Ricavision, the company that brought us the
SideShow MCE remote, has announced three new
SideShow devices that make some different approaches to the SideShow format. Final evidence that Windows has permeated every niche is the MK140 FM Fridge Magnet/Scribbler, which has a massive magnet on the back for convenient attachment to the big box in your house that dispenses free food. It runs Windows Vista SideShow and wirelessly connects with your PC, and has a 3.5-inch LCD for all those simulated sticky notes. It has a 16-hour battery life, which may sound like a lot, but which will probably mean having to charge it up overnight, every night. The second gadget is the Home E-Reader that also runs SideShow, but has a big, grayscale screen that is great for displaying e-books. Finally there's the SideShow based MK140 eChatter, which is designed for composing emails and sending instant messages on a WQVGA 5-inch display and a QWERTY thumb keyboard, tapping into your Vista PC wirelessly for internet connectivity. It can also accept an audio headset for voice communication, and will last 16-hours on its internal battery. Unfortunately, there's no word on availability or pricing for any of these devices just yet.
[Thanks, Cameron B]
posted May 16th 2007 6:49PM
About time some of these cool Vista devices started coming out! Not much use for the fridge magnet but the e-reader and chatter look very interesting.
If these become more popular, I would love to see some surface conduction (or whatever that tech is called, I'm actually just pulling that term out of my ass here) technology being implemented in fridges. You know, the way your electric toothbrush charges on its pedestal there without having any exposed contacts.
Or maybe that's not feasible at all. Just a random thought.
I'm actually surprised to see the approach taken of seperate devides to do seperate things. Isn;t the beauty of windows and windows sideshow devices supposed to be multipurpose. Don;t get me wrong I thing the fridge magnet is a good idea but why not be able to scroll through sideshow gadgets on it .. like show the weather, have a recipee list, inegrate rfid to containers in the fridge and have the pc track food usage and the magnet display shopping lists .. the na buttonon the magnet to print the list to a networked printer. Am I just too far ahead of the game in my mind?
Simple enough IMO- they are just trying to release the products slowly to make more money and take less risk. e.g. Portable Video Players have been around for years but Apple slowly increased the iPods strengths to a different tempo rather than releasing it all at once.
More chance of getting people to upgrade, especially if your effort to make something simple have paid off in that it really is simple to use and well made- also I guess there are less R&D costs for not making an all singing all dancing version.
I'd just like to know when one could actually even buy that remote they've been showing off for more than a year. They've even announced a successor to it despite the original remaining unavailable.
Didn't they have to spend money to make these things??? You'd think they'd want to actually sell some!
"Ricavision, the company that brought us the SideShow MCE remote" ... really? When? I saw the original post during CES, and after that... nothing. Was the Sideshow Vista remote ever released? If so, where can I buy it? So far, the entire Sideshow experience has been a lot of promises and no deliveries... I know, I am impatient, but dang it I want to try out these new gadgets before I get too old to appreciate them. ;)