Hey cool! When will we see these on sale?

Haha, "Decives"
Kidding aside, they do look kinda neat.

$80 bucks for a MS Decive... the price really Deceives...

BTW, what I don't get is... why can't they implement this function in WM devices as a bonus...

Yeah, this is amazing.

Might encourage me to upgrade to Vista at some point.

On that subject, is compatibility with old programs any better yet, or is it still horrible?

It was never horrible.

The website says:
"A high-end SideShow device with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard will cost 'approximately $150'"
so I assume the $80 is the one without the keyboard.

Awesome. I hope we see more new designs at not so high prices.

If I can use Sideshow if I install Vista on my Mac, you bet I'll be buying it in the next few weeks.

Hey, that's some good news. Hopefully that means SideShow VMC remotes won't be too expensive either.

And jawzxy, I can't see why SideShow wouldn't work on your Mac under BootCamp...once the drivers are installed, as far as Windows cares it's just another PC.

Oh and Error404, I thought they were supposed to implement it in WM devices...hell, if you go to the SS control panel, it has a help link that says "How do I use my mobile phone or other device with Windows SideShow?" Guess an update or the next version of WM...bummer.

if these take off, it would be freakin awesome

Just another useless gadget... I can't think of any major useful uses for this. If you have a laptop, just use it. If you're in a location where you can't use your laptop, then just wait.

Oh well

Maybe I'm behind on the times on this, but by using bluetooth, won't you be broadcasting the data to anyone within range (possibly up to 100 meters away)? Or have they introduced (or will they be introducing) security measures for bluetooth? I'd be a little hesitant to use these devies for that reason. I once had a 900Mhz cordless phone, and was having a conversation , when some stranger chimed in in the middle of my conversation to give their opinion on the topic at hand... I was not amused, and promptly stopped using that phone - not a unique experience I gather, the way cordless phones have since gone through three generations of changes (increases in frequency, and security measures), but, for me, "once bitten..."

hey...quiksilver, people will always buy stuff, and even though it may not be 100% usefull, people will still use it. Poeple dont care about how practical it is...i mean, i could say the same about GPS or a palm pilot. Get a freaking map instead of an expensive GPS, and just wait to use your laptop instead of your Palmpilot.


Practicality is not the only selling point. Pragmatism never goes far in marketing.

"Hey...our new computer system that we will be selling only really needs to do a few things, and will be pretty cheap..."

"Yeha...but if we add a few useless features, some fancy gadgetry, and cool visuals, we can charge more and people will still buy it..."

"Ok!"

I think I'll be getting an Eee PC, before I consider Vista or a sideshow device. I'm quite content with my WM Pocket PC for the time being.

What would really be cool for me is if this could somehow function as a means to send/recieve IMs or Chats while away from the computer.

Say I finally get around to building that power-house PC and I put it in my room. Then I go to my TV to play my 360, someone IMs me on my PC and I can then IM them from this SideShow device. Another thing that would be cool, in this instance, is if I could view my Music on my PC, create a playlist, and then have the playlist stream from my PC to my 360 over the LAN (which is something I do fairly frequently right now, this would just take steps out of the equation).

that could actually be really cool. My only excuse for going on my computer a lot of times is because I just want to chat on AIM. If a sideshow device lets me do this, while I can leave my computer on my desk, it would be wonderful.

There goes M$ stealing Apple's inventions again.

All of the posts seem generally postive except one.

Anyway, I agree that this could be very big but they really need to stop stealing Apple'$ idea$

K, I admit, I would like to own one of these. I kind of wish Apple put something like this into OS X. I could think of a number of useful things for this. Displaying dashboard widgets (iStat Pro, wewt!), IMs, videos, iTunes info, The progress of a certain job (IE: transcoding process in ffmpegX being shown on one of these), showing off my massive collection of Cat Macros to friends whole putzing around on Gizmodo, displaying lists of shortcuts/key shortcuts (list of what key does what in PhotoShop), or RSS feeds (especially if it uses that same display the Apple RSS screensaver uses).

Apple really ought to consider using this technologies, especially if it can use the displays on people's existing devices (read: iPod and iPhone). THAT would make it a killer app, and might even get me to pay for an iPod dock.

maybe ive missed the whole slideshow thing(i have). but correct me if im wrong, all these things do is show pictures. and if it has to be hooked up to your computer(i really dont know, looks like it) whats the point?

your monitor should be bigger than that (hopefully) and your computer would be about 6 feet away.

the only reason i would get excited about this is to hack it, (slidelinux anyone?)

@Serpent2:

Exactly what are they stealing from Apple? Where similiar technology could Apple have?

first it needs a reason to exist. Even at $50 its expensive for a little screen that just display filler. especially for a touchscreen.

not to mention Microsoft doesn't want it to replace their other stuff. Even then this needs to be integrated since yesterday, not become an addon 5% windows Vista users have to be a selling point..

With the continual advancements in display technology, these could be even cheaper by the time they come out.

Wow. I want one. And I'm a rabid Apple fanboy.

Yeah, but do they run Linux?

So it's got a new hat?

@heyyou: There is a lot more than pictures going on and you can be more like 50-100 feet away according the the manufacturer. And while a laptop makes these devices less practical, they will stretch PC functionality into other rooms.

The idea is to have these intergrated into the top covers of laptops, too, as a detachable unit and being able to access the informaiton ont he hdd without turning on the laptop completely. That means access to MP3s, emails, docs, etc without turning on the laptop.. which translates to 200hrs of battery life some how (from what I read. Must be refering to caching the mp3s/docs/emails you will be using onto the device and using the laptop as a charging station inbetween uses). So it is kind of a cut down PDA and synching I guess. I am all for this as I think it is great. The decice shown in the article is of particular interest to a lot of people becuase basically it looks like it can be a txt device that you can use from anywhere in your house. If multiple decives can be connected to a PC it could save a lot of family fueds between who gets to use the computer. A lot of times sisters just want to go to chat with their frrends while us dudes like to play games and stuff. Anyway, you can see that there are so many different applications for this type od technology.

and quikboy: M$ stole the concept from apple.. It is too cool for M$ to have thought this up. /sacrasm. No, it was a joke becuase everytime there is a new implimentation of hardware or software widget (search, a web browser, a callander, etc) applites shout how Apple pioneered the whole thing and ushered in a new era of the way people use their computers.

For some reason I keep thinking that a smalkl company came up with the concept/design/device and nvidia bought them out

Jeepers, that keyboard looks rinky-dink!

RJ

cool concept. we'll see how well it actually works in practice. that keyboard is miserable. if you're going to have one, why not make it decent? one advantage to MS land, though, is that many companies will make competing products and hopefully some company will make one of these that is worth a crap.

Wow, it's great to hear that the price of SideShow devices is actually quite reasonable. And I'm rather surprised at the number of people who were entirely missing the point of these devices. At least Serpent2 pointed out some of the possibilities this technology holds. They're incredibly useful. I've been waiting for SideShow capable remote controls to show up ever since CES back in January. I personally want it for Media Center use so that there isn't always the necessity to turn on a big screen TV just to play music or do some menial task.

In fact, here's a great post by Chris Lanier that talks about a lot of the usefulness SideShow could have:
[msmvps.com]

By the way, Ricavision is the maker of the products Giz mentioned above. They're also the ones making that remote I just referred to. Giz has already had posts about the remote before. I think they also had a post about a messenger bag with a SideShow device built in.