Insights Into the Future of the Laptop 142
An anonymous reader writes "ThinkPad founder Arimasa Naitoh sat down for a chat with CNET.com.au about the future of the laptop. The article includes a few concept design images, as well as details on why Lenovo believes that fuel-cell technology is poor and that Origami will never succeed as a primary device." From the article: "Although Lenovo has traditionally targeted the business crowd, it recently released the consumer-targeted Lenovo 3000 series, as 'many people want to have a ThinkPad that is not black'. Naitoh shuns the use of aluminium in laptop manufacturing, calling it 'weak', instead praising titanium (used in the construction of the 3000) for its light-weight and scratch-resistant properties. Naitoh also showed off a number of ThinkPad concept designs with innovations such as raising displays and removable keyboards. He didn't give any word on whether these would be incorporated into official ThinkPad models, but we've snagged some pictures for you anyway."
ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:4, Informative)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:4, Interesting)
I was recently given an old Psion Revo, and I can tell you that it's quite capable of surfing the web, since you can use Opera 5 on it. Of course it has some glitches, but for reading Slashdot and searching something on Google it's ok.
IMHO, EPOC is a much more capable OS than PalmOS or WinCE. While not rock solid, it's pretty stable and has plenty of usefull features and applications. For those who may not know, EPOC is now called Symbian... and boy, I wish Nokia offered a Symbian-enabled version of the i770!
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
I couldn't agree more. My Psion Series 3, running EPOC16, with a 4.77MHz 8086-compatible and 256KB or RAM was a far more useful machine than my 770 with a 200MHz ARM CPU and 64MB of RAM running Linux.
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:1)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:1)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:1)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
There are alot of PDA's out there that would be very good laptops if they just added usable keyboards to them. Somehow I just don't seem to get it I guess. What's so damn great about a large touch screen, when you could have a keyboard to go with it and it would be the perfect device for surfing, writign and communicating?!
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:3, Interesting)
Think of the millions of computers users who cannot type (well, with more than 1 finger at a time).
For a time, I was seriously considering getting a portable keyboard for my PDA---but nearly all of them are crappily small, one might as well just peck with that pointer thingie than type with 1 finger on them small keyboards.
Why can't a PDA co
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
mainly i use the usb port to give me a serial port for my gps but it works ok for keyboards. I ought to try it for my 350 gb usb hd it would probably work too as a mass storage device.
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:1)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:1)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
Right. Like my Treo that lasts for days (up to a week) depending on usage.
Could be better (bigger screen, better camera) but it does all that I need in a portable device. MP3s, camara/video, PDA, read pdfs, word/excel, web, and others.
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:1)
Re:eMate (Score:2)
I had one of those. It was pretty cool. It had a battery that lasted for 24hrs, and recharged to 80% in about 40 minutes. The only problem was that it was a pain to tranfer your work to another computer. If they remade it today, I imagine they could make it smaller, lighter, and more svelte. Data transfer would be trivial by wireless. It would be a great portable for people who write for a living, much like the Radio Shack Model 100 was for a different generation.
Re:eMate (Score:2)
Re:ARM powered laptop with flash (Score:2)
There are a few in regular use; http://www.linuxdevices.com/links/LK6129039469.htm l [linuxdevices.com]
Please can we have a decent battery life (Score:1)
Not quite yet (Score:1)
16 hours isn't quite there yet, but I do get 6-8 hours with my current laptop, a 1-year old battery and Ubuntu (the higher number when I'm offline (no wifi) and basically just read text). Add another hour with a brand-new battery. If I put it to sleep whenever I don't use it, it easily stretches to a 10-hour workday. And with a spare battery (which itself is a small unit for this laptop) I can go a whole wak
SHOCKER! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SHOCKER! (Score:2)
Re:SHOCKER! (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really.
The UMPC (formerly known as Origami) is a hardware/software specification set by Microsoft for this new class of devices. The software specification contains exactly one requirement: Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005.
The hardware, on the other hand, has several requirements:
Now here's the important question: Who would ever consider a machine with those specifications their primary device? The minimum specification doesn't include any kind of drive, speakers, or even a keyboard. As a standalone device, the UMPC is really cripped - without a drive, how do you load software?
But that's the point. Please, please repeat after me: THE UMPC IS NOT MEANT TO BE A PRIMARY OR STANDALONE PC. That is not its intended niche. It is a companion PC - a souped-up version of a PDA that runs all of the software you'd expect, and with a screen large enough to do actual work. (The tiny screen was the primary factor that limited the PDA to "address-book" status.)
It irritates me to see so many tech rags criticizing the UMPC as underpowered for primary computer use. They're just not understanding its purpose. I'm an ardent supporter of the platform (and I have no attachment to Microsoft, any UMPC manufacturer, the project, etc.) - I think it will be an excellent new device, with novel computing applications.
- David Stein
Re:SHOCKER! (Score:2)
If that's the case, I'd expect it to sync with another Windows PC. I have yet to see any evidence that standard "Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005" (holy long-winded name, Batman!) can do that.
What I want... (Score:5, Interesting)
The closest I've seen is this thing:
http://www.dualcor.com/ [dualcor.com]
But it looks like it's not aimed at the general market, and has a corresponding "business class" price tag.
Re:What I want... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What I want... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What I want... (Score:1)
Re:What I want... (Score:1)
Re:What I want... (Score:1)
Paul Allen's Vulcan FlipStart [flipstartpc.com]
Development of the FlipStart seems to have flagged a bit [wikipedia.org] since this website hasn't changed appreciably in over 2 years. What the heck has Paul Allen been working on [space.com] that could be more important than what I want!?
Re:What I want... (Score:2)
There are a few others, some mentioned often on Slashdot too... http://www.oqo.com/ [oqo.com]
They're very expensive for the performance, but you're paying for the portability.
Re:What I want... (Score:2)
You can do this with a Treo. They have keyboards and VGA out SD cards if you want them.
You can do email and edit MS files, read PDFs and listen to MP3s. Great machine.
Re:What I want... (Score:2)
I'd love to have a palm-sized device that runs a real OS. The cap
Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:4, Interesting)
So what did Apple get wrong then? My TiBook was looking pretty ragged after two years of use. By contrast, my 15" Aluminum G4 PowerBook doesn't have a scratch on it....
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:1)
Not just strength and scratch resistance (Score:3, Informative)
There's also the entirely different matter of stiffness (rigidity) and its relationship to mass. Steel, Aluminum, and Titanium are all plenty strong for building a laptop, but because their densities are dramatically different, a given mass of each translates to different thicknesses, which becomes the dominating factor in determining the plate's stiffness.
The stiffness of a plate is approximately proportional to the cube of the plate's thickness multiplied by the material-specific flexural modulus. Mos
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:5, Informative)
Alumiumium alloys can also be fairly scratch resistant if they are anodised to give a thick hard oxide layer - probably what has been done with the alumiumium powerbook.
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:1)
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:1, Informative)
The scratches are not in the titanium, but in the paint that Apple used to make it appear more "metal-like". The anodized aluminum on the AlBooks don't need paint to look like metal (although some parts are painted, like the keycaps which are actually plastic). It holds up better against scratches, but is also easier to dent.
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:2)
The Albook is constructed in a similar fashion - the top and bottom case long with the bezel and keyboard layer are AL. I don't know if you've owned either but Ive owned both and they are still in mint condition, of course I tend to be protective/carefull of things I pay th
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:2)
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:2)
http://www.ifixit.com/cart/catalog/product_84_G4_ T itanium_Mercury_Lower_Case.html/ [ifixit.com]
I also helped replace this section on a friends pbook - its a metal plate bonded to the polycarb. If it's not a Ti plate thats my misunderstanding, but it is metal, not plastic:
http://www.ifixit.com/cart/catalog/product_83_G4_T itanium_Mercury_Upper_Case.html/ [ifixit.com]
Hey we have the same job (almost, NYC?) ~75% mac (a couple of thousand people-advertising). I agree with you on the hinges but I think o
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:1)
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it may depend on the specific alloy they use. The Ti-Powerbooks were made using CP-Ti(Commercially Pure). Frankly, that isn't a structural alloy. In fact, it has no alloying elements at all! Now the lay person would say "It's really pure, it must be really strong!". Bzzzzz....Wrong. That makes it fairly soft compared to, say Ti-6Al-4V [alleghenyludlum.com], which is kind of the standard titanium alloy that is used for most things titanium.
With the Al-books, Apple switched to an "aircraft grade" aluminum alloy. That can mean a lot of things, but generally, aircraft grade aluminum alloys are some of the strongest, lightest alloys on the market. It is also a lot easier to form aluminum. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the Al-books were forged, which would increase their strength. There is no way they could have forged the Ti-book parts, forging titanium is a very expensive process. Also, the Al-books were hard anodized, which leaves them with a thin, hard, adherent layer of Al2O3 on the surface. Al2O3 is also known as sapphire, so it adds to the scrach resistance, at least for superficial scraches, anyway.
Now, I am a Ph.D. Materials Scientist, so I would be remiss if I didn't mention that scratch resistance and strength are two entirely different things. Generally, making something scratch resistant will also make it brittle. If you had to choose between your laptop scratching or shattering, I know which one I'd choose.
That is as much insight as I can probably provide. My expertise these days is on the high temperature oxidation of Ni-based superalloys.
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:1)
>>That is as much insight as I can probably provide. My expertise these days is on the high temperature oxidation of Ni-based superalloys.
You're designing bomb casings?
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:2)
Huh? I'm studying the materials used to make the turbines in jet engines.
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:2)
Heh, funny you should ask....
One of the ways of selecting materials is to use what is called an Ashby plot. You plot two different properties on the two axes, and then draw blobs where different materials land. So if you plot strength vs density, you could pick which alloys will have a better strength/weight ratio. There are two materials that almost always stand out on these plots: Wood and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP). Pretty much all of the test examples used in Materials Science classes
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:1)
Re:Titanium - Scratch Resisitant?? (Score:2)
I'm sure that fit and finish figured into Apple's decision to abandon titanium, but judging from the temperatures of my 15" Powerbook (Aluminum), Apple also figured out that titanium has lousy thermal conductivity co
FWIW Lenovo does not make the laptops (Score:1)
Interesting stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Some good news at least (Score:1)
I guess it's just a waiting game now, until
Re:Some good news at least (Score:5, Interesting)
The more ram you have, the worse the resume from hibernate, and there is too much corporate security junk (firewall, VPN, Symantec) to take up memory and battery life. The extra battery pack is very good for conferences, as I dont need to sit glued to power cords all day long.
The problem with long-life laptops is most people prefer performance over battery life. And with reason -most people don't go that far without a recharge. The most definitive data gathering on this topic was actually an experiment I did in 1999, logging how different people used a laptop for six months, in a paper called "the secret life of laptops" [hp.com]
The conclusion we came to then was that power at home and work was unimportant, compared to the wide variation in network state. Getting consistent networking mattered much more to people.
Now that we have near-universal, WLAN, maybe being unwired matters more. I should rerun the experiment, but first I need to finish the analysis of my ongoing experiment, that of capturing the bluetooth ID of every discoverable mobile phone that goes past my house. Embrace experimental computer science!
Re:Some good news at least (Score:2)
The things that matter most to me? Reasonable performance, strong battery life and wireless performance. This laptop has what I need. Oh, and weight makes a huge difference. My previous laptop (a Uniwill N258Ka0) was a 15.4" widescreen that weighed a gazillion pounds (okay just 7.3 or so), while my new one is only 14.1" screen, and is much lighter.
I haven't tested the battery life yet (bought it on Saturday), but I was i
video performance and Aero. (Score:2)
It's going to be an interesting problem for Vista, which uses the GPU aggressively; I dont know how many of todays laptops can handle aero, and of those that do, it's going to kill their battery life.
The irony is, Vista Aero gui is a client-side GUI; you dont want it on your servers. But desktops are going away; apart from the home gaming/media desktops, laptops are all people n
Re:Some good news at least (Score:2)
1. Weight
2. Size
3. Battery life.
And I think it is in these three properties that we need a real improvement. Granted, maybe size is not much of an issue (although doing laptops slimmer would help). I like 15 or even 14.5 inches screens because I cant see on smaller screens.
Now, about the weight, That is a *big* issue for me. I have an HP notebook ZV5000la, the whole beast weights 3.5 Kg, and although it is a great machine it is no
Battery life (Score:2)
Displays are a major battery hog, so is eclipse. crank back on the brightness and you w
Re:Some good news at least (Score:2)
Re:Some good news at least (Score:2)
How is that a "problem"? It sounds to me more like an unavoidable consequence of the hibernation concept. I mean, when you're dumping all the data from RAM to disk, and then reading it all back in, it only makes sense that the time it takes is going to be proportional to the size of the data!
Of course, that doesn't mean Windows has an excuse for not instantly waking from (non-hibernation) sleep, like a Mac does.
Re:Some good news at least (Score:2)
-unused memory isnt saved (obvious)
-memory that is just swap space isnt saved, it gets swapped in on demand
-memory that is bound to a memory mapped file isn't saved, it gets swapped in on demand
-all programs are loaded via memory mapping the binaries.
the effect is that your system in theory comes back up when all non-pageable memory is restored. In practise, it is only u
Re:Some good news at least (Score:2)
the Sony TX series come close, although you do need good eyesight to run windows with standard sized icons and fonts... even though I'm used to PDAs (Zaurus, Palm T3) I had to use "large icons" and "big fonts" settings (which makes windows quite fugly IMHO as it's never understood device resolution independent display). I've only had it a few days
Pivot display please (Score:1)
these days I tend to keep the dock on OSX taking up the right hand side of my 16:9 screen and the only reason I don't do the same with the Windows taskbar i
Re:Pivot display please (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, bigger diagonal (Score:2)
16:9 at 12.1" diagonal is 62.6 square inch of LCD
At face value, that's 12% of saving on LCD cost, and the consumer doesn't notice.
Re:Also, bigger diagonal (Score:2)
Re:Pivot display please (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish laptop vendors would figure out a few things.
1. vertical space is more important than ever. Digital paper! Let me see a webpage. I still don't feel like going beyond 1024 x 768 when designing a page. I looked at my sites on my new cell phone the other day and realized how bad that is.
2. Not
Re:Pivot display please (Score:2)
Pardon me, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Why is it that, in nearly every printed interview, people "sit down for a chat?" Does this actually happen? Does sitting down precede chats that will be put to the printed word? What happens if the interview is almost over and the two realize they were actually standing through it? Does that mean they can't use the material committed in the upright position? Should they sit down and perform the entire interview again?
One day, I am going to conduct an entire interview leaning against a well.
Re:Pardon me, but... (Score:2)
According to Naitoh, fuel-cell technology still has a "long way to go", particularly in terms of "longevity".
Yes, thanks for that. We all know this, this wasn't revolutionary.
According to lenovo, trusted computing is future (Score:3, Informative)
I can tell you one thing about their future, it won't involve my dollars.
Screens in sunlight (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Screens in sunlight (Score:2)
What I want the future to bring... (Score:2)
- 8"x5" screen area (1024x800)
- high-contrast b/w indoor/outdoor screen
- 30 hour battery life
- runs on 4 AA hot swappable batteries plus internal battery
- removable solid state storage
- an open OS made for mobile work, or Linux
- full size keyboard, or BlueTooth foldable keyboard
- USB, WiFi, bluetooth, and SIM
- weight under 1lb
- thickness under 0.5"
- price around $250
Re:What I want the future to bring... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What I want the future to bring... (Score:2)
Re:What I want the future to bring... (Score:1)
- 8"x5" screen area (1280x1024)
- high-contrast b/w indoor/outdoor screen
- 40 hour battery life
- runs on 2 AA hot swappable batteries plus internal battery
- removable solid state storage
- an open OS made for mobile work, or Linux
- full size keyboard, or BlueTooth foldable keyboard
- USB, WiFi, bluetooth, and SIM
- weight under 0.5lb
- thickness under 0.4"
- free pony included
titanium ... scratch-resistant properties (Score:3, Interesting)
With a christmas bonus in my pocket, I walked into Sefridges jewellery department, tried on the watch I wanted (still wearing it) as the salesmans pitch started;
Salesman: Now this watch is made from titanium, are you aware of the properties of titanium
Me: Yes, very light and very strong, this its why its used in the aerospace industries
Salesman: Thats correct, and its also a self healing metal
Me: Excuse me?
Salesman: thats correct, if you scratch titanium, it will heal the scratch like your body will with a scar
Me:
Salesman: I know, amazing stuff
Me: sooooo, you wouldnt mind if I took a serrated knife to this breitling then
Salesman:
Me: I think someones been telling lies to you, but I am going to buy this watch anyway.
Not a great story, but some people areally are gullable.
Re:titanium ... scratch-resistant properties (Score:2, Funny)
wow! the word gullable really isn't in the dictionary!
RetroPad (Score:2)
So here's what I would like, although the market is probably too small to justify. Or maybe it exists and I'm not aware of it.
The smallest, lightest device possible with (1) >=128M RAM, (2) several GB disk or maybe no disk and just a USB port for
Re:RetroPad (Score:2)
a Zaurus with an extended battery would probably fit the bill.
Re:RetroPad (Score:3, Interesting)
I want that, but I also don't want to carry a separate computing device and mobile phone.
So I bought a Nokia E70. I need to upgrade the mini-SD card to a decent capacity, and I need to find/write a decent shell for it, but I can already use Putty over wifi and it's quite fantastic.
The keyboard isn't touch-type, but it is two-finger-touch-type, which is adequate, and I don't even notice the device in my pocket.
Anything larger would need specifically carrying - I'd need a bag or a coat (with large pocket) or
This is news? (Score:1)
I don't know about you but after reading this, my opinion of Lenovo is worse now than it ever was. I don't think this guy has a clue.
MIT US$100 Laptop (Score:2)
A small, cheap, rugged, wireless, linux-enabled laptop! Something I could use for web browsing, email, IM, chat and text-editing but also capable of running a ssh shell and a freeNX session! I don't know about you, but I think that the OLPC reached a nice balance between PDA and Notebook.
Oh, and probably it's powerfull enough to run Wesnoth, NetPanzer and a SNES emulator!
On recent news ... (Score:5, Funny)
Laptops need Modularity. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is clearly the next step, but Laptop creators aren't getting the hint that desktop creators learned a long time ago. Don't put it all in one machine unless that's the low end model. Let us choose which pieces we want for our laptop and have them work together seamlessly.
Personally I want:
Full sized keyboard
15 inch screen
No touchpad
No battery
Wireless mouse
2-3 GHZ processor
3 gigs RAM
Detachable 10 gig drives
What do you want in your laptop?
Re:Laptops need Modularity. (Score:2)
Re:Laptops need Modularity. (Score:2)
In their present state, laptops are already quite modular. Most allow for hard drive upgrades, drive swapping, battery swapping, RAM swapping, PC Card swapping, and have full USB support. There is also the Mini PCI standard. Both Dell and Leveno laptops have a full
Origami a primary device? (Score:1)
I'd expect this kind of 'stating the obvious' from a pundit, but from the head of Lenovo?
Even in the web-mercials we saw of the device, it was web-vertised as being used in conjuction *with* workstations, Media-PCs, etc...
Why expand on the PDA? (Score:2)
Higher resolution screens - great, so long as they don't shortchange battery life.
Bluetooth - great, but give me a standard USB or serial interface as well... you can't charge via BT.
Wifi - my experience with wifi on PDAs hasn't been terribly good. But that may have changed.
Faster processors, huge memory, multimedia support - include me out.
Unfortunately you can't get a better screen without getting all the res
It's been a long two years.... (Score:2)
I've been hearing people say that since I got my first PDA in 1999.
Re:It's been a long two years.... (Score:2)
That's just the latest maguffin. It's always "in 2 years we'll be able to do X and still have great battery life", and in two years time you can't get a PDA that only does X any more.
Lenovo 3000 series (Score:2)
From TFA...
I'd love to own a more affordable ThinkPad that is not black. But not if it doesn't have a TrackPoint [mamboat.com]!
some thoughts of my own on laptop future... (Score:2)
and i liked the looks of those concepts, atleast the first one that rise up as a kind of desktop system, complete with tilted keyboard.
but what i want to comment on is that multimedia talk at the end.
what i forsee is a kind of modular system, maybe based on that rise up concept, where you have a kind of "dock" that when attached will provide the desktop with a stronger graphics card, tv tuner, and all that other stuff you need for multimedi
Aluminium "weak" (Score:2)
Yeah, because what we consumers really want, is something ridiculously expensive, with a perceived feeling of exclusivity. No matter that most of the parts are plastic anyway. No matter that aluminium seems to work fine for other weight/strength-sensitive tasks, such as in the aero-industry, mountain-bikes, etc
Powerbook 2400c (Score:2)
Here's what I want from my Macbook Pro and my old Thinkpad t23:
Thinkpad: Two mouse/trackpad buttons, trackpad AND trackpoint, plenty of status indicators when open, BLACK, easy access to internals, pay attention to the feel of the keyboard... beveled keys may not be as stylin' but they're easier to type on, docking connector, built-in night light above the screen, working fans and cooling, opt
Re:I love my Lenovo N100 07683VU (Score:2)
Re:Where to buy a decent thinkpad? (Score:2)