Pop Slate

Interesting idea ties an e-ink screen into a smartphone case.

http://www.indiegogo.com/popslate

@Ian2: I love e-ink, they are so readable in direct sunlight!

I'm not sure I understand. Who is going to provide the applications for this? An e-reader in the back of the phone is pure genius, but it won't amount to much if it cannot access the Amazon (or similar) store.

The funny part:

"There is a micro-USB charging port on your popSLATE that passes charge through to your phone so you don't have to take the cover off."   

Makes more sense than that Windows 7 laptop feature. Forget what it was called, but laptops had a small LCD on the bottom or something and you could read emails and stuff...never saw any use case in which someone would use that.

It was called Sideshow and everyone though it was SLIDEshow so they never understood it PLUS it was pretty much useless.

3 minutes ago, Harlequin wrote

Makes more sense than that Windows 7 laptop feature. Forget what it was called, but laptops had a small LCD on the bottom or something and you could read emails and stuff...never saw any use case in which someone would use that.

@Harlequin:The gadget man in me still wanted one but I never actually made the plunge (bit pricey)

@Harlequin: I could sort of see the appeal, I had one of those flip-phones once with a second screen on the lid and always found that quite convenient, I could've seen a similar thing working with PC's. Unfortunately it was pricey, OEM's once again screwed it up, and the whole thing ran on the gadgets framework (IIRC) which was never quite up to snuff.

Wasn't SideShow originally a Vista feature, not 7?

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I think the explosion of smartphones kind of made it moot.

2 hours ago, dentaku wrote

It was called Sideshow and everyone though it was SLIDEshow so they never understood it PLUS it was pretty much useless.

*snip*

If you think about it, SideShow was the precursor of the notifications on the lock screen of Windows8/Phone8.  The idea was there, but the implementation was lacking.  Given the thin low power displays you can get these days it might have worked better.

I think Microsoft missed a trick by not implementing a full screen App option for the lock screen (like the HP Touchpad)