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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."
"tactile" ... "jackito" ... oh my.
NEWSFLASH: most of the world doesn't speak english natively, and therefore see no connotation in the name "jackito"
Conversively, Toyota commercialized a car called the "MR2" that, in french, sounded like "oh shit". Guess what? it never sold well here.
Corporations in one country choose names that sound good locally and sometimes manage to offence people elsewhere. No need to get smug, or all giggly about it, unless you're some teenager who finds these things funny.
somebody needs to pop that dudes giagantic ego and to stop spamming his lame blog everywhere. just goes to show how being a persistant asshole pays off.
What's the target market?
You can't enter text, so you can't input data from the field to be used later. It doesn't have wireless so you cant use it as a GUI interface to an existing system.
No serious input + no interface to larger system = glorified storage device with a pretty screen.
I hope people realize how amazing this hardware appears to be, or at least the manufactoring of it. Look - it's a build to order PDA: , the first ever. I have been following this industry for 5 years (I run a large pda website), and never has a company made a true build to order PDA.
This company? Which screen you want, color, b&w, or bistable - a technology that I thought was still in testing! This may be the first use of bistable screens in a large device. (and how about the fact that it's turning the screen into a flat panel speaker - isn't this what synaptics wants to do with the laptop touchpad?)
And look, you can make the case whatever color you want, but also add many modules, like internal bluetooth, fm radio, add internal memory, internal mp3 player, internal microphone. This PDA will have exactly what you need, and not what you don't need.
It's a large device, but it has some cool hardware. I'm not sure about the specilized cpu's, I worry about the speed of this device, and who knows what is going on with the software, or data entry, but this company, at least in manufactoring techniques and componants used, could be changing the PDA industry as we know it. The battery life they claim is incredible! I am excited to hear and learn more about it.
And one more thing - the interfaces are all like the "3D" browseable interfaces we have heard about for awhile, they really are "tactile".. reading through their stuff, it's a huge jump in how we look at the GUI. This company is thinking so far outside the box. WOW.
Now, if you fat Americain excuse me, I must, how you say, pee now. Yes, I know I'm on zee Metro. You Americains and your stupid concept of hygiene. You are all so uptight, no?