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Acer Dual-Screen, Multitouch Laptop Leaks Out
An anonymous reader writes "A 15" laptop from Acer that is currently in production features dual-multitouch displays, one for the main display and one as the keyboard/mouse. It has a 2.67GHz Intel Core i5 processor and runs Windows 7. No release date or pricing information yet as this unit is still heavily in production/testing phases."
Replacing a keyboard with a touchscreen sounds like a mixed blessing to me, but not everyone agrees. Witness the (great big) Kno dual-touchscreen e-reader, and the Toshiba Libretto W100 dual-screen mini-laptop, now shipping in Japan.
It's a tried-and-true way to generate buzz, and it's been around a lot longer than Twitter and Facebook.
and it just got posted?
Isn't a virtual trackpad kinda redundant?
If you could make it open flat and seamless then I could see having a big one, otherwise the libretto seems more useful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Didn't we all learn the importance of tactile response in a keyboard around the time of the Timex Sinclair?
So let's take a keyboard that doesn't consume battery and replace it with a backlit LCD touchscreen that consumes battery and has no tactile feedback or home key detents. Ok, I'll buy a few of these.
Touchscreen keyboards are worthless for those who know how to type properly.
Touch as a supplemental control method works, but as a primary or only input method for data it is strictly a marketing gimmick intended to maximize sales to the clueless masses.
Too bad it's an acer and will most likely fail within 2 seconds past the warranty...
Does anyone have one of those Librettos? That's the first time I've seen it, and I can't quite tell if it's incredibly awesome, or puny and lame.
I don't look at the keyboard when I type, so what's the advantage to using this over that of just switching between virtual desktops? You would definitely save a lot of battery life without the second screen. I can only look at one screen at a time (unless you want to kludge stereoscopic vision in somehow). It would be nice to use the bottom part as a drawing tablet, but that would receive limited use by a niche audience. You could use the top screen as such anyhow, and if a normal laptop had a multi-touch screen that would slide down over the keyboard and turn into a tablet then it would serve the purpose without including a second screen. Much better without two the screens causing glare on each other.
Twinstiq, game news
The kind of dual screen device I'd be tempted by would be like a regular netbook/laptop but on the bak of the normal scren there'd be an eInk display.
Ovbiously, only one display at a time could be active.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
at least try to improve on it! Touchscreen with pictures of keys != keyboard.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
No hardware keyboard, a portion of the usable screen dedicated to the touch keyboard, not continuous display (if you want to display something big, and eventually something enables the lower screen to display part of it), It gives that the surface where you actually type at different angle where you read, and well, you can fold it.
Make me remember the mockups of the XO 2.0 (or 3.0?) that were around a year or 2 around, with 2 screens, but was mostly a continuous display, and were meant for children. The lower part wasnt always a keyboard, was a second display was used also for i.e. playing naval war, or reading a ebook in 2 pages holding it like a real book.
Anyway, maybe we are overanalizing. This kind of things could be meant to be a complementary device, to be used for what they are good at (just reading ebooks/internet, playing some games, playing some media, etc), while keeping our normal desktop/notebooks for things that require keyboard/hard disk/etc
I hope they're going to fix that before it goes into production.
And what is leaking? Some kind of fluid?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
The contents of a book is only words and pictures.
If you choose paper to store your words and pictures, you can either do it in roll form or in a stack of pages form. You can bind those pages together if you wish, the result being the books we know today.
A book uses both sides of a page because it would be moronic not to do so.
An eBook reader uses dynamic display(s). Putting two screens on an eBook reader is as stupid as wanting to put 500 of them on a hinge to emulate real books. It's a dynamic display, you don't need two pages side-by-side. You can hold an open book with one hand just as well as you can hold a closed one. The only benefit of dual screen on an eBook reader is that it costs twice as much in display parts to manufacture.
Okay, here we go.... we get all upset and righteous at this crap
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/09/12/131247
and then go "oooohhh shiny!" over THIS crap.
It's still Microsoft inside the hardware. Weren't you listening?
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
Tell me when I proper company starts making these things and I'll take a look at them.
Everything I ever brought from Acer broke. That includes 9 out of 10 TFT monitors I brought for work. It's just not worth dealing with them.
"No release date or pricing information yet as this unit is still heavily in production/testing phases"
Nice that they're being given some free market research here isn't it ?
For something that may not actually exist, possibly not quite as transparent as the MS Courier but until I can buy one I'm not in the slightest bit interested
Dual screen leaks out? Acer still uses Liquid Crystal Displays?
...the hardware might be nice but the software is not up to the task. At least that's what they said on the review of the Toshiba Libretto. They said Windows 7 is built to be used with a mouse and using a touchscreen instead of it is not a very good idea.
There hasn't been a lot of change in laptop design in the past fifteen years. With the success of the iPad I think we're about to see some major changes to the laptop interface. So companies are building out their IP portfolio as both offensive and defensive weapons for any future litigation.
I remember long ago when there was a fabled and expensive keyboard discussed. I don't know if it ever got marketed, but it was to use small OLED displays on the face of every key. Among the problems with this keyboard is that it would be prohibitively expensive.
But think of a multi-touch display doing the same thing? On top of that, if one wants a tactile feel, I am pretty certain that a physical device could be placed over the second touch screen to give that feel... what's more, one with lenses that help to make the keys appear to be on the surface of the overlay keyboard. For gamers, different layouts and overlays can be added to go with the game(s).
The idea is so simple that I can't believe I didn't think of it way back then.
DO NOT WANT. This is right up there in stupid designs. Almost as stupid as that ridiculous flying Humvee.
But wait! This means there are billion$ to be made by combing these two techs and selling it to the government! The stupider shit is, the more they want it, never fails! Figure out how many people fit inside the flying deathtrap, and provide each victim with his own dual touch screen "warfighter" "someone else's homeland security" computer.
Leaks out?!?
Isn't this the same device that CNET recently did a video podcast about? I think so. I watched it yesterday, but it was a week or two old at least.
This sounds kinda like the technology used in.......the Nintendo DS? Maybe not quite the same, but the process could be similar enough to invoke cries of "prior art" from a few lawyers looking for something to waste your time on.
As far as typing goes it is the same as those laser keyboards that project onto your desk. To emulate without one just drum your fingers on your desk for 6 hours or so per day. The minuscule amount of spring and tension in keys on a regular keyboard is enough to save the tips of your fingers from feeling like raw meat.
Not sure if it fits perfectly the definition of Irony, but I nevertheless find ironic the "tactile" marks on the f and j keys. Some graphical designer as either a miss placed sense of humor or a miss placed understanding of what he does. Don't know which is more likely.
Who in their right mind would buy acer... its pure trash... fyl if you buy an acer ahahah
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Sure this laptop is going to be an ergonomic nightmare worse then any input device Apple has ever invented. I don't think an iPad killer involves slapping two together with a hinge, having a whole screen dedicated as a "useless under most conditions" keyboard is not something people are going to rush out to buy.