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Japanese Pocket-Size PC Cube Demonstrated

Posted by simoniker on from the sharp-edges-the-new-rock-n-roll dept.

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."

3 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. is that an orange in your pocket? by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. What's the big deal? by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  3. A little scary... by mr_mischief · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.