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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."
Now I can look at everyone else's porn as well as my own!
I interact with my Windows XP using a finger all the time.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Because when I think "security" I automatically think "Microsoft" and "802.11b."
If sure these will just FLY off the shelves, so people can ensure that the script kiddie next door will be able to watch in realtime as you type up your post to alt.members.nambla-- before you even hit the "Submit" button!
Think of the potential harm you can do by sniffing these networks.. Everything concerning patients in hospitals is classified information isn't it?
So now some war driver is going to be able to intercept the communications between my touchscreen monitor and PC? I think I'll pass.
How can we afford to ever sleep
So sound again
--ebtg
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.
Fight Spammers!
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.
No... Imagine having a VNC terminal running on your LCD screen (complete with RAM and processor)-- no need for inputs, disk, etc. And another terminal running 'locally'. So now, not a whole lot of bandwidth is required to show images, and you in effect have a "wireless" screen.
It seems we can do an open source solution quite quickly...
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now for a limited time, you can buy a product to sniff both X10 networks and users porn^H^H^H^Hdesktops!
Only $199.99 for this amazing device!!!
(note, not garenteed to break ssh tunnels)
This
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...
The surface of a Smart Display will be touch sensitive allowing you to interact using a finger or a stylus
Now I can actually finger a user using a real finger.
$cat
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?
Instead of buying some proprietary solution:
Why not use a large lcd screen, a compact flash (or similar) HD, 128mb or so ram, and a small processor, and a PXE (network) boot over the 802.11 connection?
(essentially a large screen, minimal hardware, networked tablet PC)
That way the corporation can run whatever software it wants.
As people have pointed out though, its going to be hard to display movies or games on these (or videoconfrencing for that matter)
This
I see this included in some sort of kvm solution. One less thing for the MCSE's to not have to be able to figure out :-)
Mod point free since 2001
Makarand writes:
The surface of a Smart Display will be touch sensitive allowing you to interact using a finger or a stylus."
This sounds suspiciously like my girlfriend...
My
Limekiller
Given the way Remote Desktop currently works, remote 3D (or any app that writes directly to a framebuffer such as PowerDVD or most TV tuner software) won't be possible. (I know - I've tried TVs, DVDs, and 3D games over RDP with no luck.)
Remote Desktop doesn't read from the framebuffer. It switches the primary display to a virtualized video card and monitor with capabilities set by the client system (resolution, bit depth, etc.).
You can check this. Fire up a RDP session into an XP Pro box and open the display control panel. The video adapter listed won't be the physical video card you've got on the system.
Hopefully I'll turn out to be wrong about Mira devices (and Microsoft will have drivers reading from the card itself, making 3D and DVD possible), but with their past record, I'm probably right.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
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.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
What advantages does a remote screen have over a notebook? (or tablet?)
I guess it would deter employee theft, because it wouldnt work outside the network.
But does it really make financial sense to buy something for inter building work, and then have to buy even more stuff so that employees can work outside the building (ie trips).
Or do they envision this thing to replace desktop PC's with wireless screens and massive centralized servers? (and what would the cost benifit be? it costs $500 to buy a full desktop PC, vs $1k for the wireless display, and then $50k for a server)
This
I don't believe it one bit. They purport to be able to send "video" through the air? Over long distances? Sorry, but for now I think we're stuck with cable television and cabled monitors. I just don't see how receiving pictures from thin air would work.
But think of the possibilities if it did! We could turn on a TV anywhere and receive the latest news and watch our favorite shows. We would no longer be restricted by wires. Imagine that, wireless TV!
qslack.com
...so using WiFi encryption would have your session doubley encrypted I guess.
If you haven't played around with RDP, checkout rdesktop ( http://www.rdesktop.org/ )
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
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.
I can see the next logical step in this...
1) Create Tablet PC with built in 802.11b
2) Create Wireless Display for 802.11b
3) ???
4) Take over the world
5) Profit becomes irrelevant
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Ok, so I take a seat in the campus computer lab. They have just installed these marvels of market coersion wireless screens.
1. Instead of comfortably resting my hand over the mouse I have to do John Madden calesthenics to move things around on the screen "Boom!"
2. I don't really know if the screen I'm looking at is actually showing me the image from the computer where I am sitting.
3. I discover that it doesn't really matter that I am not looking at "my" computer, as long as nobody else sees the one I am using... until I try to use the keyboard.
4. It's all OK because although I'm not using my computer, I have a wireless keyboard, and it happens to be typing on the computer whose image I'm seeing.
5. I notice while I'm using this computer, that there is a lot of personalized stuff, and in fact I am using the computer of my accounting professor from his office on the floor below. I sneekily email his next test to myself.
6. Feeling smug about the test, I finish typing my report, print it, and reset my station, inadvertently destroying the work of a really cute girl on the other side of the lab.
7. While waiting at the printer for an unusually long time, I realize that my report with my name on it has just been printed on my accounting professors personal laserjet... in his office.
8. Feeling less smug about the test, I wonder to myself... When did computers start to suck so bad?
I hate this idea
Part of innovation is knowing when to release the product. 15 years ago, it wasn't really feasable.
There are *some* benefits. One, data has to be stored in a centralised location. Two... umm.. Okay, there is only one benefit I can think of.
The price will drop I am sure. MS has no probs loosing cashish on the xbox so I am sure they will have no probs in dropping the price of this a bit as well.
tinfoilmedia
Sounds like they thought of embedding a VNC client with an 802.11 card into an LCD display. It's a nifty idea, really; the concept of decoupling the user interface from devices is interesting. For example, assuming VNC was the standard remote display protocol, imagine the following scenario:
1. The display (LCD monitor with a VNC client) broadcasts discovery beacons
2. Devices in range respond. Your stereo, fridge, computer, laptop, handheld, watch, all equipped with VNC servers, announce themselves.
3. The LCD monitor shows a list of discovered devices. You pick one to interact with, say the stereo.
4. The user interface designed by the manufacturer of the stereo pops up on the LCD monitor.
Now repeat the above with a similarly capable TV, or head-mounted display. Very cool. (Security is not really a problem, all this can be end-to-end encrypted and authenticated).
Admittedly, the mechanism is conceptually similar to HTML-based user interfaces. Howeveer, the difference is that the VNC-based system is less restricted in what the servers can display; with HTML, the servers are restricted to using browsers and the kind of interaction they induce. Also, the HTML system, due to requiring a browser, is more heavy-weight.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
This is windows XP (and higher) only. Windows XP already comes with a VNC client server setup that works quite nicely. I can log in as any user and it operates at pretty decent speeds. Just wish multiple logons were possible. Either way, this is what they are using I'm sure. Infact if you bought a tablet PC with wifi you could probably do this right now, but hopefully as these will be dedicated towards VNC they will be significantly cheaper.
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!
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 display but the idea is the same.
Boy, this Microsoft thing is pure genius. NOT.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Didn't Viewsonic already do this? Slashdot Article
Basically an RDP session to the dekstop. Cool for certain applications, and could easily be applied to a X-Windows session too...
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
Now, I know that virtually nobody on Slashdot has a job, or for the most part, even graduated from high school yet, but this *does* have real world applications. Since this was picked up by ABC news, every story they do is gonna revolve around fat ass home users on their couches. BUT, this thing does have a very practical use.
I'd like to get a few for my store. I have PC's up front, all networked, running my POS systems. I don't really have room for them, and the wires networking them to the back room are a pain. This will be a perfect solution. I can get rid of the PC's in the front, I don't need to worry about employees tripping over wires, and I even have the touchscreen feature that I need.
My guess is that MS had this in mind when developing this, but you can't exactly explain that to ABC News, which caters to people with an average IQ equal to that of a doorknob.
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?
Cue The Sun...
Of course, as in "security through obscurity" kind of secure. How silly I didn't think of that before....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
XP does not come with VNC preinstalled. You are probably thinking of Remote Desktop, which comes with XP Professional. While VNC xfers bitmaps of the screen, Remote Desktop xfers low-level Windows API calls. This makes it much more efficient and very fast, even on a low speed connection.
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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. ;-)
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.
Microsoft: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow!
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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...
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
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.
We will have a device without a monitor communicating with another device, which has a monitor.
Woot !!
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.