It should be plenty good for space and power consumption. Just look at Intel's US15W chipset which includes the GMA500 IGP. It's tiny and consumes 2W compared to previous gen chipset + GPU setups (GMA950) that consume 15W, lengthening the battery life by a huge margin. The chip itself has good performance, hindered only by terrible outsourced drivers (Tungsten, I'm looking at you), currently only optimized for video decoding (who said two smooth 1080p streams at less than 100% CPU usage using EVR in MPC?)
Combining the CPU and GPU can probably give a comparable reduction of power consumption and size, with the support of AMD/ATi graphics core instead of PowerVR core + terrible Tungsten drivers.
No. No one's buying Netbooks anymore because they already have one. Performance didn't really go up in the last couple of years so owners of early netbooks don't feel the need to upgrade. I find the smaller 9" and less netbooks really comfy on my lap or in other ways the iPad could be used for and offer many more options than the iPad (multitasking, flash, hi-def video, usb peripherals...) and cost half the price. Power conserving netbooks get to 8 hrs of intensive work on 4 to 6 cell batteries.
9" is far from tiny. I use a 1280x800 8.9" netbook tablet convertible and I can surf just fine. Video is great too. While I think the iPad is ridiculous, I don't underestimate the power of mobility. Lightweight, and a much bigger screen than a phone - A joy for people who only surfed mobile-ly with a cell phone.
Funnily enough, many people ask me if I'm using an iPad and then I proceed to explain mine runs Windows7, multiple apps, flash, DVD drive, USB ports and HD resolution..... Too bad I only get 2:40 hrs on the 3-cell battery tho.
Win7 has an excellent virtual keyboard. On my 1280x800 8.9" tablet convertible, it can sit on the lower 3rd of the screen and I type quite quickly (no touch-typing tho) and a slightly larger device, coupled with multi-touch would most likely work even better.
Definitely not all. I have a 8.9" netbook with a 1280x720 display (KJS SX3) and a friend of mine has the truly ultra-portable Fujitsu U2010 with a surprisingly clear 5.6" 1280x720 display. Sure, it's rather smallish, but it definitely looks sharper than non-HD video content. The only codec which can really handle these videos with nearly 0 artifacts is the advertised CoreAVC. For those who'd rather no shell out money for it, the Microsoft codec that comes with Vista and 7 work really quite well too (Microsoft DVD/DTV codec), just enable it as a preferred filter in MPC and you're ready to go. Oh, you'd have to temporarily disable Desktop Composition for it to work well...
I can walk and use my 8.9" Kohjinsha SX3 convertible tablet netbook quite well. I can watch videos on Youtube or play flash games. I can watch 720p videos on its 1280x768 monitor. I can surf the web and IM..... and play music. All at the same time! (Wonder that!) Sure, at 1.25kg it's not as portable. But call me weird, I prefer USB connections, a DVD burner and card slots over a shiny Apple logo:) Oh and I can video chat on it, or connect by WiFi, Lan, BT and on some models GPS.
You want something portable? Check out the Fujitsu U820/U2010. 0.7kg, a bright 5.6", 1280x800 LCD, also capable of running 720 videos and 6+ battery life...
Actually, the 3D GUI in Jurassic Park did exist. Although the official page is already down, you can check the internet archive version here. (Also seems down at the moment, quite sad though). It was an experimental file system navigator called FSN, written by Silicon Graphics. Who else would try to push 3D even where it's not that useful?
Quite sad really. Sprite graphics are awesome. Sure it might look a bit pixelated and look bad from different directions, but the amount of sheer detail hard to recreate in 3d.
It might sound a bit weird, but I preferred the art in the original Dooms over Doom 3's super-high-def-whatever models. Great, you have rag doll physics, but the death animations look like crap compared to the original super visceral experience. Though I think that might be a problem with the art, and the general 3d part, since I quite like the 3D model pack for JDoom.
When I shoot a foe in an FPS, I want to see all the detail... Not just flying away stupidly. When I play an aRPG I want to my shots to count. D2 looked awesome in this respect... Played it for the first time 3 years ago and enjoyed every minute. While a newer game like Titan quest felt a bit lame (simple rag doll physics). But as a counter-example to that, Torchlight which is a new Diablo clone, actually feels like the old Diablos... with details animations and splat on critical hits XD Hopefully Diablo 3 will retain the old feel as Torchlight did.
Last but not least... Fighting games. The prettiest fighting games today are the 2D sprite animated ones such as Guilty Gear or the 720p BlazBlue. In my eyes, they are much prettier than games like Tekken or Virtua Fighter.
A mod was released for these games which pretty much handles higher resolution. It does that not by up-scaling but rather by showing you a larger section of the hand-drawn pixel-perfect game map, keeping the original crispness. The mod can be found here. Nice example screenshots for Planescape: Torment here.
Kohjinsha SX3 It's 8.9" with 1280x768 resolution. Sounds small, but it looks good.
Pros: High-res Small CD/DVD burner Tablet Up to 2gb ram Can play 720P H.264 vids with some tweaking 3 hrs with a 3 cell battery Tablet/Touchscreen Synaptics touchpad Two webcams (front for self, back for taking pics)
Cons: Atom 1.3ghz does make some tweaking necessary for 720p video or aero Small 60gb HD - but with easy access 2 USB slots 1.25kg Immature graphic drivers, tho every new release ups the performance by over 100%
It isn't officially sold outside Japan, but you can find in specialty places like Dynamism or Conics.
-------
If you're really a fan of ultra-portables, you could check the Fujitsu Loox. It's 5.6" tablet-convertible, with the same 1280x768 resolution. Tiny, but looks extra crisp! The keyboard is not horrible as one might think, though not made for programmers ( [,],F8-12 buttons need fn pressed ^^;; ) It has an Atom 1.6ghz (and a new 2ghz version) which runs 720p movies smoothly with no special tweaks. Weighs 0.6kg and runs for 3 hrs.
I've got a 8.9" tablet-convertible netbook installed with Windows 7. Even with this relatively small screen, the built-in onscreen keyboard is really quite nice. While I can't easily touch-type on it, I can definitely "hunt-and-peck" with 2 hands. On a 12" screen I should be able to use all my fingers.
In a previous video of the Crunchpad, they used some clunky looking onscreen keyboard and I hope they switch to something better (like the Win7 one). A multi-touch screen will make it even better.
Mod parent up. I opened that link thinking I'd just close it after 5 minutes like most links here on/. but I've been reading for the last half hour. Very interesting!
The WiiMote is based on an IR camera inside the controller, reading the IR signals from the "Sensor" Bar. The PS3mote is based on a colored light on the controller and motion tracking through a camera. Whilst the Microsoft Natal is based on full body motion detection, without a remote.
For once, all three companies made something different and interesting in its own way.
Why? Because laptops are a big market and touchscreens are becoming quite popular. My Kohjinsha SX3 has a touchscreen and it helps a lot, even not in tablet mode.
Better touchscreen support could open up new ideas for ultra-mobile computing. Perhaps an on-screen multi-touch keyboard with haptic response and futuristically even memory plastic for actual physical response.
A dream of mine is a foldable screen where one side acts as a virtual keyboard and the other as a screen. When angled, it's like a laptop and when flattened, it's a full sized tablet.
The problem with placing metals inside a microwave are not inheritely because of materials made of metal. The main problem is closed circuits.
A friend of mine always places a metal spoon inside a cup of water before boiling it in the microwave, to remove the chance of super-heated water and it isn't at all dangerous.
The problem is with stuff like a plate with a closed metal running around the circumference. When the microwaves hit the metal, it energizes it, creating current through the circuit, which in turn creates a reverse electric field. This is the field that can destroy your microwave emitter and is the danger with placing metals inside the microwave oven.
Same goes for the little metal strips that are used to close bags of sliced bread.
I'd assume some sort of flexible wiring, like a tube with the light at the end which you could then move above the page for a more even spread. Or maybe a bar that you can raise which houses the light.
As much as I assume they've tested a bunch of solutions, aren't they better than completely lightless?
Simple solution, add a built-in LED book light to the device. It's a LED so it is low power. It's even lower power when you consider it will only be used in a dark environment where not much light is needed. And it's off when there's enough external lighting.
What I have in my home system is a small back-up drive sitting inside the PC. Every night, the drive spins up, personal/irreplacable data gets rsynced to it (therefore very little work) and is spun down. Easy, cheap, and lets the HD work for the minimal time needed. Also serves as a sort of recycle bin if I mistakenly delete something.
Slashdot Mirror
It should be plenty good for space and power consumption. Just look at Intel's US15W chipset which includes the GMA500 IGP.
It's tiny and consumes 2W compared to previous gen chipset + GPU setups (GMA950) that consume 15W, lengthening the battery life by a huge margin.
The chip itself has good performance, hindered only by terrible outsourced drivers (Tungsten, I'm looking at you), currently only optimized for video decoding (who said two smooth 1080p streams at less than 100% CPU usage using EVR in MPC?)
Combining the CPU and GPU can probably give a comparable reduction of power consumption and size, with the support of AMD/ATi graphics core instead of PowerVR core + terrible Tungsten drivers.
No. No one's buying Netbooks anymore because they already have one. Performance didn't really go up in the last couple of years so owners of early netbooks don't feel the need to upgrade.
I find the smaller 9" and less netbooks really comfy on my lap or in other ways the iPad could be used for and offer many more options than the iPad (multitasking, flash, hi-def video, usb peripherals...) and cost half the price.
Power conserving netbooks get to 8 hrs of intensive work on 4 to 6 cell batteries.
9" is far from tiny. I use a 1280x800 8.9" netbook tablet convertible and I can surf just fine. Video is great too.
While I think the iPad is ridiculous, I don't underestimate the power of mobility. Lightweight, and a much bigger screen than a phone - A joy for people who only surfed mobile-ly with a cell phone.
Funnily enough, many people ask me if I'm using an iPad and then I proceed to explain mine runs Windows7, multiple apps, flash, DVD drive, USB ports and HD resolution..... Too bad I only get 2:40 hrs on the 3-cell battery tho.
By contact lenses do you mean small and soft glass panes, e.g. Micro-soft Windows?
I wonder if it's something Google's VP8?
I sure want to get my hands on the recipe!
Win7 has an excellent virtual keyboard. On my 1280x800 8.9" tablet convertible, it can sit on the lower 3rd of the screen and I type quite quickly (no touch-typing tho) and a slightly larger device, coupled with multi-touch would most likely work even better.
Definitely not all.
I have a 8.9" netbook with a 1280x720 display (KJS SX3) and a friend of mine has the truly ultra-portable Fujitsu U2010 with a surprisingly clear 5.6" 1280x720 display.
Sure, it's rather smallish, but it definitely looks sharper than non-HD video content.
The only codec which can really handle these videos with nearly 0 artifacts is the advertised CoreAVC.
For those who'd rather no shell out money for it, the Microsoft codec that comes with Vista and 7 work really quite well too (Microsoft DVD/DTV codec), just enable it as a preferred filter in MPC and you're ready to go.
Oh, you'd have to temporarily disable Desktop Composition for it to work well...
I can walk and use my 8.9" Kohjinsha SX3 convertible tablet netbook quite well. :)
I can watch videos on Youtube or play flash games.
I can watch 720p videos on its 1280x768 monitor.
I can surf the web and IM..... and play music. All at the same time! (Wonder that!)
Sure, at 1.25kg it's not as portable. But call me weird, I prefer USB connections, a DVD burner and card slots over a shiny Apple logo
Oh and I can video chat on it, or connect by WiFi, Lan, BT and on some models GPS.
You want something portable? Check out the Fujitsu U820/U2010. 0.7kg, a bright 5.6", 1280x800 LCD, also capable of running 720 videos and 6+ battery life...
Actually, the 3D GUI in Jurassic Park did exist.
Although the official page is already down, you can check the internet archive version here. (Also seems down at the moment, quite sad though).
It was an experimental file system navigator called FSN, written by Silicon Graphics. Who else would try to push 3D even where it's not that useful?
Quite sad really. Sprite graphics are awesome.
Sure it might look a bit pixelated and look bad from different directions, but the amount of sheer detail hard to recreate in 3d.
It might sound a bit weird, but I preferred the art in the original Dooms over Doom 3's super-high-def-whatever models. Great, you have rag doll physics, but the death animations look like crap compared to the original super visceral experience. Though I think that might be a problem with the art, and the general 3d part, since I quite like the 3D model pack for JDoom.
When I shoot a foe in an FPS, I want to see all the detail... Not just flying away stupidly.
When I play an aRPG I want to my shots to count. D2 looked awesome in this respect... Played it for the first time 3 years ago and enjoyed every minute.
While a newer game like Titan quest felt a bit lame (simple rag doll physics).
But as a counter-example to that, Torchlight which is a new Diablo clone, actually feels like the old Diablos... with details animations and splat on critical hits XD
Hopefully Diablo 3 will retain the old feel as Torchlight did.
Last but not least... Fighting games. The prettiest fighting games today are the 2D sprite animated ones such as Guilty Gear or the 720p BlazBlue. In my eyes, they are much prettier than games like Tekken or Virtua Fighter.
A mod was released for these games which pretty much handles higher resolution. It does that not by up-scaling but rather by showing you a larger section of the hand-drawn pixel-perfect game map, keeping the original crispness.
The mod can be found here.
Nice example screenshots for Planescape: Torment here.
And as a meta-comment for all the redundant ones:
No one (sic: everyone) expects the spammish repetition!
Kohjinsha SX3
It's 8.9" with 1280x768 resolution. Sounds small, but it looks good.
Pros:
High-res
Small
CD/DVD burner
Tablet
Up to 2gb ram
Can play 720P H.264 vids with some tweaking
3 hrs with a 3 cell battery
Tablet/Touchscreen
Synaptics touchpad
Two webcams (front for self, back for taking pics)
Cons:
Atom 1.3ghz does make some tweaking necessary for 720p video or aero
Small 60gb HD - but with easy access
2 USB slots
1.25kg
Immature graphic drivers, tho every new release ups the performance by over 100%
It isn't officially sold outside Japan, but you can find in specialty places like Dynamism or Conics.
-------
If you're really a fan of ultra-portables, you could check the Fujitsu Loox. It's 5.6" tablet-convertible, with the same 1280x768 resolution. Tiny, but looks extra crisp!
The keyboard is not horrible as one might think, though not made for programmers ( [,],F8-12 buttons need fn pressed ^^;; )
It has an Atom 1.6ghz (and a new 2ghz version) which runs 720p movies smoothly with no special tweaks. Weighs 0.6kg and runs for 3 hrs.
I've got a 8.9" tablet-convertible netbook installed with Windows 7.
Even with this relatively small screen, the built-in onscreen keyboard is really quite nice.
While I can't easily touch-type on it, I can definitely "hunt-and-peck" with 2 hands. On a 12" screen I should be able to use all my fingers.
In a previous video of the Crunchpad, they used some clunky looking onscreen keyboard and I hope they switch to something better (like the Win7 one).
A multi-touch screen will make it even better.
Mod parent up. /. but I've been reading for the last half hour.
I opened that link thinking I'd just close it after 5 minutes like most links here on
Very interesting!
Unlikely.
The WiiMote is based on an IR camera inside the controller, reading the IR signals from the "Sensor" Bar.
The PS3mote is based on a colored light on the controller and motion tracking through a camera.
Whilst the Microsoft Natal is based on full body motion detection, without a remote.
For once, all three companies made something different and interesting in its own way.
Don't say he was 'lazy', when in fact he is crazy.
(Solar cars are still electric, it applies dammit!)
Obviously you've never seen a steam powered solar focusing array on wheels. Not everything is photovoltaics.
He hasn't, but have you?
Why? Because laptops are a big market and touchscreens are becoming quite popular. My Kohjinsha SX3 has a touchscreen and it helps a lot, even not in tablet mode.
Better touchscreen support could open up new ideas for ultra-mobile computing. Perhaps an on-screen multi-touch keyboard with haptic response and futuristically even memory plastic for actual physical response.
A dream of mine is a foldable screen where one side acts as a virtual keyboard and the other as a screen. When angled, it's like a laptop and when flattened, it's a full sized tablet.
The problem with placing metals inside a microwave are not inheritely because of materials made of metal. The main problem is closed circuits.
A friend of mine always places a metal spoon inside a cup of water before boiling it in the microwave, to remove the chance of super-heated water and it isn't at all dangerous.
The problem is with stuff like a plate with a closed metal running around the circumference. When the microwaves hit the metal, it energizes it, creating current through the circuit, which in turn creates a reverse electric field. This is the field that can destroy your microwave emitter and is the danger with placing metals inside the microwave oven.
Same goes for the little metal strips that are used to close bags of sliced bread.
I'd assume some sort of flexible wiring, like a tube with the light at the end which you could then move above the page for a more even spread. Or maybe a bar that you can raise which houses the light.
As much as I assume they've tested a bunch of solutions, aren't they better than completely lightless?
From the article:
16. User Account Control
Should have been added 10 years ago, but finally they caught up with running users in user mode and only invoking administrator access when needed.
Simple solution, add a built-in LED book light to the device.
It's a LED so it is low power. It's even lower power when you consider it will only be used in a dark environment where not much light is needed. And it's off when there's enough external lighting.
Couldn't you at least add the obvious pun? The possibilities are mind-bending!
What I have in my home system is a small back-up drive sitting inside the PC. Every night, the drive spins up, personal/irreplacable data gets rsynced to it (therefore very little work) and is spun down.
Easy, cheap, and lets the HD work for the minimal time needed.
Also serves as a sort of recycle bin if I mistakenly delete something.