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Incredible Shrinking PC
Lawrence_Bird writes "Reuters is reporting that IBM is set to announce next week a
prototype
PC called a 'metapad' 5"x3"x0.75". 128Mb Ram, 10GB, and an 800 Mhz cpu.
Understand this is a module that can be plugged into other devices,
such as a LCD screen or docking station. "
The article actually claims that the unit has a 10-gigaBIT hard drive. I wonder if that was a mistake, or an intentional marketing ploy to make it sound more impressive than it actually is.
MetaSearch=Search a set of search engines
MetaModerate=Moderate a set of Moderations
MetaPad=Pad a set of Pads???!!
Can 'Meta' prefix a Noun, rather than a Verb?
...In other words, no keyboard, no mouse, no screen, no input or output of any kind. It's a PC you're meant to take home and plug into a docking station which has all your input and output devices ready for you.
Why this is any better than an ultraslim laptop, which has pretty much all the same features plus the ability to use it without a docking station when needed, is not immediately clear to me.
This sounds like something that would be a great application for a Transmeta CPU. These will definitely need low power and cool-running chips. It's too bad the article didn't have many details.
~.Evanrude
so apparently we all read arstechnica too. this was on there long before it showed up on slashdot. i don't blame the /. editors for
this, but i'd hope that the people posting
news would take a bit more ethical responsibility and report the source. see
the original arstechnica article for more details.
...because pagers and cell phones haven't completely succeeded in making our jobs be 24/7.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
...get AMD to put a proc in the thing, then market it as "MetaHeatingPad".
MetaPad sounds WAY too much like a super-absorbent feminine hygiene product.
I realize this was for Yahoo Finance, and not exactly aimed at the SlashDot crowd, but seriously:
Sheeesh. Like explaining that 800 megahertz is 800 million cycles per second is going to clue folks in with such valuable information. "Gawrsh, that's a lot of cycles per second."
And IBM's statements seem weird:Ready for the market in a few years??? In a few years, this thing should be *way* obsolete, with tiny pocket computers more powerful than our desktops of today. This thing would be useful and interesting today, not a year from now.I thought IBM had top notch people in usability, market research, laptop design, and so on. It seems strange to hear them say "we have this cool technology, but we're not sure how people would use it." I can think of a dozen ways it could be turned into a useful product. I guess it's good that they're asking the industry, but it sounds like these guys are a bit directionless, and will end up deliverying too little, way too late.
Too bad, I'd likely buy one of these if it were available today.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Actually, it's 3x5, i.e., the size of a small stack of 3x5 cards. It'll fit in a pocket, but more importantly, will fit in most organizers/office supply holders. It's a known format.
And to the person who said "imagine tryng to type on this thing?" - Well, imagine trying to type on a Pentium chip!!! Because that's what this basically is - only mugh higher level. It's the processor and storage in a modular block. Realistically, I'd love to see it become standardized and OSes support it - pop one into a "empty" laptop, and you have your data. Pop one into a "empty" desktop, and you have it there - or pop two in, and you've got twice the diskspace (or maybe just mirrored), and twice the processor power. Is your game too slow? Pop in two more.
As stupid as it is, the phrase: "Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these" almost makes sense. Well, not Beowulf, per se, but personal clustering on a shared bus.
HAHAHHAHA! I just realized - after 25 friggin years of moving towards PCs and peer to peer, we may be not only be going back to minis and mainframes storing data (accessable via a wireless, pervasive network), we *may* just go back to a neutral backplane - can you say "S-100 bus"? Hehehhee....
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
picture: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/en/2002/02/0205met apad.jpg
article: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-830173.html
...being pickpocketed and losing your computer!
oooooooh, I'm supposed to be impressed? What microprocessor? My cordless phone runs at 2 GHz. :-/
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
Photoshop over Telnet always seems to give me some sort of error...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Bah, that's a load of BS. Where are your priorties? If you want to spend more time with your kids, then do so, don't sit there and complain about being too busy.
I get paid way less than I should because I turn my pager off on weekends. I don't put in any overtime unless it's critical. Yeah, I'm not living the high life, and not going to have much when it comes to retirement funds, but the important thing to me is that I enjoy my time with my son, NOW. Once he's grown, I'll probably have to work much harder and longer to make up for lost time, but that's just money. You can't make up lost time with your kids.
I don't have a GHz computer at home, I don't drive a Benz, I don't own a big house, I can't buy the latest gadets. But I do take my son out hiking and camping on weekends. That's where my priorites are. Think about yours...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.