Howard Stearns wrote:
I'm thinking not in terms of what it is, but rather how and in what context it would be used:
- To be used ubiquitously in any context, it needs to not only be
small and have good battery life, but it needs to be cheap and "losable." I think Alan gives an example of taking it to the beach or a raft in the pool. (This also implies replicated external storage.)
- I don't want to just execute prescribed tasks with it, I want to
explore and problem-solve (e.g., in the http://nakedobjects.org sense). This may be getting beyond the scope of an electronic book, but I think this is consistent with the general thrust of the dynabook and dynamic languages community.
This is consistent with what I understand the Dynabook to be: a dynamic medium that molds to one's needs; a unique and personal extension of one's work and play. And, this system should be able to be updated with object enhancements authored by others. For instance, if a new video playback medium is invented, the Dynabook should be able to update/adapt. Squeak isn't quite there yet, today. It has problems just moving objects from one version to another. (it can't even playback all video and audio formats.) But, it's a solvable problem: maybe one area to look at is not at the object, but at the message. Maybe the objects are different on each personal machine in that they match they needs locally (the user's modifications and the HW.) and the message is what is unique across Dynabooks.
I also see the Dynabook interoperate with other Dynabooks and other external objects. Not that a user pulls up a web browser and surfs, but access external objects as if the objects are locally resident. Today, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are a buzzword (those applications that access the network for their own need w/o a browser) -- but this is something Squeak has had fundamentally from early on and croquet has developed further with islands. Again, not completely usable in Squeak today, but solvable. Web data should be manipulated as any other object inside the Dynabook. Security is a concern that needs more research.
The idea of a projector is interesting in that removes real estate from the product. But, it means the product is less personal and not be able to be used outdoors. I like the idea of the XO's display and technology. Maybe it's be a good candidate for the Dynabook display.
I don't think the hardware -- or the software -- is quite there yet to accomplish all this, but it's getting close. To the degree that one believes that the dynabook hasn't really happened yet, I wonder if it is because we have not yet satisfyingly achieved all the above simultaneously.
I don't know. Not that the Dynabook will ever be in stone, I think a version of the Dynabook can be pretty much thought out and planned today. I think the hardware is there, or extremely close (1.8" HD are reaching 100-120GB). I think the software is almost there (of course, "almost" is relative!) What I see is that we are past the concept and idea phase and the rest of the work is mostly sweat - with the occasional, and needed, brilliant light bulbs along the way to encourage new development ideas. Alan, Dan, Yoshiki, Andreas and Ian's paper is a good example of this thought process. Now, I think it is a matter of scale.
I want one now, though ;-)