There was a time I remember when owning a laptop used to be a status-symbol, affluent people despite little (or no) computer literacy owned one. A lot of factors decided the price of those things, the most important being the cost of producing LCD displays, compact hard drives and more importantly, the batteries. In came competition, the computer reached many hands, literacy rose, developing economies rose and with it, the laptop changed from being 'a machine' to 'a gadget'. Laptops are in all shapes an sizes, all forms and prices these days, and with the introduction of the ULPC concept, a laptop or better still, a portable computer is soon becoming a standard issue for every person a-là mobile phone or wrist watch. What's the next step? The answer lays in a neat new concept design by V12 Designs called the Canova, which resembles the popular handheld gaming device, the Nintendo DS in essence of having two screens. Both screens are touch-sensitive LCDs, where one of them morphs into a human-interface (keyboard and track-pad cluster):The device comes with an active stylus, and of course, handwriting recognition. Since you're not pressing real buttons, there's lack of tactile-feedback. The device could also have a microphone and voice recognition. This device can transform into a writing pad / sketch-pad or even an electronic newspaper:Understandably the tactile mechanism of this device should be very sensitive, a boon for designers and artists, for they can use its stylus on the bottom screen while visualizing it on the main screen. Valerio Cometti, the founder and managing director of the Italian firm that designs this device says: "it was developed for creative types, such as artists."From a 2008 setting this device looks a bit science fiction but in reality it isn't too far-sighted, looking at how designs such as the Apple iPhone took off. The designers pitched this concept to laptop manufacturers who took great interest in it. In his interview to Laptop Magazine Cometti states that it could be as low as 16 months before he could prepare a product suitable for the US markets. Apparently an American company is co-developing this with V12 Designs. This concept can become reality by 2010.
Case closed:Bello!