Screens, keys and mice ->
June 15th, 2009imagine walking into a coffee shop and seeing a few booths with thin lcd screens, keyboards and mice. you notice the screen is attached to the wall with a flexible monitor arm. it looks like the screen can swivel around in all directions. the lcd is plugged into the wall but oddly there is no computer connected to it. on the screen is only the logo of the coffee shop. as you are pondering the scenario a man walks in, orders a drink and sits at one of these booths. as he sits down the screen changes, the keyboard and the mouse briefly light up. the man pulls out an cell phone and sets it on the table. a message on the lcd screen says, “device detected. connect to device?”. the man grabs the mouse and clicks the “yes” button shown on the screen. just then a message appears on his cell phone, “connect to screen at sbs2012?”. he clicks yes and the lcd screen goes blank briefly and then fades in and shows what looks like the mac os desktop. using the mouse he opens his email program. in he receives a message with an excel spreadsheet attached. he double clicks it and it opens up in microsoft excel. he clicks on a link in the excel spread sheet and firefox is opened. a few minutes later he opens photoshop and starts editing a photo. after a few more interactions, it is becoming apparent that he is running a full version of mac os.
just then a lady walks up to another table nearby that also has a lcd monitor on it. she sets her purse down and pulls out her iphone. this table doesn’t have a mouse or keyboard. are they out of stock? she reaches out and grabs the monitor in front of her, bends it back, pushes it down and pulls it toward her. it is nearly flat on the table but the back is tilted up to face her. like at the first table, it also asks her if she wants to connect her device to it. she touchs the “yes” button on the screen. ah, the lcd is a touchscreen! a message appears on her iphone and she confirms the connection. the lcd touchscreen goes black briefly and then her iphone screen displays on the monitor in high resolution. you can’t really see the screen so you sit up a bit. it doesn’t look like the full version of the mac os. it just looks like her iphone screen but a lot larger and much more space.
she then opens a white board program. as it opens she pulls out a fancy stylus pen from her purse. the white board program loads up. it looks like there is a chat module with some people already chatting in it. she clicks on the chat window and up pops a virtual keyboard. she types, “hi” and clicks send. the keyboard disappears. another person mentions they should get started. she types, “i’m ready”. just then a floor plan appears in the main area of the screen. with her stylus she circles some areas on the floor plan and makes some notes. she then clicks a button on the screen and she says out loud, “here is where i want the new room”.
another man walks in and he looks around the room. all the booths with lcd monitors are taken. he sits at a table with out either. he puts down his brief case and pulls out what looks like a laptop. it looks super light. he opens it up and the screen comes on instantly with just a logo on it. he pulls out a phone as well and pushes a few buttons on it. the screen on the laptop dims briefly and then the screen lights up with the windows operating system. he loads up a couple programs and then walks up to the counter to get a napkin. when he sits down he accidently bumps his coffee and it spills on his laptop. “ah crap” he says, “there’s another $60 down the drain.”
you look over at the first man. he is saving an excel file. it looks like he made some changes to it. in the lower corner of the screen he clicks the a button called “disconnect”. the screen dims and then displays the logo of the coffee shop. he puts his phone in his pocket and starts to head out. as he does he turns to the second man and says walmart has a sale on virtual laptops with oled screens and 1 month battery life for only $50.
so what’s this all about? it’s about having a larger interactive screen for portable or small devices. for example, a toaster, a refrigerator, a watch, a remote, etc. basically any electronic device that has options can connect to a remote screen and send a application to it. so for a toaster, you’d have a toaster app that lets you set the toast time. for a refriderator app you’d set the temperature. for a microwave you’d be able to save custom microwave settings. for a watch you’d be able to set the alarm or synchronize it to atomic time clocks. the thermostat would have a nice interface to set the temperature, etc. when phone or pda’s get powerful enough to run full software applications, i’d like to have the option to send the screen to a larger interactive screen and get input from it through a standards based protocol.
