A Truly Wireless Tablet PC

A great idea in concept (and in science fiction TV shows/movies), the Tablet PC has just never taken off. A major cause is that the hardware has been too bulky to be used as a true paper tablet replacement, but thankfully some companies still haven't given up on the platform.

Toshiba demonstrated a notebook that allowed you to physically detach the monitor and carry it around with you, effectively using it as the tablet. The tablet received all screen data wirelessly over 802.11g from the base of the system (where the keyboard, CPU and HDD are located). The demonstration obviously worked, but we didn't get a feel for whether or not there was any perceivable lag when using the tablet.

The idea of a detachable monitor tablet makes a lot of sense as it addresses the form factor issue of tablet PCs.

Similar to the Seagate demo we saw earlier on at CES, Toshiba also had a Wireless USB/Ultra Wideband demo at their booth. The demo this time around was of a DV camera plugged into a base station rigged with a WUSB antenna. The DV camera then wirelessly streamed the video on its DV tape to a Toshiba notebook, also outfitted with a WUSB antenna.

Once again we have no idea what transfer rate was being achieved and although WUSB has a theoretical maximum of 480Mbps we would expect the real world transfer rate to be far slower in this case since it is streaming off of a DV tape.

HD-DVD: Twin Format Disc Canon and Toshiba Demonstrate SED TVs
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  • JarredWalton - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    Looks fine for me with Firefox 1.07, but Internet Explorer is all messed up. The odd thing is that it's only *this* article that's having problems.

    Oop... found the issue. The article description had a double-quote in it, and changing that to " fixed the problem. Thanks for pointing this out!
  • tuteja1986 - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28840">http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28840

    world largest is panasonic not samsung :)

    Samsung 102"
    Panasonic 103"

    So as you can see Panasonic wins by 1" ...lol
  • Cygni - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    I just cant see how anybody really expected HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to be a success, to be quite honest. They seem to be expecting everyone to dump all their "old school" DVD's to pick up the SAME titles in the new formats, like most people eventually did with the VHS->DVD move... but i think its quite obvious that there just isnt any motivation to DO that this time.

    Can you say Laserdisc anybody? I just dont see Blu-Ray or HD-DVD taking off like they think it will. Will they stick around in the long run, unlike Laserdisc? Probably, simply because the added storage will be useful in the long long run and the discs/drives should eventually be dirt cheap... but they ARENT going to be a run away, must upgrade success. Thats for sure.

    And when can i get a 103" OLED display? :p
  • Chadder007 - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    :werd:
    I thought this was hillarious
    quote:

    The problem is that the jump from progressive scan DVD (480p) to Blu-ray and HD-DVD at 720p or 1080p just isn't that great, even on a 46" display.

    Blu-Ray AND HD-DVD will be a failure.
  • sprockkets - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    It just confirms what I have been saying, recording HDTV to DVD on 720x480 doesn't look that much worse than it coming on 1920x1080 live.

    Sure the original was smoother and clearer, but, it wasn't mind blowing, and if I didn't tell you, you probably wouldn't notice the difference either.
  • gsellis - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    First, thanks to the AT crew for going out of their way on such a horrible journey to cover this event. We all know you had to suffer to do it, but anything for the AT user's, right? ;)

    On the DVD to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray compare, their content did not show much difference because of the source. The played content was probably film of Pro-HD and compressed to MPEG or HD codec with a high-end encoder (the reds in that closest did not appear to be crushed as much as a standard encoder would do with something like DV content.) It looks like the source was at least 4:2:2 and maybe 4:4:4.

    If the sources had been DV vs HDV, their would have been a little more dramatic. And as noted, if it had been compared to NTSC 480i, it would have also been more dramatic.

    But, you are very correct in that this is not VHS-DVD where the quality jump is higher and the feature set is bigger. DVD is non-linear in how you can view content compared to tape and the big bonus was adding the bonus material. The bonus material is already there, so what can they add to really make it worth it? Especially when the players can do upconverts? And 720p movies fit on DL DVD-ROM already.

    OK, (maybe coining a new twist on an old term or it probably has be done) having a Blue disc player and replacing your DVD library makes your v-penis(tm) bigger :p
  • MrSmurf - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    You can play your current DVDs in the newer standards. I think both will have moderate success on the PC once the price goes down due to their size but it'll be some time both stand alone players even put a dent in the market.
  • Xenoterranos - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    Hellz yeah. I wouldn't mind that 82 in LED lit LCD either, probably the closest you can get to a big screen OLED screen right now.
  • OddTSi - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    Someone please fix the page formatting. Everything is all over the place.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    Should be fixed now.

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