Multi-head Meets the Laptop

PARENA writes: "Estari comes with a Dual-Screen Laptop! "A what?!" Yes: Dual-Screen. In fact, they are 2 15" TOUCH screens. According to TwoMobile: 'Unlike electronic tablets, the 2-VU(TM) allows users to view two full-page files or documents simultaneously. Users can page through two books at once, or take handwritten notes in a notebook on one screen while paging through a book on the other screen.' Sounds pretty cool!"

Comments

oh puhleaze

[gnudutch]

>The 2-VU operates in the Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP® environments and features the Adobe Acrobat Reader®. This strategy avoids the problems of a propriety, closed environment while maintaining the file integrity offered through these state-of-the-art digital rights management platforms.

Win2k and Acrobat. Could this thing be any MORE proprietary and closed???

Re:oh puhleaze

[lblack]

Nope.

The general public has caught on to all this brouhaha about how proprietary, closed environments are bad for business. They can even see how that might be so. Unfortuately, they still have no idea what it means.

In the last six months, there's been a definite upswing in the inclusion of sentences like the one you quoted in marketing literature. Most of the time, it's a complete misnomer.

"Our new workstation comes pre-loaded with Windows XP, Microsoft Office and the Adobe Suite, allowing you to create documents in industry-standard formats and avoid being locked into a proprietary model." Uh, what?

It's sort of like when "portability" was a big thing, and you saw references to it in the literature for virtually every product, even those that were designed to run on very specific hardware/software setups.

This is what happens when capitalism takes it up the ass from marketing. It stops being a battle of the better products and becomes a battle of the better brands.

And there is so much market-space that nobody can really claim to be an authority on everything they will buy. You and I might know something about computers, but I know virtually nothing about refrigerators (I recently bought one and was amazed at the amount of research I had to do!). Sometimes, people just don't have the time or inclination to research a purpose. The marketers target those people with nebulous claims that fall roughly in line with what they've been reading in the Business and IT sections of their newspapers (always the most whorish sections, of course).

Bleh.

l

How about battery life?

[diatonic]

I would think that since the display is typically the biggest load on the battery of a portable device (laptop/handheld/etc.) that they will have to work really hard to get a decent amount of time with those big bright displays lit up. If you were using it as an e-book reader you would need the battery to last longer than a few hours.

The dark side of the eBook

[groupthink]

This is why eBooks coupled with insane legislation like the DMCA are such a threat. Once a digital book is comfortably readable, the textbook industry will move to eBooks, keeping the students, who are required to purchase them, from exercising the rights we have become used to.

The concept of no longer owning the book, is introduced. For a price, you get access to the text for a period of time. Still want access to it after a year? Gotta pay.

Such concepts as selling the book back to the bookstore when you're finished with the class, or selling it to another student, will become things of the past.

Sure this is a great device, but with the textbook industry drooling over the students as a captive audience, the ramifications of such a device are worth considering.

Cute, yes. Practical?

[Clovert Agent]

It looks funky, but I'm not convinced it'll play in the form factors they're planning.

Mainly, it's the notebook (ironically enough) form factor that I'm not sure about. Some vertical markets might love it - those that need real computing and portable computing but struggle with the average handheld. Healthcare, education...that sort of thing.

But for the rest of us? Dunno about you, but I just don't work like that. I'm used to scrolling through long documents. I like being able to have wide windows for some tasks (mainly spreadsheets).

In its handheld/subnotebook model, now that could work. My feeling is that would suit the type of use you'd expect - holding a gadget like a book is pretty natural for some tasks.

I'm particularly dubious of the exec's claim that the book format is "proven to be better" for comprehension. That's because people are used to it. Same way that people who type on a standard keyboard struggle to use a Dvorak layout, but that doesn't mean the former is better. And that, to me, sums up a lot of their arguments in favour of the thing.

But hey. Maybe I'll recant when I've had the chance to play with one at a tradeshow and get hooked :)