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Concept PC 2001
Rami Kassab writes: "Check out this sweet PC developed by HP. It runs on the Intel P4 and features a wireless keyboard, mouse, even a wireless 18" flat screen LCD monitor. The wireless mouse and keyboard run over RF. All of the components are connected to eachother via Bluetooth technology. Included with this PC is USB 2.0 and an ATI 7500 AGP card." The screen looks a little strange, but I always love seeing interesting new designs for these boxes since I spend so much time in front of one.
Maybe its just me, but I didn't see anything about a wireless monitor..."DVI Interface LCD monitor" "and an 18" flat screen LCD monitor to top things off".
No cables to play with and/or chew to bits. If I can't offer my computer to them as a sacrifice they'll make a beeline to the A/V gear cables.
The article says nothing about this being a wireless monitor. That would be quite a task though, bet that doesn't run across 802.11b or Bluetooth.
It won't be really wireless until the power supply is also wireless ;-)
Maybe someone can beam the power into the machine with lasers or something, but I wouldn't want to have to reboot every time a cat runs under the desk!
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
I've seen systems before where the cd drive is built into the monitor (like this one). I'm curious what happens if the CD drive goes bad on you. Obviously, it would be a bit too expensive replacing the entire display, but the drive itself looks like it would have to be very slim to fit in there. Has anyone had experience with something like this, and if so, how hard is it to find a replacement drive? Just curious. :)
Other than that, this thing looks nifty. It would make a great in-car computer if it doesn't draw too much power.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Now if only it had a sweet web server and some sweet bandwidth....
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How many more times could they have mentioned "Intel's Pentium 4" in that article? Funniest part, was when I came back to write this response there was a p4 ad running on slashdot (ugh).
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
Check again. I believe that all PCjrs came with a keyboard that could either use batteries with IR or a cable. Most people used the cable, since it meant not having to buy batteries.
Wow! That's cool. How about calling it television?
Still to this day, upgrading a hard drive or a graphics card is an unnecesarily obfuscated process, requiring the PC guts to be cracked open and laid out on the kitchen table.
Of course easily upgradeable components would cut into PC sales, so its probably hopeless.
My sources tell me that these PCs are really cheap for foreign HP customers in the information technology sector. However, buyers should not wonder when black vans permanently circle their premises. As additional benefit, you don't have to file any patents in the U.S. any more, others are doing this for you.
According to the users of this device, wireless peripherals constitute an "illegal circumvention device" under the DMCA and will be filing a lawsuit against HP shortly. In the meantime they urge that all computer users stick with wired peripherals.
;)
Error:
Sure, it uses Bluetooth, but you still have to run power cables to each one of these things, a VGA cable to the monitor and worry about replacing batteries in the keyboard.
As anybody noticed the image on the screen is always the same in all the pictures? And no power cables shown...
Looks more like a model to me than a real working PC...
coffee | nose > keyboard ©
In addition to the above, I would like to know about:
3. How secure is this?
I have already heard tales about being able to spoof/sniff logitech wireless mice and keyboards. Like much of wireliess tech, this just adds another layer of vulnerability. Why go through the trouble of getting a trojan onto a system, when you can do it remotely, w/o using a network? Add this to a wireless LAN, and it seems like it opens a lot of doors.
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
3GIO is still vaporware to discourage the uptake of HyperTransport. AMD claims that HT doesn't compete with 3GIO and Intel ignores HT completely. AMD is correct in that a working design doesn't compete with vaporware and I guess it wouldn't make sense for Intel to point customers to a design with a 2 year head start.
IANAEE [electrical engineer], but it's my understanding that all electrical circuits generate electromagnetic fields and/or radiation to some degree. So unless you plan living on a small island in the middle of the Pacific, up a tree, you can pretty much assume there is a chance of cancer.
Of course, you're much more likely to get cancer from the toxins in the air or the toxins in your food or radiation from your glow-in-the-dark alarm clock that some low-energy RF emissions.
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
I'm surprised no one has mentioned security yet.
Remember Tempest? Who needs ultra-senstitive EM gear to pick up blips in your monitor timing, when you can broadcast everything you do on radio...
I have enough trouble with finding my remote.
Now I can lose my keyboard, mouse, monitor and CPU. This is definately progress.
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
Did you actually look at the thing? Sure, some of the gadgets are interesting, but the way they've put it together isn't what I'd call sweet.
Expandability? None, internally, to speak of. So that means loads of things hanging out on FireWire or USB cables. Wanna upgrade? Better call HP, as I'm sure this thing screams 'proprietary case design' for the thermal management they mention, let alone that's generally how HP works. Add that DVD-ROM? External, please. CD-RW? Same thing. Hard drive? Replace the existing, while juggling your data, because there isn't space for a second one.
They mention XP pretty prominently, but I doubt seriously it will run Linux out of the box. They mention the Intel Pentium 4 a LOT. But I can get more bang for the buck with an Athlon. Option for that? Not that I could find...
All in all, the whole thing looked like a commercial for Intel, not a sweet concept PC.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
There is the Cancer aspect. It's obvious that no one understands the issues that may arise from having a radio transmitter around you all the time (Cel phones) let alone multiple ones around you all the time at your computer.
Bluetooth is low power/short range, even less of a cancer risk (if there actually is a risk) and last time I checked I don't put my mouse and keyboard up to my head when I use it.
The FCC regulations for RF devices at these frequencies state that you have to accept whatever outside interference there is. Getting bad input on an RF mouse, display or keyboard would blow
It says that on every electronic device that falls under FCC regulation wired or wireless, like your monitor, computer, wired mouse and keyboard, sound card, etc... These protocols are designed to handle interference. One point I do worry about thought is having the batteries run out...now that sucks...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Logitech and Intel both have RF based keyboards, mice, trackballs, and game controllers. I swore I would never use an IR based product like that, (after the loads of fun I had with an IR based NES controller). They are well worth the inventment when going cordless to avoid that irritation.
It is nice to see Bluetooth becoming the standard here though. I just want a PC with USB, Firewire, Bluetooth and 802.11g for connectivity outside the box. I'd be happy. (Ok, and maybe a Gigabit ethernet port just in case)
according to Netcraft, www.designtechnica.com is running Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3. So no IIS.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
If everything else is wireless, why not move to the toilet?
How do you think I'm posting this?
funny munging
The reason the front page loads lightning fast is the same reason you get a static page around 5% of the time, instead of the dynamic one... MySQL's speed (and MySQL's crashing).
Maybe someone can beam the power into the machine with lasers or something, but I wouldn't want to have to reboot every time a cat runs under the desk!
Every time? I suspect each cat would only be able to do this once. How many cats do you have?
Perhaps Bluetooth connectivity is an add-on then? I have trouble believing this. HP make good hardware, and they charge a bundle for it. Thats the way it's always been. Even if it does have an intel heart-replacement.
HP doesn't really even deserve their name anymore. Hewlett and Packard are both dead. All the cool scientific goodies have been spun off into Agilent. HP just killed off ACO after insulting their loyal user community with the 49G. And Carly Fiorina (can you look at her picture and honestly say that she doesn't look like a vulture?) is gleefully turning the remnants of HP into yet another Microsoft whore.
Their printers are the only tolerable product they're still producing, and I hear Epson is rapidly catching up. I have had the worst luck with HP's computer systems, both with the Kayak (their "high-end workstation" that I used at a previous job) and with various Pavilions that I have tried to fix/upgrade for people (oh, and their tech support is useless; try calling and asking what Ethernet card they have inside: "oh, that would be a `10/100' card, sir").
HP has a training program wherein you can get significant discounts on their products if you take online classes. I guess the idea is that retailers will be more eager to sell HP if they have 1) gotten free stuff from HP, and 2) know lots about HP products. Well, the HP PhotoSmart 612 which I got at a nice discount is of horrible quality. The camera design itself is actually pretty decent, but I had to go through 5 cameras before I found 1 without significant CCD defects. What I can tell you from my extensive HP training is this: Don't buy HP, kids. They suck.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Seriously, if you're advocating simple to upgrade PCs.
Pull a latch and the side of the G4 pops open. Drives sit on the bottom and are connected to a ribbon cable. CPU sits on an easily upgradable daughtercard (or maybe it's in a ZIF socket by now, I own a Titanium Laptop), ram is easily accessable, and all the PCI slots are trivially available because the motherboard lies on the hinged door.
The problem? Most PC buyers don't want to *pay* for the ability to easily tinker with their PC, instead placing higher value on performance and price, leaving design innovation, power consumption, and noise pollution as casualties of their budgets.
GPL Deconstructed
Oh, really? It was slow (but then so was it's bigger brother in those days). If memory serves, it didn't include a floppy drive as standard equipment and the software available on those cartridges was... no, I take that back; there was virtually no software available in those cartridges. And the keyboard was the biggest problem of all. It probably set a record for causing unanimous negative opinion in the shortest amount of time of any PC product.
Surely ``popular'' wasn't the word you really meant to use...
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
It seems that the only consumers willing to pay for design considerations are Apple customers.
Fanless design, low power design, ease of accessability, ease of maintainance, CPUs on daughtercards, Firewire and USB, easy to access ram, easy to open cases, are all part of the G4 Tower and the G4 laptop.
The majority of PC buyers would rather put up with more noise pollution, cramped and difficult to maintain cases, spaghetti cables, and heat than pay for the design and manufacture of concept PCs.
GPL Deconstructed
Gee, who did the article say was teaming up with HP to make this thing? Let me check... Oh, yeah, there it is: Intel! What they hell are they doing?!?!? Intel shouldn't waste their money promoting their own products... They should be getting together with HP and developing a product built around AMD chips... Sheesh.
As for the expandability of the thing -- read the first line:
Equipped in their concept PC.
Concept widgets generally never make it to the public as is... Oh, look, it says so right here:
Will we see these new PC's on shelves soon? Not likely..
If you are looking at something other than the link in the article, I am sorry, please post a link, but the way I read the article this is nothing more than what they call it: A Concept PC.
here's a link to Intel's version of the page...the other link i saw only took me to www.intel.com, lotta good that did...
I could never get into the whole small pc thing. Every time I have to fiddle with small case computers, I have visions of hell turned loose. To me a "sweet computer" is one in which everything is easily upgradable and insertable. On my last computer, I replaced every component except the actual case (which I am also planning to do soon with an addtronics 7896 case). This thing is just begging to be outdated before it is even fashionable due to when the next cool graphics card comes out or when 600X cd roms are all the minimum on games or even just to upgrade ram.
I miss the Karma Whores.
... besides the matching cute exteriors of the devices? We already have the "concept" of wireless mice and keyboards. Besides, why the hell would anyone want a wireless mouse, with its horriffic refresh rate?
For those of us that can see and need to be in the same room as the monitor, the range and less dependance on direction or line of sight of RF over infra-red is an advantage. For example, my IR mouse can't quite make it from the lounge to the top of the TV set, so the sensor has to sit on an object at the same height as the mouse about a metre in front of the TV.
One possibility, which I don't think has a commercial solution yet, is to connect a transmitter to the RF-out on a video card, have it tuned to a spare channel and use TV sets wherever you go as monitors. The frequencies for TV are at the top end of the MHz range, so a very similar piece of equipment to the small, low power FM transmitters should do to job. Picture quality will not be fantastic due to NTSC (not the same colour twice) and PAL limitations. For those of us with one TV a cable would be better.
It seems to me that a machine that didn't want to accept outside interference would have to have a miniature triangulation system and laser beam to disable any nearby devices causing the interference.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
I love the wireless cup of coffee that is featured in most of the pictures of this new comp. what would ever get done without coffee? obviously nothing.
I can just see it now - 100 keyboards and mice within earshot of each other - that's 200 xmitters and 100 recivers. Can anyone say RF pollution?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
As for it being safe, large amounts of RF radiation will turn you into a crispy critter.
All of the earth return work he did also looked very weird - apparantly he planted a light bulb in the ground near an AC generator and it lit up.
He has a reputation for being a crackpot, which mostly came from Edison calling him names over the DC (Edison) vs AC (Tesla) debate, and from a few psuedo-documentaties that came out in the 1970's (you know the sort- "What are these mysterious roads into the sea, are they proof that Easter Island was once part of Atlantis?" when twenty years before someone with scuba gear has proved that they were BOAT RAMPS!). All of those pencil sketches that are shown things like airships generating power by the potential difference in the atmosphere and broadcasting it were never published (that's why they are in pencil), and just get dragged out when someone wants to make Tesla the pin-up boy of the conspiricy theorists.
ever since the P4:
"'Concept PC 2001' uses the power of the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor platform for future PC innovation."
What does that sentence MEAN?? How can a computer (even a Concept PC) use a platform to achieve future innovation?? Or is it just using a platform that's itself is a platform for future innovation? In that case, since when is a proccessor a platform for innovation? And lastly, what the hell does "platform for future PC innovation" mean in the first place???
sic transit gloria mundi
My god! You still use floppies? I'm sorry, but you can't have a nice modern PC until you can get over that. :-)
:-)
Another example of the dark side of PCs. The inertia for `the way we have always done it' is immense.
When I got my first iMac I was worried about the no-floppy. It was pointless. I have never wanted a floppy for any mac since then. I still use them on PCs that are too old to boot from CD or net. Got to get linux on there somehow.
So where's the wireless power?
Seastead this.
My wish for a PC is to be rackmount at home, in the basement. Keyboards, mouses, CDROMs and Monitors are dispersed in the house. Since the CPU is in the basement, the fan noise would not be a problem in the main appartements. Quiet, slick terminals across your home... Imagine...
Note that rackmount of a 5U unit at least. I want the same upgrade possibilities as I have with my mid tower. The CPU unit does not need to be slim; costs consideration must come before space or even noise (to a limit of course).
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
This monitor has effectively increased the surface area that I have to put the stickers from my bananas on by at least 500%. It's going to be a long time before we see another innovation like this from the computer industry.
why not, at very least, increase the leg-room, deskspace, whatever and combine the cpu-box and monitor.
One reason not to is so you can upgrade those components separately. Their assumption is that you upgrade monitors less frequently than systems.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It is nice to see Bluetooth becoming the standard here though.
I wish it was the standard, though; Logitech and Thrustmaster are both coming out with wireless gamepads, but every RF device from either company needs its own receiver. A single receiver would save a mess of USB ports...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Is it me, or have computer keyboards actually gotten crappier over the years? More keys, buttons, dials, and knobs. Fancy colors, new computer interfaces (USB, IEEE1394, bluetooth). However, the actual performance, functionality, and durability of computer keyboards has gone down hill over the past 10 years. The strange thing is that almost every other aspect of computers has improved significantly over the past 10 years. CPUs are god-like compared to those available 10 years ago. RAM is fast, plentiful, and costs next to nothing. Same goes for harddrives. Video displays have gotten larger, and have better quality.... etc... Hell, even the other major input device, the pointing device has improved (trackpoints, laser and mechanical mice, etc).
Keyboards on the other hand are degenerating into cheap pieces of crap. They no longer have crisp clean tactile feedback, which makes fast and accurate touch typing possible. Keystrokes often fail to register. Keys stick, and even sometimes fail to press. All in all, the modern keyboard fails at its most basic task: typing.
Why are keyboards getting worse?
Here are some of my theories:
So yeah, this Concept PC looks cool, and I am glad that overall, computer technology is improving, but I wish that the "few steps back" taken in the keyboard technology department didn't have to happen from generation to generation. Of course, some people still make and sell good keyboards with the high quality and durable capacitive aka buckling spring keyswitch technology.
It seems we live in worlds too different to even communicate. Allow me to supply more detail...
:-)
Zip - it never entered my mind to use a zip disk. I have no use for cheap, unreliable storge (floppies), I certainly have no use for expensive unreliable storage.
Bootable CDs - my prefered way to install software. Fragility doesn't matter. I lose them or loan them. I just burn a new one each time I need one.
Bootable Network - I use this. If my NIC dies I replace it. I'm using Linux on these machines. I do not have a driver issue to deal with. If I did, I would just use a CD or CD-R to tote the driver over.
Everything is networked. All my valuable data moves around at night using rsync so it is stored on multiple machines. rsync is patient. Most users (image editors aside) don't make enough data that rsync won't catch up in a couple of hours at night, even on a modem.
You use "floppies" and "reliable" in the same sentence. I'll assume that is a typo.
You mention me using a costly horrible to upgrade box. I'm not sure what you mean there. I buy my wintel boxes for $400 (cheapest machine at BestBuy) and never upgrade them (ok, I do add RAM initially if I will be running gimp or such on it). The macs I usually buy low end machines on their 'end of model' sale and get a nice price on those as well.
Other than adding RAM or a new drive now and again I have only upgraded 1 machine in 20 years. I got a clocked doubled P180 for a P90 once. It wasn't really worth it. The rest of the machine was mostly obsolete and the machine just got bus bound. Paying a premium for upgradability is a waste of money in my book. Part of that comes from having multiple computers. I can always just demote all the machine, give away to oldest machine, and buy a new for the machine that needs CPU.
Sony's 18.1" LCD display is available now. Looks better, too.
Yet another sad attempt by a PC designer to make cool, elegant, homogenous looking computer components like Apple. At least this doesn't look as slapped-together and idiotic as earlier HP and Compaq attempts.
Maybe they'll get it right in several years, just about on track for the general "PC now is Apple 10 years ago" rule.
Why is it that only Apple seems to be able to pull this off? They couldn't have hired all of the talented industrial designers in the world.
This seems to me that HP was inspired by Apple's Cube. The color scheme looks the same (from the tiny pictures), they tried to minimize cables (Cube had ADC & AirPort), a slot load optical drive, and they are using airflow to control the temperature just like the Cube.
I have a website. It's about Macs.