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New Netbook Offers Detachable Tablet

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fun-new-toys dept.

Engadget is reporting that a new "Touch Book" being previewed at DEMO '09 in California by the company "Always Innovating" promises a new take on mobile computing devices. Touting 10 to 15 hours of battery life, this ARM-powered netbook weighs less than two pounds, but the true magic comes with the detachable screen that can function as a completely stand-alone touchscreen tablet. The machine is currently running a Linux OS with a touchable 3D UI, the entire screen is magnetic for mounting on a metal surface, and the whole package is being projected for less than $300.

12 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. ARM Netbook by hax0r_this · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I the only one more interested in the ARM part than the screen part?

    1. Re:ARM Netbook by hax0r_this · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did you read your own link? Every one of those results is about some product that hasn't been released yet. There are no mainstream ARM netbooks available today.

    2. Re:ARM Netbook by loftyhauser · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And where is the Apple Tablet PC on which I can use Inkwell?

    3. Re:ARM Netbook by fm6 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      OK. You need to pull your head out of the Microsoft hole at least once every 10 years to see what's really going on out there.

      And you need to stop assuming that everybody else lives under a rock, like you. I use multiple OSs. I don't currently use MacOS day-to-day, I do track developments for that platform. Rather more, I'm guessing than you track non-Mac platforms.

      OS X runs on x86.

      Small detail: Apple does not make a tablet. There are third-party hackup of Apple laptops, and theoretically I could ignore the legalities and install MacOS on my Motion tablet (now there's a non-trivial project!). But these are both evil kludges that are not supported by Apple. No thanks. Vista may be crap, but at least it's officially supported for my platform, it runs my apps without my jumping through hoops (well, most of the time), and it's actually designed for the hardware I'm using.

      Apple's Inkwell handwriting technology has been around and beloved since the days of Newton (i.e. Apple).

      OK, it's news to me that Inkwell had been ported to the Mac. Not that I'm excited. I used it in its original Newton incarnation. Supposedly they've since fixed its notoriously poor recognition code, but it had so many other issues (punctuation is not part of a word's spelling!) that I'm damned wary of it. And Apple's not bothering to create hardware that uses it doesn't make me any less wary.

      Perhaps Vista's recognition is a little better at the moment... but who cares, OS X pummels Vista in to a quivering mass of junk that it is...

      In other words, you don't know or care whether Inkwell is a serious alternative to what I'm using. You just want to remind us all that the Mac Fanboy is the only life form with a glimmer of intelligence.

    4. Re:ARM Netbook by Barryke · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What is that handwriting you talk about?

      --
      Hivemind harvest in progress..
  2. Projected for less than $300. by Steauengeglase · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So it should be something like $450 to $600?

    1. Re:Projected for less than $300. by Abreu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      [sigh] There's another battery in the screen

      --
      No sig for the moment.
  3. Removable Keyboard, not Screen? by mhall119 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the looks of it, I think it's more accurate to say this comes with a removable keyboard, rather than a removable screen.

    All the ports are on the screen half, and it's twice as thick as the keyboard half.

    --
    http://www.mhall119.com
  4. Getting closer... by RapmasterT · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I for one have been waiting...and waiting for this rather obvious extension of the data device metaphor. Basically, an Ipod touch that has about 4-5x the screen size would be exactly what I (and by extension everyone else) want. Shall I go out on a limb and coin the term "net tablet" right now?

  5. Re:It runs Ninnle! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Nothing. Move along.

  6. EMR platform? by Ironica · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now I really want to find EMR solutions that will run on Linux. This would be a *perfect* piece of hardware for a clinic setting... if the whole EMR industry wasn't so infatuated with MS. (The reps from NextGen seem to think that MySQL is a dodgy, fly-by-night operation next to their MSSQL server.)

    --
    Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
  7. non-Intel by simplerThanPossible · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ARM's OMAP 3 is the news: it's a non-Intel netbook.

    Maybe not today, but this is the way the Intel monopoly ends: a smaller, simpler, cheaper, more power-efficient chip that is customized for what is needed today, not weighed down by decades of legacy decisions.

    A barrier is applications for the platform: I'm sure Windows doesn't run on it; and they'll be few binary linux applications. But I think the web is now mature enough, so web apps + multimedia.

    Then again, Intel is an incredible competitor. Nothing stops them from disrupting themselves. They surely have internal non-legacy projects just like this. Several. (Andy Grove's blurb is on the cover of "The Innovator's Dilemma").