Concept for streaming an app to a dedicated viewport device

The idea is that you would have a small, inexpensive touch screen displays throughout your house that could each act as a dedicated viewports for a single Immersive app, somewhat like the concept behind SideShow.  So, you could have a Weather display sitting on the counter in your kitchen, and a Alarms display on the end table next to your bed, and a Calendar display on your office desk. They would all connect though your PC to get the data.

There is no reason you couldn't do this with Win8 tablet devices. It wouldn't really be necessary to connect via the PC directly though, web services and shared configuration and state using Windows Live. The only real difference is that you wouldn't be constrained to just one use, so your Weather display in the kitchen could be swapped into a recipe book whilst you're cooking.

Too bad the screens are the most expensive part of a computer. Instead of a remote screen, how about an animatronic figure from the past, perhaps Abraham Lincoln that could blather on about how some historical event was totally misconstrued in todays textbooks. Occasionally, your app would make him say that he is hearing voices telling him that you better get going to your appointment, or ask you to purchase some eggs because he would like to watch you eat an omelet, or something completely otherwise ridiculous, except that it would be coming out of a program that you installed and therefor pertinent, to you, in some kind of strangely personal way.

-Josh

6 hours ago, AndyC wrote

There is no reason you couldn't do this with Win8 tablet devices. It wouldn't really be necessary to connect via the PC directly though, web services and shared configuration and state using Windows Live. The only real difference is that you wouldn't be constrained to just one use, so your Weather display in the kitchen could be swapped into a recipe book whilst you're cooking.

Well, at that point you only need one tablet anyways don't you, and maybe a stand in each commonly used location?

17 hours ago, JoshRoss wrote

Too bad the screens are the most expensive part of a computer.

Which means all the masses of punters will be buying the cheapest Windows 8 tablets available for sale (because Apple controls the high-end) - which means they're all going to have horrible displays with poor viewing angles and shoddy colour quality. Which means Windows 8, as a platform, is going to get a bad reputation compared to Apple's stack. I wonder what Microsoft has planned to counter this.

@W3bbo: I hit wrong button and marked your message as spam instead of hitting the reply button. There really should be an unmark as spam button.

Anyway, there are screens that you can use as a digitizer, and there are screens that can read what is on it. It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft licensed some of the Surface tech to Windows8 OEMs for nothing.

Someone said something like this... If you previously got nothing for something then you could later expect to get something for nothing. 

-Josh