On 15-Jan-08, at 12:03 PM, David Mitchell wrote:

> Cool notebook, sure. I think the OLPC is closer to the dynabook.
> Rugged, low power, screen works well outdoors.
>
> And c'mon, where is the multitouch on the screen?

Touch interfaces only work well in very specific physical situations.  
A screen that is at arm's length not to mention likely to move around  
if you push on it is not one of those situations.

If you have a laptop handy, try it out. Set it in a typical location  
so that you could type on it. Set the screen angle sensibly. Now try  
holding your hand so that your fingers could do the swipe and scroll  
and pinch actions on the screen. Easy, right? Now do it again. And  
again. Now try holding the fingers steady as if you were reading and  
scrolling steadily. Gets a bit harder, eh? Now by contrast, imagine a  
tablet device that you can rest your hand/fingers on. Much easier. I  
wouldn't be surprised to see apple release a keyboard with a trackpad  
based on the airmac design sometime soon. It could be very useful for  
photo and graphic editing, amongst other uses.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Oxymorons: Government organization