Shane's Blog

Piero sent me a link to an article on Punto Informatica that describes a computer system concept proposed by NEC which comprises of five small pens. This concept, named P-Ism, is basically a computer/mobile phone/scanner system in which each of the five small pens provide a different function but all work together via a wireless connection to provide a computer system. The "computer" connects to the internet through the Mobile phone pen, one of the pens scans data and provides handwriting data input function, another projects a virtual keyboard and another projects the display/monitor.

It's a cute idea so I did a quick search for it and found the NEC Design page entitled "Resonantware - Near-Future Ubiquitous Networking Devices Visualized by Designers." Nice title. This page has a bunch of different device concepts. Just in case you get over-excited and think they're actually activily producing these things they provide the following reminder:

(These are concept models and not planned to be commercialized at this point.)

NEC : Design Activity : Future Design

I liked the idea for the duo products. The duo-pc is a laptop that has two screens, one of which doubles as a keyboard, so you can use the laptop as an eBook reader, a double screened monitor when you're at your desk and as a normal laptop when you wish to use it...as a laptop. Sweet.