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New Sharp 3D Notebook Available with Linux 163
Anonymous Writer writes "Earlier this month, Sharp released the Actius AL3DU, the second generation laptop in its line of autostereo display products. EmperorLinux, Inc. is distributing it with Linux pre-installed, dubbing it the Molecule."
Autonomy ? (Score:1, Interesting)
argh! (Score:1)
I guess it's only when using the notepad with the light dimmed and no sound.
This "carryable" is a joke !!!
Re:argh! (Score:3, Informative)
Estimated Life: 1.3 hours
on the linux version. That's barely one average commute by train.
Re:Autonomy ? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Autonomy ? (Score:3, Informative)
It's definitely intended for use with a desktop.
Your machine (Score:2)
I've been thinking about getting the MM series' successor, the MP30 [sharpsystems.com].
Re:Your machine (Score:2)
Re:Your machine (Score:2)
I gotta say, though, I like Sharp's designs
Actually... (Score:1)
It just wouldn't do anything useful.
Re:Autonomy ? (Score:2, Informative)
I get 4.5 hrs, including watching a DVD on my Asus M6N, though I don't quite know why this performs so well; considering watching/ripping DVD's is around twice the battery load.
. http://store.agearnotebooks.com/asusm6nphotos.htm
I run a fairly light window manager, which I'm sure hits the GPU and processor with a softer hand albeit.
Re:Autonomy ? (Score:1)
I think this is the start of something new (Score:4, Interesting)
Put aside that it's running Linux for a minute. Who cares what software is running it? Not important.
What is important is that we are finally moving away, on a hardware level, from flat, 2 dimensional displays. While the "Help me Obi-one Kenobi" 3D displays are still a long way off (or disappeared a long, long time ago), this is an immense step forward.
Re:I think this is the start of something new (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think this is the start of something new (Score:4, Funny)
I love dolphins!!!! I'm going to buy one of these right now!
Re:I think this is the start of something new (Score:2)
Anyhow, it is insightful, dolphins do sell laptops, but more to the point with this, is will joe consumer or the PHB see enough here to spring the extra? I don't think so, not yet. Stuff like this needs to demonstrate real usefulness, fad appeal or low price difference before it hits the mainstrean. It's too far out in the 'noosphere' for now.
Re:I think this is the start of something new (Score:2)
There's gotta be a great joke in there somewhere, but I'm at a loss for one right now. That being said, I've seen one of these laptops in action and thought it was crap. The "3D" looks like one of those rigged images that shows a different picture when you look at a different angle. Basically it looked like it was just flipping between two slightly different views depending on where my head was. It also sucked a ton of juice.
Re:I think this is the start of something new (Score:2)
Re:I think this is the start of something new (Score:2)
Yes, I've seen them. I meant there must be a joke about dolphins selling laptops. Some sort of "Where are they now" entertainment story with Flipper in a suit selling laptops at Best Buy or something.
Re:But so what (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But so what (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, as an amateur 3D animator I'd really like to have something like this, it would really help a LOT when doing 3D stuff if I could quickly tell which parts of the wireframe are close
Re:But so what (Score:2)
The laptop can display photographs and 3D applications in stereo, with the actual depth field being +/-4 inches in front of and behind the laptop screen. The haptic pen provides force feedback to give you an idea where the surface is (resistance will increase if you try and move the pen into somewhere "solid", but will be flexible otherwise).
The two can be combined together with speci
3d post (Score:4, Funny)
Problem is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
first off. Nobody is fucking stupid enough to pay the full $300 for Windows. Only end-users get charged that. OEM's like Dell and other manufacturers have contracts and pay around 30-34 dollars per copy.
Second off, Emperor Linux doesn't get the Sharp without Windows. They buy it from the company with Windows installed just like you and I do, and just install Linux over it and sell it as a 'linux notebook'. If you look closely you'd notice that dual boot doesn't cost ext
Re:Problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not that bad for us since most of our customers still want dual-boot, but it's disheartening when somebody
orders a 100% Linux (the "no-Win situation" in our parlance) and still has to pay the same Windows license price. =/
Re:Problem is... (Score:2)
Isn't this blatantly illegal?
We're talking about a company that has been convicted of abusing there monopoly position multiple times. It seems like Microsoft forcing distributors to refuse to sell their laptops without Microsoft's OS is an obvious abuse of their monopoly position.
Have you filed a complaint with the FTC?
As someone who's been looking around for a Linux laptop, I am NOT willing to pay an extra $500 AND the Microsoft tax. It's a
Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
How exactly does Emporer Linux justify chargin $500 more for a computer without a licencsed OS?
I'm not great fan of Windows, but why should I pay $500 so that some screw up can spend 15min installing a version of Linux I don't like (vs one I do like)?
I think I've just stoped wondering why linux as a desktop OS has never taken off.
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
> before... and Sharp may never have heard of
> before, or reasonably close
We're actually official partners with Sharp, IBM, and Dell (working on Sony). The AL3D we demoed at Boston LWE was
a prototype that the Sharp mobile division guys hooked us up with. It's serial number was 3. =)
> They're probably paying full price, with MS tax
We do have to pay the microsoft tax, sadly.
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
-nod- If this thread isn't evidence enough, we find our biggest challenge is convincing potential customers that what
we do is far enough beyond what your average 30-minute Linux install gets you that it's worth our markup. The support is
a big part of that. Getting all the wacky drivers for wireless, modems, power managment, etc together is also not
as trivial as some people who haven't done it think it is. Considering that Sony
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
But, yeah, Linux hasn't taken over the desktop market because all the distros with OEM deals make crap.
time ~= money (Score:2)
They ot only install the OS but also add a whole bunch of other software.
Media players, full office suite, graphics programs, games, scientific programs, network utilities (more than you can count). Probably several hundred pieces of software.
Of course, its all free software. You could just do it yourself and save the money.
For the money you get to not have to spend your time installing and configuring the OS and software.
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
They justify it by doing stuff to it. Whatever stuff is and whatever pricetag they choose to put on stuff is their business. Your business is to decide whether or not you want to pay for stuff.
Their version of linux is just an option. You don't need to buy from them. Some people do want to pay for a pre-installed OS. And don't forget the PHB's who don't linke the sound of "cheap software/freeware". (Yes, I know the difference between freeware and free software.)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
> Your business is to decide whether or not you want to pay for stuff.
It is his business also to ask how stuff justifies the gap between $3499 [sharpsystems.com] and $4000 [emperorlinux.com].
Thanks for that LoneCabbage.
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2, Funny)
Their Linux is lovingly hand-crafter, rolled between the thighs of Indonesian virgins and each package is sealed with a kiss from Linus Torvalds himself. And it's not "Emporer", but EMPEROR!!! EMPEROR, damn your illiterate bones. The finest of Linuxes.
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:5, Informative)
> a version of Linux I don't like (vs one I do like)?
Somebody didn't rtfa (yeah yeah, I must be new here). First, we install all the major distros standard, and will do any
distro you like for an additional fee. I'm the maintainer of our Debian and Ubuntu installers, for instance. And, we
"justify" our markup because we put hundreds of hours of work into building a custom kernel for the machine that
supports everything on it. That's winmodems, wireless, all the power management features, etc. When necessary,
we write the code ourselves (and submit it upstream.)
We also provide technical support to all our customers, and frankly I suspect that's why most of them keep coming
back to us.
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:1)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
I've done Linux on laptops more than once, and I have to say that this markup is cheap at twice the price. The frustration of getting modems, wireless, graphics, power management, etc. etc. all working can be nearly overwhelming.
Yes, I know that some of you are kernel hackers, and write video drivers in your sleep. I am a good Oracle DBA, and a fairly deft hand with Linux, but I'm not a bona-fide expert. Dropping a modern distro on a desktop is a pretty straightforward job (though I still
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
You're criticizing a company for selling Linux distros under the terms dictated by the creators of the distro. If you order a laptop with Fedora Core 3, Red Hat doesn't see a penny. If you order RH9 with a 12 month tech support contract, Red Hat gets paid for it. It works this way because that's how Red Hat says EmperorLinux needs to do it.
So, who is getting ripped off?
Further, you fundamentally misunderstand the GPL. It says nothing about "free as in beer" and in fact eve
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
No actually you don't get my point.
It is a rip off to just burn an image (which in a production case you would do 8 to 16 or more at a time) stick it in a laptop and bang $500.00. What is that maybe 30 mins. work? OK you get support. Lets say all I want is the laptop. Will they drop the $500.00? I don't think so. Actually I have loaded Linux on a customers laptop for less. It took 3 hours and we get $100.00 and hour so $300.00 and this was for a one time (if you what to call it) "custom" load.
Our v
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
My entire point is that they don't just burn off an image, ship the laptop, and charge $500 extra. They charge $500 for additional services, including maint
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
Boy you like getting down on the "free as in beer" crack!
Must be because that is your only viable point.
Your STILL missing my point! I don't want the additional services!!!!!! I just want the laptop at a reasonable price! WITHOUT! the service plan!
Your still cannot buy this laptop without the service plan.
Speaking of the background work to keep up the OS. You think that a manufacture doesn't have to do all that for Windows based laptops? Think again. They must test, and maintain the images that th
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?! (Score:2)
100's of hours translates to over two weeks with only one person, no overtime. If hardware that the kernel doesn't recognize, and for which you are going to have to figure out HOW to write the kernel driver for is included, that seems like an underestimate. (Yes, I know it could easily also mean two people for nine weeks, toward the h
Dolphins? (Score:1, Funny)
Good choice of distros (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good choice of distros (Score:3, Informative)
It's not appealing to anyone.
Re:Good choice of distros (Score:1, Funny)
what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never heard of any software (CAD/CAM included) that is optimized for 3D glasses -- what utility does the A3CLU add to the computing experience?
And what linux apps are optimized for this? It would seem a bit of a waste if the only 3D tools were, say, KDE Widgets...
Besides the cool factor that is...
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm gonna go with "Jack Shit", at least at the moment. I mean, this is literally the first consumer product the bring this technology to market.
Although JackShit 2.1 (the development fork) has limited support for the technology right now. You can grab a CVS snapshot from Sourceforge.
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://ltc2.smm.org/visualize/node/64 [smm.org]
The real question is not what Linux software uses it, but why and when you'd want to use it in the first place. I remember a few years ago a man tried to sell me a pair of USB stereoscopic glasses at a game development conference. He just couldn't believe it when I told him that immersion doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being inside the medium.
I see this laptop will be marketed at imaging professionals needing a mobile presentation device that serves a larger audience than the standard LCD; Polarisation/blacking distortion is annoying when you're trying to sell your good-looking wares.
Don't think it will work with larger audience (Score:2)
From what I can tell, the good news about this laptop is that you don't need glasses to get the 3D effect.
The bad news is that you have to put your left eye where the left "viewing diamond" is and your right eye where the right "viewing diamond" is. Of course, this might just be my pessimistic side talking.
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:2)
That's probably why they've chosen Linux.
With free software community behind the project, soon there should be a plenty. Think "a box of Lego". Give it to a company expert and expect an analysis stating "This project isn't profitable enough". Give it to enthusiast kid and get some marvel made of it.
Lots of open source software just waiting to be modified to support the new feature (instead of begging manufacturers of the software to
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:2, Informative)
I guess that's the reason why they call this laptop "molecule".
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:2)
It is extremely useful to see in 3D when trying to mentally fit a drug compound into a binding pocket on a protein. Doing it in 2D is a pain.
This laptop (for me) will be GREAT for dragging along to academic conferences and business meetings. Being able to show people exactly what work I'm doing for their new drug or whatever will be a great thing.
A niche market, but everybody is a niche for one market or another.
Re:what software is positioned to take advantage? (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I work at Emperor Linux. We worked with the guys at Delano Scientific [delanoscientific.com] to get PyMol (the
open source Python molecule viewer) to get a demo of it ready for the show. However, the nVidia driver for Windows
already includes support for it directly, and the Sharp guys are working with nVidia to get that pushed into the
Linux nVidia drivers, so that any OpenGL app will work with the display. Even now, it only requires two additional
OpenGL calls to get a
Yes, but... (Score:1, Funny)
Finally... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, though--I just finally bought an LCD desktop monitor last October, when a 19" got below $400 with shipping (thank you, NewEgg!). I bought an MP3 player for $50 in December that accepts CF card media, which is about $60/GB (thanks AGAIN, NewEgg!). Now THAT's some cool shit.
time getting excited about it until they're selling enough volume to bring the pri
Re:Finally... (Score:3, Interesting)
Win-modems (Score:4, Informative)
They just forgot to add that there is no free Linux driver for software win-modems with Conexant chipsets. The best I could find was at http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/, with a free version limited to 14.4 kbps. Add $14.95 to the price, if you want your modem to work.
Re:Win-modems (Score:2)
Re:Win-modems (Score:1)
Re:Win-modems (Score:1)
Re:Win-modems (Score:1)
By the way, just from a equality point of view, I bought the thing for EUR 15,- and pay nothing to use it in Wi
Re:Win-modems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Win-modems (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to give away the family jewels (I work at Emperor Linux), but... check under the alsa heading of your kernel config,
and google for slmodem.
Supposed high-end laptop without a wireless card? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Supposed high-end laptop without a wireless car (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Supposed high-end laptop without a wireless car (Score:2)
Re:Supposed high-end laptop without a wireless car (Score:1)
Re:Supposed high-end laptop without a wireless car (Score:2)
mainly seeing interest from people who want to use them for scientific visualization, medical imaging, and so on.
Gamers are not the market Sharp had in mind, I think. =)
I will say though, that with a Dothan processor and 2.5" Sata hard drive (and nVidia 6200 video driving only
a 1024x768 screen), this is one of the fastest computers I've used.
If it's not obvious, I work at Emperor Linux.
Re:Supposed high-end laptop without a wireless car (Score:2)
New concept (Score:2, Funny)
Re:New concept (Score:2)
Which sounds great and all untill you see the first goatse and tub girl pics in glorious 3D...
... shudder ...
Gah price! (Score:5, Interesting)
(And I have to assume the sort of person who'd spend $3500 on a laptop to run Linux on either knows how to install Linux themselves or has people paid to do it for them)
Re:Gah price! (Score:4, Informative)
> Windows direct from Sharp. That seems a little pricey for a free OS, eh?
I responded to this above, but briefly:
o) All our laptops work out of the box with Linux. Wireless, power management, winmodems, etc. all work. Most
of our customers don't have time to spend half a week getting their laptops up and running, but they do need
Linux for a variety of reasons.
o) We provide Linux tech support to our customers.
Re:Gah price! (Score:2)
This isn't much of an argument. $500 would pay for half a day of my time at our full commercial rate, and I can easily imagine it taking me more than that to install Linux and kick all the drivers for Sharp's weirdo laptop hardware into action. So, paying someone else $500 while I earn the company more than that would make sense.
Whether th
One moe! (Score:2, Interesting)
It'd be great to see some statistics about that
Re:One moe! (Score:2)
A lot of our customers are engineers and research scientists, and a lot are college professors or otherwise attached
to education in some way. Most of them come to us because the already know they want Linux; we're not in the business
of trying to sell Linux, just Linux Laptops. =)
Now waiting... (Score:2)
Sharp AL3D Windows software beta for non AL3D user (Score:2, Informative)
WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG
I lead the team developing stereoscopic software that has been distributed with every Sharp stereoscopic 3D laptop ever produced. Well... All the Windows ones... If your interested in trying our DDD TriDef software with one of many stereoscopic viewing methods (anaglyph glasses; other glasses free 3d displays;) please send me an email mailto:Brendan.Langoulant@gmail.com [mailto].
DDD TriDef software enables you to:
Saw this at LinuxWorld (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Saw this at LinuxWorld (Score:2)
> to get the full effect
-nod- There's a little color-strip at the bottom that helps you find the right orientation. They're making big
strides in viewability though.
> but 2D res looked pretty low to me, I'll stick with my SXGA+ thinkpad thanks).
It's 1024x768. We're hoping the next generation is higher res. But, considering I'm on an IBM X31 right now, that's
the res I'm used to; th
Battery Life (Score:2)
Saw this in person at LWE (Score:2)
Re:Saw this in person at LWE (Score:2)
God... I wish I had a 3D display... think of the por... oh, never mind.
Bill
whee...I need one of those (Score:1)
8lb with a 1.3 hour battery for $4000, sign me up! (Score:2)
Seriously though, the trend is lighter and longer battery. Bigger and power hungry applications are the domain of the desktop (but hey, if they want to start using laptop tech to reduce power consumption, more power to them.) My back/shoulder demands it and lets face it, yes
Sharp quality is not very good (Score:1)
EmperorLinux puts out a good product (Score:4, Interesting)
I got the smallest of the small Sharp Actius laptops and they pre-loaded it with Debian Linux at my request. They don't just slap a Linux distro on and push it out the door, they make sure everything works as advertised, customizing whatever they need to to make sure it does. The modem works! Software suspend works!
The model I got comes with a really small battery, and I bought an optional larger battery that has more life, but has a big buldge in it. The unit itself has no removeable disk drives -- everything is attached via USB. It comes with a docking station which allows the laptop to be used as a USB hard drive while it's powered off. Way cool.
EmperorLinux provides a detailed manual on making the most of your laptop through the Linux environment. But enough about the geek stuff.
The most important thing of all: when I pull this baby out at Starbucks, the chicks all turn their heads. A Dell doesn't do that. A Titanium Powerbook doesn't do that (anymore).
Score!
I saw one at LinuxWorld... (Score:2)
I'll wait, I guess.
Still Can't Beat out the Mac (Score:1)
Re:kindergarten (Score:1)