We've gotta say: after witnessing the
ASUS press event at CES this year, we have a whole new love for the company and its outspoken Chairman, Jonney "megatrend" Shih. The man, myth, legend recently sat down with Silicon.com and talked a bit about his own brand of the future. Apparently ASUS has slate PC prototypes in its labs, along with netbooks running Android and Chrome OS, but there's nothing he's convinced is ready for market yet. For slates specifically, "Content is still not attractive enough today to the customer," according to Shih. He expects there to be content stores from Apple, Google and Microsoft to obtain content tailored to touchscreen tablets, and plans on waiting until there is such a compelling use case before bringing something to market (though those
color e-books sure look raring to go). Another potential category that ASUS is hedging its bets on is the smartbook. He likes the price advantage, but isn't sure users are ready to abandon Windows yet. "When people talk about cloud computing, unfortunately it's still not there yet," he says, but: "as time goes on you will see more advantage of being always connected." The solution to all of this madness?
WaveFace, naturally. A post-netbook era, perhaps five years from now, will diverge from the "regular, dull PC roadmap" and put more emphasis on portability, wearability and intuitive use. A couple of concept renders doesn't have us convinced ASUS is positioned to deliver this, but we're happy to watch and find out.
posted January 22nd 2010 10:29AM
This guy is the Woz of China. Nice socks.
@xCrunk
Yeah except without the extra 300 lbs.
@xCrunk except Taiwan isn't a part of China...
@TheLostSwede
Hey, its 2010. Just be glad xCrunk didn't call him Japanese.
@xCrunk according to most of the world Taiwan is a rouge state of china
@TheLostSwede
Since the end of World War II in 1945, the island group has been under the government of the Republic of China. The political status of Taiwan is complex because it is claimed by the People's Republic of China
@SirNoDroin
xxLeetDPSxx: Nxx25 LF2M dps 5k+ rouge/huntard, msut have fyling mount
roastmage: wow, u suk at typin
JjFfKk: its rouge not rouge you nub
arthismom: jjffkk just failed
twinkiiwii: its rougue
burninwar: stop spamming the trade channel!!!
twinkiiwii: sorry, rogue
@xCrunk
it's a touchy subject. the communist civil war divided china and the old republic of china fled to taiwan, forming two very polarized sides. the PRoC may claim taiwan, but taiwan is independent from china in terms of both politics and culture, and this is recognized by most of the world.
and yes i am american-chinese, my parents are taiwanese-chinese, and grandparents are chinese so may have a bit a bias :P
@xCrunk
I have a friend (native) from Taiwan. He says he is Chinese. That's all the proof I need.
@Special Agent Steve
It's split 50-50. Half will say they are Chinese, the other will say Taiwanese. It either refers to their ethnicity or their nationality. Also the main languages there are Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, to compound the complexity of identity.
While only China is recognized by most foreign governments, people (Americans, Japanese etc) usually make the distinction between the two. An example of how the government does not necessarily represent the opinion of the people.
If your friend prefers to be thought of as Chinese, that's fine. Don't assume the same for others. Most I've met think differently.
@chill Actually it's the nationalist-communist civil war, or simply Chinese civil war, the communists didn't start the conflict or fighting it was an uprising and reaction to purges of communists and struggle for the two parties to cooperate as allies, with the nationalists after loosing setting up their dictatorship in Taiwan (ROC). They weren't in power and China wasn't reunified when the conflict started and the nationalists launched their campaign to take over the country, the final split happened under what PRC call war of liberation. With the last stage after they again tried to eradicate the communists fully braking out a few year after the Japanese occupation and war had ended. You should know that as Chinese-decendent.
Thankfully things has lightened up since the military dictatorship ended and KMT's ruling monopoly came down and all the old stifling leaders on both sides are gone/have died. Their UN seat went to PRC and so on. ROC lost their claim to the mainland. Arming Taiwan is still something touchy on the other hand. But it's still a de-facto sovereign state with it's own army and all that. And relations improve with the mainland and wise versa. It's still two quiet different nationalities however. But even someone from Hong Kong would empathize that they don't live in mainland China. But then again people would mistake it for the mainland either, it would be "blahblah king of Hong Kong".
Why does his head look photoshopped onto his body?
@geekthree
Either it's his head is abnormally large compared to his small body or because it's photoshopped...
Why does he sit like a girly-man?
@geekthree
RTFA. It's called Waveface technology, NOOB!
He has some very valid points.
Technology today is in a pretty rough patch -- a lot of stuff is buggy, doesn't work how people want it to work, and a lot of our gadgets don't connect to each other properly. There are tons of interoperability concerns, and companies are so quick to get their products to market they are willing to forgo vital testing and force consumers to deal with buggy software and hardware. I would honestly love to see more cloud stuff and increased "interconnectedness" and even ease of use but seriously -- we have a LONG way to go.
@(Unverified)
Can you give us an example of this?
@(Unverified)
I agree with you that there are a lot of companies that rush out their products and one needs to be careful about their purchases because the issues you mentioned are somewhat true - but they're mainly true because technology is so dominant. I don't think technology is going through a rough patch at all, we just have more access to adopting early (and are very much encouraged to do so by companies who want to sell you something).
In general, we have amazing access to technology. I remember just wanting a computer that wouldn't crash on me while I was typing a document. Now I have access to free and well maintained software, cheap hardware, and any number of phones and other devices that would link with my computer even though I use software (Linux and other FOSS) with such a low market share.
Just read some reviews, adopt a bit on the late side (which, let's face it is getting shorter and shorter - just wait six months, you'll be fine) and avoid the manufacturers who don't play nice with others, or property test their products.
@Entourage
Countless examples, but let's take the Nexus one for example...
No multitouch in USA browser out of box, no flash support in browser, media codec support is lacking, 3g connectivity issues, also some people say the touch screen is not calibrated properly in certain situations...People don't want to have to deal with that shit, especially considering the cost of that (and other) personal devices vs. the actual benefit of them (supposed to make your life easier and more organized -- not when there's bugs or unsupported open standards!).
People want personal devices (netbooks smartphones tablets whatever) to all work together with as many standards as possible, and they want them to be easy to use and free of as many bugs as possible, and they want content and applications to be readily available.
Tablets are going to be great, but in order for customers to adopt them and be excited about it, they need to NOT have bugs, be able to connect with other devices you own easily (TV, desktop, laptop, smartphone), and there needs to be content that is easily accessible.
Otherwise it's just a cool looking thin screen that doesn't really do anything except piss people off and get them even more frustrated at technology. Shih is a smart man indeed.
remember when TV lasted for 10-15 years, and this was the norm?
lets go back to that
@SirNoDroin
I have 2 zenith TVs that have to be over 20 years old and they work just fine.
@SirNoDroin
Nowadays in some households, their TV(s) doesn't even outlast their computers, with HD, digital broadcasting, LCD, plasma, 3D display popping up like rabbits... Good luck going back to those days lol
This coming from the company that practically invented the netbook. Asus Eee PC.
Look Assooosss or however you pronounce it.
Take your balls in your hands and release these fabled goodies.
Let's face it, you aren't certain enough about your own products to do it.
You'll wait till Apple or whoever does it first and then try sneaking some bandwagon kudos.
Remember what you did with the Eee, well get on it.
@xCrunk
it's a touchy subject. the communist civil war divided china and the old republic of china fled to taiwan, forming two very polarized sides. the PRoC may claim taiwan, but taiwan is independent from china in terms of both politics and culture, and this is recognized by most of the world.
and yes i am american-chinese, my parents are taiwanese-chinese, and grandparents are chinese so may have a bit a bias :P
@chill sorry meant to post within the same thread, does it create a new thread if i reply to a reply?
@chill
Not supposed to. It should place you in the same thread with an automated @whoever.
This man is the reason why there is so many crappy computers out there. He's going to be the Dell of the tablet and netbook world and he's going to be successful but he will never have an original idea it's why he's waiting to see what google and apple have to offer first.
haha, theres no "highest ranked"
In my opinion, tablets with handwriting function are a fad that will not be around long for the general consumer market. This isn't a decade ago; the younger generation is more proficient at typing than handwriting, not the other way around. Also, writing longhand and typing on keys are not synonymous. I suspect people who have grown up typing will find a disconnect between their thoughts and writing them out on a slate. Time will tell. To me, slates are less about wanting to make a keyboardless medium and more about wanting to piggyback off the success of the iphone etc.