Username/Email:  Password: 
TwitterFacebookFlickrRSS
Home ›

A New Kind of Mobile Device

Jun 30, 2002  By John D. Biggs
 in
During PC Expo this past week, Transmeta announced partnerships with two companies for mobile computing devices that go far beyond PDAs.

Transmeta, the Linus-loving, super-efficient chip manufacturer, this week announced two new mobile devices that knock the socks off of current PDA and laptop offerings.

The devices, OQO Inc.'s Ultrapersonal Computer and Antelope Technologies Mobile Computer Core (MCC), are fully functional, Crusoe-based 1GHz workstations about the size of a deck of playing cards.

"With a PDA, you accept a lot of compromises", said Joshua Shane of OQO. "With these computers there are no compromises. You have a real computer in your hand."

OQO's Ultrapersonal Computer

In its current state, the OQO has 802.11 and wireless Bluetooth networking built in and features Firewire, USB, audio out and proprietary OQO docking ports for the addition of keyboards, mice and other peripherals. The screen is bright, and although the machine was running a full version of Windows XP when I saw it at PC Expo this past week, Shane said the OQO eventually will be outfitted with Linux. "It's a PC", he said. "You can get Linux to run on it easily."

The OQO is expected to ship by the end of this year. The product team working on the OQO includes Transmeta co-founder Colin Hunter, as well as usability and manufacturing experts formerly employed at Dell and Apple.

The Antelope MCC is an IBM licensee (they have a ten-year licensing agreement for IBM's Meta Pad) producing a "black box" that acts as a mobile, desktop and tablet computer all in one. The core is a small hard-shell case with ports for various peripherals, including touchscreens and docking stands that allow the core to act as a fully functional PC.

Antelope's MCC

Like the OQO, the MCC contains up to 20GB in hard drive space and 256MB of memory on top of a 500MHz-1GHz Crusoe chip. Various modules are planned, including wearable systems for mobile computing.

John D. Biggs is a writer and consultant living in Brooklyn, New York.

email: jdb252@nyu.edu

______________________

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Re: A New Kind of Mobile Device

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 03/18/2003 - 02:00.

This is ideal for many IT and student environments where synching several different computers is a pain. I especially like the idea of being able to use the OQO as a PDA, or slide it into a bay of a laptop shell and use it as a laptop, or slide it into a docking bay and use it as a PC. I think once these actually hit the market in earnest, they will revolutionize the mobile computing market. The price of having just one computer is far less in comparison to owning all the devices listed above, independent of each other. Just MHO.

useless junk for most people

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 08/22/2002 - 01:00.

This kind of technology is TOO EXPENSIVE for most people, more expensive than laptops and PDAs.

Laptops have real practical use and are affordable. PDAs are becoming much more useful now that good external keywords are available.

But this thing? its intended use is in warehouses and places like Home Depot. its a niche market thing ONLY

Re: useless junk for most people

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 10/07/2002 - 01:00.

The MCC will be about $3000, but OQO is aiming for a price of about $1000-$1500, and that includes the desktop enclosure. Hardly too expensive considering the wide range of apps you could create for this thing.

Re: A New Kind of Mobile Device

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 07/04/2002 - 01:00.

very very cool. I don't like PDA's because they are are just to stupid. Laptops are nice but a little to large to cary around and are hard to use unless you have a desk, which kinda defeats the purpose unless you REALY need a mobile computer. Something you can carry around in a pocket, but still interact with a network like a full size computer would be nice.

Re: A New Kind of Mobile Device

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 08/23/2002 - 01:00.

Antelope has just purchased 3000 microdisplay chips from eMagin (AMEX: EMA, now at $0.29 per share). These are OLED 600x800 pixels, 200mA power, 0.7" diagonal color microdisplay w/full screen magnification (about 17") display. They function as an OLED screen on mobile head mounted HMD devices as shown by the 3.5" long cigar sized device mounted on the left side of a woman's head in picture just above on bottom lower hand corner. It is 25% the size of any other HMD on the market. IBM, Liteye, EMA w/Antelope has a breakthrough technology. Coupled this w/Antelope's MCC micro compter or hopefully PDA or cell phone and you have something that can jumpstart the telecom industry.