Futuristic

I know CES is over, but it got me thinking. And in honor of it, I present these concepts that we will hopefully see at a CES soon.

1. and eInk book: why just have a kindle when you can have a 500 page book that has double sided eInk displays. The back cover could be a battery. That way, you could keep an entire library in a single book. I like the idea of flipping physical pages in a book. Solid state memory could hold it all, and you could stick in a wifi card so you could download books on the fly like the kindle.

2. a better netbook: CES this year was full of tiny projectors. That coupled with the new nVidia Ion made me think. What if you made something with the form factor of the nVidia Ion with an embedded micro projector. The keyboard could be projected, like the ones that are available for PDAs. It could be powered with a laptop battery. Unfortunately, the micro projectors that are currently out are only able to project a 20" display and probably aren't really bright. Once the second or third generation of these get out, then we can expect a much higher quality display. The Ion can now support 1080p resolution. Once the projectors catch up to this, you could implement a multitouch display. A series of infrared LEDs and receivers on the same side as the projector could allow someone wearing something reflective on the tips of their fingers to interact with the computer. If Synergy is installed on several of these, then you could fling files with your finger to the others. An alternative to the multitouch could be a modification of the laser projected keyboard. I need to do more research on how they work, but if it can detect where your finger is at that resolution, then I think you could make a mouse that worked on similar principals. Perhaps a projected circle that worked like a trackpad.