I want a gadget.

[chess]

It 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.)

Comments

[jaq.livejournal.com]

I don't think something like that exists yet, but you can work on it. Maybe a chording keyboard like this (http://www.handykey.com/) would be a suitable form of input for you?

[felix (from livejournal.com)]

For the input method have you seen dasher? It takes a bit of time to get used to, but is very good. Depending on the hardware you could easily use this with the hand you are holding it in. I don't know about the power arrangements, but how about the Nokia N800? It certainly does web/email/IRC (It runs Linux) and organiser, dunno about music. Connectivity is via wifi or bluetoothing to your mobile to use the GPRS or 3G.

Matt

[hatter.livejournal.com]

Sounds like my psion upgrade predicament. I bought a Sony Clié UX50 a few years ago and use it a fair amount, mostly for ssh and web browsing, I used to use it to listen to oggs too, before I got my 'pod. The keyboard is great for thumb-typing, proper typing if you've not got big fingers, but not really one-handed use at any sensible speed. It has grafiti but I never use it. They're no longer produced, but are available on ebay. The N800 is quite nice and word is there will be a communicator-style one too (i.e. folds open with a keyboard), but again nothing really one-handed. I'll quite likely get a keyboarded version if/when they appear . Neither has voice recognition by default, but you could possibly find something more easily for linux/nokia than clie/palmos - freshmeat lists some voice recognition projects.

Both have bluetooth and wifi (clie only doesn't do 11g, nor WPA) but having it on will eat into battery life.

Unless you're actually going to be away from your computer for a week at a time, could you not train yourself to back it up every few days, and the time you're playing online and syncing should be enough to keep modern batteries topped up. Hopefully having it in sight while charging will mean you pick it back up when you're done with the computer. That said, the clie has several very clever things it does to keep stuff internally even when its batteries are very dead.


the hatter

[king-of-wrong.livejournal.com]

Am pretty sure such a device doesn't exist, but I'd like one too.

It's certainly possible to optimise a large-vocabulary continuous-speech-recognition system to make it small enough to fit in a gadget - just a few megs of storage. The language model would be more trouble, but could be pruned down appropriately. I think the relevant companies are only working on in-car systems at the moment, though.

I'd guess power would want to be solar + battery, like a calculator, so it can run if it's in light. Possibly some kinetic charging, like a watch. That's obviously a fairly strict limitation on how much power it can use when running, though...

[naath.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with 2 handed text entry? Can you type on a normal keyboard one-handed? Have you seen Joh and Sarah's 'phones?

The iPhone does promise a number of these features - I think the text-input method is on screen keyboard though which is kinda a pain. You might like to look into that but it is promised to be *extremely expensive*.

I would go for (if I could afford it) a Sony Vaio (tichy) with a 3G/GPRS card (or IR/bluetooth to a GPRS 'phone, I don't know if you can get 3 G cards for them). But that's definately a take-it-out-and-put-it-on-the-desk kind of arrangement.

[chess]

I want something which is extremely easy to use *while walking along*. If I'm having to use both of my hands while walking, then I'm probably about to fall over. Typing on a normal keyboard requires one hand to hold the device and one hand to type, and still isn't great for use on the move, from experience with my Psion.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Hmmm yes, not so good!