Best computer for in bed ?

HP-71B

 

Book.

 

Sorry, bottom quoting.

I'll make my usual complaints about Skybuck's posts, appropriate
newsgroups, etc. - although I am not so down on Skybuck as many are.

Plus, here Skybuck is on one of my favorite topics: glasses based (or
contact lens based) computers.

Working in a hole/cubicle at Intel I missed getting involved with the
phase change between desktop and laptop PCs and handheld/PDA/cell
phone/tablet form factors. (Not for lack of trying to persuade Intel to
go there, but I guess I am insufficiently persuasive.) My guess is that
ubiquitous flatscreen displays are the next thing - displays on your
fridge, on the wall in a cubicle where Intel folk currently have a
whiteboard, etc. - but the next really big thing will be wearable,
glasses and/or contact lens. I hope that by working at MIPS I will be
better placed to participate in these next two steps - as well as some
involvement in handheld and tablet.

I.e. I think this is important. It's not clear how this affects computer
architecture, except (a) low power, (b) communication to offload
computation to the cloud from low power / possibly low perf devices, (c)
every time there is a phase change like this legacy matters less, and it
creates opportunities for new companies. Which in turn means that
truisms like "microarchitectures to increase the performance of legacy
x86 binaries" may be less valuable. I.e. it is an opportunity for new
ideas, or, more usually, old ideas that just didn't make it in the last
generations, to break through.

Lacking specific comp.arch topics here, some general discussion:
Starting with Skybuck:

The sort of thing in the Google glasses video is a search for the next
killer app. I have been following glasses displays for more than 20
years now - the prices have come down, but the resolutions have not
climbed. There needs to be something attractive pulling them into the
consumer market place.

E.g. handhelds, smart & cell phones: they were around for years. But
Apple found a killer app, or, possibly, a killer app store, first with
the iPod and iTunes, and then with... what is it that made the iPhone
such a breakaway success? My guess: it was a good enough, better than
average, smart phone for the time. With iTunes. And the rest followed.

Similarly, for the tablet form factor: e-books had been around for a
while, but the Kindle broke through the barriers to acceptance. My
guess is that whispernet made the difference. And then, once the form
factor was established, Apple broke through with the iPad. What made the
difference? Multitouch?

Everyone knows that these are general purpose computing devices. But
"general purpose" doesn't make that initial breakthrough. It may enable
the breakthrough, because the killer app may come from some small
software developer. But general purpose has a cost, in support, etc.
Sometimes special purpose wins - the initial Apple iPod, iPhone, ansd
Amazon Kindle examples seem to show this. In these areas special
purpose won initially, although now these form factors seem to be
morphing to more general purpose platforms.

Virtual versus augmented reality?

It's a toss up.

Virtual reality is easier to build. But it needs higher resolution to be
engaging. And it's not clear how big the market is - games, sure. But it
may need to have a generation grow up with it, just as a generation grew
up with PC and console games.

Augmented reality can deliver value with lower resolution. But nobody
has found a mass market augmented reality killer app. I keep thinking
that the glasses equivalent of Siri, what Google Goggles was all about,
may be enough.

VR requires higher res. AR can go with lower res, for certain apps -
like flashing a text reminder of somebody's name when you meet them in
an airport. But AR requires better registration - better motion and
orientation detection.

AR needs new software. VR software is already here, to some limited extent.

GLEW PREDICTION: I think AR will go first. But, if there is no AR
killer app, VR will take off when glasses hit circa 1 megapixel per eye
resolution. Both, eventually.

Flexible: yes, want.

Makes AR more difficult - registration.

Yes.

I think the era of ubiquitous wall mounted flat panels may happen first.

But smart glasses might overtake: because smart glasses can do just
plain more than smart panels.

Smart panels only because the technology is here now. And, if I myself
am a leading indicator or early adopter, I switched from tablets to many
displays a few years ago. Whereas I have not yet found a glasses setup
that I want to use regularly. (But then again, I am often a too early
adopter - I was into tablets circa 1994, way too early.)

--
The content of this message is my personal opinion only. Although I am
an employee (currently of MIPS Technologies; in the past of companies
such as Intellectual Properties, Intel, AMD, Motorola, and Gould), I
reveal this only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I
may have towards my employer's products. The statements I make here in
no way represent my employer's position on the issue, nor am I
authorized to speak on behalf of my employer.

 

I share your interest in smart glasses. Earlier post.

I've not yet been bed-bound (knock on wood), but I have done stuff like
read books, browse web pages, even write emails, my comp-arch.net wiki.
blog, and, occasionally, write code in bed.

Past and present used my Windows Tablet PC. (I've been using these for
15 years or so.) In the past, pen and/or buttons for interaction. My
latest, a Lenovo Thinkpad X220, does touch gestures as well.

For actual typing: the best luck I have had was with voice recognition.
Dragon best for some things, although Windows 7's built in speech
recognition is good enough for many purposes.

Interaction: speech, just mentioned. I also have the TWiddler single
handed chording keyboard, with navstick "mouse" pointing device.
http://handykey.com. I mainly got this for an early wearable setup. I
have used it in bed, but the cables get in the way. I am a bit surprised
that there is not yet a bluetooth wireless twiddler. Anyway: the cables
get in the way, but less than a wireless keyboard and mouse do. I have
used a freespace gyromouse. Again, I am surprised that there isn't a
twiddler/gyromouse combination.

Or perhaps not surprised. I don't think that such kluges will take over
the mass market. Just mentioning what I have used.

Going forward, I think that kinect like motion sensing, and/or video in
a tablet or smart phone, mikght be the]


The erstwhile Portland Programmers Studio had a haptic glove keyboard as
one its goals, but that never really appealed to me.

 

Glasses-based ones are hear (groan!) today. I don't wear them, but
you assuredly can get glasses-based hearing aids. And those are no
mean machines: I point out in my courses that each of the hearing
aids I have is 6-way parallel at 10 MIPS. And they run for AGES on
tiny zinc-air battery.

Anyway,you know that, but anyone who doesn't should be aware that
you can do a hell of a lot of processing in that footprint, today.
I fully agree that there is a lot of untapped potential.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 

Ik heb een speciale "stand" om de laptop in bed te gebruiken.

Google op: laptop stand for bed"

en je vindt diverse modellen.

Oppassen dat het apparaat niet onder de dekens komt, dat kan brand
veroorzaken.


ETET

 

Ik begluur 'm in stand 69.....

Mex

 

In your case, it would be tough, but doable to mount the monitor sideways OR, find a moitor that rotates 90 degrees. The keyboard can also be mounted sideways. To make a custom mounting surface. Who would be funding this special table to secure your laptop to for your special need in this case? If the funds are comming from your familly or from some outside source, I can design a special mount that is hight adjustable and rolls on casters with the legs that moves under the bed, while the mounting platform can stay at the edge of the bed, or move over the bed.

Email me with more info such as your location, source of funds, who would be paying for it. I will show a mockup of what it would look like.