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Need a revolutionary notebook design!

vpro

vpro

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 8, 2012
1,195
65
I had a dream last night where my 17"mbp had no ports, nor jacks. Instead, on the sides were elegant outlines of ports with magnets behind them in the body, just like mag-safe but no indents, ports were flush to the sides. When I got up I thought of an all super-blue tooth system, where all of our peripherals and accessories (headphones etc) were all wireless via blue tooth NOT just for networking. If there are wireless keyboards and mouses, lets turn everything mega wireless and lose all the openings on the sides of notebooks.

*Reaches for a piece of paper and drools while holding her pencil*
 
Wireless power will definitely be in the future, but not for a while.

I believe we're still a ways away from that.

Edit: Okay I should have read, you're talking magnets which is more possible. I was thinking true wireless charging etc.
 
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i'll pass.


Though there is a market for wireless, so it should be able to sell.


i like cables, i like plug and play.. i hate batteries and charging for stuff like keyboards, headsets and mouse.
 
johnnnw said:
Wireless power will definitely be in the future, but not for a while.

I believe we're still a ways away from that.

Edit: Okay I should have read, you're talking magnets which is more possible. I was thinking true wireless charging etc.
Click to expand...

Could wireless energy be possible? Surely if someone walked through the "beam" they'd be fried?

Or did you mean wireless as in a mat or holster or something where you just put the device in and it's powered? When people talk about wireless power I imagine it like wireless internet.
 
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theBostonian said:
Could wireless energy be possible? Surely if someone walked through the "beam" they'd be fried
Click to expand...

Nikola Tesla was in the process of creating wireless energy when his investors abandoned him, he went bankrupt because his patents expired and no longer was receiving royalties from them, and then had a nervous breakdown.

From what I've read, he was making significant progress, too. If only he kept receiving funding ... Who knows?
 
theBostonian said:
Could wireless energy be possible? Surely if someone walked through the "beam" they'd be fried?

Or did you mean wireless as in a mat or holster or something where you just put the device in and it's powered? When people talk about wireless power I imagine it like wireless internet.
Click to expand...
Sure it is possible the problem is more that it is not terribly efficient. We spend all our time increasing the efficiency of electronics, power adapters and now should waste it all on "wireless cables" that loose way too much energy on the way. Even what now goes for wireless charging is effectively just plugless charging. Because the distance is so short that there is effectively no wire. You just don't have to plug it in. The charger still has its cable.
 
thundersteele said:
I would be surprised if you could directly drive an external display wirelessly.
Click to expand...

What's so unlikely about that? The graphics card still renders the images, and then it transmits them via wifi instead of over a cable. In fact, we already have AirPlay, so we're 90% there. Although troubleshooting that connection without a physically attached display would be a bitch!
 
theBostonian said:
Could wireless energy be possible? Surely if someone walked through the "beam" they'd be fried?
Click to expand...

Of course it is possible. There are working prototypes. And for example there are wireless chargers for smartphones and stuff like electric toothbrushes. They require very close proximity and can't transmit much power, but they wireless nevertheless.

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splitpea said:
What's so unlikely about that? The graphics card still renders the images, and then it transmits them via wifi instead of over a cable. In fact, we already have AirPlay, so we're 90% there. Although troubleshooting that connection without a physically attached display would be a bitch!
Click to expand...

The problem is speed and latency. A 1920x1200 RGB signal at 60 frames per second needs over 4Gbps bandwidth to be transmitted if you take some error correction into account. And if the signal is a little bit unreliable, you will get noticeable visual artifacts. AirPlay is basically video streaming, its something different and also doesn't have that sort of QoS requirements. Not to mention that it does not need to operate at such high refresh frequencies.
 
splitpea said:
What's so unlikely about that? The graphics card still renders the images, and then it transmits them via wifi instead of over a cable. In fact, we already have AirPlay, so we're 90% there. Although troubleshooting that connection without a physically attached display would be a bitch!
Click to expand...
We are actually 100% there.
AirPlay is really just proprietary LAN casting and pretty boring in that respect (being so slow, unresponsive and limited in compatibility) but there is Intel Wireless Display or just WiDi and Miracast.

The thing with all those solutions is though that even in the case of using hardware acceleration, you have some processing delay as you need to efficiently compress quite a high def stream without using the most processing intensive encoding or creating too many artifacts and loosing detail.
It is useful for TVs just not for a permanent external Display imo.

As far as the op goes with no cable notebooks. Aren't tablets just that. For the most part you don't plug anything in and you can still use some mouse keyboard stuff and docks at times.
The notebook with attached keyboard will die out before the cables for external stuff.
 
leman said:
Of course it is possible. There are working prototypes. And for example there are wireless chargers for smartphones and stuff like electric toothbrushes. They require very close proximity and can't transmit much power, but they wireless nevertheless.

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Click to expand...

Yes, I referred to wireless charging mats in my initial post so I know of their existence; what I'm wondering is the feasibility of having energy of a certain watt and voltage travelling through the air to a target. Surely that would be dangerous? If a beam was crossed or if someone walked in front of it it could flambé them.

Maybe I read too much science fiction
 
theBostonian said:
Yes, I referred to wireless charging mats in my initial post so I know of their existence; what I'm wondering is the feasibility of having energy of a certain watt and voltage travelling through the air to a target. Surely that would be dangerous? If a beam was crossed or if someone walked in front of it it could flambé them.

Maybe I read too much science fiction
Click to expand...

Well, you don't really need a 'beam' for it. Modern approaches utilise magnetic fields. You can check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiTricity
 
Wow - thank you everyone !

You are all making my weekend thank you for contributing so much. GREAT discussion you all get a thumbs way up yeah! I love the comment about Nikola Tesla because it is a travesty how throughout history, when ever an individual comes up with a GREAT idea, investors want to make fast cash quicker, leaving every amazing patent in the dust to die, that is just sad.

I also like the comment about charging everything would be a major nightmare for sure huh?! Yeeek!


I love PLUG and PLAY so much and apple really stands for this right!

Just sometimes when I wanna be lazy, I leave all the wires / cables around and then wake up the next morning, and go, aaaaaaaaaack, so many snakes, hissssss!

^_^
 
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