Six Hot Technologies That Could Profoundly Change Handhelds

Steve · 07-13-2003, 04:59 PM

Read about them at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Six_Hot_Technologies

Jan Willem · 07-13-2003, 05:45 PM

Philips has the bendable screen, which can be roled up, built into clothes and what not. All sorts of stuff are on the brink of realisation. We are talking near future. 1 to 3 years from now. Today I decided to stick to my E125 just a little longer. Until real development issues have been put to market, I'm getting more suspicious to investing into mediocre improvements to the existing hardware. Of course I suffer the (mainly) male achillis heal syndrom of needing to buy anything remotely gadgeterary, but i will survive with add-ons for my Cassy.

Autarch · 07-13-2003, 06:12 PM

Interesting story. I think most of the info has been reported previously, but it was good to see all of it in one place. As I recall, a few months ago the virtual keyboards were supposed to be released in the fall of 2003 for a price of ~$85. Sounds like they may be slipping.

k2stingray · 07-13-2003, 06:40 PM

I agree. Interesting stuff here. It's fun to think about what may happen in next few years, but this doesn't help one much to decide whether or not to by a PDA now or wait another year for key improvements/changes. Hard to resist so many good reviews regarding the iPAQ 22xx series, for instance.

It seems like there are some things on the near horizon that could really make PDA's even more useful. What is the status of things like BT1.2, USB OTG and such items targeted for mobile device users? What kinds of things will these features make better or easier to do than what is currently available?

The stuff on the web regarding these two particular connection improvements is really hard for non-computer gurus to follow (specifications in works, certification in progress, etc. etc.). Is there a way to translate this into something the average joe can understand? Would love to see an article with thoughts on how far away these things are (including peripherals that support them) and what they can do for PDA users.

Twin_Pixel · 07-13-2003, 06:52 PM

This was certainly one of the most interesting articles I've read. Very informative!

siphersipher · 07-14-2003, 07:16 PM

How about OLED technology? I thought OLED would make a good impact to PDA in a shorter period of time since it is brighter, consumes less power, and cost less. I think OLED has very good potential make it into the PDA market and make PDA more affordable.

Hitachi also is coming out with smartcard chip embedded inside a SD card. Smartcard chip can encrypt all the data in the SD card so it will make PDA data much more secured. I think that is also a very promising product which will allow government to start using PDA across the board..

Ed Hardy · 07-15-2003, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by siphersipher
How about OLED technology? I thought OLED would make a good impact to PDA in a shorter period of time since it is brighter, consumes less power, and cost less. I think OLED has very good potential make it into the PDA market and make PDA more affordable.

A recent study showed that it will be a while before OLED screens become a standard feature on handhelds. You can read the conclusions at:
http://www.brighthand.com/article/OL...Handhelds_Soon

Deep Green · 07-30-2003, 02:18 AM

Read this article again: was looking for some info on near eye displays and had forgotten where I read it... good stuff!

It is interesting how fast the rate of change has become... if it's not coming up in 6 months, we'd consider that kind of long. I hope they take the time to perfect the technologies, come up with environmentally safe way to manufacture them, and think about what to do with all the gadgets that'll be made obsolete by these upcoming advances.