Interesting People mailing list archives

IP: New toy coming


From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 08:27:38 -0500




Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 09:40:34 +0000
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: New toy coming

Dave,
        Apologies if you've already seen this on RCFoC.

        Denis.



It weighs four ounces, is about 5 by 3 inches in size, contains a QWERTY
keyboard and LCD display, and holds half a megabyte of memory.  It can
connect
to a PC to exchange files and download Email, and it contains a 900 MHz
wireless transceiver that allows IMing (Instant Messaging) with others
within about
300 feet.  If you scatter a bunch of these devices around an area they
expand the IM reach by automatically acting as relay points for devices
farther away.

It supports wireless interactive gaming.  It contains a To-Do list, phone
book, Spanish/English dictionary, Music Composer, calculator, alarm clock,
and
more, and it will scan the profiles of other devices in the area, notifying
you with a vibrating alert when someone that interests you approaches.  In
the future,
it will also play MP3 music files.

Sounds like this might be the next high-end Palm Pilot or Windows CE
organizer, but it's not.  It's a new toy.

It's Cybiko, from a company of the same name
(http://www.cybiko.com/what.html), and this translucent, wavy-looking
handheld "toy" is destined to hit the
streets in March for $149, targeted at the 10 to 17 year old crowd (so,
teachers, just imagine a school populated with a swarm of these devices.)

...



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