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New Sharp 3D Notebook Available with Linux
Anonymous Writer writes "Earlier this month, Sharp released the Actius AL3DU, the second generation laptop in its line of autostereo display products. EmperorLinux, Inc. is distributing it with Linux pre-installed, dubbing it the Molecule."
Something that really concerns me is these laptop's autonomy, I think that it's of no use if it cannot at least play one DVD on batteries. What about this one ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I was going to say "Bah, what's the use", but this is actually really cool.
Put aside that it's running Linux for a minute. Who cares what software is running it? Not important.
What is important is that we are finally moving away, on a hardware level, from flat, 2 dimensional displays. While the "Help me Obi-one Kenobi" 3D displays are still a long way off (or disappeared a long, long time ago), this is an immense step forward.
Battery life : approx 1.8 hours.
I guess it's only when using the notepad with the light dimmed and no sound.
This "carryable" is a joke !!!
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
I dont ever see the discounts that are supposed to accrue from not paying MS Tax... Another point, what about the peripherals?
How exactly does Emporer Linux justify chargin $500 more for a computer without a licencsed OS?
I'm not great fan of Windows, but why should I pay $500 so that some screw up can spend 15min installing a version of Linux I don't like (vs one I do like)?
I think I've just stoped wondering why linux as a desktop OS has never taken off.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Hehe.. Those should have been penguins.. ;)
EmperorLinux (based on Fedora 3), Slackware, Red Hat Professional, Mandrake, Suse, Debian....they offer quite a good choice. Especially as most of these come for $0. Perhaps cusotmers will be more attracted to this notebook, when they see they don't have to pay extra $$$ for an operating system.
can anyone detail software optmized to take advantage of the 3D display technology
I've never heard of any software (CAD/CAM included) that is optimized for 3D glasses -- what utility does the A3CLU add to the computing experience?
And what linux apps are optimized for this? It would seem a bit of a waste if the only 3D tools were, say, KDE Widgets...
Besides the cool factor that is...
shooting is not too good for my enemies
Yes, but does it run li... oh, sorry, my bad.
Just when I thought I'd never be able to buy a $4,000+ laptop again, they come out with this baby! Way to drive the high-end market, Sharp!
Seriously, though--I just finally bought an LCD desktop monitor last October, when a 19" got below $400 with shipping (thank you, NewEgg!). I bought an MP3 player for $50 in December that accepts CF card media, which is about $60/GB (thanks AGAIN, NewEgg!). Now THAT's some cool shit.
time getting excited about it until they're selling enough volume to bring the price down to commodity levels.
The software win-modems on the Kiwi, Raven, Toucan, SilverComet, and Rhino series systems are fully supported in Linux with win-modem drivers.
They just forgot to add that there is no free Linux driver for software win-modems with Conexant chipsets. The best I could find was at http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/, with a free version limited to 14.4 kbps. Add $14.95 to the price, if you want your modem to work.
Quite a hefty price for a laptop without a wireless card. Putting good wireless service into a Linux laptop would be a bigger step forward.
Sharp's marketing material talks about this being used for medical, educational, oil/gas, etc????
;-)
Who cares!!!!!! I just want to know what porn is optimized for this
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Right, I don't see what the problem is. I have a Centrino and the builtin wireless (ipw2200) works out of the box on these machines with Mepis/Ubuntu/Mandrake.
New concept in 3D sex TGP's. The next must be "Touch it" tecnology. ;P
It only does 1024x768 too. If I'm paying that much for a laptop, it had better go higher than that.
You know, I want to support Linux vendors, but the model with Linux costs *$500* more than the version with Windows direct from Sharp. That seems a little pricey for a free OS, eh?
(And I have to assume the sort of person who'd spend $3500 on a laptop to run Linux on either knows how to install Linux themselves or has people paid to do it for them)
Imagine... Nethack... in 3D. That might be a justification for the $4000 price tag.
I think it's great to see laptops with linux being sold, but I ask one thing, who buy this kind of laptop? A linux user, or a person who doesn't know that it comes with linux? If it's the second option, does this person keeps linux, or install windows after he realize it's not the operating system of choice? :)
It'd be great to see some statistics about that
ajf
While the "Help me Obi-one Kenobi" 3D displays are still a long way off (or disappeared a long, long time ago), this is an immense step forward.
Yeah, but other than the fact that a flat clear surface was not required, what extra information was conveyed by having the message be in 3d? I can see some specialized applications for a true 3d (e.g. walkaround) display (scene visualization, CAD, etc), but mainstream, I can't currently imagine what having a 3d display would buy me in my web browsing, document editing, and programming everyday routine.
Can you offer up a few examples of how this tech could be used by the everyday person?
now you can see your kindergarten pixels (1024) in 3d.
it'll be like static tetris.
In other news: Sharp has increased the resolution on their new 3D line of laptops to 1028x772 due to customer complaints and comments posted on a site called slash-dot-dot-org.Sharp spokesperson said that customers will be delighted with the increased viewing area."It's not just 3 or 4 pixels bigger, but even more than that" he added.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
I should say it's quite a hefty price no matter wich way you look at it. I mean...1.3 hour battery capacity?! I thought laptops were meant to free you from having to have a power outlet in the vincinity.
1.3 hours is not nearly enough!
This will be great for engineers etc. wanting to take their SGI IRIX boxens out in the field (anyway, Linux is pretty big on the 3d-market theese days i hear...).
:P
Or just for running Sun Looking Glass 3D desktop
...till someone writes a Firefox extension to exploit the z-index: CSS parameter for rendering HTML in 3D :)
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG
I lead the team developing stereoscopic software that has been distributed with every Sharp stereoscopic 3D laptop ever produced. Well... All the Windows ones... If your interested in trying our DDD TriDef software with one of many stereoscopic viewing methods (anaglyph glasses; other glasses free 3d displays;) please send me an email mailto:Brendan.Langoulant@gmail.com.
DDD TriDef software enables you to:
You might like to check out our FAQs http://www.tridef.com/support/
Regards,
Brendan Langoulant
Director of Software
DDD
The guys at Emperor Linux had one on display at LinuxWorld in Boston last month. It was creating a mob scene of people wanting to check it out. It's actally quite slick. The only thing is, it is very viewer-position dependent. Meaning, you have to be sitting right in the sweet spot to get the full effect. If you're a little off, you can still see it, but it's not as pronounced and you start to see some funkiness with the colors. The 3D mode can be switched on and off and in 2D mode, it looked usable (but 2D res looked pretty low to me, I'll stick with my SXGA+ thinkpad thanks).
The Emperor Linux version is speced with a 1.3 battery life. That will certainly be a down side at your local coffee shop since there never seems to be enough plugs.
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
I saw this being demo'd at LWE. I have to say it was the coolest demo I saw at LWE, by a long shot. Hard to to it justice on the web..
IAAL,BIANLY
For the sake of cash, because I'm broke, I got a cheap Dell Inspiron 1000 (with barely enough $$ to shell out for extra memory, but it was worth it) running, of course, WinXP. What I need is an iBook, and then one of THOSE babies, with 512...That'd be the easiest way to test cross-platform performance, now wouldn't it? *sigh* I'm thinking I'm the only one who gets bouncy excited about these things.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Is this I time warp or what? Yes it's kewl, but scheesh. Holy luggable batman! Granted I'm biased as I used to use petite Sony VAIO laptop (haven't bothered to scrape up the cash to update the thing) so 3lb to 8lbs is a bit of a jump.
:)
Seriously though, the trend is lighter and longer battery. Bigger and power hungry applications are the domain of the desktop (but hey, if they want to start using laptop tech to reduce power consumption, more power to them.) My back/shoulder demands it and lets face it, yes there is that sweet spot in the local coffee shop with the outlet but it's usually known by everyone else and hard to get. (Tip for the urban hacker, carry a power strip/extention cord. If you're planning to camp down for a while you can either negotiate with someone else outlet camping or at least make some new friends. Saved me a couple of times. And a great way to meet mobile individuals of the opposite gender, might I add.
-nod- Right now, this technology (the 3D screen) is definitely targetted at a very specific professional market. We're
mainly seeing interest from people who want to use them for scientific visualization, medical imaging, and so on.
Gamers are not the market Sharp had in mind, I think. =)
I will say though, that with a Dothan processor and 2.5" Sata hard drive (and nVidia 6200 video driving only
a 1024x768 screen), this is one of the fastest computers I've used.
If it's not obvious, I work at Emperor Linux.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I've had a few sharp products over the years, and think they are very good at innovating new products, but the overall quality of thier products is very low. I bought a Sharp laptop a year ago and have had to return it 4 times already to get it fixed becaues of it breaking down on me. I doubt this new laptop will last much longer, and its probably just as easy to somehow mess up the 3D display.
That's only if you invoke strings or grep directly on /dev/ram (or /dev/ramN)... since it's a cat followed by a pipe through strings, it will work.
It just wouldn't do anything useful.
I got the smallest of the small Sharp Actius laptops and they pre-loaded it with Debian Linux at my request. They don't just slap a Linux distro on and push it out the door, they make sure everything works as advertised, customizing whatever they need to to make sure it does. The modem works! Software suspend works!
The model I got comes with a really small battery, and I bought an optional larger battery that has more life, but has a big buldge in it. The unit itself has no removeable disk drives -- everything is attached via USB. It comes with a docking station which allows the laptop to be used as a USB hard drive while it's powered off. Way cool.
EmperorLinux provides a detailed manual on making the most of your laptop through the Linux environment. But enough about the geek stuff.
The most important thing of all: when I pull this baby out at Starbucks, the chicks all turn their heads. A Dell doesn't do that. A Titanium Powerbook doesn't do that (anymore).
Score!
I saw one at EmperorLinux's booth at LinuxWorld not too long ago. While the pseudo-3D display tech is interesting, it unfortunately comes with a quit-ugly interlaced look - like a TV.
I'll wait, I guess.
When I first saw this story I was thinking ye-haa, but on closer inspection it looks like a pretty weak machine for the money in terms of RAM, weight, and hard drive size. My natural inclination is to switch from OSX back to Linux at the first opportunity for an "easy" transition, but this is somewhat tempered now. In a professional setting where price is less of a concern, you just can't beat OSX's combination of a "no worries" simplicity, unix capability, and the availability of open source products. I'm thinking I may never be able to switch back at this point.
They charge an arm and a leg for installing linux on hardware produced by other companies. Their stuff is very expensive, no real linux users would buy from them (linux users are usually cheap). Besides, erasing windows and installing linux yourself is part of the linux experience, almost everybody enjoys doing it (I do). Today installing linux on a laptop is no big deal, it does not make sense to pay $300-400 to some company to do it for you.
There are other companies, like www.sub300.com, which sell cheap linux laptops, it makes sense to buy from them. Their machines come preloaded with lindows, which is not a good choice for linux users; you can always replace lindows with a real distro, such as debian,gentoo or suse.
How many fucking times are you going to say that today? After the first three, I started referencing "FauxPasIII" with "EmperorLinux employee." Give it a rest, already!!
Unplug all controller for great reset!!
Believe it or not, there are people who don't read every single subthread in a conversation. =)
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
They charge hundreds of dollars per laptop for their linux expertise, which is way too much, they charge much more than for winXP, which comes preloaded with all new laptops anyway. I might be willing to pay $50 linux tax for a laptop, even $50 seems to much. How do they manage to stay in business?. I think no experienced linux users would buy from them, they would rather buy the laptpos with windows and install their favorite distributions themselves and save a bundle.
Please get a clue. This laptop is for a niche market, and you are not in it. The specs you are complaining about are irrelevant to this group compared to the stereo display.
What's that Emperor? No Emperors in America! Emporiums, yes, plenty of them!
Yes, but can I run it under Wine?
What's a better place to get a laptop with linux preinstalled?
From what I can tell, the good news about this laptop is that you don't need glasses to get the 3D effect.
The bad news is that you have to put your left eye where the left "viewing diamond" is and your right eye where the right "viewing diamond" is. Of course, this might just be my pessimistic side talking.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Sharp has a list of games that apparently support this 3d display technology.
port it to linux, don't be a fucking microsoft
The screen technology sounds like it uses twice as many pixels as it can display to each eye. So them managing to fit 2048 is pretty impressive actually...
Just curious... What did it cost to have the linux shop install linux for you? Did it cover everything like power management, sleep type features, wireless card? Was the shop local or mail order? Sounds intriguing.
The $500 is just spending money to save time. If your time is valuable, you'd do it.
They ot only install the OS but also add a whole bunch of other software.
Media players, full office suite, graphics programs, games, scientific programs, network utilities (more than you can count). Probably several hundred pieces of software.
Of course, its all free software. You could just do it yourself and save the money.
For the money you get to not have to spend your time installing and configuring the OS and software. You get an OS that crashes less, doesn't freeze up during IO operations, and allows you to work faster. These things give you more time to do other things. So, if your time has a high value, you'd pay the price. If your time doesn't you won't.
Like getting the oil changed in your car. Yes, its cheaper to do it yourself. Its also not a dificult task. Me, I'll pay the $30 and spend my time doing something else.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
I had to unscrew over 50 screws and waste 3 hours for installing a 100GB drive and a DVD writer on an MP30 ultralight Sharp laptop (the unit came with a 40GB drive and a combo optical drive). Fujitsu and IBM laptops are user friendly, you only have to unscrew one or two screws in order to replace the hard disk or the optical drive, no matter how small the laptop is. Fujitsu p1120 has only two pounds and comes with a 30 GB drive. In five minutes you can put a 100GB drive in. Why Sharp makes it so hard?
Sharp is not a real computer company, it started as a mechanical pencil factory, and produces everything from vacuum cleaners to big screen tvs. On the other hand Fujutsu started in the mainframe business and unix workstations then moved to the pc market. They are a real computer company and know what real computer customers want. Sharp ultralight computers are fragile, especially their lcd screens can be easily damaged. Fujitsu ultralight computers although somewhat boxy, are very sturdy. I like to carry my Fujitsu p1120 in a fabric grocery bag, together with my groceries, I've done it for two years, nothing happened, no damaged screen, not even a scratch! Try this with a sharp mm or mp, you'll damage them in a day or two.
This must be one of the most expensive if not the most expensive notebook that I have ever seen. I retails for $3,500 from Sharp and the screen can't even do xvga+ in 2d. Shure it has 3d and stuff but I am not going to use a browser or do text editing in 3d and even if I was still I would like to have a higher resolution if I am spending that much money. Most notebooks with 17" screens cost less that this. As far as battery life goes this is a centrino computer (pentium 4 m) and the battery life would be decent enough even with 3d turned on. If you disable the 3d and use the screen as a regular notebook screen you will probably get well over 2 hours of battery life. Yeah this is a very high quality product and yes it does have technology that noone else other that sharp currently has but still 3,500 will buy you not one but 2 comprable notebooks. Sorry Sharp but it seems like you have another zaurus-like product on your hands ... Oh yeah and most Centrino notebooks are fully supported under linux. Plus the sharp linux distros donot apeal at all to linux users.
3-D is not enough.
I'm working on string theory. I need at least 12 dimensions.
At 8lbs and $4000, it should be called the Boulder.
You know, you're right. I wish to retract my asshole comment, but I can't now. Hopefully, I'll get modded down to compensate.
Unplug all controller for great reset!!
You can get an ultralight (3pound) Centrino 1.4GHZ for US$1100. Bigger and heavier laptops are of course cheaper.
Wallmart sells cheapo linux laptops-dont buy from them, they are evil!
Alles touristen und non-technischen looken peepers!
Das SHARP computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.
Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das
pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das 3d-lichten.
How do you like it so far?
I've been thinking about getting the MM series' successor, the MP30.
+++ATH0