Slashdot Mirror
Turn Your PC Into A Tablet
Odkin writes "Geekstreet.ca has a story on a new concept invented by Philips called Detachable Monitor. It's an LCD with a touch screen that connects to your PC via 802.11b. I found this article in German with some nice hi-res pictures and there's also a link at Philips' homepage. "
Microsoft presents something similiar on the CeBit. It's called Mira and is a hybrid between a PDA, a Webpad and a PC.
Read about it at CNet and Microsoft PressPass.
Boycot? Blackout? Subscriptions?
I don't care!
The portable display (along with a portable keyboard/pointer) is the missing link in my home network. I carry around a laptop with WiFi sometimes, but this is overkill. I want the smarts in the "house server" and the remote terminal to be comfortable to carry, nice to look at, and not too expensive.
So who's doing this in the OpenSource world?
--Martin
Fiat Lux.
Note that this kind of screen could be the first step to DRM mechanisms build into the output device: They could use it to send pictures or videos encrypted to the screen. Unless you know the key that's inside your screen there will be no chance to get the raw data. Much safer than a software solution. And at least a solution thats a little bit more OpenSource-friendly (you can safely give away the source of the OS without harming the DRM protection, because everything happens in the screen). Also note that the same thing is possible for audio with USB speakers.
Ever since the first PC's, the technology in the box has been modularized and extracted from the box. Ironically, the PC was to break us free from the centralized mainframes.
Networking has once again revitalized specialization, centralization and modularization of the components within the box. We no longer think of the printer being an accessory to the PC. Direct Attached, NAS, and SAN storage have moved disks out of the box. Applications which used to run on our PCs now live on the server.
We now ask questions about our PCs. Why is there a hard disk in my workstation? Why is there a CPU capable of immense processing power in my workstation that will run idle for most of its life? Why is there anything in my PC other than the input and output devices that I require? Why can't everything else go in a specialized room somewhere, where it can be maintained, backed up and monitored more easily? Perhaps more controversially, why do I have to bother with that room at all and couldn't it be a service that I subsribe to?
Someone you trust is one of us.
Yes, the monitor communicates with the PC via IEEE 802.11b at 11 Mbits/s. This isn't really adequate for anything that refreshes the screen a lot, especially since I doubt the communications protocol between the monitor and the PC is as high-level as the communication between an X client and an X server.
The philips page here gives more details. I don't know why the Slashdot article links to the Philips home page instead of the Philips page that discusses the monitor.
From http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index.cfm:
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Wacom's Cintiq combines the advantages of an LCD monitor with the control, comfort, and productivity provided by a Wacom tablet. The LCD monitor is clear, bright and easy to look at. The Cintiq pen has 512 levels of pressure-sensitivity, is cordless, and batteryless and includes both a DuoSwitch and a pressure-sensitive eraser. The Cintiq pen is used directly on the screen offering everyone from designers and illustrators to doctors and professors a powerful and intuitive new way to work on their computers.
The Cintiq LCD monitor is a true-color active matrix screen providing 16.7 million colors, a resolution of 1024 x 768 and a full 15" diagonal viewing area (the equivalent of a 17" CRT monitor).
For comfort and convenience, Cintiq features a removable pen holder that can be attached to either side and adjusted to your preferred height and angle. The Cintiq stand allows you to easily adjust the angle of your Cintiq screen between 18 and 73 degrees - and you can even remove the stand to comfortably rest the Cintiq in your lap.
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It also works with UNIX.
It's a lengthly video, but Microsoft demonstrated this very use at CES. Video can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ehome/news/news.a sp.
r a.asp
What you're talking about is exactly what I've been looking for from a PC as well. Microsoft is bundling this "Mira" detachable screen and their new "Freestyle" interface to deliver exactly the home media center that you're describing.
The first version has the following limitations:
1. Only one user session can be active
2. No video or high-end graphics
There's another good overview of these technologies here: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/freestyle_mi
How in the hell are they getting video to the monitor over 802.11b. The article doesn't cover this aspect at all.
I can just imagine trying to decipher the text in my editor through all the block artifacts left from the MPEG compression they are doing to the video?!
"And like that
IBM follows a much more interesting concept when it comes to such hybrid devices. It's called Meta Pad and is currently developed by IBM Research.
The MetaPad provides different services in different environments without rebooting.
Boycot? Blackout? Subscriptions?
I don't care!
"Geekstreet.ca has a story on a new concept invented by Philips called Detachable Monitor
Considering Microsoft already have 'invented' the idea (Mira), and that Philips have just announceed that it will deliver Mira devices, don't you think the article summary is a bit um...made up?
Perhaps this article would never have made it to the main page if it had said that Microsoft 'invented' the idea.
It's nice to see slashdot.org announcing innovations coming out of Microsoft, but it would be nice if you'd properly attribute them as well.