Laptops of the Future
A lot has changed in the 20 years since the first laptop computers appeared, including gigahertz processors, color screens and wireless data, but none are as profound as the change on the drawing boards at the world's leading technology designers.
"Between now and 2015, we expect to see a series of big changes that will redefine what a notebook is and what it looks like," said Mike Trainor, Intel Corp.'s evangelist for mobile products in an interview with IDGs Computerworld.
Here are some of the more seminal changes coming our way of laptops of the future:
The dual-screen Canova from V12 Design, a Milan-based design
firm, is closer to the tried and true clamshell layout, but with a
twist. Instead of a display and a mechanical keyboard, the device has
two touch-sensitive displays, which can also lie flat for a large
expanse of working space.: The upper screen is primarily for viewing
applications, and the lower screen is for more prosaic functions such
as typing, drawing and scribbling notes. This is the ultimate notebook design for the creative mind. The notebook features dual display with touch-sensitive screens, sketch pad, music score, graph paper, an electronic pen and a dedicated hardware for its smooth functioning.
The designer Valero Cometti said that "the idea was to close the gap between man and machine." Cometti's visionary creation changes personality depending on how it's held. Opened all the way, it's a sketch pad. Fold it half open and rotate it 90 degrees, and it's an e-book. By emulating a musical keyboard on the lower half, when it's flat on a table, it can be a go-anywhere piano.
Concept laptops will sport on touch-sensitive screens that act as the system's keyboard and mouse with the ability to slide your finger across the screen to immediately shut off the display and keep what you're working on confidential.
The Compenion concept notebook from independent designer Felix
Schmidberger in Stuttgart, Germany, is only three-quarters of an inch
thick and borrows heavily from slider cell phones to move beyond the
clamshell. Rather than lifting the lid open, just slide it up. The pair
of superbright organic LED panels slide into place next to each other,
with the lower panel acting as keyboard or scribble pad.
The Compenion has multiple docks, including a home-theater dock with built-in projector. Here's how he describes his high concept machine:
"The system contains of a personal computer you take with you during the day, several context-oriented docking stations (for example a home entertainment station for your living room), a “senstylus pen” to control the computer and a leather etui.
"The computer itself has an OLED touchscreen, where you can directly work on, much like with a umpc or pda. The whole screen is a slider, it can be moved forward to reveal a second OLED touchscreen underneath, where you can display a keyboard or working controls, similar to a setup with 2 monitors. Because of its interactivity you can place exactly the controls there that you need at the moment or have individual styles and themes to fit your taste. It is also possible to either have a keyboard displayed there or to write directly on it with the pen.
"The pen has 2 dedicated areas: in the front there is a groove that devides the 2 action buttons when you are holding it as a normal stylus pen. In the rear, you have a thumb-sensor field so that you can use the pen as a remote control if you turn it around.
"One of the stations is designed for your living room. It is specialized on home entertainment character. The computer has a laser projector embedded at its bottom side. With it, you can project the image to the wall and use the computer with the pen in remote control mode, while sitting on your couch, to watch a movie, for example."
Independent designer Jonathan Lucas' Siafu concept available around 2015, is designed for the blind and has no screen: "The idea," Lucas told Computerworld, "was to open a new realm of digital interface for the visually impaired by enhancing and even surpassing existing technologies that currently cater to this group."
Te Siafu converts images into corresponding 3-D shapes that are created with Magneclay, an oil-based synthetic material that instantly forms shapes in response to electrical fields, allowing you to interact with your fingers to feel the bumps and protrusions that pop up. The Magneclay surface could be used for reading a Braille newspaper, feeling the shape of someone's face or going over a tactile representation of a blueprint.
Our Galaxy favorite, is U.K.-based independent designer, Anna Lopez' Cario -a system that is equally at home in a car, in an Internet café or on an airplane. "The concept offers several ways of working on the move or at a desk," explained Lopez. By equal parts form, function and fashion, the Lopez concept replaces the traditional lid hinge with a shiny bar that -- as the name implies -- is a carrying handle. It also allows the lid to fold up for travel and can be converted into a an easel or sit on a car's steering wheel.
The Cario optomizes its design and functionality on the road, with a microprojector that projects its images onto the vehicle's windshield. This heads-up display can show maps, videoconferences and location of the closest gas station.
Another profound change in the materials will be used in the notebook case. A team at UCLA's Exotic Materials Institute led by Fred Wudl has come up with an epoxy, called Automend, that's strong, durable and can repair itself. Called Automend, small cracks can be sealed by just heating the surface with a hair dryer, making it a godsend for the clumsy among us.
Future 21st-century notebooks will be able to perform tasks that we can only dream of today. Here's what our experts say those components will look like and what they'll be able to do.
By 2015, most notebooks will have at least six computational cores, if not eight, according to the experts we contacted. According to Intel's Trainor, we'll see ever-more storage capacity in smaller and smaller packages, along with solid-state memory that is lighter and faster, while being more hardened and using less power.
3-D displays with depth and perspective and red, green, blue LED backlighting will replace the cold cathode fluorescent lighting tubes found in today's LCD screens, offering brighter images, using less power. At some point, organic LEDs will take over, although they may not be ready in time for a 2015 system in the sizes and quantities required for mass production. Because they make their own bright light, OLEDs can be made thinner than today's screens.
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