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.

Comments

Non-Wireless Monitor?

[bwindle2]

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".

The Cats Will Be Very Upset

[Quarters]

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.

Re:The Cats Will Be Very Upset

[kfg]

My cat is already very upset. She isn't prone to chewing cables but in the old days of TV set like monitors she loved to soak up heat and stay close to me while I was working or playing games by "Garfielding" on top of it.

Then I brought in the first monitor with a tilt/swivel base. Scared the piss out of her the first time she tried to settle on top of it. Not IN the monitor, thank God.

With a flat screen she won't even be able to warm up by lying *next* to it.

By the way, the best definition of a cat that I've run across is:

"God's way of letting you know your furniture is too good."

KFG

Not a wireless LCD

[sportal]

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.

and power?

[spankfish]

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!

Re:and power?

[babbage]

I would think that would only be a problem once.... PZZZZT!

Re:and power?

[MindStalker]

Well you can easily beam it through microwaves, and run a battery for times when the beam is crossed. Though the cat would QUICKLY learn not to cross the beam. Anyways untill we learn how to do subspace power transportation. I think the fun way would be to have 2 how swap batteries in it, and make the batteries with robot legs which are smart enough to walk over to their recharge station when they get low. And walk back and redock with your computer once filled. Get a bunch of these put the recharge station across the room and put up obstacles for it to cross. And you could have a fun time watching your pet batteries do their little labor walks. After a while it will start to feel like warcraft gold miners in your own home :)

Re:and power?

[Mike Schiraldi]

That's ridiculous. Total overkill, a Rube-Goldberg-like contraption that's completely unnecessary.

Wheeled batteries will work just fine.

Prettier outside, same junk inside

[Ars-Fartsica]

How about PCs that are actually simple to upgrade or alter if we see fit? A few years back PC vendors tried removeable components, but now these designs are relegated to server-class systems (i.e. hot swappable RAID drives).

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.

Re:Prettier outside, same junk inside

[Soko]

Yup.

No one realises that if the PC is going to be an information appliance, then it's not likely going to be very upgradeable. How many times have you swapped out parts on your toaster, or even your TV? Likely, you just go buy a new, better one that's already the way you want it. Only chipheads like us want an appliance that we can hot-rod for next to nothing. Welcome to the world of disposable goods.

There's also the argument that things like batter memory architectures and CPU-Perepheral interconnects are rapidly improving and changing, and it's WAY expensive to future proof a PC against changes in foundation architectures. A valid argument, it would seem.

However, when you think about it, why would a manufacturer make a PC that someone would want to keep for years and years by getting simple, cheap upgrades? The perpetual upgrade cycle keeps the PC makers (and the toxic waste disposal companies) in business. Supply/demand in action. Meh.

Soko

illegal circumvention device

[libre lover]

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.

;)

Smells fishy...

[houston_pt]

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...

Just Fabulous

[Francis]

I have enough trouble with finding my remote.

Now I can lose my keyboard, mouse, monitor and CPU. This is definately progress.

Buy a G4 tower then :P

[2nd Post!]

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.

Re:Only one problem...

[victim]

First off, design is cheap. Divide design cost by 1,000,000 computers and it vanishes. Second, problem is that PCs are designed. They are designed to minimize production costs while still being marketable. When people say paying for design they frequently mean paying for better usability, longevity, or aesthetics at the expense of low cost.

This can't be the product of a serious HP design effort...

Look at the pictures again and consider ergonomics.

• In the first picture (tall skinny) your right knee is going to be bashing into the CPU.
  
• In the second picture the helpful model has turned to face his cpu box which has no user interface funcations at all and will be twisting his head to the right all day to see the monitor.
  
• 3rd picture, not enough context to tell. Looks like it is back in knee bash position. Why is this cpu box taking up my desk? The CD is in the screen after all.
  

Now let's talk design. Just because this is different from the 20 year old PC form factor doesn't make it `designed'. Look at the display. Why is only 50% of the object's area useful display? Why is there a big handle on the bottom of it? I suspect it serves some other function, but it looks like a handle to me. Maybe I can hang my keyboard on the monitor handle? And no patententing the keyboard hanger HP, thats my idea.

I suspect we are not looking at a design effort, but rather some engineers were tasked to show what a bluetooth maximized PC would look like and produced a minimal vision.

Questions for future consideration...

• Why isn't their a bluetooth headset there. Integrate my music grade headphones, my voice control mic, and my telephone. Give me voice dialing while you are at it.
  
• Why isn't my PDA sitting there syncing through the bluetooth? Aren't we trying to sell a vision? show me!
  
• Why am I looking at the same old cubical design? You just took away 16" of monitor depth yet you are showing me a cube designed with a corner desk to hold deep monitors. This monitor is incompatible with corner desks! Revisit that. Shrink the cube or use the space. $20/sqft/year. Use it or lose it.
  
• I don't want to hassle with batteries. My freaking electric toothbrush charges inductively by sitting on a special base. Wacom powers their pointers and mice by wireless power transfer. Give me a little power mat I can place my keyboard an mouse on that will charge them. Make sure their battery can go a couple of days so I can forget once in a while, but let them recharge when idle. Consider solar power. It works for calculators in offices. Do my headset too while you are at it.
  
• Where is my video conferencing camera? Stick it in my display like a little pointable eyeball. you've got enough room! and give me a little shutter I can flip over it so I don't feel watched all the time. maybe one of those round things in the display is a camera and one is a speaker?
  

Intel marketing has been getting on my tits...

[glwtta]

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???

Wireless Power

[Baldrson]

wireless keyboard, mouse, even a wireless 18" flat screen LCD monitor. The wireless mouse and keyboard run over RF."

So where's the wireless power?