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CrunchPad Will Be a 'Dead Simple Web Tablet'
Hugh Pickens writes "TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has been talking for a year about building a touch-screen tablet for Web surfing and now it appears that the CrunchPad is close to becoming a reality. 'We're going to make some really big announcements,' said Arrington, who predicted a prototype would be ready for unveiling by the end of July. The purpose of the CrunchPad will be very simple: surfing the Web. Turn it on and up comes a browser — 'an Internet consumption device,' for reading, checking e-mail or watching video. The CrunchPad will not have a hard drive or keyboard and photos of the latest prototype show a device with a 12 inch screen. 'The screen is now flush with the case and we've decreased the overall thickness to about 18 mm,' writes Arrington. 'The case will be aluminum, which is more expensive than plastic but is sturdier and lets us shave a little more off the overall thickness of the device.' The CrunchPad boots directly into the browser with a Linux-based operating system and a WebKit-based browser. A video of an earlier CrunchPad prototype in action shows a device which, unlike the iPhone, runs flash. 'The next time we talk about the CrunchPad publicly will be at a special press and user event in July in Silicon Valley,' writes Arrington. 'We're full on. These prototypes are real.'"
click it with the mouse. Nice spacesaver
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
wonderful, what will they think of next
Then please add a strong (8\10 meters) IR interface.
It can then become my universal remote AND my (potato) couch web browser.
Otherwise, I already found some solutions to browse from the couch (aka iphone)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
It's not a netbook and I don't see why anyone would possibly prefer a larger screen in a format that is easier to hold to something with a keyboard.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"Browsing the web" also involves buying online. For this to be useful for many users, it needs a reasonably efficient means of basic text entry that is not some horrible onscreen keyboard. A small Bluetooth keypad/touchpad combo would be better.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
And let it play MAME with some SD storage.
A $300 digital photo-frame that runs Firefox.
Sign me up.
Article originally posted June 3rd. Old news.
A video of an earlier CrunchPad prototype in action shows a device which, unlike the iPhone, runs flash.
Yes, it's quite impressive. I like watching my YouTube videos at 1 frame every 3 or 4 seconds.
Will it have a virtual keyboard though? I cant wait for these to be released to use for watching baseball games and chatting on http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ but the only problem is that with a netbook and wifi i'm not sure what additional value this is going to be offering. I think i'd miss the keyboard for typing. Cheers, Dean
perfect for the cloud computing age...
It has no tabs!
Looking past the very basic needs of searching and typing addresses I find that most web use today involves typing something
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Overall cool - iphone with big enough screen
But they really should focus on design of a virtual keyboard that is large and ergonomically laid out.
We have to avoid trending toward encouraging passive web surfers who are only "channel surfing"
just like the advertisers want you to.
The internet is way more interesting and useful when it is truely two-way, peer-to-peer.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It must come with velcro on the back to hold it to your lap like in the picture.
With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance.
Which no one wants and no one buys.
Not in the numbers which matter to WalMart.
The Kindle stores 1500 e-books for your off-line reading pleasure.
The Atom netbook running XP or Win 7 can play hundreds of MSDOS and Windows games - available as dirt-cheep downloads from places like Gog.com ["Good Old Games"]
I can buy a laptop that will do everything this does and MUCH MORE for like an additional $100. Seems like this device is a dead end niche minus the niche. Without a keyboard, how much email can you do ? Read but not reply ? While a virtual keyboard might work for a few keystrokes, a simple 2 paragraph email becomes torture using a non-existent KB.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Sounds like a natural for http://www.android.com/
-=Maggie Leber=-
If you make it dead simple, only brain dead will be using it
Compared to my screen, my keyboard is awfully dirty. It's shiny with grime, even though I clean it about once month. I'm thinking if I had a touch screen, I'd have to wipe that screen clean about once an hour, at least.
Either that, or stop licking my fingers.
For proof, check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsV-lgnAjps
for a while.
I already do all my computing from my couch, on an expensive, ugly, and loud computer (and a decent tele, with a freaking awesome keyboard). It is nice to play video games while watching Star Trek. It is also nice to be able to set my data a'calculating or code a'compiling and maximize my ...HD-DVD.... of The Bourne Identity.
But writing, drawing, and graphics/design are frustrating. I would prefer to have my typing directly in front of me. I have flirted with the idea of mounting an additional monitor on a swingarm beside my couch, so I could write or do graphics, but I don't want a monitor cable running across my floor, and I do not want to invest heavily a wireless solution for a monitor. 'They' say a bluetooth 3 system is in the works.
I've often considered that computing on a tablet would be great. However, the loss of computing power makes doing anything resource intensive prohibitive.
So my next solution was going to be to 'dumb terminal' the setup on a tablet, and park my tower in a closet. But that makes 80% (even more?) of the resources of a good tablet a waste.
With one of these and browser desktop, like logmein, I'd have exactly what I was looking for. I imagine you'd use a free (and local) solution, considering that your intranet could handle all the bandwidth necessary for a reasonably fast terminal. I've only used a few 'pro' (ie. expensive) solutions* for rdping over a network and over the tubes, but they really sucked compared to logmein.
I think if this thing comes out affordable, and is a little less fruity then prototype C, this may be the next component for my PC.
*Offtopic note: I will absolutely never, ever buy a Firebox, thanks to WatchGaurd and their fantastic 'Enterprise' vpn solutions. Ever.
Is it at all possible to close the browser and use the tablet as a proper computer? That would be magical.
no thanks if it makes browsing worse
It's not a crunch product if it isn't all about twitter.
For users like
- Simple Jack
- President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
- George W. Bush
- Joe Sixpack
- The drooling guy in the wheelchair.
- Your baby that is still in the womb.
- And even Flippy the chimp!
Nobody has to feel left out from the forums because he can't even enter some simple letters. The possibilities are endless!
With just one clickwheel, you can wheel all day long! Whooo! Wheeee! *lisping* It's so simple!
Company Boss (deep voice, huge pack of muscles, looks like a peasant in a suit): "Our clients love it! Some of them even came to company headquarters to.. stand there... and... like... drool... and make cavemen noises for no reason. Of course there is also some grunting. But we take that as a suggestion, about where to make our system even simpler, and what feature to remove next. We always listen to our clients, and fullfill their every wish, no matter how lazy and stupid, and lazy and fucking idiots, and stinking creepy retards and stupid and backwards and plain and simple the most retarded stupid fucks that mother nature ever shat out of her ass they are." *takes out hankie* *wipes sweat* *pops his pills*
Now for only one plus one plus one plus one plus one ...(goes on for half an hour)... plus one credits from that big hole in the ground where you hack the dirt out of the ground for the great monkey of steel that tells you what to do!
Don't miss it! Buy now!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
it was double the price and had an apple logo on it.
Between waiting for the Pandora and the Crunchpad, I found a real tablet at BetaMacs - the Motion Computing M1300 with a USB keyboard for $310 including shipping (They no longer have any stock here at the time of this writing, unfortunately, but GainSaver still has a couple). The battery only lasts about two hours, but I can run a full Windows XP/Ubuntu installation with almost 640x480 x264 playback (stutters a bit during busy scenes).
Thanks for the concepts, Mike. If you had used a Cortex A8 with a 7 inch screen and slide-out keyboard, I might have had a niche for you in my gadgets collection. See you next time!
For the two most important places in my house: The kitchen table and the porcelain throne. More real-time than tucking a newspaper under my arm!
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
>Otherwise, I already found some solutions to browse from the couch (aka iphone)
Yes because, everyone enjoys reading for more than 2 minutes on a 3 inch screen.
Stop comparing apples to oranges.
Literally.
John Markoff in the NY-Times in March 2008:
"Apple's multitouch technology began life not as a cellphone, but as a notepad-sized skunkworks project internally dubbed Safari Pad, run by Tim Bucher, then Apple's head of Macintosh hardware. To his credit, Mr. Jobs seized on the technology and morphed it into the iPhone.
At Macworld, when I asked Mr. Jobs about the idea of an iPod Touch in a larger "Safari Pad" format, he snapped at me, "I can't talk about unannounced products.""
Originally at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/reading-steve-jobs/
A dead-simple web tablet. That's like saying that the iPhone will be just a simple to use phone.
I believe the real appeal of the thing will be in the simplicity and elegance of its design, but also in its ability to do just about everything once one installs add-on apps to it. After all, it has a CPU and Linux - why woundn't one do other things on it?
Now if only it can eventually have a super low power display (like the Kindle, but color), so that we are finally free of the tyranny of being near an electric outlet.
The UI gestures on this thing are terrible. They're not at all obvious. I don't imaging anyone will be able to figure out how to bring up, say, text entry without being told. It's also unclear how some of the gestures (such as the upward swipe) are distinguished from scrolling. Just stick an address bar and a few buttons in there, it'll make all of your user's lives easier. There's definitely room. Sacrificing usability for a "full-screen-web" aesthetic isn't a good idea.
oh yeah, webtv.
People like to have some extra functionality in their computers other than web browsing, even if they never use that other functionality.
Same goes for people who want 600 HP cars, in reality, they'll never use all the power of the car, only a fraction of it, but they want it because it has *more*
Netbooks sold well not because of limited horsepower or features, but because of the functionality they provided in a small form factor, plus they didnt lack all that much horsepower.
I'm sorry but the crunchpad will fail because it being design with a fad in mind, you know, the whole web 2.0 cloud computing? It might fly, but it will fall like a stone afterwards.
If I can get it to read the various ebook formats - mob, lit, pdf, htm (you'd be surprised how many devices with web browsers won't let u load a html file from disk) I'm sold.
Yay me!
what's a 40 column display got to do with discussing what is the minimum for an 80 column display? C64 sales vs sales of PCs (all basically the same so put them together). Not sure if the C64 really wins. What is your historical count of C64 sales anyway?
Sounds awfully similar to Google Chrome OS... any connections?