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The PC Display has Left the Building
Makarand writes "A new class of PC displays, called Smart Displays, that will use Wi-Fi to effectively decouple
themselves from the PC will be unveiled next week at Comdex. Special software
from Microsoft ( code-named 'Mira') will be at the heart of these displays
allowing them to communicate with any PC running Windows XP within Wi-Fi range ( typically several hundred feet ). The surface of a Smart Display will be touch sensitive allowing you to interact using a finger or a stylus."
Think of the bandwidth situation:
The average LCD screen is 1024x768x4(bytes)x60hz = 188,743,680 bytes per second of transfer over a wireless connection.
I have no idea what kind of wireless system can transfer data like that, so there would definitely be a loss in picture quality somewhere.
It's a neat idea, but without a real connection, data cannot travel that fast, and there's probably proprietary software behind it that would make it a WXP monitor ONLY, for whatever method it uses.
The resolution of a touch screen is reduced because fingers (or stylus) are much fatter than mouse pointers.
I like touch, but recognize the limitations involved as I have worked on touch drivers in the past.
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I'm curious, does writing on a screen ever make scratches, even after years of heavy use?
Also the model mentioned is $1300 for a 15" next year, while you can pick up a $700 Samsung 19" LCD at Best Buy today.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I could see this working for relatively static screens like you'd have with web browsing or typical business apps, but I can't imagine this working well for games or watching videos...
Basicly Microsoft has just invented "the terminal". I already do this with my iBook. Its pretty creepy running XP remotely in full screen. Its unlikely that anyone will be able to play games with it.
My monitor can show me full-motion video... can this thing? If it can't, then it's not a full replacement for my desktop monitor like the article claims it world be.
.mpg file playing.
Yes, you can make sprites out of Windows icons and the such, but that still doesn't work when you have an
This does bring up some interesting security issues, will the wifi network be encrypted in any way?
This sounds like something that Bill Gates thought up. It's like the Tablet PC: a solution in search of a problem.
Always remember that in the absence of other people's good ideas to steal, Microsoft attempts to "innovate." The result is usually crappy ideas that come from none other than Gates himself (the Tablet PC has been his pet project for a long time).
What's the point? Wireless displays? Why bother, when you can build an entire wireless computer in a form factor that isn't any larger than this wireless display? And of course you can simply remote your applications, using HTTP or X11, or even RDP if you really insist on staying in the Winworld. Sorry, I don't see any usefulness here.
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Other questions: Does it require the OS to be up to be used (basically, must I plug in a real monitor to fiddle with the BIOS?) and will these be the "Windows Modems" of monitors?
I don't think these are for me.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Guess what you can do with a proprietary digital interface connecting your monitor to your trusted computing platform? That's right! You can add in more Digital "Rights" enforcement mechanisms! Remember that the ultimate goal is total secure control over all the electronics between the media and the glowing phosphor in the screen and the vibrating elements in your speakers.
Now (knowing this crowd) I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I'll put it out: I want on of these. Not a wishy-washy TabletPC, but a "SmartDisplay."
As opposed to trying to find all the negatives about it (although I do agree on the security and bandwidth points), think of what you could do with one of these. Put it by your bedside table and read the newspaper/your email from the comfort of bed on Sunday morning. Watch a movie from your hammock in the backyard in the summer. Imagine a six-hundred student lecture with one of these terminal in each seat - interactivity that wouldn't suck.
Collaborative work in a design-office setting. Wanna get the guy across the room's opinion on what you did? Bring the screen over to him. Or pretty much any application that needs acces to huge amounts of visual information - categroized bad on where it is either on the monitor wall or on the Mira. And lastly, you know you want to be like Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, working off one of these and a two-story video wall.
I was actually considering rolling one my own of these things for my dorm (so I could use my computer from bed and across the hall) - two WiFi cards, a laptop, and VNC. Then I remembered that I didn't have the cash for an AP and the the battery life on the laptop blew.
Oh well, I'll wait until these things get cheaper. And would your opinion on this whole thing be different if the words "MS" and "Bill Gates" had nothgin to do with it - what about a <fav distro>-based SmartDisplay?
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If this device could also act like a Pronto and you could also control your stereo, tv, dvd, etc. When (if) they get zero-config networking into electronics. A device such as this would be all you would need to control all your devices around the house. I was really hoping Apple would have come out with something like this. Their digital hub strategy would work much better with a product such as this. Security issues aside, with added features and capabilities, such a device would be great in a digital/wireless home.
That's about what I was thinking, myself... Which leads me to believe that MS is doing this because with these monitors, they get tithed for TWO copies of the Windows OS rather than just one for every PC sold. ;-)
... to them, they are apparently oh so worried about whats going on on there pc and anything that presents a potential 'physical' security hole really 'freaks' them out like they actually have a bunch of people waiting to bust into there system, and they have some 'super' sensitive data on it... give me a break, and if this 'really' is the case, just dont use it, as for the rest of you, i guess your all being paranoid for the sake of being paranoid...
Never mind what happens when you try to run dozens of such machines in an office environment (especially in an office building with lots of small individual tenants who won't want to coordinate bandwidth use)... You're taking up valuable radio spectrum just to avoid using a 9' cable? That's ludicrous.
"Smart Display" is the 21st century market-speak version of what used to be called the "dumb terminal". Mind you, it's not a bad idea, but it's neither new nor earthshaking.
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Why not embed Linux and the XFree86 XServer on this wireless PC( I mean innovative display system ) and have xdm running on the beige box under the desk?
Wow, a remote display! How revolutionary!
Then where are all the Linux displays that work this way?
If you want a taste of this then get a Sharp Zaurus, a WiFi card and install the XServer on it. You don't have the realestate of a 1028x768 [sic] display but the idea is the same.
So you're saying it's not the same. And even at 1024x768, I wonder how X would compare to Microsoft RDP? (Which I've used over a fairly slow connection with AWESOME results.)
Boy, this Microsoft thing is pure genius. NOT.
It doesn't need to be pure genious. It just needs to work well and be marketed correctly. I think Microsoft might be able to do that?
"And like that
if other posters are correct, it's been done already, by other companies.
and, I could do it myself. Just slap a WiFi card into my laptop, connect to an Xserver on another machine, and BAM! a remote display. Yes, it requires a second machine, but what geek doesn't have one or more machines? This basically sounds like one step removed from that scenario, kind of like VNC on a thin display over WiFi. All just some minor hardware tweaks. Not earth-shattering news.
and, more importantly, it will be implemented by Microsoft, w/ their not-so-glorious security record. which means that I could probably buy one of these things, spend a day or two tweaking it and googling, and be able to walk into any corporate building and get a display/login on someone's machine. And since this kind of toy will probably only be used by managment, I'll be able to get all kinds of nifty stuff ( because they undoubtably knocked out their security so they could do this or that nifty shiny feature )...information warfare...
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MS wants this because it would require an XP license on each computer as well as a WinCE license on each "mira" device while not working with any other type of system.
Just say no and run TightVNC on a cheap webpad under your favorite free OS.
15" wireless screen for $1299....plus whatever you pay for the box running Windows....just get a friggin' laptop w/ a wireless network card. And, what's the battery life on one of these gonna be anyways? My guess: shitty.
I can see it now. Multicast the keystrokes to do a shutdown, wide open RW access to the C drive, etc.
Seriously though, this is silly. If you want remote monitors, just run remote desktop software which Would be of some use for tablet-PCs's. You take your tablet with you to a meeting and can access a spreadsheet currently open on your office machine. Now beaming from your tablet to a projector (or other tablets in the meeting) might be of some use (bluetooth would be best here), but to another desktop monitor? Silly.
This seems like an easy way to introduce digital rights management between the CPU and the display: tell the consumer that DRM will make his devices more secure.
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