Roime
Shiva Furnace
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Posted - 2013.01.09 08:54:00 -
[2] - Quote
Phoenix vajaa wrote:A whole lot on conjecture.
laptop/tablet/desktop
who cares. 1 day the tablet will be so powerful you will be able to run eve on it and plug in a mouse keyboard and even screens,
This is true, which means an application needs to be designed for two drastically different input methods.
But touch screens will also one day be folding or rollable, and their color accuracy and contrast will be on par with current professional desktop displays. And that is when the situation changes in favour of touchscreen devices, and not before.
Try holding a rigid ISO A3 (420 x 297 mm / 16.5 x 11.7 in) - sized cardboard sheet in your hands. About the size of a 24" LCD screen, but much thinner and lighter. And folds away to a portable size. Imagine this is the future portable computer. You can hold it for some time with one hand, and use with another. Now put it on your lap, and imagine a folding stand behind it, that holds it in a comfortable angle on your lap, or on a table. Now you can use both your hands for multitouch interfacing on a large screen.
Add "fingerdots", tiny stickers/special ink dots in your index finger tips, making them equal to precision laser mouses.
Note that the reach of your upper limbs also dictate the maximum dimensions of such a device.
I see this technological level as the minimum for when I would give up on having a traditional workstation. Current tablets simply don't have enough screen estate or precision to perform the tasks that a large screen+mouse+keyboard combo handles with ease. And as long as tablets are rigid slabs of glass, they can't grow beyond current portable dimensions.
And at current size, they will always be niche devices, awesome for certain tasks that require low user interaction (passive content consumption and purpose-built games), but inherently incapable of tasks involving precision, accurate, rapid, complex command sequences or relying on massive amounts of simultaneous information.
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