Held an OLPC laptop today!

Bert Freudenberg brought the OLPC laptop to dinner before Smalltalk Solutions
2007 in Toronto.

That gave me and about 20 others at the dinner to touch and play with the
laptop for the first time. We had some fun opening it, I think the 6th person
suceeded. I have to say, it is every bit as beautiful as in the pictures I
have seen and more. There are some unusual buttons both on the keyboard and
on the laptop and the UI is a bit different from the Qemu version I played
with last.

Everyone had a chance to look at it or play, Vicki Ross created her first eToy
animation in about 5 minutes. EToys feel almost the same speed as on and
Athlon 2400 on which I am writing this which is great.

One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really
need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse. This is beside the
point and not the OLPC fault, the mouse pad works pretty well, but
really,mouse is an OK interface for *navigation* and copy/paste of text, but
not very good for *manipulating* and building things - and eToys are very
much about building. I wish someone could think of  a better device after all
those years... perhaps something that one can hold in hand, not flat, maybe
similar to joystick, or sort of a piece of squishable/moldeable piece of
clay-like material, well, not sure...

I believe we will have a chance to see the laptop on display at the Squeak
booth during the conference.

Thanks Bert for bringing it over, it really is even nicer then I thought!

Milan

On 4/30/07, Milan Zimmermann <[hidden email]> wrote:
> One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we really
> need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.

FYI - I'm using a Wacom tablet these days and I love it :). But, not a
portable device... :(

--
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a
universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom. " -
Death, in "The Hogfather"

Hi,

>> One thing I realized trying to build a quick presentation, is that we
>> really
>> need a different interface then the mouse pad or mouse.
One alternative is to make a device by yourself.
We are working on self made devices to do multitouch interaction.
There is some pages on my work
 at http://www.aleReimondo.com.ar/MultiTouch
 most of the explanations are in spanish in my workspace
 but videos and photos on how to build a device yourself
 can be understood...
There is also a forum for people involved in doit-yourself=doNotWait
 multi touch devices and projects at http://nuigroup.com/forums/

hope this can help to put your hands on it (and not only one finger or a
pencil).
cheers,
Ale.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Cees de Groot" <[hidden email]>
To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
<[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 7:22 AM
Subject: Re: Held an OLPC laptop today!

Alejandro, Cees,

Thanks for suggestions. I have been long postponing to get a tablet, and the
multitouch screen is very interesting. But I have to say I came to conclusion
that any device that does not give 3 dimensional feedback, such as "grow a
handle" (literally) when I want to grab it, or give a physical 3D touch feel
(sort of vr gloves) is probably not the right direction.  I want to "grab"
things, not "touch" them on a flat background. But I realize that may be a
long wait, and good touch-type devices is a good solution. (I think even the
first writing tools were 3 dimensional in a way - making grooves in clay as
opposed to writing on flat papyrus)

Bret mentioned that next generation of the laptop may have a touch screen
which will be great.

Milan
On 2007 April 30 08:22, Alejandro F. Reimondo wrote: