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Apr 05, 06
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Cool new concept Electronics
Fancy a phone with a large enough screen to surf the web as well as you would on a desktop? Fujitsu may have the answer. Well, its industrial designers do, and they'll this week show off their ideas at a special exhibition taking place in Milan.
In addition to a pair of concept PCs, the Japanese giant has a couple of futuristic mobile phone designs up its sleeve. The first is a landscape-orientation unit designed more for browsing than making calls. Dubbed the "slider", it sports a full keyboard - the keys are touch-sensitive, we presume - for web use, texting and instant messaging.  More radical is Fujitsu's "multi-slider", which features a virtual keypad allowing it to display a pad appropriate to whichever way the keypad slides out: left, right, up or down. There are four buttons on the front which would make the machine very tempting as a music playback device. Indeed, there's something of the iPod about the device, though we're not saying this is the kit Apple's going to unveil as the iPhone...  Fujitsu's concept machines are on show this week in Milan's Triennale di Milano as part of an Japanese Design exhibition. ® ======================================== ================ Fujitsu has put on show a pair of conceptual PC designs, one intended to show how an "ultra-mobile" machine might operate, the other a home computer system which looks funky enough but probably won't give Apple's industrial designers any sleepless nights. The UMPC concept is certainly topical, what with the launch of Microsoft's Origami Project and the announcement of real-world products from the likes of Samsung based on the design, co-engineered with Intel. Devices like Samsung's expensive Q1 are keyboard-free kit on the assumption that ordinary folk would prefer to use a stylus.  No, we're not convinced either, not now that world+dog has had 30-odd years to grow accustomed to computers with keyboards. Fujitsu's UMPC cleverly squares the circle by providing a small form-factor clamshell chassis with a fold out keyboard. The computer would be the size of a CD case, the company said.  Fujitsu's "flexbile-use PC" is less inspiring. It's essentially a three-way system: keyboard, display and computer. These three components connect wirelessly, so you can lift off the screen and carry it around, interacting with the computer unit using a stylus, tablet fashion.  Fujitsu's machine is, perhaps, a step toward Asus' concept system, revealed by Reg Hardware in February 2006. Asus' machine uses wireless to link all the system's components, from memory and hard drives to the CPU and so on. Fujitsu's concept machines are on show this week in Milan's Triennale di Milano as part of an Japanese Design exhibition. ® ======================================== ================ UK mobile device reseller Expansys has become one of the first companies here to begin taking orders for Samsung's Q1 ultra-mobile PC. But it's not cheap - the Windows XP-based handheld is set to ship for the best part of £800 ($1,390/€1,148). The compact unit is scheduled to ship on 1 June.  The 22.8 x 14 x 2.7cm Q1 sports a 7in, 800 x 480 LCD. Behind the screen sits a 900MHz ultra-low voltage Celeron M processor, an Intel 915GMS chipset, 512MB of 400MHz DDR 2 SDRAM and a 40GB, 1.8in hard drive. The price doesn't appear to include an external optical drive - there certainly isn't one built in. The machine has integrated 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and 10/100Mbps Ethernet networking, plus Bluetooth 2.0 and two USB 2.0 ports for connecting peripherals. Samsung makes much of the machine's multimedia capabilities. It's got SRS' TruSurround sound 3D audio system which operates through the device's twin speakers, and there are a pair of microphones implemented as an array to help reduce background noise. Since the Q1 runs Windows XP, it's got Windows Media Player 10 with its wide array of supported audio and video formats, and the machine ships with Samsung's own instant-on media playback software. The manufacturer also claims the Q1 will ship with a built-in GPS receiver and navigation software.  The Q1's battery provides 3.5 hours' maximum battery life, Samsung claimed, but as is the case with laptops, real-world battery life is likely to be less than that. With an external DVD drive connected, expect "over" 1.4 hours' operation, so the Q1 doesn't pass the Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition test. The Q1 weighs 779g (1.7lb). ® 
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Apr 05, 06
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i wanna go to milan, right now dammit.
good post synx... i could really use that tablet pc.
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Apr 06, 06
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Quote:
gah. sleep dep strikes again.
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