From Mainframe To Desktop to Laptop to iPad to Rolltop
March 25, 2010 9 Comments
by Elias Shams
You better start practicing how to walk like a woman with a purse around DC or where ever you live and work. Ever since, I saw the video below, I’ve started practicing it myself with my girlfriend’s purse when she leaves home for work. It was kind of hard in the beginning to walk like her, but if you jack up the heels, you can handle it. It worked fine for me. 
Not to mention the gay marriage bill that was also passed for Washington DC recently
First we had the computer on TOP of a DESK. It was called a DESKTOP. Then we had a computer to place on top of your lap which was then logically called a laptop. It’s bad enough already that ‘iPhone’ replaced ‘palmtop’, but this is just a laptop with a rollable screen.
Imagine if you could roll up your laptop like a newspaper and open it when required, and what if you could turn your laptop into a primary monitor if you wanted to play some awesome video games?
Orkin Design has unveiled this cool new concept with a flexible OLED-Display technology and a multi touch screen which can be rolled and carried wherever you want. This goes beyond the traditional book like laptops which are cumbersome to say the least.
From this video, it looks like we should all be able to roll our laptop up just like our yoga mat?! The design is freaking awesome.
The technology behind this has already been out there past five years or so, but in Department of Defense world not in the civilian world. Something like this will eventually get released from DoD to the public once they have a newer, advanced one. The product was field tested in Iraq five years ago. It didn’t do much. They just wanted to know if they could break it. So, it’s been around a good while.
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About Elias Shams
Elias Shams
Kamran Abdi
Tatiana Sorabi
Love the story…hate the headline. It has nothing to do with the story!
We just meant to make it a little bit funny. After all, it is kind of true
no. it is a rolled up laptop, not a rolled up tablet. And the headline was in poor taste. This does not even appear to be a shipping product. You could therefore say the same thing about the tablet in Avatar in the control center or the Padds in Star Trek The Next Generation and Voyager. Not real till they ship. Not the same market.
As for the headline, sorry about that. People have different sense of humor.
As for the product, you are right. We still have a few more years to go I think
Well, since nobody knows of course and this thread has the potential to turn into a fanboy opinion poll, I’ll just say this.
I THINK that it would not for a few reasons.
1) That video was 100% 3D mockup. No prototype, nobody actually using it. What OS will it run, will it be custom (that would scare a lot of people away I think). It seems too far off to kill the iPad.
2) iPad comes out April 3rd which is basically now. The biggest thing going for it is the app store I believe. It’s widely agreed upon that it’s a giant iPod touch that has a bookstore and iWork available for it. It’s taking a successful idea and building on it (albeit a little too slowly)
3) The iPad is nice because it’s one piece of hardware. That funky thing has modules which means I can’t set it up on a bus/metro/airplane/car very easily.
4) It looks weird…
5) I think the concept is actually very neat, but the fact that it doesn’t exist yet that we can see, it’s a modular based system, and nobody knows what OS it will run automatically puts it behind the iPad strictly in terms of tangibility.
So many tablets are going to come out this year and next that I think this might fit in to the next generation of table side tech and could be a worthy competitor, but killer? I’d say not. It doesn’t seem there’s been a “killer” of any prominent technology since the iPhone came out, and now that everyone has a similar device to market, I think it’s just going to be another neat computer like device. That’s not to say of course that something won’t eventually come around that will smash the iPhone into tiny pieces. Of course, that thing might also be the iPhones successor…
I would like to play with one though. Neat find!
Ok, we changed the tile it the article. Is it better? It won’t change on Facebook.
Kind of hard to “kill” something that’s not even on the market yet and hasn’t proven itself in need of killing. Especially with a concept device. This is… hype hyping hype for hype’s sake.
And yeah… the original headline may have been funny to the, shall we say ‘less mature’, Youtube/Reddit crowd (“OMGZ tahts so gey apple fahgs!”), but it just made me more inclined to be dismissive of whatever content followed.
I saw the demo video for this some time ago, and yep, it is pretty cool. I doubt it will threaten the iPad or Mac line though. If anything, Apple may adopt the technology, if it proves to be worth it.
I know it is being used in the Army, but the cost to make it is pretty expensive