Touch Book

I don’t normally gush over new tech toys on this blog, but I suspect that we are about to witness a sea change in portable computing:

The Touch Book is a netbook-but-more from a company called Always Innovating.  It reverses the fundamental design of notebook computing in that the processor/memory/storage is in the same part of the computer as the screen.  So what do you get when you make that screen a touch screen as well?  A tablet computer with a keyboard dock.

The idea behind Touch Book is making it as versitile as possible, allowing people to use it in different modes for different tasks.

Typing a document?  Dock it in the keyboard.  Watching a movie?  Reverse the screen and fold it into a stand, or use the magnetic backing to attach the screen to a steel surface (like a refrigerator).  Playing a game, reading a book, or surfing the web?  Use the touch screen by itself for convenience.

This will be the first netbook to use the ARM Processor, which means that it runs without generating much heat (no fans to run and long battery life – 10-15 hours according to the company).  It also means that it is an “instant on” device… no waiting for the computer to boot up.  It sports high resolution, 3-D graphics, and is supposed to do a great job for watching movies.  And it is very open… open source operating system, open architecture.  There is a lot of room for innovation with this device.

This computer isn’t perfect (and it isn’t on the market yet… so any of these claims could be exaggerated), but it is a definite jump ahead for mobile computing.  Microsoft has yet to announce whether Windows 7 will have an ARM version, so this may be limited to varieties of Linux and Android — but you will still be able to use it for anything the current crops of netbooks can do, with more versatility and for longer periods of time.

Here’s a demo video I found via Wired Blogs:

found via CrunchGear