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'Cut and Paste' Is Out, 'Pick and Drop' Is In
Roland Piquepaille writes "How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it. Now, imagine yourself in a meeting, picking a file on your PDA with a digital pen and using the same pen to drop it on your friend's laptop screen. This is exactly what Jun Rekimoto and his team at Sony Interaction Laboratory have developed with their 'pick and drop' technique. BBC News looks at this project in Digital pen takes on mouse. Because it's based on cheap and existing components, such a system might be released in the near future, though Sony hasn't announced any plans to do it. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."
To me it just seems like another one of those novelty items. On the other hand, if they can get it to be as robust and enough mem like thumb drives, they could really take off.
Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
Will sony open source it?
Will MS support it?
Will they give these pens out for free?
Will anyone actually use it?
May the Maths Be with you!
The question is, how long before 'pick and drop' is patented and no one else can use it without paying exhorbant liscencing fees.
What's sad about the above statement is it's not meant as humor.
A business card pre-encoded with the contact information for its owner would be cool. Hand someone your card, they touch it to their PDA and hand it back.
Other more permenant uses would also be cool, get train schedules (including changes due to repairs (Those in NYC know just how important that detail is) at the station with a quick touch.
paul reinheimer
I really like the idea behind this because it targets a specific audience that will really benefit from it: i.e. people who have to use computers to work, but don't want to know how they work.
Sure it won't be as efficient as cut + paste (won't work on remote machines for e.g.), or as powerful + customisable as a perl script, but for day-to-day needs of people who don't have or want a clue this may be a step further to making computers invisible (kinda like the taps and sinks and washing machines we're so used to when we want water)
How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it.
No. That's what the "attach" button is for. I've always found cut & paste into an email to be quite dodgy.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
What the hell is the difference? Seriously. Now instead of using programs already implemented and functioning, we'll have to carry around a little pen with some memory or bluetooth or some other technology built in? Thus slowing down bootup time, adding more drivers to deal with, and potentially more flaws? I love how the article says "this is very intuitive..." Shit guys, cut & paste is intuitive cuz we've been doing it the better part of 20 years, now you want to 'shift the paradigm' (TM).
Sony should have seriously sat back and said, "ya know, it isn't broken and it doesn't need to be made any better right now, we have better things to spend money on." But noooo, instead Joe Jackass VP said "Hyuk, I wanna touch my friends laptop and have my files automagically pop onto their computer."
And holy hacking batman, this is a whole new world of identity/property theft.
schild
editor, f13.net
I prefer copy and paste. That way I won't lose the original data if I happen to screw it up.
So why use the pen at all .... why not use biometrics ... maybe fingerprints .... grab (pinch) a file and move it to the other guys machine .... you would just have to make sure that your finger print is readable on each end.
A number of posters seem to have missed the point on how it is implemented (not surprising because that is hard to find in the articles). The key concept seems to be some shared space such as a server. The BBC article says:
"The 'pick and drop' system was developed using the Mitsubishi Amity handheld pen computer and a Wacom PL300 pen-sensitive desktop screen.
Pens are given a unique ID, which is readable by the computer when the pen is close to its screen.
When a person taps on an icon with the pen, the computer contacts a 'pen manager' server, via a fixed or wireless connection, and the object is attached to the pen, although the pen itself has no storage capacity.
When the pen tip comes close to the screen of another device, a shadow of the attached object appears on its screen.
Tapping the pen tip instructs the 'pen manager' server to copy the file to that location."
The only problem with that interface is that it becomes tiresome after a short while. This is (one of) the reason for the failure of touchscreens as data input methods. People get tired of having their arms up in the air.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
Now on a related note, I found that after hours of playing Castle Wolfenstein (back then), I had the urge to push on every brick wall I found to see if there was a hidden room behind it.
I figured out a pattern that led to moderate success. Look for secrets behind features(Tapestries, wreaths, portraits, etc.) on the walls. Generally speaking, there'll only be a secret behind a relatively blank section of wall if it's a short wall. (Such as the secret exit in the first level of the first episode.)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
You mean just like CDs did ...? Or perhaps you mean like nurofen (tradename for ibuprofen, granted it's more widespread since the patent lapsed, but it didn't die). Maybe, you mean that it will fade away like ring-pulls ...
Just because something is protected by a patent doesn't mean that it can't be licensed reasonably. Rewarding good, genuinely innovative, ideas is OK in my book.
Of course, this is quite clever as it uses hardware as well as software and so can more easily be patented in places that restrict software patents (which is still true in Europe, whatever the press says).
pbhj
This actually wouldn't be such a bad idea if the pen had a lot of storage, say somewhere on the order of 1 TB... I know this isn't really feasible but bear with me. Fedex is the highest bandwidth network in the world, you could shove 6 200 GB hard drives into a package, and have it sent same-day air to another person and have it arrive in 5 hours... I'd like to see you transfer that much data that fast over the net. BTW, if you figure out how to do that over the net let me know ;)
I'd have to say:
Sony will patent the device and charge substantial license fees to other manufacturers to make them.
Of course this will be pocket change to MS and they will pay the fees and embrace the technology. Look for MS to add "innovations" which only work when the pen is used on MS-based PDAs, cellphones and PCs. Microsoft will try to patent these so Sony and others cannot legally implemetn them.
No bloody way will the pens be given out for free. More than likely they "given away" with other hardware (probably Sony-only, but perhaps some other brands later) but the cost will really be built into the bundled price.
If Sony doesn't try to excessively hoarde the IP then it'll catch on--it's a really cool idea.
Sony does show some promise however--they have embraced Linux on the PS2 and more recent products so they have some interest in Free SOFTWARE. I'm quite confident that they'd fully cooperate in making such a device work with Linux.
The question remains however on what they think of Free HARDWARE (Free in the "libre" sense rather than "gratis"). You'd think they'd learn from the Betamax videotape format, however they have persisted to some degree in repeating the same mistakes. How widely deployed is their "memory stick" technology beyond their own products? Next to nonexistent compared to CF, SD/MMC, etc. Now they've invented yet another format for their PSP portable gaming/multimedia device.
Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it.
If you're a retard, maybe. I usually COPY and paste. But maybe that's just me...
If I recall correctly, Timbuktu allowed me to do this in the 1990's
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...