Re: wouldn't it be cool to ...
 

I'd be happy just being able to hold up the camera and it will overlay info on your display. I seem to remember somebody doing something cool like this with Android...

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There's at least one guy running around with something like that already. He's using a semi-transparent display in front of one of his eyes, and it augments the image of e.g. the building he's looking at with additional info. There's a web page somewhere with illustrations, but it's been so long since I looked at it that I've lost it in the overflowing list of bookmarks.

And, as he said in an interview, he's online as well, so when he's in the shop his wife would frequently send shopping lists to his little eye-display..

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About a year ago, I read Vernor Vinge's "Rainbow's End", which dealt with a futuristic "wired-in" society using wearable computers, contact lenses with built-in video, etc. Very cool book! You can read a preview here.

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6 of 8: We are the Borg. Lower your shields. Your biological and technological, errrr just a minute

6 of 8's wife: Hunny, do you want peas or beans with your waffles?


excellent ideas so far, I've been thinking of a few more things as well.

I really like the idea of augmenting the tablets and devices with additional displays, so spreading fbreader over a pair of tablets, or playing multi screen games or using them as an IDE with design on one and code on another would be sweet. It could even be just using one as an extra keyboard (bluemaemo) would be nice, it also gives additional useful things to do for your older devices.

I want similar localised data sharing functionality (sketches/ideas/documents/pim), scratching on one tablet should ensure that ALL devices on my WAN are updated (as well as any on the far side of the cloud, but we cannot assume the cloud will exist 24/7)

neither are not overly complex but also not instantly practical.

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You want what with your what? Is that a british thing?!

Thinking of WAN-only sharing, and practical ideas, I don't know why someone hasn't built a baby monitor for the tablets yet. They can already stream audio/video to a specific IP address using the built-in GStreamer framework, I'm amazed someone hasn't thrown a python GUI on that functionality ("Please enter the IP address of the receiving tablet" with the first 3 numbers filled in, because it's a good assumption that you're going to be on the same network, and "Please enter the IP address of the monitoring tablet" on the other one)... Then you just leave the transmitting N800 face down with the camera and mic pointing out into the room, and walk away. If the connection between tablets is broken for a certain period of time, the transmitter keeps trying to re-establish the link, and after 1 minute the receiver starts flashing and beeping that there's something wrong.

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i'd make ITs more modular, to reduce waste and increase upgradability and customization. just imagine being able to swap out your n810's microSD slot for an SD or CF slot, or replace the (POS) webcam with an IR transmitter. i envision tiny little PCI slots that you can fill with XOHM, GPS, TV tuner, or 7.1-channel sound cards, just like you would on a desktop PC, but much smaller, of course.

All of this without affecting the durability of the device when fully assembled, of course.

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@qole: but then i couldn't enjoy numpty physics while the kid's down....

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That is a good idea. In theory, you can do this now with two tablets and two GTalk or Gizmo accounts. I don't know if there is a call limit in place for either service, and re-establishing connection would be an issue. Hmmmm..... Is it possible to initiate a call on a remote tablet via ssh? If there is a way, then you could leave one tablet in the baby's room, and never have to touch it. Have the volume turned to mute, and initiate the SIP call with video from the tablet you use as the monitor... just some thoughts from someone not that fluent with this stuff :)

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That's what the third tablet is for.

And remember folks, try to think of cool applications; the hardware specs are secondary here, and only to make the application happen.