My thoughts on the ipad
 

Here are my thoughts on the new ipad in picture form. :) enjoy

what I want for the ipad, is an Echa-sketch app that works like the real thing. Down to the squeaky sound of the wheels, and when you shake it to get a new screen.

That's quite funny.

But you know, I think if I were to try out the iPad I'd be sold.

It's probably awesomesauce.

I liked this one better.

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4986/14575q.jpg

That last series of pictures is hilarious! I hope the iBoard can at least multi-task. I know it sounds like a lot with todays technology. Damn tricky multitasking!

I literally lol'd at that last series. With the iMat, I'm seeing a Twister app, and maybe a "Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' light-up sidewalk" app.

Don't forget the app for the giant foot piano.

I'd totally recreate the scene from Big.

Excellent idea!

I predict that in the future we'll be able turn on and use any surface as a working touch screen computer. The technology will be in a spray-on coating that responds to a remote/portable device or implant of some kind that provides the processing and data-storage.

Just make the connection and activate your worktable, pull-down screen, kitchen counter or monitor board at whatever scale you desire.

Some day...

Actually fresnelly, someone at MIT has developed something along the lines of this. Still in concept stages, but check out this video. Its pretty awesome.

My problem is that I can't read/hear the term 'iPad' without thinking of feminine hygiene products.

So when people ask me if I'm going to buy one I reply, "Why would I pay that much money for something that is only useful for three to five days a month?"

Also, this from the Toronto Star on the weekend: Carnegie/Mellon U & Microsoft developing 'skinput' devices:

Newest computer touch screen may be your own body - thestar.com

Newest computer touch screen may be your own bodyWith a tap on the hand, users will one day control audio devices, phones and computers Cathal Kelly
Staff Reporter
In the future, you won't need to carry a computer. You'll only have to roll up your sleeve.

Researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University are developing a device that will project a touch screen onto the body – in most cases, your hand or forearm.

They call the technology "skinput."

Lead researcher Chris Harrison makes his living turning everyday objects into touch screens. Currently available platforms allow users to projects screens onto tables and other flat surfaces.

Harrison points out that you can never find a table just when you need one, so he's focusing on the one surface you can count on – yourself. The body provides "two square metres of external surface area" – depending on how often you hit the gym.

Skinput uses a (still clunky looking) armband that projects a touch screen onto the forearm and hand. Large tabs or push buttons flicker across your flesh.

The system works on acoustics. When you tap your forearm, acoustic signals are produced as your flesh ripples and your bones vibrate. Each strike makes a distinct acoustic impression, owing to bone density, the size and mass of your arm and the dampening effect of muscle tissue. Skinput's software "listens" to each tap, and then assigns it to a location on the screen.

The researchers boast they can achieve 95 per cent accuracy using five key points on the arm and hand. For anyone who's ever struggled one-handed with a smartphone, that sounds like a pretty decent rate.

In a video, Harrison shows users operating audio devices, dialling a phone and playing Tetris by sharply striking their arms and fingers. At this point, using Skinput for any serious length of time looks as if it would leave you aching.

According to Harrison, one of the advantages of this system is its intuitiveness. Everyone, he points out, can touch their thumb to their opposite wrist or snap their fingers without looking down.

The developers are not yet suggesting that skinput can replace a full keyboard – their most ambitious trial yet involves 10 strike points on the arm – but they do see it as a near-term replacement for iPods and smartphones that use dial pads and scrolling menus.

"This is cutting-edge technology and we really are seeing the future here," Harrison told the Daily Mail. "The project is going very well and I think you'll begin to see such interfaces emerge within the next five years."

Skinput's designers plan to debut the device in mid-April at a high-tech conference in Atlanta.

So, did you also snigger when Nintendo announced the Wii? I thought so. But have you laughed about that at all in the last year? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Clavus, one of our members, thought this up back in 2005.

http://www.mightywombat.com/toons/ipad.gif

I'm hoping that the next generation of Macbook pro/air will be touch screen that you can write on in a convertible tablet form. I can still dream.

Hey! Thanks, SSJTWIZTA!

Man, this never gets old ... Now why didn't I think of this?

your picture pretty much sums it up... And it's kinda expensive for what it does that other stuff already does...