Apple’s got a little issue with their current PowerBook line. The keys press into the LCD when the lid is closed. Which isn’t good because then you get finger dirt and such on the screen, in a nice keyboard configuration. Unless you are into such types of modern art (I’m not) you really don’t want this to happen as it makes the screen harder to see.
I’ve had my 15″ PowerBook for a year now. About a month into owning it I started to see my keyboard in my screen, rather than say the Terminal window I was currently working in. Not good.
Doing some research on the web I found Notebook ScreensavRz, a microfiber cloth you can place between your keyboard and your LCD. A year later I can’t be happier; its saved my LCD from looking exactly like my keyboard. But yea, it wasn’t cheap.
Given how much Apple charges for their PowerBook line you would think they would have this issue solved by now. Or at least include a ScreensavRz free. But nooooo. I guess they figure their end users can afford to either replace the LCD or purchase their own ScreensavRz. Sort of like a country club charging high membership rates and then high rates to actually play on the course.
Optimus keyboard
I have been waiting for a keyboard like this for years. Now we finally have one coming to market, hopefully around 2006. I have long thought that a keyboard whose key caps could adapt to whatever input symbols were most relevant would be incredibly useful for a huge number of applications. So did these folks, and they apparently have created a keyboard whose keycaps aren’t printed in the factory - they are tiny displays showing whatever glyphs/icons the computer wants them to show.
But unlike just a touch sensitive LCD panel, each key is still a distinct physical key - so you get tactile feedback.
I love the idea of a “Photoshop” keyboard. That alone could save a good amount of time for graphic artist type folks. Now if only Kinesis would license the technology and put it into their keyboards (I can’t work without my programmable Kinesis!).
As an IBM stockholder all I can say is: way to go IBM! IBM is breaking up their products into components, increasing reuse. This can only lead to faster development of new products, both inside and outside of IBM. Eclipse is just the tip of the iceburg for them. It looks like the Rational and Lotus Notes suites are next.
BetaNews | IBM Turns to Open Source Development (via Slashdot)
I remember back around 1996 when Be first came to the market with their BeBox and BeOS products. I was rather interested in their machines as they were all dual PowerPC 603s. Never before had a company really focused on the benefits of a dual processor desktop system, and most dual processor Intel boxes were out of the reach of people.
What was really interesting however wasn’t the boxes, but the OS. An entirely new platform which provided a very effective multimedia system. The backbone was a system composed of a large number of threads and clean APIs.
Be died when Apple didn’t buy them (they bought NeXT instead) and Gateway and Dell couldn’t ship BeOS for x86 on their systems due to their contracts with Microsoft (monopoly anyone?).
It looks like a Germany company has finally brought back the ideals of the BeOS:
yellowTAB - Makers of ZETA . Whoopie. Gateway and Dell still can’t ship it.
Just discovered the Family Guy Blog, thanks to the link posted over at MeFi. These folks have a crude sense of humor, but its just too funny to not watch every episode they produce. I watched Family Guy in reruns on Adult Swim until I’d seen everything 2 or 3 times, always finding something new in each episode. I’m very happy Fox has brought it back and made it a part of their Sunday night lineup!