BumpTop is run/funded by a group of over-zealous VCs in Toronto that think they are going to be bought out. In reality, their prototype is unintuitive and requires heavy knowledge of gestures and sequences, something that has not worked in the past and will continue to fail in the future.
This brings up a question I'm still to find a good answer for: apart from doodling on the screen, what makes a tablet worth paying significantly more for?
@longbourne: If you need to be able to hold your computer while working on it. If you use a lot of mouse heavy applications but don't have space for a mouse everywhere.
Back when I was studying computer science we learned a principle of user interfaces. The simpler you make an interface the slower it is to work in. GUI's are simpler to work in than command shell but slower. If anything this will increase the time it takes to do anything just by adding the task of having to navigate around your desktop.
It looks like they put a lot of effort into their product, but I think that problem comes down to, that mimicking 3d real life doesn't equal a easier or more eifficient way to organize files, opposed to the 2D grid structure we have now. I think where the problem is in this case is we can only intereact with this inviroment in a 2d sense, where out fingers are able to touch the screen. Because of this it's not a perfect interface, and approximations or "tricks" have to be use to make it seem more 3d, when really we can only touch a 2D peace of glass.I believe I heard it described like this. Imagine standing outside your house looking through a window. Now try to control and move the furniture and items in your house from the window. Even if you can have some intuitve gestures, it would be far better to just walk into your house and interact with them in 3d. The best way to interact with 3d is 3d, and the best way to interact with 2d is 2d. Since we still can only interact 2 dimensionally, then the best interface we can use currently is a one based in a 2d world. You can add 3d elements to it, to add some depth, but when you try to make a full 3d enviroment you will always be working in slices of 2d enviroments that you have to try and move through, which until we can interact in a fully 3d way will be cumbersome.
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Didn't like BumpTop when beta-tested it a year ago.
It's a resource hog that ran laggy even on a laptop with good specs. Additionally, the look of the product needed a lot of work. It wasn't nearly ready for prime then and I doubt it is now.
@jedimaster0103: Because you shouldn't have to connect to the web to run a memo app?
Sometimes websiters are better than apps. There are many websites and services that have slow and chunky native apps. A lot of people prefer the Fandango site to the iPhone app, and Digg and Reddit's sites are 5x faster than any app for them in the App Store, including Reddit's official one.
@Jonathan Moll: And, really you don't have to (connect to the web for a memo app). Mobile Safari supports both cache manifests, and the HTML5 implementation of local databases.
@jedimaster0103: Web apps can be far better than you imagine. I vast portion of the App Store catalog could easily be implemented as web apps, and quite competently, I might add.
Or maybe it should ship with an anti virus program that brings a digital representative of the little bastard Punch-Out! style and let you shadow box the shit out of it. Although, the scale of winning or losing would be pretty drastic: "You Win! Virus Deleted."... I don't want to think about the losing screen... Wait, I don't have to, I use a Mac. :).
@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: oh how I miss the G4s... :::sigh::: the new trackpad and keyboard will definitely grow on you, though, if/when you end up with a newer notebook If you give it a fair chance, you'll never go back :)
@brobot: I got a black MacBook when they first came out. I returned it after two weeks for several reasons, chief among them was my dislike for the keyboard. My two favorite laptop keyboards are the PowerBook and my Thinkpad.
And before anyone chimes in about using an external keyboard, it's something extra to lug around and it defeats the purpose of having a built-in keyboard (IMO anyway).
Let's be realistic. First and foremost, we don't know if it's going to work as the videos show. I'm not convinced. As I mentioned on Kotaku, at least Nintendo had Metroid Prime running with a wiimote and chuck combination to show that the tech worked in a real gaming environment.
No word on how much it's going to cost...how would you play a Street Fighter with that?
People bitched and bitched about how Wii wasn't 1:1 in regards to Red Steel. I had to ask...how many of you games know how to use a Katana? Same with a fighting game...people are getting moist because of Natal's advertised 1:1 controls...sweet, okay bucko, do a hurricane kick to show that 1:1 support...
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I'll wait.
oh, having issues? ok let's make it simple. Just do a tiger knee then...
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...
Still can't get it right? yeah that's what I thought.
@Striderhayasa - Can we get some damn m/kb support?!: Well this technology was tested last year and shown to work really well, and without lag. I somehow doubt it will be as nice as in Microsoft's video, but the demos of the technology we've seen in public are really nice.
@ArtisticThought: what i see are a lot of mini game compilations and some limited adventure games. How would you play Gears with that? How would you play Call of Duty with that? RE6? how?
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BumpTop currently requires good OpenGL support from your video card - so a graphics driver update usually fixes any performance issues you encounter.
BumpTop runs great on small Atom netbooks with Intel 950 graphics, delivering over 30fps.
Feel free to contact us if you encounter slow performance and we'd be happy to help you improve it!
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It's a resource hog that ran laggy even on a laptop with good specs. Additionally, the look of the product needed a lot of work. It wasn't nearly ready for prime then and I doubt it is now.
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Sometimes websiters are better than apps. There are many websites and services that have slow and chunky native apps. A lot of people prefer the Fandango site to the iPhone app, and Digg and Reddit's sites are 5x faster than any app for them in the App Store, including Reddit's official one.
06/24/09
@jedimaster0103: Web apps can be far better than you imagine. I vast portion of the App Store catalog could easily be implemented as web apps, and quite competently, I might add.
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Or maybe it should ship with an anti virus program that brings a digital representative of the little bastard Punch-Out! style and let you shadow box the shit out of it. Although, the scale of winning or losing would be pretty drastic: "You Win! Virus Deleted."... I don't want to think about the losing screen... Wait, I don't have to, I use a Mac. :).
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My trusty 15" G4 still has plenty of life left in it yet..
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And before anyone chimes in about using an external keyboard, it's something extra to lug around and it defeats the purpose of having a built-in keyboard (IMO anyway).
06/01/09
It isn't hard to know where a finger is. :P
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06/01/09
No word on how much it's going to cost...how would you play a Street Fighter with that?
People bitched and bitched about how Wii wasn't 1:1 in regards to Red Steel. I had to ask...how many of you games know how to use a Katana? Same with a fighting game...people are getting moist because of Natal's advertised 1:1 controls...sweet, okay bucko, do a hurricane kick to show that 1:1 support...
...
...
I'll wait.
oh, having issues? ok let's make it simple. Just do a tiger knee then...
...
...
...
Still can't get it right? yeah that's what I thought.
I'm not convinced.
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