At my recent job interview I was asked to give a presentation on a ridiculously vague subject that essentially amounted to crystal-ball gazing.
In part of it I laid out my tentative predictions for the next 5-10 years of client evolution in education. I posited that the recent explosive growth in the use of netbooks would lead them to be the cornerstone of education workstations in 5 years time.
I also predicted that the mass-marketability of the iPhone would popularise touch interfaces to the point where they became very cheap to mass-produce, and that within the next few years we would a convergence leading to touchscreen netbooks.
Today, Dell put their newest netbook on sale in the US and Europe, the Latitude L2100. It’s specifically designed for the education market.
It has a touch screen.
The touch screen option is just £33 extra.
Apparently we have already reached the point where touchscreens are cheap to mass-produce. I will gleefully say I saw it coming. I did not see it coming this soon. So thanks, Dell, for totally ruining my predictions for the next 5 years. I especially hate you for doing it with a product that is quite clearly very cool.
That is indeed very cool. I want one! I especially like the charging/networked station.
Did you not hear about this new product then?
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/01/asus-introduces-eee-pc-t91-convertible-touchscreen-netbook.html
It was announce some time ago, but is not released yet. Looks mighty good though.
Oh I heard about it, but assumed it was Asus future-gazing and that it wouldn’t make it to market anytime soon. It’s also looking considerably more expensive than the Dell, and while Asus are good at making components, I don’t rate them as a whole-build supplier.
At least your predictions were about the future. Have a look at some of the visions from Local Authorities for BSF. They talk about interactive boards in all classrooms in 3 years time.
[...] two stories came through my RSS reader, one from The Register and one from my new favourite blog, The Angry Technician. Both were focused on the new Dell Latitude 2100. A 10″ net-book designed specifically [...]