As I was saying to Simon today, both devices seem to be massively overcomplicated. This line from the verizon blurb says it all:
A Fresh Way to Stay Informed Use V CAST to watch video on your home phone.
Is it just me, or is that an absurd suggestion? I can't imagine anything i'd rather do less than watch video on a wired landline telephone.
Surely you'd want something extremely simple, with a calendar on one half of the screen, and a free scribbling area on the other half. No news and sport, no games, no music player. Just an electronic whiteboard with calendar, which allows you to view the contents of the whiteboard from any web browser. Oh, also the size should be about the same as a 17" screen, wall-mounted.
> As I was saying to Simon today, both devices seem to be massively > overcomplicated. This line from the verizon blurb says it all:
> A Fresh Way to Stay Informed > Use V CAST to watch video on your home phone.
> Is it just me, or is that an absurd suggestion? I can't imagine > anything i'd rather do less than watch video on a wired landline > telephone.
> Surely you'd want something extremely simple, with a calendar on one > half of the screen, and a free scribbling area on the other half. No > news and sport, no games, no music player. Just an electronic > whiteboard with calendar, which allows you to view the contents of the > whiteboard from any web browser. Oh, also the size should be about the > same as a 17" screen, wall-mounted.
You just described my 4th yr project :) Bizarrely accurately
Howsabout this for a product: An OEM wifi touchscreen lcd that is just
a browser pane that loads from a url, with absolutely no purpose.
Then, web2.0 company X sell it (perhaps even rebadge it) as their
product with the configured url (i.e. service).
Then of course, over time with an install base, other co's could
spring up with other services to add on, but that isn't the main focus
("appstore" if you want to get marketroids singing!)
And i've got another little hardware feature trick up my sleeve which
i think could make this very unique/enable new things. But i'll save
that for a SHDC discussion :)
only need another 9,999 people to want one (this month!)
I'm sure there must be some good ones about we can take over and get a
basic linux distro running on. Or some place we can find cheap
touchscreen lcds and attach it to a SBC to make one. Pointers welcome!
On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 00:07 -0700, Simon wrote: > I'm sure there must be some good ones about we can take over and get a > basic linux distro running on. Or some place we can find cheap > touchscreen lcds and attach it to a SBC to make one. Pointers welcome!
Just as I was sending the last email, I looked down and noticed an email from Chumby.
But how difficult is it to create your own touch-screen controller on top of a cheap or old TFT? I have a 386 laptop that I was banging on about to Simon, it's silent, passively cooled, quite compact – I'm adamant that even with it's limited capibilites there must be a use for it. Or even just an old Pentium laptop stripped down. Surely you could recreate this in a more hackfest stylee?
On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 09:37 +0100, James Greenwood wrote: > I have a 386 laptop that I was banging on > about to Simon, it's silent, passively cooled, quite compact
wow, a 386. I remember those. What could they do again?
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:37 AM, James Greenwood <j...@jhg.me.uk> wrote:
> But how difficult is it to create your own touch-screen controller on > top of a cheap or old TFT? I have a 386 laptop that I was banging on > about to Simon, it's silent, passively cooled, quite compact – I'm > adamant that even with it's limited capibilites there must be a use > for it. Or even just an old Pentium laptop stripped down. Surely you > could recreate this in a more hackfest stylee?
I have a pair of very nice Toughbook T1 touchscreen P3 laptops . But no, I'm not allowed to rip them apart :(
> wow, a 386. I remember those. What could they do again?
> hen
Actually, I lied! It is a 486 DX-2 50 MHz beast of a laptop. Tthis one unfortunately is limited to a 800 x 600 resolution in 256 colours on the VGA output, so that kind of limits its tasks quite considerably if it was to be at all visually/graphically oriented. I was thinking a silent, standalone torrent server but even that is very difficult with 4 MiB of RAM!
> I have a pair of very nice Toughbook T1 touchscreen P3 laptops . But > no, I'm not allowed to rip them apart :(
Damn, well – if anyone has an old P1-type laptop that can output a sizeable resolution and bit depth to its VGA, is small/silent, has a reasonable amount of power and RAM, and doesn't mind ripping it up for the sake of hacking... :)
On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 10:20 +0100, James Greenwood wrote: > Damn, well – if anyone has an old P1-type laptop that can output a > sizeable resolution and bit depth to its VGA, is small/silent, has a > reasonable amount of power and RAM, and doesn't mind ripping it up for > the sake of hacking... :)
This is crazy talk. Surely something like the mbed is much more powerful!
> Howsabout this for a product: An OEM wifi touchscreen lcd that is just > a browser pane that loads from a url, with absolutely no purpose.
> Then, web2.0 company X sell it (perhaps even rebadge it) as their > product with the configured url (i.e. service).
> Then of course, over time with an install base, other co's could > spring up with other services to add on, but that isn't the main focus > ("appstore" if you want to get marketroids singing!)
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Henry Gomersall <wh...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 10:20 +0100, James Greenwood wrote: > > Damn, well – if anyone has an old P1-type laptop that can output a > > sizeable resolution and bit depth to its VGA, is small/silent, has a > > reasonable amount of power and RAM, and doesn't mind ripping it up for > > the sake of hacking... :)
> This is crazy talk. Surely something like the mbed is much more > powerful!
> hen
I have that old P3 that I bought to SHDC a few times - with a CF card instead of a disk it'd be completely silent, and has a nice Sharp display... good viewing angles for a laptop of its age :)
> I have that old P3 that I bought to SHDC a few times - with a CF card > instead of a disk it'd be completely silent, and has a nice Sharp display... > good viewing angles for a laptop of its age :)
> That can be ripped up too.
Awesome! There's surely something creative we can hack it into...
On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 00:07 -0700, Simon wrote: > > Howsabout this for a product: An OEM wifi touchscreen lcd that is > just > > a browser pane that loads from a url, with absolutely no purpose.
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Henry Gomersall <wh...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 00:07 -0700, Simon wrote: > > > Howsabout this for a product: An OEM wifi touchscreen lcd that is > > just > > > a browser pane that loads from a url, with absolutely no purpose.
> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Henry Gomersall <wh...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 00:07 -0700, Simon wrote:
> > > > Howsabout this for a product: An OEM wifi touchscreen lcd that is
> > > just
> > > > a browser pane that loads from a url, with absolutely no purpose.
nothing about my secret special sauce idea. might have to have a go at
building that on sat. btw, anyone know much about openID? (not
related, honest :P)
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