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OPEN TOPIC PC : DISCUSSION

Whats your Favorite YouTube channel?
Posted in Open Topic | May 17, 2009 1am

Whats your Favorite YouTube channel? My favorite is machinima (http://www.youtube.com/user/ machinima)  because i like the video game stuff he does.
 

OPEN TOPIC PC : DISCUSSION

Keyboard; Touchscreen; Pen input; Voice or Gesture Command?
Posted in Open Topic | May 13, 2009 10am

Have they decided on which of these to include in their new computer yet? I'm only asking because I want them all. I think there is a way to have a fluid combination of these inputs without totally throwing simplicity and practicality out the window.

GAMER PC PC : DISCUSSION

Bring Back the Dock; bring out the kids
Posted in Gamer PC | April 3, 2009 2pm

Once upon a time, your average laptop weighed somewhere in the 8-12 lb range, had a tiny, passive-matrix monochrome screen, and offered the choosy customer any external ports they might want, provided they only wanted a keyboard, mouse, or printer. If you wanted more than this tiny range of expandability, you opted for a docking station or a number of separate external devices. Modern laptops have improved on this immensely even a low-end netbook today will offer wired and wireless ethernet, a VGA (15-pin) output, headphone/microphone jacks, and multiple USB ports.
Given the plethora of options that now come standard on even netbook-class devices, you might think the dock had long since shuffled off this mortal coil, its days done, its usefulness outlived. For the record, they haven't you can still buy them from places like NewEgg, and they still function around the basic concept of giving users additional connectivity options that they don't have on their regular mobile systems. The idea of attaching an Asus WePC-inspired dock to a netbook is scarcely unique, but I've got an idea for what that dock could contain that would set the entire combination apart.
There are at least two ways that a dock plus netbook combination could be handled to great effect. First, and perhaps easiest, would be a ruggedized, "kidproof" netbook designed explicitly for little hands and fingers, but that could be attached to a "big person's" dock for adult use or adult help. This way, the small system could be detatched and sent off to school on a daily basis (and be subjected to any number of abuses) while parents would have the tools they need to interface well with the system once it got back home. I've personally tried typing on a netbook-style keyboard for a few hours and was left wanting to pound the letters QWERT and Y into the keyboard designer's head I can't imagine trying to help a little person with their homework while confined to such a device. Pull a few fancy tricks with input selection and dual-screen capabilities, and parent and child could work together, with the adult interfacing with the child's system through the use of a dock + keyboard and mouse.
The other idea, and the one that might appeal to gamers who want system portability without giving up the ability to have fun would be a dock with an integrated external GPU. This is less far fetched than one might think; AMD has already demo'd such a system and at least one company is selling the external graphics module as an add-on for their multimedia-rich notebooks. The truth is, previous generations of notebooks were often limited by the speed of the interconnects upon which they depended. USB 2.0 isn't fast enough for modern gaming (and carries a CPU-tax when used, while technically "better" interfaces like FireWire 1394a and 1394b never saw mass market adoption. Over the past four years, however, this has changed.
Today we have eSATA , which allows for an external hard drive running at full SATA speeds, USB 3.0 is on the horizon, ExpressCard has replaced the ancient PCMCIA standard as a mobile card standard, and AMD's external graphics module uses standard PCIe lanes for the connection between the external video card and the laptop itself. What we might call the "external" gap the performance penalty for having a device sit outside a system is shrinking steadily and will continue to do so.
I alluded to this possibility a few weeks ago when I discussed the possibility of netbooks-as-gaming-systems of the future, and it's an option I think Asus should explore. The best way to let customers eat their cake and have it too may be to provide them with both performance options at once. Build the right dock around a "good enough" system, and one's 2.5 lb computer could transform from thin-and-light to gaming rig with the touch of a button (and a few appropriate connections).

GAMER PC PC : DISCUSSION

Expandable notebooks: Dead on target, or DOA?
Posted in Gamer PC | March 10, 2009 9am

One of the most consistent features you've requested since the WePC site launched last year is expandability. The exact type or function of the expansion has varied from person to person some of you want larger screens, others go for advanced graphics but the point is very clear. Many of you also raised the question of why laptops were so upgrade-limited given that desktops have such a plethora of upgrade options.
The answer isn't simple, but the problems aren't unsolveable. In the mobile world, laptops are designed around a set of strict thermal and size limitations that cannot be exceeded without compromising system integrity. It's possible to design a notebook that exceeds the cooling needs of the components that comprise it, but this often requires additional parts and expense. Once past RAM and storage upgrades, allowing consumers to drop in new CPUs or GPUs means risking the introduction of parts with thermal envelopes the laptop chassis is simply not designed to handle.
One idea proposed by the WePC community is that of a laptop with dual fold-out screens that would significantly increase the total desktop real estate. Technologically, this is possible triple-head desktops aren't unknown but it's no small feat to hang two additional LCDs off the back of a system without overbalancing it or turning it into a brick. OLEDs would allow for much thinner, lighter displays and could make this more feasible, but full-sized OLED screens have been coming "real soon now" for about five years. At this point, I'm not holding my breath.
The best expansion options for notebooks will probably be external peripherals and we've seen some very positive developments on this front. USB3 ports should begin appearing on laptops by 2010; available bandwidth on the new interface should be more than enough to power devices that tend to choke on USB2. AMD's external graphics project, while still available on limited laptops, is another excellent idea for improving mobile video performance on an as-needed basis.
The message is strong consumers want more options but delivering those options isn't a matter of throwing a few add-ons at an existing platform. It's going to take a ground-up initiative, but then again, that's what WePC is all about.