From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sun Nov 10 2002 - 02:10:35 MST
On Sun, 10 Nov 2002, Avatar Polymorph wrote:
> Absolutely correct. I guess beyond aesthetic choice as to which you
> prefer, and your budget, there's also the reload power, which is
> currently a few (three I think) AAA batteries or as much energy as is
> involved in turning on an electric lightbulb. Flicking one page over a
> lot won't degrade it but will require a battery or plugging it into a
> socket briefly. Guess there will be solar powered versions to but
> these can currently be a little gimmicky as we all know.
I fail to see the utility of a computer + display that looks like paper.
For all purposes it would be sufficient to have a cheap ruggedized slate
PC (I've seen a prototype of the Microsoft slate PC, and it's good, albeit
a bit too slow on tracking) without movable parts, with wireless, and a
battery runtime >12 h. Right now we're getting OLED display prototypes
which are bright yet low power, and can be printed on thin glass or
polymer substrate. Pen tracking circuitry can be printed above or below
the display. As you mentioned, thin-film Li batteries are being developed,
too. Fuel cells can be made similiarly thin. Whether the computer itself
can also be printed in a sandwich fashion or still made from Si is rather
immaterial. The result is a semiflexible, rugged plate computer ~5 mm
thick.
It is important that the thing remains a computer, however.
Another iteration of the game is a head-up display. 20 mW of light output
are far too bright to look at comfortably (a modern LED can easily give
you retina burns), so it is not obvious why a decent head-up display
should take more than few 100 mW for operation (current ones take as low
as ~1 W already). If combined with machine vision head tracking, the
display size is unlimited (though the opening angle is, as optics sets you
a limit). The computer is invisible, since worn at the belt. The input is
Twiddler, speech input, and machine vision on your fingers gives you a
pointing device, input device (gesture recognition).
This setup can do everything digital paper or a slate PC can do, and
infinitely more. I'm not betting too much on it, but it can be only a
couple of years before the first mobile phones will come with a hires
display (first VGA, then SVGA, XGA), a scroll wheel, and then a detachable
clip-on eyepiece. The slate PCs reappearance gives them a head start, but
I doubt they'll be able to compete with mobile phone derived wearables.
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