OT: German laptop- Wow!

[Fairlight]

You'll never BELIEVE what Richard Kreiss said here...:
> 
> I know this has gone around before.  But if you haven't seen this you will
> be impressed with the idea.
> 
> Who know, maybe this will come to market in a few years.  
> 
> Looks smaller and lighter than the current netbooks.
> <http://click.email.globalspec.com/?qs=1c9ac13617334998c630cc5cd3e9d8505053e
> 29ddf917652aa08e1d5af745ae811cecdb324840b17>  concept laptop  

The direct link is http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7H0K1k54t6A

I hate it when peeople supply redirect links--there's no valid reason for
not supplying direct links, especially when you've visited the page
yourself.  Sorry, personal gripe.

On to the content:  No way in hell would I buy one unless the price point
was so low that...well let's just say the price point will never be low
enough to justify it.

Why wouldn't I buy into it?  Because with that kind of design and that many
moving parts, you're -begging- for repair after repair after repair,
because of problem after problem after problem.  It doesn't look near
durable enough to stand up to real-world wear and tear outside of a lab or
office.  

I certainly see the inset areas (the closer immediate backing to
what would be the flexible LCD display) that gets exposed between segments,
as being a huge vulnerability to the display's safety and integrity.
Wouldn't be hard to drop something with a corner onto it and squish the
liquid crystals.  Ever seen an LCD where traumatic pressure has been
applied to a point?  It's not pretty.  And the technology isn't
inexpensive.

They make it look like a -great- concept "on paper".  In fact, I was
drooling there for a minute.  But when you think about actually investing
in, using, and maintaining one?  Not so much.  The world outside the lab
isn't forgiving enough.

Now...if you went the -other- way around the design...  :)  Imagine:

* Mostly cylindrical tube, 17" long, figure 3" diametre, flat bottom on
  which to rest.  Hard plastic shell.  Airflow vents on sides with intake
  and exhaust fans, one on one side, one on the other.  HD, ports,
  wireless, all securely inside the cylinder.

* Securable plastic "flap" on the front bottom close to the flat edge on
  one side from which you could pull a membrane keyboard on a retracting
  mechanism (similar to a windowshade).  Said membrane being essentially 
  a keyboard designed with the same concepts as today's touchscreen
  technology.  Securely protected while retracted inside the main assembly.

* Top securable plastic "flap" which can be flipped open to reveal a very
  thin projector strip assembly.  I'm not aware of the exact technologies
  involved, but I suspect they'd be remarkably similar to what Duran Duran
  has used in stage shows, which was dubbed "Augmented Reality".  In
  effect, a holographic display.

* You could entirely skip the membrane keyboard and go full-out,
  potentially, combining the augmented reality display technology with the
  same technology that drives a D-Beam controller for synthesizers.  The
  D-Beam (which actually uses licensed technology from another company)
  uses infrared light to judge distance and motion within the light's zone.
  It's currently being used to control synthesizers in many ways, including
  percussion, modulation, etc.  Because of how it works and the fact that
  it -does- have the ability to judge distance, that tells me it should
  be able to judge how high up the "visual" keyboard you're interacting,
  and it definitely has x,y sensing ability.  If it doesn't inherently have
  a z-axis and it was really necessary, you could theoretically line up
  a couple of these babies and put them in layers to give you "sensitivity".

So effectively, imagine the kind of computing shown in films like "Minority
Effect" (most offhand example...it's all over movies the last decade) but
on a laptop scale.  If you have D-Beam z-axis or implement multilayer
sensitivity, no reason you shouldn't be able to just jam your finger
through two layers of D-Beam with a reasonable spread (figure one aligned
1/2cm in front of the augmented reality display, one 1/2cm behind the
display plane) to trigger "drag" functionality like you drag with a
mouse--penetrate one layer to "type" on a visual keyboard, penetrate both
layers to effectively click-n-drag.  In fact, depending on the ranges
involved, it might be possible to put a "keyboard" below a "display" and
have both touchscreen and keyboard all from the same sensors.

Very vew moving parts involved...mostly covers.  If you went for the D-beam
instead of touchscreen, even less maintenance risks.  Cut out HD's and use
high capacity flash drives instead, and about the only moving parts you'd
need would be the fans.

THAT would be robust.  And upon reflection, I'm surprised the people
doing the Rolltop went with something as primitive as they did.  It's
flash, but it's just not very practical, IMHO.

The unit I propose might be a touch expensive, but Roland has put D-Beam
into synths, and their synths are almost always under $3k total...and
the D-Beam controller is only a small fraction of the cost of the whole
unit.  Not sure about the costs of the augmented reality/holographc display
though.

Still...that's the way to go.  The less moving and/or vulnerable parts, the
better--ask any engineer.  The most you should have to do with my proposed
design would be dust the sensors/projectors under the one flap once in a
while. I think you could probably even inset them a bit from the edge of
the cylinder so that just thumping the hard protective flap wouldn't impact
the actual gear--so you'd literally have to put a huge dent into the full
cylinder to harm the optics.

My only concern would be battery life.

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis,