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Meet the Laptop of 2015
cweditor writes "Like concept cars at auto shows, the computer industry designs 'concept notebooks' to imagine the machines of the future. The 'concepts' may not come to market as-is, but it's likely some of their ideas, components and features will. Take a look at systems you might be using in 7 years. In one, a touch-sensitive screen acts as the system's keyboard and mouse, allowing you to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential. Their associated image gallery includes a prototype for a dual-screen laptop."
I have a "concept model" of a dual screen laptop. It fits in my hand and can play Mario Bros.
You insensitive clod!
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Does it run Linux?
Apparently in the future the idea of tactile feedback is dead and everybody just types on glass screens like in the movies. Presumably these laptop designers have not actually tried that themselves to see just how much people actually like typing on a piece of glass with no cues at to where the keys are.
I read the internet for the articles.
In Computerworld style.. to continue reading this comment please click next [1-20]
Speaking about dual screens, it'd be really nice if someone would make a 17" LCD monitor with a folding base for use as a 2nd screen for a multimedia notebook. Just keep it in the bag when on the road and only set it up when you need it.
Given those concept graphics none of those will be my laptop of the future. I won't be using anything with a 'start' button.
-1 not first post
This concept art all looks like my first-year 3d design projects. Are they developing new plastics that will automatically produce lens-flares against any light source available? God, I hope so.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Looks more like something I'd expect to see coming out later this year.
I don't believe you, I'm here for a seat on the secret spaceship.
I wonder why people keep thinking that touch sensitive keyboard without real buttons is a good idea for a regular computer...
... it looks like the laptops of the future all have crappy keyboards.
It's the whole "gee, look, with touch-sensitive screens we can paint a keyboard on the screen that you can use instead of an actual keyboard!"
How the heck are you supposed to touch-type on something that gives you no tactile response?
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Is it just me that hates the idea of a touch screen keyboard? I like feeling keys bounce back; it's not healthy for your fingers to not have some cushioning at the very least.
throw new NoSignatureException();
From TFA:
The Siafu concept notebook, designed for the blind by Jonathan Lucas, omits a display altogether. Images from applications and Web sites are converted into corresponding 3-D shapes on Siafu's surface. It can be used for reading a Braille newspaper, feeling the shape of someone's face..."
Think of the possibilities!
Oh how the Slashdot crowd would love to get their hands on one of these... literally
A whole bunch of "futuristic" designs, and not one that utilizes a flexible LCD.
With a flexible LCD that rolls up when not in use, coupled with a flexible keyboard that likewise rolls up, one can escape (at least partially), the limiting factor of computer design...that is, having a system that a human can interface with comfortably.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
FTFS: "allowing you to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential"
Will it automatically hide the box of kleenex and bottle of hand lotion, too?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What some companies are attempting to capitalize on is the miniaturization of computers into something the size of a Motorola RAZR and utilizing HUD technology. The only real limitation is the power source, considering how powerful small processors are getting, and how solid state are becoming set to replace hard drives in portable computing. It doesn't take long to figure out the potential uses of this technology, and it's being used already (but with clunky computers and HUD displays). You'll probably see early adopters in 2015-2020. This is far more practical than a double-LCD laptop, which seems hardly innovative, and in fact this article should be a joke, since it's setting the bar so low.
"2TB hard disk drive, which should be plenty of room for even the biggest data hog, the experts speculated."
Who in this day and age would say 'that should be plenty' man i'm looking at having a few hundred bluray-sucessor movies i'm sure that'll be over 2TB. Silly people
By then you linux users should have about 16,000 distros to pick from. Have fun.
I bet by 2015 we'll have smooth touch screens that DO have tactile response. And those concepts are way too thick, I doubt anything's going to be thicker than the Mac Air after 2010 or so.
I don't believe you, I'm here for a seat on the secret spaceship.
Well hopefully we arent using Vista in 2015 as that picture would suggest! haha
Seriously, the people who came up with this stuff are completely unimaginative and idiotic. Tactile feedback for typing is almost a necessity given you *don't f-ing look at the keyboard while typing*!! The only "future laptop" with some actual touch feedback they showed was the oily blob, which I don't even know how to approach. If I want to replace my laptop with an oily blob, I'll gain 200 pounds and sit on the table myself.
The one that turns into a book viewer if you turn it 90 degrees is a total joke. Seriously, take your laptop right now, turn it 90 degrees so that the break between the two "halves" is vertical, and tell me that's a comfortable way to handle reading material. Unless it's laying flat on the table (in which case it better be quite small) it's completely unmanageable.
The one they showed slung over the steering wheel of a car, that's just bad. BAD BAD BAD! Hey guys, here's a piece of crap with a touch-screen keyboard you have to stare at in order to use that you can hang right on your steering wheel! And then what, drive and type? That looks like the most uncomfortable thing ever even if you're parked.
I give all these "laptops of the future" an EPIC FAIL out of 10.
I like basketball!!1!
From the pictures it seems that MS has extended the life of XP... as they clearly show XP, not VISTA running...
Probably the only prediction in this article that's going to come true.
this guy?
Not interested. I'd rather have a hoverboard.
we don't type in 2015, the keys light up as a result of our brain activity...
The future of computing is the Nintendo DS?
Seriously, this is quite a cool concept, although I (like many others here) remain a tad skeptical, especially with regard to the lack of a keyboard.
On the other hand, if they used the "blank space" currently occupied by the wrist wrests as a visual multitouch interface, a few interesting possibilities open up. New technologies and cost reductions are going to allow us to considerably modify UI metaphors into something quite a bit more abstract. Whether or not this actually happens, of course, remains to be seen.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I've always thought the idea of dual screens on the Gameboy DS was a bit of a strange idea. I mean, why not just use one screen that is twice as big? Then, games that want to use a 'dual screen' concept can always split the screen in half and draw one set of stuff to one half, and another set of stuff to the other half. But, other games can use it as a single, large screen.
I personally think it probably comes down to cost - it's cheaper for Nintendo to buy two smaller screens than a single large screen. My understanding of LCD technology is that, apparently, it's difficult to grow the crystals without bad pixels, so that as the screens get larger, they rapidly get more expensive, because it's decreasingly likely that you'll get an LCD panel of a particular size without flaws - so all the flawed ones either get thrown away, or maybe they can cut them down to smaller displays (that is, cut out the bad part and end up with 1 or 2 smaller panels) and sold more cheaply at the small size?
Anyhow - *my* laptop of the future has a simple white (or neutral color) flap onto which a display can be projected, and the flap can be folded under the laptop when I want to project onto another surface, like a projection screen or white wall. That is, a laptop with built-in projector, not an LCD. (I suppose, ultimately, for power consumption purposes, you'll never have a projector built in, because it would take too much energy to run, but I can dream, right?)
What I want is my 1TB USB keychain (or iphone) to have my favorite OS, apps, and all my data, and to be able to plug it into CPU/keyboard/mouse/display/diskless/OSless stations in airplanes, cafes, hotels, etc.
The various Linux-on-a-thumbdrive distributions and products are a step in the right direction. What we really need now is for vendors to design stations that these doodads can plug into.
and its more of the same! Its hinged but cleverly! Its a slider instead of hinges! Its glorified Nintendo DS combined with an iPhone!
Or, they pick the low hanging fruit of "It'll be faster and more efficient!"
How about stuff like what Andy Van Dam and his students are working on? MathPad lets you use a tablet to write equations and have the computer solve them for you, or draw a primitive sketch and have it animate depending on an equation you wrote. Or there's ChemPad which lets you draw chemical equations and then it generates the 3-d structure on the fly.
If we extrapolate what their research does today, 7 years from now could be brilliant. In the end wouldn't it be great open up your computer, and start writing on your desktop? And you could write anything and your computer (with more computing power 7 years from now) would be able to contextualize what you're writing and immediately know that the diagram you drew was an animation for your graphics class that was a pinwheel dependent on an equation? Or, perhaps you're a manager and you draw a lot of diagrams and write notes like "Setup meeting with Jim and Susan, 2:30 tomorrow" and your computer can figure it all out and do it for you?
Yes, designers are great when they get it correct (iPhone is brilliant) but I'm waiting for the computer to understand what I'm doing as well.
I hope THAT the COMPUTER has REALLY fast CHIPS. Computers THESE days ARE slow. I want LIKE 15 MEGS of RAM?????
Yes that's all we need is something that will fit well in your car...Yes more people need laptops in their cars. /facepalm
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
I guess these designers don't think about the ramifications of their design. Like the picture of the person who is working on the computer draped over their steering wheel.
Brilliant!
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Problem was, people soon figured out their arm got tired, you could not see what you were mousing over, the screen got smudged with fingerprints, and it's hard to click on a little checkbox when your fingertip is ten times bigger.
Looks like we're still going to be using XP seven years from now...
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
I see a Haruhi Suzumiya wallpaper on the first screen.
retarded how popular a show it is yet it wasn't that amazing.
Yuki is such a slut.
Cario, I think # 4 in the image gallery...
If you thought idiots talking on cell phones while driving were dangerous, wait until you get next to some jerk using the convenient steering wheel mount on the Cario laptop.
More music, fewer hits
The computer of the future will be a bionic implant.
The one right before that will just be a "box" with the thinking parts, a visual display which will either be eyeglass-mounted, a handheld-sized projection device that projects onto a table or wall, a keyboard-equivalent which might be gloves, a flat, rollable keyboard, or even a camera-based sensor that detects where your fingers are, and a mouse-trackpad equivalent which might be 3-d gestures or something that reads 2-d finger movements similar to the keyboard already mentioned. Some computers will have speech, speech/vocal-cord detection and speech-input processing, body-movement detectors for games and more practical applications, and other input and output devices.
The box will be wirelessly connected to the tubular internets 24/7. Power-recharge will be wireless and will probably piggyback off of body motion, body heat, and other ambient energy sources in addition to supplied power. Capacitors or battries will store power.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Whatever happened to the idea of a tablet without the excess baggage that a keyboard entails? I'd love to have a small and light tablet-style PC that looks like nothing more than a big screen. Make it dockable so you can attach a keyboard, mouse, external display, etc. You can always use an on-screen keyboard for quick text input in the field. Something like a Nokia N800, but with a bigger screen (at least paperback book size) and more general-purpose (sorry, but Maemo and the handful of applications designed for it just don't do it for me).
50% of the comments so far are about...
Ranting about how one can't deal with a touchscreen... no tactile feedback blah blah blah...
Yet this same crowd loves the iPhone...
Ironic?
"Missing your bus
The CPU's front-side bus will likely disappear by 2015. The bus acts like a traffic cop, sending data to the different parts of the system at a slower speed than the computational core. In its place will be an integrated controller that makes this distribution of data much more efficient by operating faster.
As with multiple-core processors, this trend is already under way -- Intel, for instance, has announced that its Nehalem CPU microarchitecture, set to debut later this year, will feature an integrated memory controller, eliminating the need for a front-side bus. However, it will take a long time for this trend to reach CPUs used in notebook computers -- the 2015 time frame seems reasonable, the experts agreed.... "
umm, doesn't every AMD processor made right now have an IMC? if so, I fail to see how this is a prediction as such. maybe they only asked Intel experts.
Those are the ONLY considerations for me..
"Most experts agree that future notebooks will be just as limited by battery life as they are now. But that doesn't mean we won't see significant advances in mobile power supplies -- such advances will be necessary to keep up with all the extra power."
Great, so you will sell me an eight core laptop with 36 times more power than I need, and as a result, the battery life for it will suck just as much as my current one does.
I want a laptop that lets me surf the web and send email. I don't need an optical drive, I only need storage for maybe 20 gig plus the O/S. What I want is a laptop thats Quiet, lightweight and has a decent battery.
Apparently I'm not the customer. That seems to be the traveling salesmen who uses his laptop in some penis-size compensation bragging rights game with his co-workers.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
So, in a few years' time I will be using keyboards lacking tactile feedback and glossy, fingerprint-stained displays. I just can't find words to express how eagerly I wait this :)
OK, so touch keyboards were really a wave of the future in the early 80s and I was somewhat disappointed that my C=64 had conventional keys - at least until I actually got around to try to use a touch keyboard (and decided that it totally sucked).
Real life is overrated.
I got to thinking about it more, and while my point is generally correct. I also realize that, perhaps in the DS' specific case, the advantage of having two screens is that they are built into seperate housings that are jointed, so you can flip the screen down for storage (much like a laptop design), but my basic point is that, outside of doing something like that, there is usually no inherent advantage to having multiple physically seperated screens, when you can just logically partition a single screen as necessary.
Unimaginative, indeed.
What with the voiceless phone call alread a reality, how trivial would it be to take the nerve-sensing capabilities of the neckband and make two nerve sensing wristbands and/or perhaps gloves?
the wristbands would sense your nerve impulses and tell what you were intending to type, even without tactile feedback. Just imagine typing in your head and the signals go to your wrist and finger muscles.
This is of course skirting the whole concept that one could simply use the neckband to simply issue vocal commands to the computer for a large variety of tasks, and naturally for dictation.
I've noticed that people never lock their car doors anymore when they are passengers. This is because most modern cars can be remote locked by the driver when they arm their alarms. I have el-cheapo corolla and I have to constantly say, "dude, lock your door" - even to females I say 'dude'.
In 20 years typing will be a lost art form, like remembering phone numbers.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
I think I'm currently using the laptop I'll have in seven years, my MacBook Air. (assuming the battery doesn't die and I can't find a screwdriver) Aside from that, the Air looks quite a bit more attractive than this thing. The keyboard on the Air is second only to my old ThinkPad 600e; this "future" glass surface looks about as satisfying as an iPhone keyboard.
Why would we be typing at all in the future?
I don't need a super powerful process or a 2 terabyte hard drive on a laptop. With Wi-Max type connectivity, I can always connect to my desktop or to a leased server for extra storage and computing capacity. What I need is for the laptop to work, that is not run out of battery. I don't know why I would need to wait 7 years either, as a 24 hour battery life is quite achievable with today's technology. Create a Macbook Air type laptop, except make it sicker by adding a fat, full size regular lithium battery on the bottom. Add a second, slower Via processor to the motherboard and make it take over when I am just browsing the web and writing e-mails. Make a reflective dish that concentrates light into a fiber optic cable and let me connect it to screen and shutdown the battery-consuming backlight.
I got a used iBook clamshell and upgraded it to a modern battery. It gets 8 hours of battery life now. I don't see why a laptop made 20 years later can not do as much.
That's all well and good, but I still have to quickly think of a reason I'm not wearing any pants.
Wasn't it in the 1950s that the auto industry predicted we'd all be operating flying cars by 2000?
I suspect that the laptop of 2015 will look at lot like the laptop of 2008, which incidentally looks a lot like the laptop of 1998. Sure, the screens may look nicer, and the batteries will last longer, but the folding keyboard/screen combination has been around for a long time because it just works.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
I can only hope in the future my glasses/contacts act as a Heads Up Display.
Hopefully it will interface wirelessly with my entire life, not only will it put a little green marker over the place I last left my keys (or whatever else I am looking for), but it will place an objective marker on the "Google Mini-Map(Beta)" when I have an appointment scheduled in my calendar. It will also place a giant red exclamation point over my Boss' head when he is alerted to my presence and give me a warning chime so I can run and hide.
Hell if the future is really bright, the thing will pop up and tell me when my girlfriend/wife is mad at me, and it will automatically direct me to the nearest flower shop.
Did anyone else notice that all of the "futuristic" laptops were running Windows?
It it just me, or does anyone else find it odd, or downright disturbing, that the type of keyboard I'm using now, the type that click and have keys, will be replaced by touchscreen counterparts?
While I do see the ingenuity in being able to have any type of keyboard at your fingertips, I just don't see me typing very fast without those oh-so-familiar clicking keys that one presses down.
This reminds me of that "indestructible" keyboard that was sold a number of years back, the one made entirely out of silicone, that you could roll up, smash and what not. Typing on that thing was so awful, so hellish, that I went back to a standard keyboard and returned it to Bestbuy (or wherever I bought it) that very day.
Touchscreen keyboards just don't seem like they're all that appealing over traditional keyboards.
Oh, and before you say it, a soundfile of a clicking sound would not compensate for a touchscreen keyboard.
nice, vista is apparently being used on the Compenion concept notebook here
I'd thought my point was quite relevant, actually... tactile feedback is a critical element in a touch typist's accuracy. The fact that the parent's post had typos showed that, to him, accuracy was not as important as speed (not right now at least). If speed was his primary concern, then it is easy to see why the idea of using technology to improve his accuracy was so easily dismissed.
It is easy to see how accuracy plays less of a role in a world where thumb typing slang is de rigeur and the excuse of "you know what I meant" is commonplace.
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
The Siafu concept notebook with it's tactile surface looks like a very nice idea.
It really makes me wonder how it would display, say, Pamela Anderson...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
To me, the problems with these 'futuristic' devices always comes down to batteries. Until we develop an inexpensive, low-mass, "safe" battery that lasts a long time, people are still going to be desperately hunting down electrical outlets in airports, no matter how fancy the gadget.
Did anybody else notice that the standard QWERTY will be gone and replaced with QWERTZ?
Flexible screen - folds out for full-sized scrren when I have the room, stays slid into the top cover for a half-size screen when I don't. This is probably an OLED device, shough Sharp at least is working on this sort of display. Note to self, recommend a cell phone with this, so I can have a useful browsing experience in something shirt-pocket sized.
Jackable to a desktop-style keyboard/mouse/monitor setup wherever I am. Like libraries, work, home office, McDonalds (since by then Starbucks will be passé, and MD's coffee will be better.
Truly fast wireless - 100MB bi-directional. This is not within sight, WiMax and all are not gpoing to get it done.
Expandable keyboard - Starts out as slightly compressed notebook size, but pull on two corners and the keyboard expands out to full-size, if I wanna. Think IBM's ThinkPad 'butterfly' keyboard but in both dimensions, not just width. Keys are overlapping with flexible edges and of course debounced so you can strike one and get what you wanted, ignoring the nearby slower, partial presses. You can have the *)(&ing patent, just make this for me, ok?
Anti-theft alarm - Unless you deactivate it when you pick it up, you get a 120dB+ squeal. For a long time. And off and on forever, or until I enter the right combination of keys, buttons, and gestures. Wait, make that 140dB+. This might make it undesireable to snarf one off my table at McD's...
Fuel cell or chemical power source - A butane fuel cell would be sweet, but there may be other alternatives. I won't ask for the plutonium pellet lifetime battery yet, too many people aren't ready for true progress.
Can I have this by 2015, please? Ok, 2018? Never? Hmm...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"In one, a touch-sensitive screen acts as the system's keyboard and mouse, allowing you to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential." I have an even better idea. I want the computer to restart when I wave my middle finger in front of the screen. This will be handy for BSODs and driver crashes.
So then when I'm... I mean I can... this allows me too... well it's just so awesome!!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The sad truth is that concept models, like science fiction, can only conceive of the future as based on funadamental limitations of the present. Why would someone in the future put a computer in their lap when they can wear it like a bluetooth 'digital mullet' earpiece or as a stylish cap that interfaces with the brain through the skin?
This innovation interests me most, aside from the obvious uses, but taking a step further. It would be an incredible educational tool as well as for the average consumer. Here's the shots they had for this with the article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9070218&pageNumber=3 This is probably way down the line, but a true simulation of open heart surgery? Driving tests/lessons without having to take students into the streets? How about 3D maps to help us find our way around? To be honest, I am afraid of the next generation of internet "pop ups".
You'll have to pry my Model M from my cold dead fingers before I'll type on a _touch_ screen! Touchscreens are a novelty, nothing more. You can't type if you have to put your hand on the screen, it's rather painful to the muscles and fingers to be typing on something that doesn't move, and the loss of precision is far too great. Your fingers can't click a single pixel. Your mouse pointers can. I wouldn't even be able to properly maneuver my desktop by touch if it was a 40" screen, let alone a 20" (or smaller) laptop. And yes, you would need a different interface, but that means either having less working space as controls take over all your screen space, or having everything embedded even deeper into the maze of menus.
Yuk. Didn't we learn anything from Sinclair about non responsive keyboards back in the 80's?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Those images had Windoze stamped all over the screens, so 2008 will not be the year for Linux
I've seen work on both at SIGGRAPHs. You could project the display output on any surface. A camera would watch the projected screen corners and continuously warp it into a regular rectangle.
I've also seen a laser draw faux-keyboards on a quasi-horizontal surfaces and detect finger locations and typing-contacts. You make a gesture-detector with this too.
The benefit of both of theses systems is computer hardware much smaller than a screen or keyboard. Maybe a small cube or pocket-sized device you place on a table-wall in front of you.
This is probably more 2025 than 2015.
I'd like my future laptop to have a small fusion generator, and a projector capable of displaying a high lumen screen 10' wide 10' away, but maybe not quite in the next 7 years...
I don't believe you, I'm here for a seat on the secret spaceship.
Is that really all that they think is possible in the next 7 years? I thought we were meant to be accelerating toward a technological singularity, sometime around 2037 (IIRC), and yet the advances they propose are touch screens, virtual keyboards and laptops that work as e-books! WTF? They can do all that stuff right now!
I want them to showcase the technology that they think might be achievable in 7 years: where's the roll-up paper thin screen, hell, why can't the whole laptop be embedded into the paper thin screen. Where's the wearable HUD or good 'ol VR Goggles?
Basically they see the laptop still existing in 7 years and it's pretty much the same but has adopted some of the tech-style from the mobile phone industry. Well done. No innovation stagnation here, now move along...
Moore's law is not a law. Theory, yes; Predictable trend, certainly; Law, no.
The way companies keep cutting expenses, I'm pretty sure that my laptop in 2015 will be the same crappy Compaq POS that I'm using today. So I already know what the laptop of 2015 looks like - its in front of me now.
. waterwingz
The advantage to a virtual keyboard, is that the keys can simply move to where they need to be as you type.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I like a tactile keyboard as much as the next fella' and would likely hate typing on one of those touchscreen things ... but I wonder how much of that is just habit. My grandmother was used to pounding on her typewriter and thought a keyboard was flimsy and felt "wrong". Who knows what 10 years from now folks will think.
take it easy, but take it.
The iPhone is very easy to type on - and all those people who say you *need* to look at the keyboard to make sure you are hittin the right keys is incorrect. I still manage to text while I'm driving with one hand and not looking. True I may not hit the correct key every time, but with the intelligence of the keyboard it always knows what I was trying to say, you just need to have faith in the keyboard.
I like the second laptop - only problem is though it is running Vista!! Hopefully by 2015 everyone will have woken up and would be buying the latest "MacBook Touch".
In 1981 we had machines with foil-based keyboards. On these machines you never knew whether you hit or missed a key -- you either had to constantly monitor the screen or watch yourself typing. Usually the latter.
Heck, there have been *plenty* of alternative input methods in the 1970s and 1980s, ranging from early touch sensors (remembering those on your TV set?) to a vast number of foil-based stuff.
They all died out. For a reason: people hate it when they have no tactile feedback. If they press a button, they not only expect something to happen, but also get the instant feedback of a button being depressed.
I suspect this designer is born in the 1980s. That's the only half-way plausible excuse to come up with touch-sensitive alternative screens as an alternative for keyboards.
Maybe he will then soon have the brilliant idea of chiclet keyboards and non-standard keyboard arrangements.
Is that the laptop of the future:
You know, people just don't get it. If I'm buying a desktop, yes, I want all of the bells and whistles and don't care how heavy or how much power it uses. But when I buy a laptop, I'm not buying a mobile desktop. I want something that's light and easily portable. I want something with a keyboard that's usable, not merely "painted on" as an afterthought; tactile feedback matters. I want something which can be opened in economy class on an airline - the last corporate laptop I had was so big that this was impossible - I used my Palm instead. And I want something that can be used for hours on end without a recharge.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
as long as my nifty laptop of the future comes default with a haruhi-esque image of anime girls as the desktop i'm sold.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
...to be just like SELMA (from Time Trax).
So long as we're tied to the hardware in this manner - we will continue with a:
1) display of some sort
2) input of some sort
You can throw it into a million fabulous configurations and it will always be the same - just something to lug around.
When we start using wetware, that's when the real innovation will take place.
With the touch-screen keyboard, could I change the shape of the keyboard so I don't have to hold my elbows together to type?
Split keyboards are a godsend for those of us with shoulder spans wider than a foot.
there is usually no inherent advantage to having multiple physically seperated screens, when you can just logically partition a single screen as necessary.
The dual screens reduces processing power needs. The 2D hardware on the DS requires far, far less power than the 3D hardware, and is also much cheaper to make. The DS design has 2 2D engines and 1 3D engine. Doing one screen would've required bumping up the power of the 3D engine substantially, and probably would require more RAM as well.
They actually make dual screen laptops, have for a few years. If you do a google search, there are a few prototypes, and Canova already offers one, or did at one point. It isn't just a concept, I've actually seen one (I guess it could have been a prototype). It runs XP too, so it's been around at least a year or two. Anyways, not new. The writer of this article should probably check the high end market before making claims about tech we'll see 15 years from now, when it's already out.
They will want:
- Lighter Devices
- Better Battery Life/less power used
- Tactile Feedback from a keyboard
- Faster Processing, and ability to never see an hourglass
- Higher amount of storage
- Faster Connections to other devices or resoucres
- More Robust Construction
- Less errors affecting their use
Then they will try to decide between small surface area (small screen and keyboard for portability) compared to large surface area for usability.For me, just make my Toshiba M400 faster, more reliable, lighter, and better battery life, and able to never see an hourglass and I am there.
no comment
Riiiiight... because that's so much easier and more reliable than flipping a friggin' switch to turn the display off!
Hello there. Jokes, ever hear of them?
Oh, you may notice he never said he was a Windows user. And the "Year of Linux" isn't defined by when you started using Linux. What, did you think we were all sitting around with baited breath hoping this would be the year that Zero__Kelvin gave his mark of approval? I'm not surprised you feel bad when you tell people what you paid for your laptop. A Sony Vaio? Talk about low value for money...
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Heh, I see one of those screens has a Vista logo on it.
That's not the laptop I'll be using in 2015. Nor anyone else for that matter.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And they are pretty much dumb and unoriginal. Is 2015 really just everyone carrying around over sized Nintendo DS's and slider phones? These are not innovative uses of OLEDs which I think will take off once mass production gets cheap. The possibility of flexible OLEDs is also interesting, if a substrate for the screen plus the sealing layers were flexible enough to be rolled then we could potentially fit a computer in like a digital "scroll" or something cool like that. Also I hate this touch screen use for keyboards. You really have to look at the screen to use it. Unless screen topology can be dynamically changed it's useless. I say use dual Power Gloves with like sign language (this will help the hearing impaired as more people will be able to speak to them). I love the power glove. It's so baaaad. Oh one more things. DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!..er I mean BATTERIES BATTERIES BATTERIES. There are much more efficient battery technologies currently in development and already in existence. The ones in existence are probably being affected by political and corporate pressure from the likes of big oil as their high efficiency threatens oil consumption directly. The only problem with batteries is charge time. If your batteries are efficient enough then you can completely replace oil as a transportation infrastructure with batteries and nuclear power plants. You still need oil to produce a lot of other things. Just nowhere near as much as is consumed by cars and trucks. Ok I guess I should shut up now.
Balderdash!
...a touch-sensitive screen acts as the system's keyboard and mouse, allowing you to slide your finger across the screenHave gnu, will travel.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
At this rate I think I'll still be using my T41 in the year 2015. Too many people are squandering the opportunities for advancement avaliable by utilizing current technology to make better technology on tired pedantic endeavours.
My timex sinclair had a flat keyboard and it sucked. Instead of a screen the future notebook will **harmlessly** beam neat 3d images into your retnas. (We all finally get to play the wavey funnel game:)
Instead of a keyboard you can just twiddle your fingers in space (interpreted by an internal ccd) to represent what you want to type or opt for one of those cheezy mind reading HID device.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
... and why not?
Dual screens is fairly low on my priority list. Right now I'd like something like the following
*Battery life measured in days, not hours
*Stable and mobile wireless, I'm guessing 3G or whatever comes after that will solve this one eventually.
*Completely solid state low-noise components ( sort of available already, albeit at a very high price )
*Improved keyboards. Few laptops have a decent one and I can't imagine a touchscreen will make it better.
The only major advantage I can see with using a touch-screen as a keyboard is that it would allow you to use the entire keyboard area as a touch pad when you're not typing.
All those laptops run Vista or XP...
For months to come... HONEY...
but my future laptop looks like a Thinkpad
Pfft... touch screens. I suspect it won't be long before computers simply type what we think and I can't see any problems with that whatsoman I'm hungry.
"allowing you to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential"
couldn't I just push a button?
gestures are cool and all, but that sounds pretty innefficient unless I'm already running my hand on the screen.
In one, a touch-sensitive screen acts as the system's keyboard and mouse, allowing you to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential.
I've had this exact functionality since the 90's, you can hook a keyboard up too. It also fits in my pocket and the rechargable battery lasts for a month. It's a PALM PILOT!
POKE 36879,8
- The Saifu looks like some kind of Klingon battle implement. It's even an appropriate color. The name might have some kind of nice meaning, but it sounds to me like Ginsu.
- Speaking of knives, the notebook with the pull-out keyboard is clever, but how sturdy would it be, and why does it remind me of a high tech cutting board?
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The dual screen notebook is a thick, clunky piece of over-engineering. It looks like a Toughbook, and I'd expect a 5.25 inch hard drive or two could fit in that case. It looks like it came from behind the Iron Curtain. There has to be a Soviet Russia joke in there somewhere.
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The solar notebook is also quite thick. Didn't TFA say it was actually designed by someone who used to live in an Iron Curtain country? It has that Trabant look. It also looks like it might be pretty easy to throw through a window. Is it insurgency friendly?
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The "car friendly" notebook. No. I can picture some idiot driving down the road checking their email and typing on their keyscreen. We have a hard enough time with cell phone drivers. Please, let's not throw another device at them.
If you want something that looks beautiful and is revolutionary, take something like the Mac Air clamshell, remove the hinge, toss the "body", and have a tablet the form and thickness of the Air's display. Make it watertight with an accessible but sealed polycarbonate shell. Make certain it has a multicore CPU, an OLED display surface, solid state storage, with a voice/gestural/touch interface *or* wireless keyboard and mouse for us Luddites. Recharge it on an inductive charging surface, and give it a snap-on easel for easy viewing.Make certain it always knows "up" (the term escapes me at the moment, someone remind me.)
I'd buy one. I wouldn't purchase any of the other ones shown in this article.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
The DS screens are not identical. Only the lower screen is touch sensitive so it makes sense to have an interface-dedicated screen and an information-dedicated screen. But I think you're right, apart from form factor and cost saving issues a single screen would be better.
.evom ton seod gis eht
In the future, we may not need keyboards, since some better input system will be developed. You could envision a touch chord system which doesn't require location accuracy. Better voice recognition or brain recognition. Letters could be formed by a variety of gestures. Typing doesn't have to be an up-down motion of the fingers; it could be various finger gestures which don't require pressing down a button. There's no reason why a new system would be slower than traditional typing.
Fantastic idea! If only I had mod points... The only issue I can see is where to store the film when it's not in use - if it's detachable, you can imagine how often someone would lose it. Perhaps if it's hinged on it's side so that it sits to (either the left or right) when not in use.
Anyone here using those laser keyboards? Enjoy it? Thought not.
How about putting some work into making fancy new laptops as cheap as comparable desktop systems instead of adding gold, diamonds, baby skin and extra screens to them? Aside from the cost of that, it looks useless for actual work. Drop it? There goes the touch screen. Touch typing? Forget it!
This is no more the laptop of the future than LEGOs are the building material of the future.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Sixteen Gigabytes of memory, Eight 6 GHz 64 bit processors, 3.2 Terabytes of disk, 9,000 x 5,000 resolution. Otherwise not much different. Still only 4 hours worth of battery.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
what I'm doing now, watching futurama on one and reading slashdot on the other (really :-p)!
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
...otherwise this page would be FULL of comments about the potential uses of the 'Siafu' technology mooted in the article.
Go on, use your imagination... oh, hang on, you don't need to...
I'd rather have a shot of Ebola, thanks. Touchscreens is the devils invention for crippling human appendages.
I don't forsee the QWERTY keymap to go away anytime soon, and as long as people poke at stuff as a means of entering data, they will probably want some sort of moving knobs to poke at. If they want to get rid of the keyboard - for God knows what reason - they will have to come up with something BETTER, not WORSE.
That haptic thing for the blind actually looks very neat and something I could put to good use myself. Imagine being able to touch hands over Skype!
Check out the bottom right hand picture on this page:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9070218&pageNumber=3
Note the distinct boobie shaped "keyboard."
NOW say tactile is out.
Get one now on eBay
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
It's a good point: If everywhere were you type is the home row, then how do you type anything else than f and j.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Why should we type?
You could use gestures (3 or 4 virtual keys thell the machine if you are typing numbers, upper or lower case letters, symbols) then you draw them.
Or with multitouch you need 5 fingers to represent pretty much any letter, combine with autocompletion and you could be "typing" without looking and without needing major tactile points of reference.
And of course there is hand writing recognition, that is getting better. In 7 years time in may be a solved problem.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I don't think a laptop 7 years from now will resemble a laptop at all. Maybe the laptops of 2010 will be like those.
DON'T PANIC
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
I use an old IBM model M keyboard - date on the back 03-15-90. It's got the most fantastic key action and tactile feedback of any keyboard I've ever used. (It's also one loud keyboard when I'm machine-gunning across it, but that's not exactly a feature. :) ) I remembering ridiculing the TI-99 and Atari 400 with their "mylar beep-keys" because they didn't have any key action. This is the same, but without even a tactile edge to each key.
With a widescreen form factor I think they can get close enough to a standard qwerty keyboard (without the num pad) that I won't get upset about the size. I've got think fingers and when I've tried typing on a friend's iPhone it was garbage. As long as it's a good size they should be able to do that okay. But I'd stay away from small form-factor laptops, just like I do now. It's a recognized problem (anyone remember the old Thinkpad butterfly keyboards?), I can't hold it for or against touchscreen keyboards.
On last concern is what switching to using the touch-screen keyboard area for eBook reading or something - does it come with a dispenser of screen cleanser? I'm sure it'll be rife with fingerprints. I wonder what can be done with materials to retard pickup of skin oils.
These seem just right for "concept" laptops. Some ideas may be commercially viable and get adopted, others are neat but wouldn't find wide enough appeal to be picked up except in some high-end vanity laptops.
Cheers,
=Blue(23)
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
And yet only one of them uses Vista and 2 use XP... such faith from the industry ;)
Wouldn't you know it -- the laptops in 2015 are still running Windows XP!
matthewmeyer.net
Back in 2001, (seven years ago), I replaced my trusty 14" Samsung flat screen with a flashy new 21.5" Samsung. --For which, I'll mention for no particular reason, I paid about half the price I did for the old 14", which was about $650 at the time. --The old one, btw, still works perfectly, so I donated it to a friend of mine who was still glaring at a blurry old CRT.
I originally bought that cute 14" to replace my gimungus 17" CRT monitor for which I paid almost $1200 for back in 1994, (another 7-year gap, and as I consider it now, another price-drop of 50%). That old CRT beast always frightened me a little; it made this huge "BZZZONG!" sound when I turned it on, and it did that high-pitch whine thing which drove me crazy for the 7 years I had it in use. It wasn't working quite perfectly on the day I finally replaced it; the colors were no longer consistent across the screen. In any case, I was happy to give up three inches of screen real-estate in favor of the new flat screen just to MAKE THAT &#$@# HIGH PITCH WHINE GO AWAY. I'd been waiting years for that day, and honestly, I don't know why it didn't arrive sooner.
Nonetheless, some technology I have is well over seven years old. --I currently still regularly use a little portable word-processor/PDA thing with a full laptop keyboard and an 8.5" screen, an (HP Jornada 820), which was built back in 1998, making it 10 years old today. It's slow and has very little memory, and the screen isn't so great with only 256 shakey colors, but since I use it as a dedicated word processor, it does its job exceptionally well. --Unfortunately, it has a cracked hinge which keeps getting worse even after a makeshift repair job, and I wonder how much longer it's going to last before the screen breaks off altogether. Still, the remaining hinge seems to be holding fast, so we'll see. If I treat it gingerly, maybe it will last until 2015.
If Asus ever makes their little "eee" series with screens larger than 7", (which is a tad too small for my taste; the 8.5" Jornada screen feels limiting enough as it is), I might consider picking one of them up, though the boot and muck around time is still slow compared to the instant-on my Jornada offers. (It's great being able to flip open the Jornada, hit "On" and have the document I'm working on right there with the cursor flashing in anticipation. Total luxury, and it came from 1998, for crying out loud! I can't stand it when industry abandons good ideas.) --Though, I hear Asus is planning to put out a version with a larger screen sometime this year. I'd like to try out the keyboard, but none of the dealers around here carry the eee, (or even know what I'm talking about when I ask, weirdly enough). My Jornada's keyboard is a perfect size, and the eee's is a little less than an inch smaller, which concerns me somewhat. I'd really like to like the eee, but it just doesn't quite make the grade.
Maybe I'll just buy a plastic-welding unit to fix that hinge. . .
Okay, I'm rambling now. My two points I started out trying to make are these; 1. Seven years is in my experience a logical break-point with regard to computer hardware. And 2. Based on experience, I don't expect a whole lot of advancement from the industry between now and 2015.
Going from CRT to flatscreen was huge, but that was longer than 7 years in the brewing and everybody could see it coming. I can't really see anything new coming down the pike at the moment. I guess the only thing I'd ask is for somebody to make another portable word processor with a lap-top sized keyboard and a decent-sized screen, and with as few moving parts as possible. --Oh, and a loooong battery life. The Asus eee is almost it, but not quite. Maybe another 7 years will do the trick. Here's to hoping!
Oh, and non-tactile keyboards suck. I bet everybody on the bridge of the next-gen Enterprise had sore finger tips and cringes at the smears all over their workstations. Yuk!
-FL