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I want a gadget.
Mar. 26th, 2007 08:52 pmIt would be small and light. It would let me send email (with my Gmail account) and do IRC; reading Interwebs like LiveJournal and Rule7 optional but encouraged. It would have a halfway competent voice to text processor or some other very straightforwards form of one-handed text entry (the hand also being the hand holding the device).
Preferably, it would also have a convenient recharging arrangement and almost never need recharging, especially if I almost never used it. I want to be able to forget about it in a bag for several months and pull it out and be able to use it. If I have to recharge it every week I'll leave it recharging instead of putting it back in my bag and won't have it when I need it. It should basically Not Take Power When Not Awake, if possible.
Bonus points for playing music from MP3s and OGGs in a moderately competent fashion, although obviously something spending time playing music rather than spending time being turned off would have a shorter battery life. Extra bonus points for acting as a decent personal organiser (by personal organiser I mean 'thing what can remember dates and times for me and remind me of things with irritating beeping noises as appropriate'), but I've coped without one of those for quite some time so if it's too bad for the battery life that's a misfeature. If it can be used as a mobile phone that's okay as long as it doesn't gobble the battery unnecessarily - if I have the Internets I don't really need voice and SMS so much, and I prefer asynchronous communication and choosing when I'm available for synchronous communication anyway.
However, I don't think one of these exists, because I don't think anyone's found a better input method than 'graffiti' or 'thumb typing with prediction', both of which I can't get on with, and I think that voice recognition on handheld systems is still in the 'speak from a list of words like a robot' phase. If someone can prove me wrong, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
(This thought brought to you by leaving off work too late to get home in time for an online meeting I'd arranged.)
Preferably, it would also have a convenient recharging arrangement and almost never need recharging, especially if I almost never used it. I want to be able to forget about it in a bag for several months and pull it out and be able to use it. If I have to recharge it every week I'll leave it recharging instead of putting it back in my bag and won't have it when I need it. It should basically Not Take Power When Not Awake, if possible.
Bonus points for playing music from MP3s and OGGs in a moderately competent fashion, although obviously something spending time playing music rather than spending time being turned off would have a shorter battery life. Extra bonus points for acting as a decent personal organiser (by personal organiser I mean 'thing what can remember dates and times for me and remind me of things with irritating beeping noises as appropriate'), but I've coped without one of those for quite some time so if it's too bad for the battery life that's a misfeature. If it can be used as a mobile phone that's okay as long as it doesn't gobble the battery unnecessarily - if I have the Internets I don't really need voice and SMS so much, and I prefer asynchronous communication and choosing when I'm available for synchronous communication anyway.
However, I don't think one of these exists, because I don't think anyone's found a better input method than 'graffiti' or 'thumb typing with prediction', both of which I can't get on with, and I think that voice recognition on handheld systems is still in the 'speak from a list of words like a robot' phase. If someone can prove me wrong, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
(This thought brought to you by leaving off work too late to get home in time for an online meeting I'd arranged.)
