All I need is an iPod touch and Monitor | Hacker News Reader

All I need is an iPod touch and Monitor

ryanspoon.com

8 pointsdell900020 comments

I am really excited to see what the TechCrunch Tablet brings. For $300 it's in the price range of the iPod Touch, has a bigger screen, can be used with an external KB/Mouse if needed.

Once the tablet drops I will be one of the first to spend $300 on it. Much more value for my money than a netbook, in my opinion.

This idea has been discussed. I personally remember 3 years ago when everyone though people would be working off of thin clients within the year.

However a lot of people do more with a computer than currently offered by online spreadsheets and email.

Not to mention companies and government that have strict IT security policies that wouldn't allow data on these external networks.

3 years? In 1995 Larry Ellison and quite a few other people were completely convinced that thin clients (or network computers) would win over desktop PCs with all applications being hosted on an external server and running off of central databases.

Oracle and Sun both. In 1999 the startup I worked for actually beta tested some of Sun's thin client systems. Ahh... bad times, bad times.

To me, thin client means Windows and Remote Desktop, and that means a clunky experience with a very problematic remote desktop client that interrupts what I'm doing quite often and a server experience that needs a lot of management and doesn't support a lot of badly written programs.

I wonder how many more people would be happy to work by remote desktop / windows thin client if the technology was still much the same, but the experience was polished a bit more?

I don't know what the Linux-style equivalent is, is there one or is it a mash of X-forwarding-over-SSH and VNC?

Dropbox is web-based? Because I have to install a program for it. In that case, Outlook is web-based.

It's web based because the main data store is not on your computer but 'out on the web', and you can access any of your data stored in it by logging onto their website.

You can install a program for your convenience, but you can use the core remote-storage of dropbox without it.

It's entirely the same of Outlook/Exchange, yet I don't think anyone would consider that web-based.

Sounds like you're drawing the distinction at "primarily browser based" and I was using "primarily internet based".

As such, I think Outlook/Exchange is not web-based, but Outlook/Hosted-Exchange is web based (because the Exchange server is "out on the web" somewhere out of sight, out of mind).

Two major frontiers before web based computers become a reality:

1.) Games.

2.) Powerful office/business programs.

To 1.) Steam? Still requires the power of a gaming computer, but web based and portable game.

Isn't steam more of a distribution channel?

and decent input

There's no way you could work productively with an iPod touch and monitor if the iPod touch keyboard was all you had to type on. I simply don't believe it's practical.

And on that note, sod the big monitor - how about a HMD (I guess a pico-projector would do), iPod Touch and wearable keyboard (I guess foldable portable would do)?

Well you could do that now - pico projectors exist, apps exist for hacked iphones to display more than just video to the TV out port, there's a hack to get an external keyboard working somewhere, and of course MobileTerminal, Python and Safari are already available.

iPod Touch, foldable keyboard, portable projector - smaller yet more useful than a netbook? Now? One day soon?

Input is huge. I have a coworker who has done a lot of research on two thumb qwerty keyboards like the one on the Blackberry. He's actually found that users can type fairly accurately and upto 60wpm with about 400 minutes of practice [1].

Also another friend has looked at the Twiddler, a one-handed chording keyboard. It requires more practice but you can type accurately and touch type [2].

[1] http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~jamer/pubs/mq%20-%20TOCHI06.pdf

[2] http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~kent/pubs/twiddler-iswc.pdf

And assuming I know what I want to type, I can type upwards of 100wpm with a full sized qwerty keyboard without having to spending 7 hours looking at a 2" screen.

That's the great thing about the Twiddler. With the right chord setup you can get crazy fast. My professor has used his wearable system for a long time and he can burst to 120wpm.

Ref [1] shows info on how blind typing affects speed and accuracy on the two thumb qwerty keyboards.

I haven't tried a blackberry, but I have tried Windows mobile device thumbboards - and accuracy may be ok, but thumbs only on such a small keyboard ... it's just not good enough to be even a netbook keyboard replacement. Too tiring, too difficult/slow to access other keys/symbols/numbers...

I like the ideas of the senseboard ( http://www.senseboard.com/product.php ) and the dataegg ( http://www.xaphoon.com/dataegg/ ) chording keyboard best. Unfortunately senseboard seems a bit of a dead / vapourware company and the dataegg vanished and the closest thing I can find to it is the cykey ( http://www.bellaire.demon.co.uk/index.html ) which I have tried, but it's not a keyboard replacement really. Apart from speed, it needs to be on a surface and metakeys are awkward.

Twiddler I've seen online but it looks incredibly uncomfortable in a finger-contortion sense to me.

Imagine a DataEgg style jacket for the iPod/Phone...

I have a twiddler. When I lived in boston, there was a crew of guys at MIT in the late 90s/early 2000s who were into them, so I bought one. I can't stand it. It doesn't seem to work well with my hands. I have large, rugged, yet sensitive hands. Even so, I could type way faster with my thumbs on a SideKick keyboard than I could on the twiddler. It seems to work better for typing text. It was bad for programming. Maybe I didn't spend enough time customizing my environment.

Also, they aren't made anymore.

I went looking and see they've basically shut down - parts for v2 are no longer available, they're in debt and they can't afford to develop v3 and that was a couple of years ago.

There are none on eBay.com or .co.uk active or recently completed, or any on Froogle either.

Shame; I never thought they looked brilliant, but quite liked that they exist.

http://wiki.cc.gatech.edu/ccg/classes/7470/7470-f06/bluetoot...

These guys worked on a Bluetooth version that was HCI Profile compliant. They worked for my advisor.

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