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Forget the PDA, Here Comes the TDA
Roland Piquepaille writes "A French company has just started to sell the Jackito, the first 'Tactile Digital Assistant' (TDA). This new kind of PDA has no stylus, doesn't offer handwriting recognition and has no keyboard. Instead, it is based on touchscreen technology and relies entirely on your thumbs for input -- which are harder to lose than a stylus. And as Jackito has two simultaneous touch points, you can operate it with your two thumbs at the same time, at least according to the company. For an entry price of $600, you'll get parallel-processing capabilities with 7 processors and plenty of brand new technology, including 3ActilOS, a multitasking OS, which is not even referenced by Google. So be warned before purchasing one! However, the approach is pretty unique and I wish them good luck. Before opening your wallet, you'll find some selected pictures in this summary."
Those must be some pretty unimpressive processors to last a week on a single AA...
One of the reasons people like PDA's is because they can take notes in class or in meetings. I didn't see any easy way to take notes with this thing, unless they use morse code: Left thumb = dash, right thumb = dot.
for maximum effect, the preceding post should be read monotone and at a steady cadence
Is that in sleep mode?
To optimize Jackito's features (Finger-Touch Control, battery life, fast graphics, Multitasking, Real-Time Processing, etc.), we have had to incorporate Parallel Processing (seven processors) and a powerful Gate-Array
Isn't it counter-intuitive to imply Parallel Processing and powerful Gate-Array would give better battery life??
This sounds like a hoax.
Let's see, "super sekrit SEVEN PROCESSOR PARALLEL PROCESSING sauce ..." runs for over a week on standard AA batteries. Telling everyone your pricing model which includes a ridiculously steep drop after shipping a million units. Truly amateur copy writing ... even the French know that when you have a new product, you have to market it wel.
.
Oh, and you pay a $100 or 100 eur "deposit to confirm your order".
So it's not only a hoax, it's a SCAM
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Good pricing idea, poorly executed... they shouldn't have advertised the pricing changes in advance.
That's $600...plus a list of acessories and 'recommended' add-ons that reads like a new car brochure. Figure at least $800 by the time you're done.
The pretty color screen will cost you an extra $138. $45 for an internal MP3 player.
$25 for USB *CORD*? I thought that was for a USB interface. But hey, you can get 4 AA batteries for only $5!
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
If you look, they require $100 to be put into what they call an "Escrow account" until the unit ships. Huh!? ELABORATE SCAM!!!
It is a very professionally well done web site, very convincing, but a company of their stature would be accepting payment by means other than PAYPAL!!!
I mean fake Apple PDA pictures have surfaced a few years ago that also looked very convincing as well. At least these fakers are trying to get some money out of you for all their hard photoshopping and HTML design!!!
and has to be paid 123USD (bw) or 138 USD (color) extra
jackito-pda.com buy site
What is with all those lovely color pictures (http://www.jackito-pda.com/hardware/overview.php) on a device that has a BLACK & WHITE screen? And by B&W, I mean 2-color and not grey-scale. They call it "extreme contrast".
Mmmmm... $600 for a 2-color PDA w/a proprietary OS and heavy DRM. Sign me up for a dozen! I'll take delivery right after Nader sweeps the elections in November!
[And an OS that is described as an extension to Visual C++, to boot!]
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Not neccesarily true though. There are always those who will go to any extent or price to say "I had it first."
Look at people who pay several hundreds of dollars for a cell phone just because T-Mobile doesn't offer it yet.
while true ; do echo this is my sig; done
So how do we mod an entire slashdot article as -1, Gullible?
you keep it up long enough and hard enough and some of it will inevitably slip through the cracks.
So please go fuck off and die you shameless selfpromoting ignoramous!
Ok, the more I read this, the more it seems like a scam. Of course Slashdot can't be held responsible for novel scams, I do think a large rwarning should be put up now enough folks have ridiculed the site.
Lets see: Weird named OS that has never seen the light of day, a "deposit" required, etc. Even if this isnt a scam, seems like these guys dont have a shippable product, and are looking for some free funding... and that's being charitable
The problem with a device like this at it's high price is that it changes just too many variables.
* You might pursuade people that the wonderous new input device was worth looking at on a fairly standard PDA.
* You might sell them a fairly standard PDA with some new no-name Operating System.
* You might even convince them that they need 7 CPU's on a regular PDA.
* You might maybe sell people a pretty standard PalmOS PDA from a company you've never heard of (if it's cheap enough).
But all those things at once (and at such a high price) are just spelling "DISASTER" to me.
It only takes one of those wonderously innovative things to be somewhat broken to make the darned thing useless - and what happens if the company goes bust tomorrow? They've already admitted that they've paid a fortune up-front to tool up to build a half million of these things. They must owe money out the wazoo - it's a high risk venture they are engaged with here.
Will they be there to fix up the bugs in an untried OS running on 7 CPU's in parallel? Will there be new applications for it? Will there be endless teething troubles with all of these new hardware widgets?
(And if it's a "TDA", why to they have 'pda' in their URL?)
www.sjbaker.org
A company is capable of producing an innovative new handheld device running an allegedly unknown OS, and they use PayPal to accept payments? That alone dropped their credibility to almost none. This is one case where I will definitely have to see to believe.
I am feeling fat and sassy
They claim that the developer tools are touch screen based... yeah - you code for the product USING THE TOUCH SCREEN!
But there is also a BASIC language interpreter... can you imagine coding BASIC with a touch screen?
"We have supplied this built-in BASIC interpreter, as it lets you code programs directly on Jackito, without having to use a PC. We chose not to include a Java interpreter, as you cannot code Java programs directly on Jackito - you need a PC for this."
What a dumb ass hoax
Screw that.
Why any hardware company would be foolish enough to implement such a thing, until absolutely forced to, is unclear to me.
If they think that this means they can charge every software vendor to develop for it, they're right -- in theory. In practice, there are open systems to develop for, and that's where development efforts will go.
If this feels nice in your hand, there'll be others with the form-factor and without DRM, and those will actually have developers.
Unlike this thing, which will remain a glorified Walkman.
"This guy must be laughing all the way to the bank. Every minute this is on the front page suckers are sending this guy money..."
& sa fe=off&q=%2266+bis+avenue+Jean+Moulin%22&btnG=Sear ch
Would be my immediate comment. But I'll back it up with some quick detective work.
Let's view the source on the payment page and start with some PayPal background checks. You need a PayPal account for this:
Seller Reputation: New Member*
Account Status: Unverified
Account Type: French Business
Account Creation Date: 28 Jun. 2004
PayPal Member For: 15 days
Cust. Service Email: lafouchardiere@novinit.com
An unverified account rings an alarm bell immediately. It doesn't take long to do this, just a week or two to wait for a code on a bank statement. It's another sign that you are who you say you are. Any reputable retailer does this. Maybe he's just about to.
Now a whois search on the novinit domain:
Arnaud de La Fouchardiere
66 bis avenue Jean Moulin
Paris, 75014
FR
Phone: 06 07 61 23 36
Alarm bell 2 - the name "Arnaud de La Fouchardiere" itself is registered to another address. You can determine that with a search here:
http://wfa.pagesjaunes.fr/pb.cgi?lang=en
I won't paste it in case I'm barking up the wrong alley. But it certainly isn't the one from the whois result. Perhaps he moved recently, or this is his office address. Or perhaps he's a clever scammer syphoning away our money as we speak.
Alarm bell 3 - from comparisons with the above site, Parisien phone numbers should begin 01 4.
Alarm bell 4 - The whois address given appears to have rather too many companies using it for my liking. It may be a rented service.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
Alarm bell 5 - he wants us to wait 90 days?!?
If you check PayPal's policies, it's increasingly difficult after 30 days to retrieve funds on items that aren't received. This guy is expecting us to wait 90 days before he despatches?
So what we have is a site that seems a little too good to be true, appears to invent technology, and has some large information holes that many other people have pointed out.
Maybe it's genuine. Send us an email Arnaud, we'd love an exclusive interview!
I'll wait for the first million.
Perhaps "Arnaud" could make a better living designing websites? I'd be glad to throw him 600 bucks to redesign mine...