foleo
Latest
Switched On: Fishing for the fourth screen
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: Last month's D: All Things Digital conference saw the launch of two platforms from well-known technology companies -- Microsoft's Surface, the coffee-table PC that can be used to sell coffee tables, and Palm's Foleo. the big-screened mobile companion for pocket devices from the company that popularized pocket companions for big-screened devices. Both products rely on recent iterations of well-tred operating systems. The heart of Surface is simply a Vista PC, whereas the Foleo is based on Linux. But their usage models could hardly be more different. Surface is a large tabletop computer environment reminiscent of the cocktail arcade tables of the 80s but which is actually filled with infrared cameras and a projector -- a new application of rear-projection TV technology. Foleo, with its small clamshell form factor, eschews any kind of touch-screen manipulation, instead introducing a scroll bar to facilitate moving through long Web pages and lists of e-mails. In contrast, at least for its initial kiosk-like deployments, Surface will take advantage of new applications that use its direct manipulation and recognition of physical objects. However, both products illustrate the challenges that companies have in trying to introduce a "fourth screen" to compete for consumer attention beyond the three screens of television, the PC, and the cell phone.
How would you change the Palm Foleo?
As much as we respect and admire the man, we sure wouldn't want to be in Jeff Hawkins' shoes these days, what with the cool reaction his promised "breakthrough device" has been receiving in the media and among the army of amateur online pundits. But rather than wasting time knocking Jeff for the somewhat awkwardly-positioned Foleo, why don't we instead use our collective knowledge and preferences to help him make the F2 a product that we'd be comfortable dropping a few bucks on. For instance, what if Palm got rid of the redundant processor, OS, and radios, and simply offered consumers a dumb terminal in which to dock their Treos for under $200? Or what if they let that screen get its swivel on and added 'e-book reader' to the Foleo's list of features? And for heaven's sake, some proper video support please! Those are just our suggestions; what's yours?
Palm's Ed Colligan: Foleo is the Wii of portable computing
We've seen Jeff Hawkins' -- the synaptic guns behind the Palm Pilot, Handspring, and Treo -- take on the ill-received Foleo. Now we've got the thoughts from his boss, Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, Inc. As you'd expect, Ed toe the party line with the "mobile companion" spin. He even compares it to the PS3 vs. Wii battle, citing "technology overload" as the mysterious (and massively oversimplified) force that will drive people to Palm's new platform as it has the Wii. Ed also tells us that Palm will be providing the tools to developers after which he expects, "very quickly, there'll be thousands of applications" for the Linux-based Foleo. Hey Colligan man! We get it, but we still don't think it's a good idea. Though if only for nostalgia sake, we'd love to be wrong. See the video after the break.
Palm Foleo hands-on
We just got our grubby little paws on that new Palm Foleo. We'll give you one guess about what we think. Ok, ok, look, it's an interesting device and an interesting concept, and we're long-time Palm fans. We like the scroll wheel, the keyboard and screen were very nice, and the browser works excellently (and with Flash! see the gallery). It's wonderful that it works so well with your phone and all of that business, but we just can't get behind this one. We need a better Treo, or we need a Foleo or like device that replaces your Treo -- we don't want both. No ifs, ands, or buts. We already have a laptop, and when you consider the fact that this thing is about the size and weight of a Dell X1 (ok, maybe a little larger), the user just doesn't have a whole lot of reason to take one of these home. Ah whatever, Palm never listens to us anyway. Enjoy the gallery!%Gallery-3536%
Palm's Jeff Hawkins live from D 2007
There are a lot fewer Palm fanboys than there used to be, but they're all hoping that Palm founder Jeff Hawkins brings the love during his convo with Walt at the D Conference today as he introduces the Foleo. All of Walt's questions are in bold.10:31am - Last time you were here talking about the brain... you basically created the first handheld computer. You've been working on something else for a couple years.The concept of this product is five years old, devleopment is a couple hours. A little history behind all this... we started palm 15 years ago on a palm and an opportunity. Desktops and laptops were too large, expensive, complex. You're not going to build billions of these complex machines, you build mobile computers. But the technology didn't exist, but that was the goal behind Palm. We are a future-of-personal-computing.But it became clear the smartphone wasn't going to fill that role. It has a keyboard, nice display, except there's a problem. You need a full size screen and keyboard. The smartphone is a truly capable computer, billions of comptuer have one, but sometimes you need to be able to look at that big spreadsheet.
Palm Foleo announced
As rumored, the big new device that's Palm's Jeff Hawkins has chosen to announce at the D conference today is the Palm Foleo, which the company is billing as a "mobile companion." Boasting a 10-inch widescreen display and a full-size keyboard, the device is intended to be used in conjunction with your smartphone, with any edits to documents made on one device automatically reflected on the other thanks to the device's Bluetooth connectivity. The device also promises to turn on "instantly," boasts built-in WiFi, and should last about 5 hours on a single charge. The pricing and release info leaked out earlier also look to have been spot on, with it now officially set to be released sometime this summer for $500 (after a $100 mail-in rebate). We'll have plenty more pics of it shortly, but for now you can check out one more after the break.
Palm Foleo and Linux OS for summer is what Hawkins is announcing at D?
Woops! Looks like someone was trigger-happy at Palm and shot out the press release for tomorrow's announcement a little too soon! Apparently what Jeff Hawkins is going to announce in the morning at D is called the Palm Foleo (a name we've heard rumored before), and is being positioned as a "smartphone companion". We didn't know our smartphones weren't quite smart enough to need a guide to the interwebs, but the Foleo syncs to your mobile device, providing a full size keyboard and larger display for editing documents and triaging email (among other things). So yeah, basically it's a dumb device piggybacking all your Treo's most useful feature -- its connectivity. Apparently users can expect instant-on access, five hours battery life, Palm's new Linux OS, and a $500 pricetag to round off that Treo kit to about a grand this summer. Assuming all this is indeed the case, we can only come to one conclusion: damned if we need yet another friggin device. Seriously, please Palm, what we need is for you to improve the Treo -- or whatever phone device you expect us to carry and use -- not design the Treo its very own Lenny Small to hack around sluggish handset design. The yet-another-device philosophy doesn't carry, so to speak, and it's sure as hell not the future of mobile computing.P.S. -No, that's a jokey Sony UX UMPC to the right, not the still-unseen Foleo.[Thanks to Brian and everyone who sent this in]Read - Screencap of the supposed releaseRead - Treocentral thread
