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Cheap Linux Tablets, And (Maybe) An Apple Tablet
penguinrenegade writes "Element Computer has come out with the first sub-$1000 Tablet, and it doesn't come with Windows. It's not running a stripped OS like Windows CE, but a full-fledged copy of Lycoris Desktop/LX. This company seems to really have it in for Microsoft, with a 'No Windows' policy. Good to see someone finally standing up against paying the Microsoft tax. Maybe now we'll start seeing Linux only OEMs and resellers." Also on the tablet computer front, SeanAhern points out Cringely's latest Robert X. Cringely column, in which Cringley makes the case that Apple is readying a tablet computer for market, and "suggests that 'until next year, the parts won't have been there to make tablet PCs successful. What's missing has been the killer app, and what kept a killer app from appearing was a lack of hardware support, which I believe will be over soon,'" writing "He's got some interesting ideas about where Jobs might go with his Digital Hub idea." (This is an Antaur-based machine, not the Toshiba tablet mentioned in October.)
Apple's bound to make a tablet eventually. If the market demands it, it'll definitely happen, and the current tablets on the market suck. Apple's got the Newton tech for handwriting recog, as well as Inkwell, the most underused feature in OS X...now, all you have to add is a touch sensitive screen and BINGO.
Man that was fast... and this error makes me wonder:
1226 - User 'elementc_ms2' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 10000)
Does that mean there are in excess of 10,000 people trying to hit this site at once? Wow.
If i remember correctly, Robert X. Cringely was the same guy who wrote that Win XP ran DOS underneath becasue "cmd" works and that windows should be based on linux instead because linux is better than DOS. /. , what i dont understand is why this guy is so important?
For all the stupid things i have seen on
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
"Maybe now we'll start seeing Linux only OEMs and resellers."
Wishful thinking, and I'm wishing it too. The problem is a base. Tablet PCs haven't been doing so hot (at least not in my neighborhood). The only major interest that I've seen on a large scale has been that of FedEx looking to implement them with their current DADS system, in addition to maintaining open communications with cellular towers. I'm a FedEx dispatcher myself, so I'm kept abreast of what technologies we're planning on moving to in the future. Tablet PCs in the field will help keep us even more accurately up-to-date. Currently, our drivers can only transmit when in range of our larger towers (which are only in the cities), meaning that customers wanting updated tracking information on a package routed to a rural area just have to sit and wait until the driver is in range to transmit data confirming that he/she has indeed delivered that package. With properly equipped tablets, we're hoping to eliminate this problem with true real-time status updates.
What's curious is that, though I may have my head in the clouds, I've really not heard of any other major market for these things beyond novelty. The exception being the Apple rumor. Had apple had access to the technology in a financially feasable market (say 1994) I can absolutely see how ClarisWorks 4 could have dominated the word processing market of that day, and we'd have tablet PCs everywhere. As it stands now, I get the impression that people aren't quite sure what to do with these crazy things.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
So far most tablet PCs have included a keyboard, which is nuts if you've ever used a Pocket PC's handwriting recognition -- the technology is there, just give it to us in a larger form factor (with a 2 GHz processor, 512Meg Ram, a hard drive, and a real OS, not Windows CE). They're also way too expensive, a feature I'm afraid Apple would likely copy.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
well it's circular thinking..
**What's missing has been the killer app, and what kept a killer app from appearing was a lack of hardware support, which I believe will be over soon**
killer app hasn't come because there hasn't been hardware deployed widely(i take 'hardware support' as this, lack of market), but wouldn't a killer app be the thing that would enable that hardware to sell.. so that there would be enough of them deployed for somebody to make that killer app..
well personally i'd have the 'killer app' for myself, but that would need it to be water proof.
what's that you ask, what would be my killer app? reading while in bath(or while showering, but that would waste water and that would be bad karma right? or maybe while in a rain). really, the places where you couldn't use a laptop are pretty much the places where you can't have the fragility(and being afraid of water) of a laptop. if it was STURDY, and liquidproof there would be lots of uses for it.
well, of course if you were of disgusting mind(such as myself) you could imagine using it for pron while at there..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
There have most likely been refinements to the engine. I mean, Newton was far from perfect in terms of handwriting recognition. It was great, but like everything, it wasn't perfect. Apple could've easily pumped a hundred thousand dollars into it and make it kick ass. Not to mention that if they DO come out with a tablet, it's going to have the hand recog improved as much as possible.
A laptop works decently for some classes where the majority of the notes are non-symbolic, but trying to take notes in a math or physics class is simply impossible, with the subscipts and sketches.
Yes, but a small hi-res camera attached to your notebook/tablet PC,
and you don't even have to bother sketching.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I see it as a combination of monitor, keyboard, and mouse. This way you can have a headless Mac running in the background with a cool-running, thin, relatively cheap portable. If you want to upgrade, you upgrade the box under the desk, not the tablet. This way, cheap people can use it with a G3/G4 as a cheap upgrade, and power users can use it with a G5. If the wireless range is good enough, you could use it to stream DVDs and Web stuff anywhere you wanted to use it.
The problems are (a) it would suck power like a mofo, so you'd have to plug it in, (b) the wireless range limits just how useful it could be before you'd have to start adding expensive, power-sucking, stuff like a hard drive to it, and (c) it you're doing a lot of keyboard entry, you'd want to hook up a keyboard, and probably sit down with this thing propped up like a conventional monitor.
I've really really tried to use Ink. And I'm sorry, but it sucks. It's caused me the same problems it caused me when it was on the Newton.
Even if I write like an angel, it screws up my words and sentence spacing.
Moreover, I can honestly type a hell of a lot faster (50+ wpm) then I can handwrite or shorthand.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Would be one of the Lamp iMacs with a detacheable pressure-sensitive screen.
The first thought that went through my head when Steve introduced those things was that he was going to pop the screen off. Think about it; the biggest problem with tablets are managing to fit the processing power, hard drive, battery, ram, etc. into a thin enough shell that it feels like nothing more than a thin notebook you write on. I love my Tibook, but as light as it feels for a laptop, it's too generally unwieldy to be a comfortable writing tablet. I don't see you how could make anything more than a very underpowered, annoying laptop trying to fit everything into the screen and ignore all attempts at a keyboard. The point of a useful tablet is not to replace the functionality of a laptop; I can type twice as fast as I can write, and the form allows for a hard drive of useful size, a good video processor, etc. Where a tablet pc comes in handy is a replacement for a sketch pad, or for a system where you're only needing to point and click, like web browsing. These activities don't need good processors and large hard drives, and so current tablets lack both. The problem is that you must justify spending another thousand dollars, the cost of a separate computer, for just these little conveniences. A laptop and a wacom tablet are a much easier investment.
The solution? Leave the hard drive, the main processor, and the video memory where they belong; in the base of that little lamp. And when you want a full computer, leave the monitor in and you got it. But for those moments when you really feel like sitting on the couch and browsing the web (without, I may add, a Titanium oven burning through your pants), you just pop off the display and go sit down. Run everything over 802.11g and a custom version of x11; it's perfectly fast enough over a direct LAN connection for browsing the web. And suddenly, the tablet is not a neat-looking expensive extra, but a very, very cool extra feature of your main system. Tablets with current technology are too "niche" to be really useful or marketable. So don't separate them into their own niche; make the niche a part of an existing system. It's the only situation in which *I'd* ever consider one worth having, at least.