Bert Freudenberg brought the OLPC laptop to dinner before Smalltalk Solutions 2007 in Toronto.
That gave me and about 20 others at the dinner to touch and play with the laptop for the first time. We had some fun opening it, I think the 6th person suceeded. I have to say, it is every bit as beautiful as in the pictures I have seen and more. There are some unusual buttons both on the keyboard and on the laptop and the UI is a bit different from the Qemu version I played with last.
Everyone had a chance to look at it or play, Vicki Ross created her first eToy animation in about 5 minutes. EToys feel almost the same speed as on and Athlon 2400 on which I am writing this which is great.
One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse. This is beside the point and not the OLPC fault, the mouse pad works pretty well, but really,mouse is an OK interface for *navigation* and copy/paste of text, but not very good for *manipulating* and building things - and eToys are very much about building. I wish someone could think of a better device after all those years... perhaps something that one can hold in hand, not flat, maybe similar to joystick, or sort of a piece of squishable/moldeable piece of clay-like material, well, not sure...
I believe we will have a chance to see the laptop on display at the Squeak booth during the conference.
Thanks Bert for bringing it over, it really is even nicer then I thought!
Milan
On 4/30/07, Milan Zimmermann milan.zimmermann@sympatico.ca wrote:
One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.
FYI - I'm using a Wacom tablet these days and I love it :). But, not a portable device... :(
Hi,
One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.
One alternative is to make a device by yourself. We are working on self made devices to do multitouch interaction. There is some pages on my work at http://www.aleReimondo.com.ar/MultiTouch most of the explanations are in spanish in my workspace but videos and photos on how to build a device yourself can be understood... There is also a forum for people involved in doit-yourself=doNotWait multi touch devices and projects at http://nuigroup.com/forums/
hope this can help to put your hands on it (and not only one finger or a pencil). cheers, Ale.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Cees de Groot" cdegroot@gmail.com To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list" squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 7:22 AM Subject: Re: Held an OLPC laptop today!
On 4/30/07, Milan Zimmermann milan.zimmermann@sympatico.ca wrote:
One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.
FYI - I'm using a Wacom tablet these days and I love it :). But, not a portable device... :(
-- "Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom. " - Death, in "The Hogfather"
Alejandro, Cees,
Thanks for suggestions. I have been long postponing to get a tablet, and the multitouch screen is very interesting. But I have to say I came to conclusion that any device that does not give 3 dimensional feedback, such as "grow a handle" (literally) when I want to grab it, or give a physical 3D touch feel (sort of vr gloves) is probably not the right direction. I want to "grab" things, not "touch" them on a flat background. But I realize that may be a long wait, and good touch-type devices is a good solution. (I think even the first writing tools were 3 dimensional in a way - making grooves in clay as opposed to writing on flat papyrus)
Bret mentioned that next generation of the laptop may have a touch screen which will be great.
Milan On 2007 April 30 08:22, Alejandro F. Reimondo wrote:
Hi,
One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.
One alternative is to make a device by yourself. We are working on self made devices to do multitouch interaction. There is some pages on my work at http://www.aleReimondo.com.ar/MultiTouch most of the explanations are in spanish in my workspace but videos and photos on how to build a device yourself can be understood... There is also a forum for people involved in doit-yourself=doNotWait multi touch devices and projects at http://nuigroup.com/forums/
hope this can help to put your hands on it (and not only one finger or a pencil). cheers, Ale.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Cees de Groot" cdegroot@gmail.com To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list" squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 7:22 AM Subject: Re: Held an OLPC laptop today!
On 4/30/07, Milan Zimmermann milan.zimmermann@sympatico.ca wrote:
One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.
FYI - I'm using a Wacom tablet these days and I love it :). But, not a portable device... :(
-- "Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom. " - Death, in "The Hogfather"
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
-
Alejandro F. Reimondo -
Cees de Groot -
Milan Zimmermann