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How HP Could Turn a Novelty Into a Revolution
RobotsDinner writes "HP's TouchSmart desktop is cool, but a blogger suggests it could be the beginning of a revolution if HP were to finally make the move of ditching Windows and building a Linux distro around the TouchSmart UI. 'Hello, HP. The UI of your latest TouchSmart computer says something about you. You may not have recognized your own weaving-in of meaning, but it comes across quite clearly if one reads just right: You want out. You want to escape the world of Windows to which Microsoft has sequestered you for the better part of two decades. Ah, but you can. No longer does Bill Gates stand guard outside your cell ... It's time to ditch Windows and build a Linux distro around the TouchSmart UI ... Your captivity of innovation under Microsoft is over. You're free. Free to invent, as you might put it.'"
From personally using/selling this computer for about a month, I can say it is nothing more than a gimmick. It's nothing more than a glorified tablet with a glossy screen. If HP were serious about trying to revolutionize an industry, chances are, they'd have to partner with Apple to use their patents. As it is now, the screen is uncomfortable, buggy, and horrifically unprecise. Plus, the computer itself is nothing special, being built on the same platform as their DV5 series of laptops. The processor is just a Core2 Duo T5750 which barely clocks at 2.0ghz. They try to make up for the mediocre processor with 4gb of 333mhz DDR2, and fail. The screen has no multi-touch capability, so using an on-screen keyboard is a pain because response time shows as much latency as someone trying to play WoW on a 28.8kbps dial-up connection. HP will never turn novelty into a revolution. These companies do nothing more than market the norm with a little more glitz, and unfortunately, the age of the keyboard and mouse is not yet over. Give me a capacitive multi-touch screen with haptic feedback that runs linux with Enlightenment or one of the other eyecandy desktop environments on a low profile desktop form factor, then we'll see if touch screens are the way of the future.
Not to mention that a touch screen interface either gives you RSI or neck / back ache depending on the position of the screen.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
A pure Linux fanboy wrote that blog post that made its way to Slashdot's homepage. He just wants HP to put Linux on the hot new product, when really this is a Windows Tablet with a few new cool apps writen for it.
You're right. But he does have a point, although that may not have been intentional. If Linux were to power a nifty device that caught the attention of the masses, that'd certainly be a good first step towards gaining mass acceptance.
But... well really there's nothing insightful about what I just said. Nothing new, anyway. It's easy for me to say "put Linux on a neat product!", but picking the right product, making it work, and convincing somebody to do it ... well if I could provide a step by step of how to realistically pull that off, I'd deserve more than a +5.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You know, there are plenty of really good blogs out there but if we're going to continue to see more and more blog posts represented as legitimate news articles can we please flag them in some way so I can just chose to ignore them?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
You mean like the Asus Eee?
Yeah, I bet Tivo are really glad they picked Linux given the reaction to them from the Linux community.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I think it is this video: http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987
In which Douglas Englebart discovered that it was very tiring to use a touch screen display in the 60s. Half a century later, we'll be relearning that.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The comment is by Alan Kay at 7:10. And of course, I misspelled "Engelbart". Anyway here's the quote (Sketchpad is from 1962):
"By the way, Sketchpad was the first system in which it was definitely discovered that the light pen is a very bad input device because the blood runs out of your hand in about 20 seconds and leaves it numb. In spite of that it's been reinvented at least 90 times in the last 25 years." Alan Kay, 1987.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
As someone somehow related with the HP MFP development process, I will say that HP is putting more devices on Windows, from setups that were previously HP-UX based. As seen in the Edgeline series of MFPs (really, starting there), HP includes a copy of Windows CE with the firmware. The interface is larger than on other MFPs, but it was designed to mimic the HP-UX setup, which was still perfectly functional, and could have been expanded to the larger screen. HP has ceased development on several products because they aren't using Windows CE now.
All this is to say, I don't think HP is trying to get away from Microsoft. Microsoft is a large partner and client for HP, and while HP will work on Linux systems as a means of being fairly diverse (but I fear some of managements short sighted ness is stifling/removing some diversity), they do still really like Microsoft, and are using .net C# extensively on the Imaging side of the Business.
Posted Anonymously because of some NDA papers that I don't think fully apply, but it can't hurt to be safe.
The main problems with touch screens for more than casual use are:
1: You obscure what you touch. Until we get transparent hands, people will obscure the screen while using it.
2: Smudges and scratches. If you don't think this is a real problem, look at the pay terminal at the grocery store. And that's casual use.
3: Gorilla Arm syndrome. This has been the downfall of touch screens for frequent input each and every time they have been re-launched as the next big thing.
If Linux is supposed to be free as in both speech and beer, then why should we be pushing it on people? That's not freedom.
An interesting point. Did the US become free as a result of the revolution, or was it non-free because the people loyal to the English monarchy had that freedom forced on them?
Perhaps there are just a certain amount of people who only take what is forced on them. Some people accepted monarchies because they were forced on them. Some people had democracy forced on them. Is the right to representative government less of a freedom because some people didn't want it?
My parents, for example, will never experience freedom in relation to software: they take what the salesman tells them to take. If the salesman tells them to take Linux someday, they will, but will not be more free as a result, IMO.
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Tivo's supplier is the kernel team and they have done nothing of the sort.
No, Tivo's supplier is "Linux", not just kernel. Some of the user level stuff they rely on will change license terms. In fact most GPL code is licensed under "version 2 or later", so if they use that their users can just treat it as if it were GPLv3 licensed. or GPLv4 when it comes out, which might have additional anti Tivo clauses.
Anyway, if they are unhappy with the licensing terms they can always write their own code.
Like I said, I'm sure they're really happy they chose Linux under one set of license terms only to find the terms changed without them agreeing and specifically to put them out of the business. The worst thing is they don't know yet what the impact will be yet - if some crucial user mode piece of code changes to GPLv3 they might need to rewrite it. If they complain they get told to "write their own code".
Uncertainty like this makes businesses anxious. That's why they mentioned it in their SEC filing. And why I suspect they're better off migrating away from Linux to reduce the risk of people adding clauses to the GPL designed to destroy them.
Face it the FSF and most of the community don't want them to use Linux in the way they do.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I have pretty much same experience. I actually used linux for desktop few years back. And windows now just blows linux away in pretty much every aspect - even performance and stability. Yes, my X crashed way more times than winXP did - and even those crashes were due to overcloking and overheating. X just hanged and the only thing i could do was ctrl-alt-backspace.
My latest experience with linux at my job... fedora core. We run few vmware clients on that computer and i was trying to reconfigure network card. I could navigate through menus and select configuration, but nothing happened. Tried to open console to see what's going on... nothing happened. After few minutes of scratching my head, all the windows opened. I got absolutelly no indication that system was so clogged up. At least in windows you get little 'wait' icon and taskmanager opens always. I got so annoyed i actually suggested using win2k8 with hyper-v in future.
I've always wondered if it's worth having a Microwriter like mouse. From what I've read the Microwriter was a very natural input device. Then again it never took off, so maybe it was only natural to a small number of zealots.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;