Small is increasingly “in” when it comes to hardware. The recent launch of the MacBook Air is just one example of shrinking computers to cross our radar recently. There’s also the Asus Eee PC, the $180 chumby internet device, and even the Pulse “smartpen” from Livescribe. Each of these devices takes the power of a general-purpose PC and crams it into a small and light form-factor, though with major or minor compromises.
But as a web worker – someone actually trying to get work done on the web – I’m torn by these devices. On the one hand, the promise of increasing portability of computing is great; it opens up the possibility of being able to do my job more places than ever before, without carting around a backpack full of equipment and searching for power outlets and network drops. But on the other, these devices just don’t cut the mustard for me (I’m on the side of those who find the Air to be too much of a compromise). This opens the question, though: what am I waiting for?
If I think about my dream portable device, there are some key design constraints. I’d like it to be lightweight – but for me, the difference between 3 pounds and 5 pounds is negligible. I want it to have the raw computing power of my desktop machine (which is substantial). Decent amounts of portable storage and good wireless connectivity are musts, but those appear to be solved problems. And I don’t want to have to learn yet another one-off operating system or idiosyncratic input method to deal with the device.
What don’t I care about so much? Having a keyboard or display that are so compromised that they get in the way of my work. Here’s where I’d like to see some more thinking out of the box – literally – from vendors like Apple. Keeping full-size input and output devices limits how much you can shrink a device. Switching to tiny versions limits its utility. So why not the third choice: put some serious R&D into virtual devices?
For input, everyone seems to be focused on speech recognition these days. While that’s great for some things, I’ve always found speech to be a very marginal input device for getting serious writing or programming work done (and yes, I’ve tried some very high-end systems). I’d rather see someone get the laser keyboard working right. Let me find a flat space to work on (perhaps with speech or a thumb keyboard as a backup) and give me a full-size keyboard without requiring the device to hold it.
For output, projection seems to be the way to go as well. Vendors like Benq and Toshiba have already pushed SVGA DLP projectors down to under two pounds. Alternatively, there are plenty of head-mounted displays out there that could benefit from the high-end R&D of a topnotch PC vendor.
To some extent, of course, the device I’m dreaming about is already out there. Wearable computing advocates have been cobbling together systems like this for years. But what I want is a single-vendor, commercial, slick, off-the-shelf system that I can buy, turn on, and start using. It feels to me like we’re within five years of this point.
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