon page, this technology is being geared for billboards. Their smallest font is a size 20! NOT adequate for use in anything that you can hold in front of you. By the time that they are ever able to create more reasonable font sizes, LEPs will be in full scale production.

Besides, electronic paper doesn't seem to be the perfect medium for video...

Re:forget about electronic paper....

[Anonymous Freak]

According to Xerox's Gyricon page, this technology is being geared for billboards. Their smallest font is a size 20! NOT adequate for use in anything that you can hold in front of you. By the time that they are ever able to create more reasonable font sizes, LEPs will be in full scale production.

Yes, but . . . Various 'e-ink' technologies hope to have 100+ dpi within 2 years, with one (sorry, no links, since I don't remember the names of the companies that I read about last week) hoping to have 300 dpi by 2005. Since LEPs will only (hopefully) be in full production for small-scale projects (car stereos, clocks, maybe PDAs) by 2005, you do the math.

Of course, all of the e-ink projects are made to be 'seldom-write' passive displays where you change the display maybe once or twice a day. They're not at all suitable for full-motion, full-screen video (including scrolling a static page!) They are meant to be electronically-rewritable paper, NOT a replacement for a computer screen. Think CD-RW vs. Hard drive.

Hello?

[not-quite-rite]

2.5" IDE to keep weight down

WTF?

For god sakes you just included some very nice screen kit, but then asked for a 2.5" hard drive?

How is the size of an A4 piece of paper easy to carry? That is going to be at least the thickness of 2.5"(see annoyance above).
What he has described offers a laptop without a proper keyboard. It hasn't stopped my need to carry a phone, a palm, my wallet, keys etc.

Do you own a PDA let alone a HPC?
How much do you carry around with you?
At times I carry my Palm, 2 phones, wallet and keys. Why would I want to carry around any more crap, in particular a retarded laptop?

Ok stop. Relax. Breathe. Take pills.

The rant has subsided...

webpads are not doing well?

[tswinzig]

That's strange... I go to places like Best Buy, Circuit City, buy.com, amazon.com, etc., and damned if I can find ANY webpad, let alone a well-designed webpad.

If someone designs a decent webpad, it will sell.

For giants only

[Camelot]

My ideal handheld is the size of an A4 pad of paper

Big hand have you.

My ideal handheld...

[Amokscience]

.. would be the size of a credit card so I could stuff it in my wallet, which, besides a wristwach, is the one item I am sure to carry when I am travelling. It should also be durable and have an unbreakable display.

I'd also want to be able to store voice notes on it so it would have to record and playback audio. And it would have some sort of wireless transfer medium (bluetooth, rf, wireless ethernet, etc.)
It would have a couple solar panels and require as much power as a calculator.

Sooooo, basically I want a super shrunk Palm. I know much of the Slashdot crowd seems to want to have a desktop machine crammed into their handhelds but I don't need that. I want utility and longevity out of my device. When it can becomes just another accessory (like a wristwatch) then I will be happy with it... and so too will non-geeks.

Now, I think most of these requirements aren't here today, but if we're dreaming, I want to dream a while into the future.

What would make me happy.

[Lemmy Caution]

I haven't been impressed by the PDA/cell-phone fusions that I've seen yet, but I'd be pleased by one that incorporated some of the less bulky aspects of the original poster's dream machine with a cell-phone in a very small package.

My ideal would actually by a "soft" device - perhaps something that could be rolled up like a square of canvas and put into the pocket. Something I could stick into my back pocket without worrying about, with IC in the fabric. Instead of trying to be an all-purpose computer, I'd be happy with the tasks which I needed most: text input/storage, image display, network/web access, voice access/cell phone, PIM, maybe a little file storage for mp3's or such. A full-featured interface for general computing would be way too much.

I carry my cell and my Palm everywhere, and when I've got both in my pocket, I look *way* too happy to see people. I'd like to consolidate and lighten the load.

modular size increase key

[abe ferlman]

I think that flexiiblity is what makes people want a handheld in the first place. Does anyone remember those old stereos with a walkman that popped out of them? My ideal handheld would be basically a 4-way folding palm V (thinner really).

Basically, it would have two screens, only one of which was visible before unfolding. When opened, it would have two screens aligned side by side, and a small keyboard which unfolds beneath them.

This way you can use it as a pda all day, but if you want to do some gaming/typing, you can sit down and unfold it and have a double-sized screen (think two palm IIIc's next to each other).

The trickiest parts are probably 1 designing the screens so that they can appear to be right next to each other, but still fold separately so you can go single-screen mode when you're in pda mode and 2. fitting a keyboard and two screens into something you can fit in your pocket. But I have faith that it can be done, and I'd happily allow my pocket to bulge twice the width of a palm III for the privelege.

My own dream

[Salamander]

You're basically confusing two concepts here: handheld and notebook. The requirements are different. A notebook should be very nearly equivalent functionally to a middling or slightly wimpy desktop, with weight measured in pounds and battery life in hours. A handheld needs to be much more extremely portable, with weight in ounces and battery life in weeks. The portability/power requirements basically dictate that a certain amount of desktop-equivalent functionality be sacrificed. That said, here are some of my ideas about what would be truly ideal for each, starting with the notebook (which more closely matches your description):

• Size and display: A4 is a good display size, but a little too big for easy transportation when not in use. Fortunately, with a flexible medium such as LEP you could have both. Basically the screen could be like those portable projection screens that you roll up when not in use.
• Power: solar might be nice, but you're typically not going to get that much out of it. Instead of a battery, though, use tiny methane fuel cells.
• Processor: something like a Transmeta would be a good fit.
• Connectivity: putting USB (including, I presume, USB2) and Firewire and Bluetooth and 802.11b (what about 802.11a) makes the base system too complex. Put one low-end (USB1) and one high-end (Firewire) interconnect on board, then provide four or more PCMCIA/CF slots so the user can customize the rest to suit their needs.

For the true handheld, things look a little different:

• Size and display: it needs to be smaller (more portable) than today's handhelds, not larger, and the display needs to be instantly accessible without unrolling a screen. E-Ink is a good fit here, especially because it would be nice to have your agenda or to-do list still visible at a glance even while consuming zero power. The limit on screen resolution is the combination of the unit's physical size and the human eye; the dots can only be so small, so only so many of them can fit. I'd say that anything more than 320x320 is pushing the boundaries of usefulness.
• Power: solar is definitely not going to get you anywhere. Fortunately, those methane fuel cells are small enough even for a PDA.
• Processor: even a Crusoe might suck too much juice. I'd go with a super-low-power asynchronous-logic chip.
• Connectivity: very limited options here. There's room for one CF card, but not two. The best hope is that they'll be able to fit connectivity logic onto something more like MMC so you can have more than one expansion slot.

One could well argue that we should be getting away from the idea of "handhelds" anyway. Maybe we should be thinking more in terms of an eyeglass-mounted virtual display (pick a resolution and color depth) connected via short-range wireless to a belt- or shoe-mounted CPU unit.

The one thing I haven't really talked about is storage. That's because I have some definitely "out there" views on that subject. Basically I don't think there's going to be a reason to have a lot of permanent storage in the user-facing device. Instead, the storage will be in the network - encrypted, fully distributed, accessed securely via our ever-improving network connectivity options. Sure, there'd be local storage, but only enough to boot and to serve as a cache of the data which still "lives" in the network. A modest amount of FMRAM should be entirely sufficient, with no need for rotating media and the costs - power, noise, mechanical fragility - associated with them. Maybe if you wanted to take your PDA to Antarctica you'd need something different, but before long the distributed-storage model should work anywhere in the civilized world.

Yes, I know some people hate the idea of data-less devices. Generally this is for one of several outdated reasons:

• Diskless workstations were deployed at a time in the past when the network technology was really not adequate to support the same user experience that you'd get with a local disk.
• To make things worse, a lot of diskless-workstation deployments were horribly underprovisioned, with insufficient servers and switching infrastructure.
• Diskless operation used to imply ceding control of your data (and access to it) to someone else. With modern distributed-system technology that no longer needs to be the case; you can store your data on someone else's hardware, and access it via a third party's communications infrastructure, without giving up any control or privacy.

In short, none of these objections really apply any more. With the right technology and the right SLAs in place, there'd be no compelling reason to have a local disk.

Re:My own dream

[Salamander]

Also, wouldn't having files located on a server away from the PDA require wireless access to get to them?

Not necessarily. How much data are you really likely to use on a handheld/notebook between the time you leave your network "coverage area" and the time you return? All of your applications, contact/to-do/schedule data, and frequently accessed documents will fit easily into solid-state memory, obviating any need for either disks or network storage for them. How many tens of gigabytes' worth of images, sound files, and reference books do you *need* to have instantly accessible between the time you leave the network and the time you rejoin?

The obsession with keeping such large data stores local is similar to the obsession with SUVs. People like to envision themselves as the sort who might need to take a vehicle off-road, even though 99% of SUVs *never* see such usage. Similarly, people like to envision themselves as needing tens of gigabytes of data anywhere, even though they're mostly office workers or college students who never stray very far from their nearest network connection - and connectivity is only going to improve. Five years from now you'll need to go pretty far off the beaten track to be off-network.

For people who must have mobile access to such large datasets without network connectivity, I'm sure there will always be disks available as expansion cards or separate units connected via comm ports on handhelds/notebooks. But those people aren't likely to be a majority for much longer. For *most* people, who already do have network connectivity almost all the time, network storage is likely to be a preferable solution requiring fewer power/reliability/weight/noise tradeoffs. Making everyone carry the design baggage to support a function only needed by a few users is a classic mistake, and one I'd rather avoid when designing my own "ideal" system.

I'll wait for the wearables

[SpeedBump0619]

So many possibilities...

handheld with projection system. It has the standard touch sensitive lcd (or LEP or whatever), but it uses a single chip reflective projector to put a *huge* picture up on any viewable surface. It's not very steady, so integrate some motion sensors in the device and some hardware to steady the projection (IR for distance to surface (image size), accelerometer for lateral stabalization).

When the projection is running, the touch screen on the device is still the input method.

But really, why not go all the way. I wear glasses, so give me a covert HMD. Something that can't be seen by the rest of the world, but that gives me unrestricted hands free access to my "handheld".

Then steal an idea from MIT and put a ring on each index finger. Radio connected, position sensing, and presure sensitive. Touch the left one with your thumb and the on-disply pointer tracks with movements of the right. Tap the right one, and it clicks, rotate the right one (around your finger) and it's like that little roller on your mouse.

Think all this is fantasy? I read too much science fiction? I think not.

single chip projectors
accelerometers for displacement
covert HMDs
The One Ring (fictional, I think)

How about the My Linux Personal Linux Workstation?

[John Harrison]

http://mylinux.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.azpower.com/mylinux/

Keep it small

[meldroc]

I'm partial to the Palm sized form factor - a little larger than a Post-it note. My ideal handheld would be as follows:

• Fuel cell or other power source that lasts much longer than current batteries.
• A little more computing horsepower than the Palm's Dragonball processor - a StrongARM or Transmeta chip possibly.
• Not Microsoft/Windows based - that rules out PocketPC - I will not give my money to Microsoft if they had the last computing platform on Earth.
• An OS with modern features - proper multitasking/multithreading, memory protection, etc.
• A UI that's designed from the ground up for this form factor. PalmOS is great as far as UI goes. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like Graffiti - I can always get a keyboard if I need to type lots of stuff, but Graffiti keeps things small.
• An Organic LED screen (OLED). Granted we'll have to wait until the manufacturers give a decent lifetime to the blue pixels, but those are nice looking screens. Ideally the graphics controller on the handheld would be beefier than on the Palm - games are cool.
• Lots of memory - 32MB or even 64MB is becoming a realistic option. While we're at it, install one of those one inch IBM microdrives, that should give us some breathing room for a while without making the device too big.
• Expandability. Personally, I find that Palm's postage-stamp sized SD cards to be too small - they're too easy to lose. How about a very thin, credit-card sized card. We already have smartcards everywhere else, installing a smartcard style connector that you just slide the card into would make life easier. The Palm m505's universal connector is good for gadgets that can't be smushed into a smartcard - make things like GPS receivers & modems into sleds.
• Wireless networking. A cellular modem (using the cool technology of the week) should be built in. It should be able to hook up with any of the major cellular networks that are available, and use the higher bandwidth standard of the week if necessary. Maybe a pen-sized module with the antenna, receiver, codecs, etc should be used, so if the user needs to upgrade, he can swap them out.
• Built in audio. Unlike most Palms, this ideal device would have an audio DSP built in, ready to handle MP3, Ogg Vorbis, etc. It should be a general-purpose sound device not unlike a Soundblaster in desktop machines. Doesn't need a fancy speaker built in, headphones (& a mike) should be fine.
• While keeping the device small is very important, even more important is sturdiness. Handhelds go through a lot of abuse, to the ideal handheld would be built like a tank. The screen should have a scratch-proof layer on top of it, the case should be heavy-duty plastic, at minimum, titanium would be nice. The buttons should be rated for zillions of presses, and be able to take hard hits. Water resistance (or waterproofing) would be very nice. If an IBM microdrive is in the thing, it should be in a very effective shock mounting. You should at the minimum be able to drop the device from six feet onto hard concrete without damage. Crush resistance would also be nice - people occasionally sit on their handhelds.

OK Palm, you have my specs, get to work!

My ideal PDA

[PoiBoy]

...Is a pad of 3 by 3 yellow Post-It notes. They're cheap, reliable, and easy to use. Need to delete a message or the phone number of an ex? Just tear it up and throw it in the trash.

Seriously, do people really need to carry around electronic gizmos with them everywhere they go?

iButton

[OO7david]

It will have integrated Ibutton support for security and authentification, maybe even built into the BIOS.

Let me, as an iButton user, tell you about some issues. First of all, I know you are speaking hopefully, but there currently are no Linux drivers for it, and the Windows ones I have yet to get to work under NT bases systems. That is not to say that it is a bad device, but from what I have heard (I'm connected very closely with one of the people holding the patent on the iButton) those issues are not going to be resolved soon. Before the Maxim buyout, they were, but not as recently are the issues being looked at.

Microsoft's TabletPC

[Tony.Tang]

MS's TabletPC sounds a lot like some of the things you're describing. You really ought to check it out:

• MS's Press Release about TabletPC
• MS's TabletPC Homepage

Re:my dream handheld

[Nastard]

Oh please, stop being so proactive. All you manage to do is come off like some kind of "I know you are but what am I" paradigm.

WTF?!

[Naikrovek]

Since when do well-hyperlinked wishlists for non-existant products get mention on /.??

This place is becoming a fuckin' fantasy land.

I'm sorry, I just thought this was a NEWS site, with optionally some stuff about THINGS THAT MATTER.

Digital Radio

[Aztech]

Needs a Digital Radio (DAB) reciever so it can pickup audio and data broadcasts.

It's here...

[Once&FutureRocketman]

Ok, It's not quite what you descirbed, but it's pretty close. It's the Qbe