[Rob928] has done a fantastic job converting his Dell mini9 into a tablet. He has done several updates, such as an SSD hard drive and touchscreen. The final product looks quite nice. From a few feet away, we wouldn’t have noticed that it was a home made one. We’ve seen several tablet conversions before from macbooks to EeePCs.
[via Engadget]
We’ve all seen a million digital picture frames. Usually, people use an old outdated laptop or something. [Quinten] just sent in this one he made using an Eeepc 701. Being the first one available, the smallest both in terms of screen size and storage, they are available pretty cheap. There’s nothing amazingly groundbreaking here, just yanking all the parts out of the Eeepc and mounting them, nicely, in a wooden frame. [Quinten] did a great job getting everything in, with the least amount of space wasted. It strikes us that He has made a super cheap tablet conversion, he’s only missing the touch screen. We’ve seen Eeepc tablet conversions, but they seemed to have much more difficult to construct cases.
After a few pictures of the CrunchPad tablet leaked onto the internet, Crunchgear decided to release some more info. The prototypes you see are fully functional, have Intel Atom processors, and a 12 inch capacitive touchscreen. There isn’t much else available yet as far as details. What we’re most curious about is how the interface works. As many people who have used tablet PCs or touchscreens know, it’s usually the software interface that makes or breaks the experience. We’ve been curious since TechCrunch talked about what netbooks should be. Can’t wait for some videos.
[Matthew] has completed this Dreamcast tablet modification. That’s right, you’re looking at a Dreamcast laid out in tablet format. We’re not really sure what advantages the tablet layout has, since it’s not touch screen and you probably need to put it down to play anyway. The laptop or clam shell might have been a smart choice simply for screen protection. Putting that aside, this is really cool. He had to do some extensive re working of the motherboard in the Dreamcast to get it to fit. Interestingly, he hacked together a custom disk drive for it too. You can see detailed pictures of the entire process, including the construction of the case, on his site. Great job [Matthew].
[Thanks John, via Fusion Mods]
Lately we’ve been focusing on multitouch technologies, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t interesting research going on in other areas of human-computer interaction. [Johnny Lee] posted a roundup of some the work that [Gonzalo Ramos] and others have done with pen based input. The video embedded above shows how pressure can be used to increase control precision. Have a look at his post to see how pen gestures can be used for seamless workspace sharing and how pen rolling can give additional control.
TechCrunch is asking its readers to help them design a web tablet costing just under $200. They claim that there does not yet exist a cheap and usable web tablet designed for things like browsing, web conferencing, mail, chat, and VoIP. Here are some of the specs they are asking for:
We are not completely sure that this device does not exist in some form. Tablets have been around for a while and many cover most of these features. Consider the Nokia N800 or the Pepper Pad.
We also think the TechCrunch readers, who generally concern themselves with what they can buy rather than what they can make, are not really the best crowd for this job. Considering our reader’s abilities to do things on the cheap, we thought we would pose the question ourselves with our own spin. What old and cheap hardware could you re-purpose to create this product?
The Nokia N810 tablet is a great buy, especially for hackers. It already ships with a Linux-based operating system, called OS2008, which is based upon Maemo 4.0. However, for those who aren’t fans of OS2008, you can install Debian easily with some patience and an extra memory card. The Debian install includes OpenOffice, Firefox 3, AbiWord, and IceWM. You should be aware that there are pitfalls. Some of the applications run slowly, and you may be in danger of losing data if you run into problems.
[via Unwired View]
Dell announced today that it will be offering a free multitouch upgrade to their Latitude XT tablets. You may remember Microsoft using an XT when they first demoed the multitouch features in Windows 7. Dell’s new firmware update will allow users to scroll, scale, and assign macros to other gestures. The laptop is using capacitive touch technology, so don’t expect accurate tracking of multiple fingertips. We’re happy to see a manufacturer take time to roll this out even if widespread adoption probably won’t happen. Now to see if some one can get it working with OSx86. As with most technology we encourage you to build it yourself.
[via Gizmodo]
Macintosh makes a lot of wonderful pieces of technology, but they do not make a tablet. Pictured above is the Modbook, the closest you can currently get to a Mac tablet. Though not officially built by Apple, they are an Apple Premier Developer and that isn’t too shabby.
Several people have taken it upon themselves to fashion Mac tablets of their own, varying from extremely professional looking finishes down to duct tape and wire. Lets take a look at some of the more popular ones out there.
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