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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."
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.
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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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.
"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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