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Ideal PDA Feature Wishlist?
RichiP asks: "My memory is so poor I forget friends' birthdays and appointments I made a day ago. I sometimes have an idea I want to jot down but that I end up forgetting when I finally come upon pen & paper. To help myself, I was thinking of purchasing one of those integrated PDA and cellphone devices (first the Handspring Treo then another by Samsung), but I've always felt that these devices were still far from ideal. I was wondering if the Slashdot community would share their wishlist of features for what they believe would be the ideal Personal Digital Assistant. Features for input, processing and output are all welcome. Perhaps the device I want may be years from becoming commercial. Given the right ideas from input from others, I might be able to come up with my own device or start an open project geared towards it." Even if you do feel that PDAs have a limited lifespan, if you had a chance to add a feature to a PDA (especially if you felt it would increase the lifespan of the PDA), what would it be?
I have seen too man scratched screens over the years. I would like to see some kind of integrated, and replacable, screen protector.
What do you know I wrote a novel
I hate typing stuff in, and I hate writing stuff down. All I want to do is say "Cowboy Neal; Birthday; 25 December 1997" and a new entry for cowboy neal is added if it doesn't already exist and the birthdate is added.
404 Not Found The requested signature was not found on this server.
I want them dirt-cheap and mass-produced, like calculators.
... should really be a hand-held computer.
640x480 screen, extensible (by yanking it out) to 800x640
Integrated pinhole camera
Runs Linux (duh), w/compile-on-PDA
64 megs operational memory, as-much-as-it-can-take storage memory
Grafitti or similar writing system, with add-on keyboard (a la GoType)
IrDA access
Extension capability via high-speed, low pinout interfaces (more than one).
Battery lasts for about three weeks under heavy usage.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
City-wide flat-rate wireless internet access with real web browsing at a 640x480 minimum resolution.
There is so much I could do if I had a web browser in my pocket all the time, and I wasn't nickled and dimed for using it.
At the top of my wish list, is a cell phone with the following features:
;-)
1) MP3 player functionality, with 256MB flash memory and USB interface, mountable as a hard drive.
2) Infrared/802.11/Bluetooth modem support, plug & play with any laptop computer, log on from anywhere. (No need to cram a web browser onto the cell display itself.)
3) Ability to make calls over cell network, cordless landline, or internet, at will.
4) GPS/navigational functionality.
5) Last but not least, optional laser engraving for a paltry additional $49, of course. (Do-it-yourself paperclip engraving is just so five-seconds-ago.
Maybe Apple's next Digital Device will be something like this. I have a Powerbook G4, and it's surprisingly difficult to find a workable log-on-from-anywhere solution.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
- At least a GB of nonvolatile memory (why is it that my digital camera can accept a microdrive but most PDAs can't?)
- 802.11
- Firewire
- MP3 player
- Color screen with MPEG-4 player
- Microphone for voice recording to MP3, preferably with voice recognition but could be downloaded to desktop PC for VR later.
- Wireless short text messaging/email with ability to use its wireless modem from a computer when I need a bigger screen
- Microsloth-free
I guess what I'm looking for is the bastard child of a Newton and an iPod with a few extra bells and whistles.1) 22" LCD screen with a fast enough refresh to play games without the motion blur.
2) dual athlon mp 2g or faster ideally. also, these should allow for future upgrades if need be.
3) a full sized ergonomic keyboard
4) full dolby 5.1 surround sound and subs
5) as a base I would want around 80gigs of storage, but again, it would be nice to have the ability to upgrade that or add on.
6) a bare minimum of a half gig of RAM, but ideall a gig or two. and again, this should allow upgrades or additions.
7) that LCD needs to have millions of colors and have something along the lines of a GeForce 4600 driving it. again, when there becomes a faster version, I want that, so I need to be able to swap them.
8) a very rounded case, that is so shiny I can see my face in it. think like the Nokia 8860.
9) it has to be very light. I don't want to notice that I have this thing with me
10) it should be bulletproof. I tend to keep them in my shirt pocket or inside picket of my jacket in the winter and I want this thing to be able to stop any shots taken at me.
11) in regards to #10, I would recommend Titanium
12) money is no object, but it should cost less than $200.
that would be my ideal PDA.
oh, and it should have some sort of integrated pointing device that is also shiny.
eventually, I want it to be able to translate langauges on the fly, download things off of a wireless connection, read my mind, and create a neural net of my life experiences and sayings as time passes and eventually allow me to use it as my brain.
ideally.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
You can download the QNX on ipaq platform (for 36xx and 37xx series only) at
http://www.qnx.com/developer/download/free/
Note that the docs were wrong --- 31xx series is NOT supported yet.
I enter data, it gets synced (transparently) over the Internet-- first hop wireless-- to my server. Do it through my cellular carrier, I don't care. I read data, it gets cached locally unless it's updated. But there's no need to cache everything locally, so don't load my PDA up with expensive memory.
Do this, make it reliable, and make it cost less than $100, and I'll probably buy a couple and just leave them where I might need them-- one at work, one in the car, one at home.
Start with a modern cell phone, with calendar and contact list. To that add:
Voila!
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bachiatari na torisetsu o yome!
I like my Series 5, but it's still suboptimal.
...and the most obvious- a cheapo ball-bearing orientation sensor read on an interrupt triggered by a squeeze switch- tilt the unit into 'portrait,' squeeze, and the display rotates... tilt 'landscape' and squeeze for the same.
Good bits:
Keyboard
Voice recording
'Persistent' data store
Bad bits:
StrongARM (debatable)
Very Windows-like OS, in UI and design
No gesture recognition
So... my wishlist would be:
Hitachi SuperH (300MHz or so, ultra low power, tight code size, more reasons mentioned at the stalled project site at http://www.azpower.com/mylinux/)
Gesture recognition, Newton-Style (okay, it's complicated, but Psion cut'n'paste is *braindead*)
Convertible form-factor (I like the size of the Series 5, as I have small fingers and can touchtype fine on it, but I wish I could fold the screen over the keyboard while using it as an eBook reader)
Li-Ion battery- well, duh.
The persistence system (as done by Psion/Symbian) could also use a little more versioning control... I hate making a change to a document and then realizing I can't abort and reload the original.
Of course, I'd also like to see a decent wearable, but I'd *really* like to see Bluetooth peripherals (unreleased Psion HALO style) that link up to the palmtop wedged in your backpack.