Slashdot Mirror
The World's First Four-Screen Laptop
Barence writes "Intel has stunned visitors at IDF by showing off the world's first four-screen laptop. The oddly-named 'Tangent Bay' has three miniature touchscreens set horizontally into the case below the main, full-sized panel. It is a fully functional prototype: delegates were able to scroll photos around the touchscreens by swiping with a finger. The idea smacked a little too much of the ill-fated Vista SideShow." Seems strange that they would put the screens above the keyboard. I think embedding an iPhone type touchscreen in place of the trackpad would be a far more useful thing.
Seems strange that they would put the screens above the keyboard.
Actually, when done correctly it works good. Myself I have Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard, which has 320x240 color LCD on the top of keyboard. Now I dont play much, but I find the keyboard really nice with its extra buttons that you can use for macros etc (and I get teh nerdy "command center" feel ;)
The main thing I use it for is the cpu/ram meters. I know I could get it on the screen aswell, but I dont like that as I tend to run everything on fullscreen.. browser, visual studio, irc and just alt-tab between them. That is why desktop widgets dont work, because I never see them. On the other hand always-on-top widgets would be in the way all the time. But when its running on the lcd screen on keyboard that I dont all the time use for something else, its nice.
Another thing that I frequently use with the LCD is the YouTube player. When people paste some youtube link, I copy it to clipboard and instead of opening new browser tab and bringing it on top of the screen, it starts playing on the lcd screen. That way I can watch the video without actually putting all my concentration on it.
The screen is also great for providing all kinds of information from various programs, like chat windows, irc, rss reader, music player, stats or healthbars and so on in games. On an interesting note, someone even developed a counter-strike hack that used the lcd screen to display its menu and a radar. That way there wasn't any hack related menus etc on the actual screen, so screenshots didn't catch it.
However it looks like you would be looking at that laptop's screens from 45 or higher angle, which cant be that nice. Maybe they could had added another surface between screen and keyboard so that it would be angled better. But like the article says, its just a prototype to show off intel's experiements, and not likely a product.
Extra small screens can be really useful. It's a great place to show information or content that would get in the way if it was on your actual monitor. Having second monitor on side usually tends to go into other purposes and isn't usually on the view as good as lcd on top of your keyboard.
I'd like a simple laptop without windows keys and but with a trackpoint, possibly a bit of backlight to the keyboard or a led in the lid to shine on top. Yes, it completely fails to be fancy, cool, gadgetty, or attention getting. But it's hard to beat "fingers never have to leave the keyboard" ergonomics. Somehow acquiring things like this are hardest of all in the search-and-peck suit-driven laptop world.
What's with all the hype about touch screens? And THREE of them? What possible use could the third one serve when no OS I know of plays nicely with even the first one? Do they have fingerprint protection at least?
Yes, it looks cool, I'll give you that. But so does the 3 megabytes of xorg.conf to make them work properly, and you still don't get application support.
Obligatory Onion article.
That block looks bigger than my desktop computer. I'd love to see someone trying to use that in an airplane seat.
If the touch screens represented the active desktops, that would be neato. You could just tap one to switch it out with the deskop displayed on the panel.
Yo dawg...
This one reeks of shades of this article.
With Win7 coming soon, it seems a little strange that Intel is messing around with Vista instead of the upcoming OS.
It would have been more stunning if it were 4 full sized screens.
I know this is OT -- go ahead a mod me as such -- but I can't figure out how to tag a story. Clicking on the disclosure triangle next to the tags doesn't work, and I've tried several different browsers. Can someone enlighten me?
I'm not sure why they didn't use a screen for the mouse pad like the iphone. Then at least you could make the touchpad extremely useful. I remember there was a rumor (never came true) that the macbook pros were going to do this.
fictitious "homer" car from the simpsons. if you're too stupid to transition from the tactile meat world to a more abstract concept based environment like the internet, dont worry! we've included three extra touch screens for you to poke and rub like a caveman at the pretty pictures you can only begin to comprehend directly through interaction!
feel free to eventually accost your IT guys with this laptop, and brag about its advanced capabilities compared to their single screen dinosaurs. After all, more screens means more smarter and productive.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This one reeks of shades of this article.
With Win7 coming soon, it seems a little strange that Intel is messing around with Vista instead of the upcoming OS.
carp intel gma does not work in 7?
If you pull up the picture in full detail, you can notice that the three touch screen were bundled together in the demo for a film strip effect. In fact you can see one picture across two screens.
Personally I like the concept of the smaller "informational" screen. I don't have anything specific visualized yet but I'm sure it can come in handy, working with a list of emails, a calendar, and perhaps a seperate IM screen, etc.
Another possible use is to take advantage of the Aero effect from Vista (or multiple desktop) and just display the smaller snapshot of that is going on on the three smaller touch screen and you can bring them up to the main screen by swiping across the screen in an upward motion. Personally I think it can be very useful to keep the desktop clutters down and be more productive with this application. My laptop is still on XP for compatibility reason so I'm no expert on the Vista's features.
To which Gillette replied, "Fuck everything, we're doing five screens!"
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Just have a big touchscreen on the base, and replace the keyboard and touchpad with onscreen versions? Sorta like a big DS... has anyone done that?
Wow, that looks great for scrolling through photo album thumbnails. And for... um... No, wait, I'm sure I'll think of something...
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I could see a touchscreen touchpad (like what was rumoured for the MacBook Pros once in the past), but this is just silly. I prefer the laptop that had the fold-out full-sized second screen.
This makes the laptop deeper (or the touchpad area smaller, moving the keyboard forward into a more awkward position).
On the other hand, a single touchscreen display for launching things with icons, changing volume graphically, etc, is better than the Optimus keyboard in many ways.
I noticed in the pic it was running Vista.
Seriously, I don't get the warm fuzzies from the current video driver manufacturers fro normal laptops in either Wintendo or Linux, I can't imagine the support nightmare for a laptop with one main screen and three sub-screens.
On that note - what about battery life?
Screen savers?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
This is a prototype, not a production machine and there isn't anyone making very long thin touchscreens. Intel put three standard screens (I presume something like 800x480 resolution, the sort most high-end smartphones use) into a laptop chassis. On a production machine there would be a purpose-built touchscreen (2400 x 480 pixels perhaps) occupying the same space as the three displays do in the prototype.
I don't know about you guys, but I am fine with just ONE SCREEN. I don't get all the hype about this. It's just one large monitor and three small ones. Hooray. I'll admit it's cool for about a second, but once the novelty wears off, do you really care? Maybe if the software takes advantage of multiple screens (like the DS... sort of), I'll be interested, but for now, I don't think there are many uses for this... yet. Come back in 2014 and then we'll see.
At first I thought this was a laptop with four FULL SIZED screens, people have been adding tiny screens to everything. Bummer!
I am not saying this is not useful, simply that putting more stuff in does not make it better or more useful.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My laptop has 1 280 * 768 little screens.
And a few monochrome ones for power indication and such.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
why not put an 'iPhone' type touch screen on the outside of the case so that i can quickly turn it on to check my schedule, contacts, list, or send a quick short email/sms/etc. without having to open and turn on my laptop?
come on now, "the world's first four-screen laptop", really? Those 3 little touchscreens are so small, I had to look at the pictures a 2nd time to see where the screens were because I was looking at the one large one we think about when we talk about a laptop screen. So then my old Thinkpad was a dual screen because there was a tiny LCD above the keyboard?
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Intel has stunned visitors at IDF by showing off the world's first four-screen laptop. The oddly-named 'Tangent Bay' has three miniature touchscreens set horizontally into the case below the main, full-sized panel. It is a fully functional prototype: delegates were able to scroll photos around the touchscreens by swiping with a finger. The idea smacked a little too much of the ill-fated Vista SideShow.
Four-screen laptop? I expected a laptop with 4 roughly full-sized screens. Not one full-sized screen and three tiny ones. And those three tiny ones, due to their positioning, may as well be one oddly-shaped screen.
Seems strange that they would put the screens above the keyboard. I think embedding an iPhone type touchscreen in place of the trackpad would be a far more useful thing.
While I agree that an iPhone type touchscreen could be very handy instead of a trackpad... I can also see some utility having those screens above the keyboard. It could be a nice way to display additional information without cluttering up your workspace - maybe the toolbars for Photo Shop, or your ribbon in Word, or just some CPU/RAM/HDD load meters out of the way.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Does it play Mario Bros?
http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/first-look/300/sharp-mebius-nj70a-netbook-with-lcd-track-pad
It has an 854 by 480 touchscreen trackpad with LED backlight. Coincidentally Sharp mobile phones in Japan use the same AQOS screen.
Yo dog, we heard you like... oh nevermind
Is that you need to carry 5 car batteries in a backpack for 4 hours run-time... or should i say struggling-to-walk-time.
I think embedding an iPhone type touchscreen in place of the trackpad would be a far more useful thing.
...not if my sweaty palms tend to rest there while using the keyboard.
unlock the taskbar so changes can occur
click the windows taskbar in a blank area
drag the taskbar off the bottom-like to the side....
I use a 24wide in landscape mode, next to a 20wide in portrait orientation off to the right
depending on the task at hand, my taskbar is on the left side of the 24"monitor or on the right side of the 20
either way it's about the same height, & I can read enough of the titles to intelligently pick the window I want at the front.
I just wish to christ I could have the start button stay at the bottom
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Hey Dell! Update the M6400 with this and the i7 please! Oh, and be sure Linux fully supports it; preferably OpenSUSE and Kubuntu. OpenSolaris support would be a nice bonus as well.
Seriously though this would be an excellent feature in mainstream workstation replacements. How about firing up an IDE with a dedicated screen for the debugger, one for resource monitoring, and of course, one for watching hulu while you work?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
so they're of the exact same type of touchscreen that's used for the iphone?
saying the computer has 4 screens sounds good, but wouldn't it be more useful if the 3 small screens were just one very wide screen, it could then still be treated as 3 screens when that is what is needed but could also have other applications where you need the information to not have 2 gaps in it.
Blazing Spiders
...it only works if you use the "Firehose". Click on Firehose link, and from there click on "Stories".
Now you have all the +/- thingamajigs, tagging works. And it will keep working as long as you use "the hose".
Bastards! Now I have to do some extra clicking every time I want to tag everything "dick", "fuck", "cunt", "sucks", "ass" and other useful tags.
Oh... Firefox 3.5.3 here. But it was the same for the earlier versions as well.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I thought it was silly to put a computer screen in a refigerator door. But with the cost of video becoming vanishing small (you can by a cell phone at 7-11 for less than $10), what interesting things could you do with video everywhere? It would be a world with Minority Report walls and Harry Potter newspapers. An interesting recent application is the reburbished San Francisco Acadamy of Sciences Museum. They completely replace exhibit and room nameplates with small photoscreens. This way they can be more creative with captioning and update them more readily.
Yo dawg, I heard you liked LCD screens, so we put an screen in your screen in your screen in your screen in your laptop so you can watch porn while you watch porn while you code while you watch more porn.
Multiple screens
Reminds me of the psycho killer in "There's Something About Mary"
You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man? ...
I've been wanting a strip of touchscreen along the top of my keyboard for quite some time now. This looks like a poor implementation of it, since they used three small screens to approximate one long one. In case you're wondering, the reason I want a strip of touchscreen along the top of my keyboard is so that I could put icons and toolbars there, so that I could be "clicking" them with my left hand while my right hand is using the trackball pointer in the graphics window (no longer obscured or reduced in size due to toolbars) of my CADCAM software. Hopefully someone will do it right before too long.
You mean like the latest sharp laptop? (check on Sharp.co.jp)
The only problem I see with that is....
well it works with a few pieces of software that come with the laptop, which is cool, but it seems nothing else will probably support it, and it probably only works in Windows with special pre-installed drivers.
I connected three LCDs to my laptop's using three Gefen DVI adapters, giving four "real" screens on my laptop.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Nice, I can watch my porn on these 3 monitors and no one will know!
Multiple screens
Reminds me of the psycho killer in "There's Something About Mary"
It reminds me of the Crystal Palace War Room screens in WarGames. I'd be tempted to have a brute force codebreaker running in the center low screen.
"Woah now, hold it! You can't be browsin' the web in here; people might get distracted!"
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
They have the same problem as Microsoft. They are great at buying engineers and solutions (and then screwing them up). They have a terrible time designing stuff on their own, or even cultivating the good parts of what they buy.
Just too big.
(And Apple is getting to be too big, too, I think.)