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Japanese Pocket-Size PC Cube Demonstrated
rocketjam writes "The Japanese company, Personal Media Corporation, has demonstrated a prototype of a cube-shaped pocket-sized computer called the T-Cube (tentative name). The T-Cube runs the T-Engine OS, an operating system apparently being developed by a consortium of Asian companies for embedded devices and networked computers. The machine is about the size of an orange, uses a CPU made by NEC and sports a desktop written for the Chinese Market supporting Multi- and Super-Chinese Character sets. It is scheduled to ship in Q1 of 2004."
Get it here. ;-)
Looks quite nice to me. Even an integrated ethernet port, audio... - nice, where can I get it?
T-Marketing needs some T-Help.
they must be beta testing them as webservers today...
$cat
The machine is about the size of an orange...
That's some pocket computer. Excuse me, but is that a PMC T-Cube in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
... to make full use of it (and perhaps learn chinese ).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
in all seriousness, imagine linux on that thing. your own desktop pc to take with you whereveer you go. and if you bought one of those pocket tv's, it could serve as a pda too, maybe
ok that would need some hacking, but you get my point
Ratio of replies to old sig content : replies to actual post content > 0.5. Sig changed.
End up going home in a pocket.
Uhh, with the screen it is bigger than a laptop :-(
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
While it might be the size of a small orange it isn't exactly flat and I don't consider it to be conducive to fitting in my pocket. The other PDA to the left of the screen shot, while being quite a bit taller, is far thinner and would probably fit into a pocket easier than this.
;)
So the OS is some non-standard thing w/probably little or no support, the shape is not really good for "pocket PCs", there is no screen, and everything is in yen and Japanese
No thanks. I'll stick to my rarely stable PocketPC for now.
Honestly, I don't think that the size of a (not-very-powerful) computer matters beyond thresholds. Ie:
Can it easily slip into my pocket?
Yes: iPod, etc
No: cube the size of an orange
Can I carry it around easily?
Yes: cube, laptop
No: server
Does it need reinforced flooring?
Yes: mainframe
No: server
So, basically, I'm not seeing much of a reason to go minimalistic on computers. If portability is a concern, that's already solved with modern laptops - which this isn't meaningfully smaller than (I mean, can't be treated much differently than). If it isn't a concern, then you don't need the extreme small size. And if density is a concern, you're better off with more powerful systems (per cubic whatever) than smaller ones.
Just MHO, of course.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Looks like a mini gamecube.
God, I love mini machines
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
I guess the web server, running on a 250 T-cube beowulf cluster mind you, couldn't stand up to the throngs of slashdotters.
What I want to know is... when did oranges become cubical?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Don't you think they could have designed a less-pointy form factor for a pocket computer? Sheesh.
We've had PDAs for years, since the days of the Apple Newtons and early US Robotics Palms. We've had handhelds like the Casio handheld computer with the 200MHz MediaGX processor from Cyrix in it. We've had HP and Compaq handhelds that are powerful enough to play mp3s for about three years.
Another small computer is cool, but is it really especially newsworthy?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Sorry. Old pun for a new age.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Replace the VGA output with another ethernet port, sell it for under $250, and I'll buy one.
At the TRON 2004 Show Japanese Personal Media Company shows off the T-Cube a pocket-size PC running T-Engine.
T-Engine is somekind of OS standardization project for networked computers in Japan that started in 2002. Seems they want to build something that does not require to license Windows. Don't know why they not just adopt Linux.
The T-Cube runs the current T-Engine OS and uses a CPU from NEC VR5701. The desktop is written for the chinese Market supporting Multi- and Super-Chinese Character sets.
The T-Cube (tentative name) is supposed to ship in Q1 2004. Press-Release (Raw Translation)
See also the Java Wrist Watches that were presented at the TRON 2004 show in Tokyo.
I know that it's a pain for the Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, et cetera speaking people in the world to use systems mainly built by and for people who speak English, French, and German.
It's a little scary, though, that the east Asian countries are developing their own track of OSes with which we in the west may have to learn to deal. It's also a scary thought that having a group of OSes for one set of people and another set of OSes for another set of people may slow or even reverse the growing commonality of international communication.
Of course, this is coming from an American spoiled by the fact that most of the world is willing to learn my native language. I know enough of two other languages to make do, and enough of a fourth to find a taxi, hospital, restaurant, toilet, and hotel -- enough to travel in a pinch I guess. So I'm not the average Anglophonic snob. But still, it's a bit scary.
Hopefully all the multi-byte character support and such built into the systems such as this can improve the same on other OSes. It' be a shame if we were to be separated by both language and platform from a substantial part of the world.
Is it, or does it Emulate X86?
can't tell from the since it's slashdotted.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Right now I'd rather have an orange.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Alternatively, you could get a cerfcube,
e /
which *does* run linux, and is smaller.
see:
http://www.intrinsyc.com/products/cerfcub
tcube site is slashdotted, but I suspect
that the cerfcube consumes less power as
well.
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
You were the first to post a joke so stale it makes IN SOVIET RUSSIA look like pure comedic gold!
A Winner Is You!
What is a "Super Chinese" character set? The main link goes to a machine translated article that makes for good post-modern poetry, but I don't have a clue why Super Chinese is better than internationally standard character sets. Does it bound tall monitors in a single scroll wheel flick or what?
Sig under construction since 1998.
heh their server is vapourware now
They're almost there.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Now if the Japanese could only make cube-shaped watermelons...
oh wait.
Its gotta be the same pockets that we used to carry around 5.25" floppies in before they introduced the 3.5".
No wonder fashion was so atrocious back then. 5.25" pockets...Helicopter collars...Platform shoes...ick.
--Storm
Most of the spare room in my pants is in the crotch area, but not my pockets (I mostly wear baggy jeans). I could maybe see fitting an orange comfortably in my crotch, but not in my pocket. The trouble is, then I'd have a big bulge in the croth area.
Is that an African or a European orange?
I can't get to the site... What are the specs on this little thing? How much of a hard drive and RAM are we talking?
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Wouldn't you just love to build a super computer out of these tiny cubes ? Get a dozen, pop them in an old gutted VCR case and you just built a clustered TiVo.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I hope the Japanese are fond of painter's pants and bib overalls.
So, is it the size of an orange, or of an apple?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Actually, the citrus fruit in the photo looks more like a mikan, a citrus fruit very common in Japan, similar to a tangerine (maybe it is actually a tangerine?) which is a fair bit smaller than your average Valencia orange. It's not as small as, say, a kumquat, but it can be enclosed in your average male fist to the point of being almost invisible. So the machine is maybe a bit smaller than people are initially thinking.
if this is meant to be a pocket PC, then I don't know where into my pocket I would fit this big LCD display (shown on the photo)...
/. so I'll ask here:) does this thing come equipped with some small erm... pocket display?
(all the sites are
btw: IMHO the thing of this size and proportions does not fit good into trousers pocket.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
This might not be small enough to truly fit in your pocket, but it's powerful enough to make a good basis for the heart of a "wearable" comptuer system... nifty!
USB and CRT ports
pictures of ports
inside board stack (looks like it's 3 boards total)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
it comes in many colors!
I want 2D games back.
They're portable: but so are PDAs. And unlike the tcube, PDAs come with an integrated screen and some means for inputting data. These don't, so they're of limited use on the road. Even for telecommuters, you might as well stick with your laptop.
I suppose if you wanted to transport an entire data center to the other side of the floor, or even across town, these could be carried in a crate rather tna shipped on a truck. But, honestly, how often is this a consideration when choosing hardware?
I suppose they could come in handy for a home network or informal hosting operation out of your basement. But unless they're cheap, I doubt people would choose them over the eight too-obolete-for-gaming-but-perfectly-good-for-any- other-purpose desktops they already have in their basements.
What is the target market for these? People who like cute little multicolored boxes?
And why not flat? Seems PCBs are flat, it'd be easier to do.
Sure, but all else being equal or similar, I'll take the smaller item.
The category for this one is "it fits easily inside pretty much any backpack". Laptops don't.
Bryan
The "motherboard" on this must be super tiny. I'm guessing that it uses very little electricity, too.
I'd love to see it in a clamshell handheld configuration - 800x480, wide format screen, perhaps 7" diagonal, minimal psion like keyboard, and a big old battery, something off the shelf, perhaps a pair of cell phone batteries. Trackpad eraser would be nice, too.
Offer it with no memory (but with a SO-DIMM slot), cf slot (two better), ethernet, serial.
Hardware only warranty, and let the user or vars populate the memory, storage device (flash or CF hard drive), memory. That way, it could be offered as cheaply as possible. Use a standard boot method, too.
Then let the community decide on what OS to port to it - NetBSD, Linux, whatever. You'd end up with one device that spans from a very stripped PDA like config (minimal flash, memory), to something that could be a mini-notebook (lots of memory and up to 4 gigs of rotating storage), and everything in between.
It could be a portable serial terminal for sysadmins, a mobile web/internet platform, a portable media player, or a total notebook replacement. Whatever you want it to be.
I'd love one, and would pay near-notebook prices to get one. At under $600, it'd be a killer. Anyone else?
Jonathan
...should always set off the bullshit detector. A pocket-sized cube might be comfortable between the size of a sugar cube and a cube of pool cue chalk. We're a few years away from a computer in a 1" cube.
Nice, but now big is the powersupply going to be? I found that most "tiny" PCs out there often come with an external PSU not much smaller than the PC itself, making the device essentially worthless as something you can stick in your pocket or glue under your desk with a used chewinggum.
Although they probably won't fit in a picket easily you could likely have the cutest beawulf cluster out there - it would be like playing with blocks. I'd love to have a server room that looked like this.
Its a little smaller then PC/104 and lacks the customization options that PC/104 has. How is this at all interesting?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Just to bring this to reality for you geeks out there, Some info on the embedded OS word.
;)
See? It all comes back to Linux!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
my flu-incubating brain actually laughed at this...
What is the world's most widely used operating system? It's not Windows , Unix or Linux, but ITRON, a Japanese real-time kernel for small-scale embedded systems. ITRON runs on mobile phones , digital cameras, CD players and countless other electronic devices.
ITRON emerged as an ambitious Japanese initiative known as The Real-time Operating system Nucleus (TRON). Launched in 1984, TRON was designed to replace disparate computer systems with a unified, open architecture for a "total computer environment."
[...]
The ITRON specification is a standard real-time OS kernel that can be tailored to any embedded system. ITRON already has been ported to a wide range of microprocessor architectures and has quickly become Japan's de facto standard for embedded systems. Today, the specification is used in an estimated 3 billion microprocessors.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/31855.html
that said, neato. looks way too much like a gamecube.
Sounds a bit more like the 70s than the 80s- I you sure you're not thinking about 8" floppies rather than 5.25"?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
When combined, these cubes can form various deadly weapons!!
Be afraid!
God bless America, where I can get my watermelon for $2 a piece on the Independence and Memorial days, as is proper.
Now if I could just find a way to ship those $2 watermelons to Japan and sell them for $30!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You could put a ton of those in a two-rack-space case... probably 16 or 20, right? I wonder how the heat dissapation is, because that would beat the rack density of just about everyone!
stuff |
I'd buy one in a hearbeat.
A cube the size of an orange, Would that be the average of Riemann sums of the cube inside the orange versus the cube that contains the orange?
There is a pretty big difference in size between a cube that would fit inside an orange, versus a cube that an orange would just barely fit inside.
Isn't there some cubic object that would have made a better analogy? The only thing I see on my desk is the rubik's cube. I'm sure I could do better but I'm in a hurry.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
You know, with computers that small, they might as well come up with interesting cases for them. Who wouldn't want a functional pocket-size computer in the shape of a miniature Cray X-MP? Or inside an empty 12 oz. can of Jolt Cola?
Think of the applications for toy lines, particularly action and fashion figures!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
By 'super chinese' the article seems to mean 'the set of characters supported by ChoKanji'. I have no idea what it means by 'multi chinese'. You'd think they could have just given the names of the character sets.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The T-Cube's dimensions are 52x52x45mm. That's pretty damn small!
For those outside Asia, comparing the T-Cube's size to an orange may be a little misleading, although it's apparent from the photo that the oranges are smaller than navel oranges. To further clarify the point of reference, djqed is right in that the oranges in the photos are mikan. 'Mikan' is the Japanese word for mandarin oranges, of which tangerines are one type (but the oranges in the photos aren't tangerines).
I've heard there's a tTRON wrapper for eCOS, but have not checked this out personally.
A 400MHz CPU can achieve a lot if not loaded with a fat-ass OS. One of the slickest machines I've ever seen was a RiscOS box running on a 200MHz ARM.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If only it could speak to me, pretend to be my father, and I could freeze time, I could be just like that girl in Out of this World - that sweet show from the 80s that featured Burt Reynolds trapped in a cube.
Can I use my digital camera as a screen for one of these? Heh, nothing like having a few GB of hard drive for storing pictures.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The thing looks almost exactly like the red-headed bastard child of a Telebit Qblazer modem, although I can't find a pic...
They stole my design!
I am planning a nano-itx box, with a laptop DVD and hard drives, in a tiny case, either cube-shaped or the size of a medium sized paperback book.
I can't move forward until the nano-itx boards come out in the spring.
Of course, I'm planning on making mine black, not hideous orange...
Another incident of life imitating Star Trek? Watch out, these things will be en route to earth in about 375 years.
Or maybe Tamagouchi...
So do you have to twist it around about a milio times to get the ports to line up? (think Rubiks cube)
If it's going to be a pocket computer, why can't they shape it like a bratwurst?
What?
Actually, it's not sitting next to oranges. They're mikans, sort of like tangerines. These things are somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. Very tasty too.
And that price tag is not really abnormal in Japan. When I was there, 10,000 yen was about $40. They were selling cantaloupes for that price. They would cut the vine nicely and gift wrap them in little window boxes. Now, that's about $100. Oddly enough, honeydew melons were only about 500 yen at the time, maybe $2.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
"Is that a PC in your pocket or you just happy to see me." ** ducks **
If you look at the photo,the computer is compared to a mikan--a tangerine much smaller than an orange. That'll better accommodate most pockets.
Unless maybe the cube is a pair of dice.
The world rarely needs more than 2-3 operating systems. Windows, Linux, and MacOS more than fill this market.
When you put them in your shirt pockets you look like you have breast implants.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I see a little slot in some of the pictures. I know it's much too small for an average floppy or CD. I figure it must be for mini-disc as that's popular in Japan. My question is in America, could those mini-dvd discs; such as those used in the Gamecube be used?
I've thought for a while (ever since the G4 Cube) that cubes make for a more effiecient use of space. Unfortunately, 'efficient' here means more internal volume for less surface area. That tends to lead to heat problems, but that shouldn't be a problem here.
What I'd really like to see is a 'cluster' appliance that looks something like this, but can 'stacked' via some kind of edge connector on the sides.
Lego computing!
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
One advantage of a cube is stackability. The Virginia Tech's X is an example of how to build yourself a very powerful computer, but can you run that in the back of a van? Too much space is wasted. I can link cubes together, put some legs on them and end up with a computer centipede.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Not really, Debian has you covered. Native Linux, probably ready to go.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Is that a T-Cube in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
The pictures show tangerines, not oranges. Tangerines are smaller, flattened at the poles, fatter at the equator, and darker orange.
My comments here are my own; I do not speak for my employer.
Looks like standard PDA type hardware except for the resolution out. But then of course it doesn't have a display of its own.
BTW looking at the larger pics. Doesn't the design seem awfully open? I can see inside through several large holes. In my pocket that would not survive long. And yes my pocket is large enough to fit it though the corners may be a bit much.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One use I see, is to add another ethernet port and use it as firwall. You just put it on the cable between your DSL/cable modem and the hub.
WI-FI would be nice add-on as well.
They should just make them out of lego - would make clustering one HELL of a lot easier.
The plural of "mikan" is "mikan".
I've always liked the Cerfcube myself.
If you ask yourself what the two most populous nations are on Earth, and what their primary languages are, you end up with lots of Chinese and Indian dialects.
Not only that, but other languages' needs have pushed the envelope for everyone already: English is the language of convenience, but we wouldn't have the quality of display systems or input methods we have now if Asians hadn't needed the ability to type their many-thousand-character pictographic languages and have them readable on computer screens or TV overlays (news broadcasts, movies, etc.)
Once they get the intellectual capital they need, which it looks like they just about have, everyone had better hang on tight. Like Neal Stephenson predicted, the US might eventually be known best for things like pizza delivery. I already have my storage unit picked out
Get off my launchpad!
this is all fine and dandy, but where can I find something that I can isntall linux on, that is 100% solid state and has 2 eth ports?
That's not an orange, that's a mikan! Much smaller.
This thing would be great as a thin client. If you could have an X-Server running on there, then it would simply be a matter of plugging in and go. Or, if you had VNC then you could use you computer from any room. You would just need a screen, keyboard and mouse.
At the end of the day you really need to look at it and see in what ways it could be used. Go beyond the shape and think of what sort of things this could be integrated into, without its case.
I could also imagine a wall based MP3 player. Your imagination is the limits.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Is that portable doesn't just mean carrying it around. This would be the perfect PC for a in-car PC setup. Cube are way to big to fit into an already small car (like a sports car), and this would be the perfect platform to use to play MP3s, do navigation, etc and controlled via voice or touchscreen.
Even if this thing costs $1000, if I coud get a touchscreen for $300, USB GPS for $150, harddrive, mic, and misc for a total of less than $2000, I'm at the cost of factory nav way more capability (and cool geek factor)
Probably similar volume
...fit in a shoebox.
Microsoft and Apple have both achieved an extraordinary reduction in platform fragmentation by making some form of Unicode the native system charset in all of their current OSes, and the native text handling APIs are richly internationalized.
If all users could take for granted that any standard Linux installation was as well equipped, by default, to handle their own language as it was to handle any other, then there wouldn't be so much pressure in various countries to produce local or regional variants (not just of OSes, but of things like protocols -- DNS hostnames, for example).
Insist on Unicode-based systems if you want to minimize the fragmentation, incompatibility, and confusion that will otherwise result as the Internet revolution sweeps over the non-Western world.
It's not just in their best interest, but in *yours* too.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Specification != Operating System.
...I suppose I need to setup a Citrix server?
...I bet Apple are getting worried.
how long do you think until netbsd gets ported over to this?
What do you mean you "recycled" my computer?
Sera
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