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Great gadgets at CeBIT
janeko writes: "CeBIT is propably the largest techno/gadget exhibition in Europe. Every year there is great news of new gadgets and this year is no different. A company from Israel called VKB has created a vitual keyboard that can be displayed, using a laser, on almost any surface. Connect it to your PDA and use your kitchen table as a keyboard. Talking of surfaces, Olympia has created sound device called Soundbug that uses any hard surface as a speaker. Again, attach this to your PDA and kitchen table and enjoy your mp3's. News.com has more." Soundbug was also mentioned in this earlier story; what other gadgets from CeBIT are worth talking about this year?
It's hard enough to find a decent keyboard with physical keys. I imagine that typing on your kitchen table (or wherever) is going to get painful pretty quickly. Perhaps the flexibility of the keyboard and the ability to get rid of physical effort might have a positive effect, but I'd be reluctant to use a "virtual keyboard" for a lengthy period without having the ergonomics properly checked out
It sounds like neat gadget, using IR to connect with your mobile phone for email/msg access, but the price makes no sense unless it actually comes with the phone itself.
Here are the specs from the Invair website:
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Virtual Keyboard by CmdrTaco with 248 comments on 05:27 PM -- Wednesday November 14 2001
Using Tables as Speakers by Hemos with 312 comments on 10:41 AM -- Thursday March 14 2002
at least products are making it to the trade shows.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The laser keyboard mentioned may be vaporware, but in the meantime Logitech had on show at CeBit a very cool little wraparound fabric keyboard that doubles (when not in use) as a case for a Palm PDA. It's water-resistant, has hot keys, and folds out to be about the size of a notebook QWERTY keyboard. I think it's retailing in the UK at about £100 ($140), which seems steep, but I'll find it very useful for use in libraries as it's totally quiet. On sale in the UK next month.
/ 4406
The company's press release is here (has pix):
http://www.logitech.com/cf/newsarticle.cfm
If you are a real mobile phone freak like me, you ought to be interested in the new Nokia 7650 mobile phone. It has a color display, digital camera (640x480), bluetooth, does MMS, has MIDP JAVA support and uses the Symbian OS.
:-)).
Look at the live CeBIT web-thing demonstration the MMS feature here (it has girlie pictures
sigfault. comment dumped.
Yes. It is not only the biggest in Europe, but the biggest in the world, even including the North American Continent.
Some facts:
2.041.550 m show area
~ 8.100 exhibitors (3.000 intternational ones)
800.000 visitors
Moritz
I am excited about the new wireless monitors. I was seriously concidering the PaceBlade, a laptop with a wireless monitor! But felt it almost what I wanted, just not quite. For instance, no mention of whether or not I can use the monitor with a standard computer or if it takes analog signals for watching TV. I'll wait for that perfect combination.... hopefully not too long! I'm salivating.
[news for me, stuff that doesn't matter]
Look at the laser-keyboard website...
the main graphic eventually flashes to a dude trying to type on his dashboard...
while he's driving right down the CENTER double yellow lines.
Who are the ad wizards who came up with that marketing idea, and how long do we have to wait to get rear ended by some dude using his dash as a keyboard???
..flicker at a frequency seemingly tuned to create horrible headaches. If this thing is real you couldn't use it for more than a few minutes, before having an epileptic fit. Increasing the refresh is not a simple thing, needing more than one laser/mirror combo. It's the mirror that draws the image, the laser remains still in most designs. Unless MEMS tech has vastly improved since last night, this seems to be an investor black hole.
I have a hard enough time finding keyboards that I like and trying to type on a table top sounds like a bad idea. I'm pretty picky about key travel (the distance that a key moves when pressed). I really like the small key travel of laptops and I searched around for weeks before finding a desktop keyboard that had an acceptable key travel. Even if you're not anal about key travel like I am, it's nice to have some sense that your keys are in the right place by having something move. I imagine it would be pretty easy to get lost trying to type on a table with no feedback from the table.
Developers really do need to consider the security implications of their products, especially when making our kitchen furniture smart.
I just read a post here written by someone at SCEA confirming that CeBIT required all PlayStations to be removed from the show floor - even though they were not showing any games. (You can't play games at CeBIT, which I understand and agree with - but the Linux kit isn't a video game.) She even mentions that the signs with the apology could not mention the name PlayStation - they had to refer to it as "our computer system".
This was a gadget I was wanting to hear about from CeBIT, too bad I won't be able to.
Here's a collection of neat CeBIT gadgets from the c't newsticker. All articles are in German, but there are pictures and links to the manufacturer's webpages:
... and lots of other cool stuff, like the new nForce 615-D and 620-D chipsets, IP (as in address) enabled cars, server blades,
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