Results tagged “pocketsize”

The latest step in the evolution of microcomputers from an arcane box with switches to a magical piece of glass like the iPhone seems to be coming from Microsoft.

The current state of PC art has been a progression of two branches on the evolutionary tree: the netbook and the smartphone.  (Don't count "readers" like Amazon's "Kindle"; readers are nubs between these branches.)

Recent prototypes of exciting tablets from TechCrunch and HP, and rumors of tablets from Apple have been pretty exciting, but they (a) aren't here yet, and, (b) as exciting as they are, are sticking pretty close to the PC evolutionary tree. After all; they are either extensions of the netbook idea or scaled-up versions of an iPhone.

We didn't realize how much they stuck to the existing lines until we saw the demo video at Gizmodo for the Microsoft "Courier".  It looks like a simple concept, but really; it's huge. This is going to be a truly new and significant branch of the PC evolution.

As you see in the picture, this prototype actually looks like that old human friendly shape, a book. After hundreds of years of oportunity for change, the basic shape of a book has remained steadfast. It fits easily in the hand wether open for use or closed for transport. When closed it is self-protecting. At this point, the operation of a book is as culturally built in to humans as is making a mark with a pencil.

The "netbook" idea stepped toward the "book" it terms of portability. But for use, it is really a shrunken "notebook" computer which, of course, isn't really a notebook at all. When you open it up, it's a portable PC with a typewriter keyboard and a TV screen.

The "tablet" PC makes a step toward the notebook by making at least some of the functions of a notebook computer behave more like a clipboard with a very cool piece of paper on it. But it's still pretty limited that way and it's still really a portable PC.

Then comes the iPhone idea. The magical piece of glass. Amazing things, these are -- revolutionary at the hand-held size and so full of cool tricks, ease of use, and potential funtionality that they truly moved PC evolution a big jump.

But they're too small that way to be truly useful all the time.  Too scale them up in size,  as tablets, then they turn the tablet PC into something very cool, much more portable and much more usable. But it's weirdly curving the evolutionary branch back on itself. Back to the tablet PC.

But now Microsoft (of all people!) is showing us a new and truly revolutionary step. Starting with what seems like a simple idea -- but that's obviously quite complex -- they have created an actual book! It's small enough to carry with ease, is self-protecting like a netbook (or real book). When it opens up, its two 7" screens make a work space that is large enough to actually do some work or just read a web page.

It does multi-touch like the magic-glass type devices, so you can just point-and-do but it also works with a stylus for detail work and handwriting recognition! Yay! (Damn the thumb-boards when it comes to real work.)

Check out the short little video; I think you'll get the idea right away.  This isn't just a book; it really is a huge, revolutionary step. Way to go, Microsoft.

A new wave of portable digital projectors is sweeping in. Having progressed from suitcase sized in the first generations to about the size of a standard Kodak Carousel 35mm slide projector in the 90s and then progressively smaller and brighter down to the tiniest state of the art at about the size of a smartphone, like the "DLP pico projector" at the right.

The "pico DLP" projectors use a little tiny version of a DLP chip with LED light sources to shoot images out of their tiny packages. Sounds like the way to use DLP technology.

But the new wave... Two nifty new things are happening with projectors this year to make it into the hands of consumers by sometime in 2010.