Sharp Mebius Netbook Trackpad Doubles as Optical Sensor LCD
With all of the cookie-cutter netbook designs out there, Sharp’s Mebius NJ70A is a breath of fresh air. In lieu of a boring little trackpad, Sharp inserted a 4-inch Optical Sensor LCD which greatly expands possibilites. Don’t believe me? Check out the serveral applications in the video from Akihabara News. I see handwriting, games, and a calculator for starters.
At first, I thought this was a little too gimmicky, but once I got past that, I thought there might be some merit in this idea. After all, netbook screens are typically small so the extra 854×480 display could be very useful for alarm notifications, urgent e-mails and much, much more. Aside from the Optical Sensor, the remaining specs are pretty much what we’ve seen before: a 10.1-inch device with Intel Atom N270, 160GB hard drive, etc…
i got to ask when the twin screen gets here, with haptic feedback on a virtual keyboard on the second screen for those days of typing.
It would be like a gigantic Nintendo DS.
My wife had a B&W version of this on a Toshiba 5 or 6 years ago. We thought it was cool, but there were applets to run on it, so we lost interest.
I would see much more support for things like this today, especially with all the different Sidebar, Google, and other applets/gadgets/etc being developed.
Besides a quick calculator, things like latest email, chat clients, and weather all seem ideal for the little screen. Hopefully there would be a way to turn off the screen if you are on battery or don’t want the distraction.
D.