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To: 2maclean who wrote (163487)	4/4/2002 12:53:57 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 186894

Cool stuff: Viewsonic Leaps In The Air By Arik Hesseldahl For years people have been saying that the boring old beige box that the personal computer so often is will be no more. And that doesn't just mean it's going to change colors. Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) Chairman Bill Gates has used his speeches at several technology trade shows over the last few years to push a concept the company is developing called the tablet PC. And recently it has also taken to promoting another concept, called Mira. It's easy to get them both confused, because both they tend to look alike. ADVERTISEMENT The tablet PC concept takes a light, portable thin screen and shoves all the components of a PC, from the microprocessor to the hard drive and everything else, inside it. It could be as portable around the house as a clipboard and could work like a conventional keyboard with a PC or a pen-like stylus, not unlike a handheld computer. Mira, on the other hand, seeks to do something similar but without putting all the PC components inside the screen. Instead, Mira envisions smart screens that can be picked up and taken away from the PC but can still be connected to the Windows desktop. Indeed, nearly any screen in the house could be used to remotely access the desktop. The company expects to see devices using the technology shipping in time for Christmas. But trust Viewsonic , a company best known for its PC monitors, to jump ahead of the game. At last month's CeBit trade show in Germany it unveiled the airpanel 100, a wireless portable screen that looks a lot like a previous product it has made, called the View Pad. The View Pad was essentially an overgrown PDA with a PC card slot for installing the wireless-networking connection method of your choice, and a few thin client software products thrown in for good measure. It's hard to see what's new this time around, other than a higher-end Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) StrongArm Microprocessor and the fact that it runs Windows CE.Net as opposed to plain old Windows CE. It still weighs 2.5 pounds and still has an open card slot for installing the wireless connection of your choice, which this time around includes support for Wi-Fi, general packet radio service (GPRS) and Bluetooth. Whatever wireless method you use, the airpanel supports the ability to create a new file on the remote device away from the PC, but you can have it saved on the PC as though it were created there instead, complete with any changes. The 10-inch thin-film transistor LCD touch-sensitive display boasts a resolution of 800 by 600 pixels in landscape mode, and 600 by 800 in portrait mode. It has 32 megabytes of flash memory and 128 megabytes of standard SDRAM memory. As with the Viewpad, Viewsonic is aiming the airpanel at businesses with lots of people who spend most of their days on their feet and not in cubicles. This includes factory floor managers and health care professionals, among others. Therefore, the $1,200 price isn't really ideal for a home user. Either way, it will start shipping through Viewsonic's distributors starting next month. Related Links at Forbes.com