18 Meter Touchwand auf der IFA – 18 meter touch wall

ENGLISH

Sometimes it’s not the big articles that hide great stuff. On Heise newsticker Ulrike Kuhlmann wrote a short notice about “technology to touch”, saying that T-Mobile shows a big, big touchscreen wall screen in Berlin at the IFA fair (consumer electronics show). Great toy for public places, fairs, company halls etc.

After the blogger panel with Robert Scoble I walked to the T-Mobile hall and had the opportunity to talk to Hans-Joachim Stolzmann, the head behind the touch wall screen from the “Mediafaktur” q-bus. They use publicly available software, setup infrared cameras behind the nine 2 meter wide and 1.5 meter high glasses, several beamer and a Mac Pro for computing.

Watch the small video (wmv file) here. Note that we talk in German. Sorry for the lousy sound, shot with Canon Ixus 80, no background noise cancellation configured.

Send an e-mail to sn(at)tablet-profi.com to get in touch with the Hans-Joachim.

DEUTSCH

Manchmal sind es die kleinen Nachrichten, hinter denen sich Großes verbirgt, Ulrike Kuhlmann, Monitor-Expertin der c’t, hat am Freitag in einer Ein-Absatz-Meldung auf dem Heise-Newsticker auf eine 15 Meter breite Touchscreen-Wand hingewiesen. Da ich am Samstag ja zum Blogger-Plenum mit Robert Scoble, Robert Basic und Thomas Knüwer wollte, passte das hervorragend in meinen Besuchsplan.

Zum Glück war gerade Hans-Joachim Stolzmann von der “Mediafaktur” q-bus vor Ort, der mir ein wenig zu der Technologie und dem Aufbau erzählen konnte. Ich habe das Video hier zusammengefasst (wmv-Datei).

In Kürze: Mehrere Infrarotkameras hinter den neun 2 Meter breiten und eineinhalb Meter hohen Glasscheiben, Tracking-Software, Rendering, Beamer und ein Mac Pro.

Wer mit Hans-Joachim in Kontakt treten möchte, schickt mir einfach eine E-Mail an sn(at)tablet-profi.com

18 Meter Touchscreen Wall

Scoble: “iPhone took sexyness away from the Tablet PC”

Robert Scoble attended a blogger talk at IFA fair in Berlin yesterday (leading consumer electronicx fair) and I talked with him for some mintes after the panel. From the conversation:

Do you expect a Mac Tablet (or iTablet or whatever) later this year? There have been these patent filing news

“Yeah, there are rumors again and again, they have the technology, they have multi touch but it is not easy to bring ink to each application.” When saying that he didn’t look like “Hey I’m not gonna tell you that I have seen something but cannot tell anyone.”

Why isn’t Tablet yet mainstream?

“It’s the developers, they do all their stuff with the keyboard, many of them even don’t touch the mouse at all, they don’t think ink, even at Microsoft. And with the iPhone Apple took away a lot of the sexyness of the Tablet PC – multi touch and so on.”

The rest of the conversation wasn’t Tablet related.

Here a picture from the panel:

Scoble in Berlin at IFA blogger discussion

HP 2730p coming early September – First Montevina Tablet – HP 2370p stabiles 12-Zoll-Tablet für 1400 Euro ab Oktober auch in Deutschland (U)

(Updated with German launch date and price)

[English]

Just a day ago HP has announced (press release) the launch of the first Montevina based Tablet PC, named 2730p, a 12 inch display Convertible (1.280 x 800 Pixel),  “coming early September”. HP Germany will deliver in October. The first? Well, Fujitsu Siemens has already announced its new 13 inch Montevina convertibles Lifebook T1010 (in white, to compete with HP TX2500 as it will cost around the same, touchscreen) and Lifebook T5010 (active digitizer, integrated 3G, US PDF spec sheet here), weighing around 2 kilo, 300 gramm more than the 2730p – but they are not yet available. Not sure for how long the 44 WHr 6-zell-battery lasts.

Attractive Pricing (U)

The price should be around 1670 US-$, depending on your configuration. NICE: Other than e.g. Toshiba normally does with its European customers, the EURO price will not be significantly higher compare to US-Dollar. We will see very, very affordable 1.399 Euro in Germany (incl. tax), as HP tells today in the new German press release. I’ll write a seperate article on Tablet pricing soon (yes, really soon).

Specs

As you knew from my news report back in June, HP had to wait for availability of the Montevina (ultra) light version processors. Indeed, in the US you have three (Ultra) Low Voltage CPU choices: the ULV SU9300 (1.2 GHz ULV CPU, TDP 10 Watt) and the more powerful and more power consuming SL9300 and SL9400 running at 1.60 resp. 1.83 GHz, TDP 17 Watt). Display is an "Illumi-Lite LED" anti-glare 12-inch. , n-WLAN (optional) and Bluetooth on board. An integrated 2 Megapixel web cam is optional. Downside: only two USB 2.0 ports. Specs here (PDF).

At least the SL9400 support support VT-x features which significantly improves speed of virtual machines.

Notebooks.com has already posted a video which shows the 2730p in action.

“Toughbook light”

You will see a lot of reports saying that the 2730p would be kind of "ruggedized" and fullfill the military standard MIL-STD 810F. Well, HP puts their Elitebook series (the 2730p belongs to that family) into a "full magnesium alloy chassis". Also, the chassis and keyboard should resist water splashes and dust. Unfortunatly there is no official certification for that standard, only guidelines. So, until we see a review testing the dust, humidity and shock resistence, we simply have to believe HP, which, of course, we do :-). Or, to put it into HP’s words: The 2730p "has been tested and meets the military standard MIL-STD 810F for tests including dust, altitude and high temperature. Testing was not intended to demonstrate fitness for DOD contracts requirements or for military use" (from the spec sheet). All in all it seems like a Toughbook light or midi.

Benefits

- Accessories from previous model 2710p are compatible (no need to buy a new docking station if you want to upgrade);

- up to 8 Gig of RAM officially supported by the Montevina chipset, though HP does not officially support 64-Bit Windows, according to the spec sheed.;

- free to downgrade from Vista Business to XP Tablet 2005 if you need it for compatibility reasons. Not sure if the XP Tablet CD is delivered together (FSC does that with P1620 so that you can freely choose and later change your mind and switch to the other OS);

- SSD as a choice, or faster hard drive with 5.400 instead of 4200 rpm with a capacity of 120 or 80 GB (SATA).

Downloads

Specsheet (PDF) US and German

Drivers for Vista 32bit, Vista x64 bit, XP 32bit (to be added when available)

Insecure by design: Microsoft launches touch UI Origami 2.0 for Vista UMPCs and Tablet PCs – Touchoberfläche für Vista Origami 2.0 fertiggestellt für Tablet PCs und UMPCs

Technorati Tags: Tablet PC,UMPC,Origami,Origami2.0,Origami 2,Vista,Security

Microsoft has finally launched Origami 2.0, a UI enhancement for Vista computers that offers a central place for accessing some functions, informations and applications by convenient finger tips. One of the functions is insecure by design, see below.

Microsoft has posted some screenshots here for demonstration on the Origami homepage. You can find a January 2008 demo video on YouTube. Out of the box you get “Origami Central”, “Origami Now”, “Origami Picture Password” and “Touch settings”. Origami Central. [Update] James Kendrick has an 18 minute video review on his blog. Check it out! [Update end]

Origami Central is a bit like Media Center homepage, with access to the three classes of programs, Internet, (offers Browser and RSS feeds), Media (to open Music, Pictures or Videos) or Programs (which shows the apps you have in your Quick launch menu).

Origami Now sits at top of your display as a small stripe and opens a gadget central, e.g. with pre configured Seattle wheather infos or a clock.

Picture Password requires you to have set a user account password. Then you can login by clicking some symbols on a page instead of typing a password with an onscreen keyboard. Microsoft recommends to set at least six targets and says that there is a maximum of eight. You can choose between four sample pictures (underwater, bees, Käfer or animals) and set a sequence of items. In the future, when you login, you tap on your account name and the picture appears instead of the passphrase bar. If you close the picture by pressing X.

Insecure by design: Although you set Vista security that you must have a complex password, Picture Password allows you to tab only ONE item on the picture as your password. Very bad for corporate users, so we cannot recommend enabling this feature in corporate environments.

So, this feature looks nice, but it is insecure by design and as most Tablet PCs and UMPCs have fingerprint readers. When you install Origami 2.0 you should choose to a customized setup (not “complete”) and uncheck Picture password.

You should have a touch enabled PC with Windows Vista, installation is blocked on Windows XP Tablet OS. Good news: The device doesn’t have to be a UMPC. For example, I was able to install the 2.0 package on a Fujitsu (Siemens) P1620 with Vista SP1 and have the full functionality.

OS language and Origami language must match, the download page says. Offered languages are Chinese (Continental and Taiwan), German, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.

I recommend you give it a try. Home users may also check the picture password function.

GERMAN DEUTSCH

Am Wochenende hat Microsoft nach langer Entwicklungszeit (die erste öffentliche Vorführung war auf der Comdex vor über fünf Monaten) Origami 2.0 als Download bereitgestellt (Links s.u.), leider mit einer sehr bedenklichen Sicherheitslücke.

Das Add-on für Vista-Rechner soll die Touch-Bedienung von Windows mit einer zusätzlichen Benutzeroberfläche vereinfachen. Ähnlich wie der TouchSmart von HP werden mehrere Programme, Informationen und Funktionen in eine neue Benutzeroberfläche integriert. Zudem ist in dem Paket ein “Bild-Kennwort” enthalten, das aber aus Sicherheitsgründen nicht in jedem Fall zu empfehlen ist.

Zum einen bietet Origami Central einen aufgeräumten Vollbildschirm-Desktopersatz für den schnellen Zugriff auf die drei vorgegebenen Kategorien Interne, Media und Programme, in denen sich der Browser, Musikalben und einzelen Anwendungen sammeln. Einen Überblick bietet die Screenshot-Galerie auf der englischen Origami-Homepage, die deutsche Seite ist bisher noch nicht aktualisiert worden. [Update] James Kendrick hat auf seinem Blog ein 18minütiges Video-Review veröffentlicht. Anschauen! [Update Ende]

UNSICHER BY DESIGN: Das Origami-Bildkennwort ist eigentlich eine sehr schöne Idee. Man tippt auf einem Bild einzelne Gegenstände (vorgegeben sind vier Bilder mit Tieren, Bienen, Käfern und verschiedenen Gegenständen) in einer bestimmten Reihenfolge an, um sich an seinem Rechner einzuloggen. Ist Vista in den Sicherheitsrichtlinien so konfiguriert, dass nur komplexe Passwörter erlaubt sind, gestattet Foto-Passwort dennoch die Auswahl von nur einem einzigen Gegenstand, um den Zugriff auf den Rechner zu gestatten. Daher muss von dieser Funktion in Firmenumgebungen dringend abgeraten werden.

Schön, dass die Installation auch auf einem normalen Tablet PC möglich ist, wir haben es erfolgreich auf einem Mini-Tablet P1620 von Fujitsu Siemens geschafft. Das Setup bricht lediglich auf Windows XP ab, da Vista zu den Systemvoraussetzungen gehört. Die Touch- oder Tabletfunktion wird nur als optionale Voraussetzung genannt, so dass man Origami auf jedem normalen Vista PC einsetzen können müsste (außer Starter und Home Basic). Einfach mal ausprobieren.

Downloads and links

Origami 2.0 US German (Download requires WGA check), other languages like Chinese, Spanish, French are also available, just change the language settings.

Attention, if you install Origami 2.0 and want to use it on a Vista machine WITHOUT Vista SP1 you should install Vista update 932406. It is included in SP1, if you have Vista SP1, you don’t need to install it.

Origami Homepage US German (attention, German site at the moment still links to old Origami download).

More on HP TX 2500 based on AMD Puma platform – Vista SP1 performance rating of 4.0 – Photos inside

Technorati Tags: AMD,HP,Puma,TX2500,Tablet PC,convertible

The first day at the HP press event “Connecting Your World” in Berlin I was misinformed that there is nothing to see regarding the TX2500 Puma Tablet PC, you know, one of the very few AMD platform based Tablet PCs. The second day I indeed had a short hands on. The Wacom digitizer is still that cheap-look-and-feel-pen, but writing with it is smooth. The finger touch alternative seems accurate, loading of apps feels snappy (no surprise if you look at the hardware), the screen still is a BrightView one – OK for most consumer, but not really nice for me. The performance rating was 4.0 with a 4 GB RAM 32-bit Vista SP1 and the following specs:

* CPU is an “AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile ZM-84” with 2.3 GHz speed (note that this CPU is NOT in the list the HP online shop already shows, link at the bottom)

* LCD 12.1 inch from AUO with WXGA resolution (1280×768) 1280×800 (see first comment from Corwin)

* ATI Radeon 3200 adapter

* WLAN Broadcom 4321AG with up to n speed

* Realtek 8168/8111 Gigabit Ethernet

* Toshiba MK2546 GSX ATA hard disk of 250 GB with 5.400 speed

* SATA DVD drive DL HLDS GSA – T30N

* Realtek HD Audio

* Authentec AES 1610 fingerprint device

* HP Webcam

* Weight 1.96 Kilo

 

Windows Vista, a look into the device manager of HP TX2500

Vista performance rating: 4.0

HP TX2500 keyboard

Downloads

Drivers for TX2500 (choose between various models)

Product Homepage (in US shop), on German website it is not yet listed