The concept is simple: We all know the benefits of a laptop computer. But what if you are working in a large office for example, and just want to show you work, have a quick presentation and discuss some concepts in a meeting room? Or what if you want to browse the web or read an ebook on the couch? Then you need to start-up and copy your work to an ‘expensive’ laptop. A task that’s time consuming and not efficient. So why not just pick-up your desktop flatscreen and walk away?

Our concept can be described as a portable flatscreen with a docking station. In the dock, the flatscreen is used like a normal desktop screen. When undocking the screen, the screen becomes a portable touchscreen running on a battery.

Quick overview
So that’s the concept, “a wireless desktop touchscreen”. The touchscreen is obviously needed to have a communication input other than a mouse. The working of the device is rather simple. Normally the screen works like a standard monitor with a standard VGA and power connection. When you detach the screen a small pcb and the internal battery will be active. The pcb starts up a little vnc program running on linux.

• A vnc (virtual network computing) is a small application that receives the changed pixels and can send mouse or keyboard inputs (in our case touchscreen inputs). Vnc connections are often used for remote control, normally controlling a desktop computer trough a standard webbrowser.

The desktop sofware will detect the unlocking and switch and work like a host.

The (optional) wifi connection in the monitor arm will be active and be used for a connection for the vnc connection. Alternative; This can be running to a corporate network.

Depending on the speed of the internet connection the framerate will be adjust. For normal use (except watching video’s) a low framerate is good enough. In addition,  in smart vnc software only the changes of the content will be transported. For watching video the internal vnc app can stream the video to a buffer. (just like the working of watching a video on the internet).

Can this be done? In our opinion yes.. actually take for example the iphone / ipod this really small and thin device is allready capable streaming movies, and even similar (inefficient) vnc connections..

Below we show several concept images to give an visual idea of the purpose. The flat-screen needs to be clean and lightweight and thin.

The internal hardware don’t need to be fancy stuff (otherwise we can simple use a ‘expensive’ laptop) remind that only the vnc application (running on linux) needs te be active. So there will be no need for dual core, loads of memory and hard-disk space. The vnc can be a very light application, therefor the device components are low cost and can be very small and thin.

Our idea is to keep the screen as ‘ user-friendly ‘ like an noteblock.

Components

Above we see a breef overview of the global parts.

How do we make this?

Our goal is to make things much flexible as they are, so everyone is welcome to inform us.
Although we like to keep things organised. Therefore we need structure and reliability.
Our idea is to select a group of specialist that will be active on the project.

What we need:

- concept designer (already applied)
- project manager (already applied)
- Hardware specialist
- software developer(s)
- product hardware engineer

Task description:

concept designer: To succeed a project, one of the main things is not to blur an idea. The project concept and result must be clear for al participants. This concept designer must show and declare the concept idea in the best visual way as possible.

Project manager: In a open project there is no time schedule although the project manager need to keep the project clear for all participants. Otherwise the project will be a mess. The main goal of the project manager is to keep things structured and organised.

Hardware specialist: Because this is a open project, the hardware specialist must be search for hardware that’s available for the particular market. The second important thing is to keep the parts costs as low as possible. The hardware also must be fitting in the concept rules and specification requirements of the software developers.

Software developers: Need to make the most lightweight software for the concept device. Including there will be some low-level hardware coding. For example the indicator icon lights and touch layer must be programmed as well.

product hardware engineer: In addition to the hardware specialist the product hardware engineer will be focussing on the design concept. Therefor the right plastic moulds would be developed to accomplisch the hardware parts.

for more information, please leave a comment.

Martijn van der Gun