| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : NOVEMBER 15, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| TECH BUYING GUIDE -- HANDHELDS
The Internet Is Here to Stay, but the Computer? Like many of his contemporaries, Tola Chin loves to surf the Internet. But the 21-year-old Las Vegas native hates the idea of having to use a computer to do it. ''A keyboard and mouse are inefficient,'' he says. ''It's an unnatural way to browse the Web.'' So he has come up with another way. He has designed a Web browser that he calls the SurfBoard. At first glance, it looks like one of the new electronic books, a notebook-size tablet with a liquid crystal display on top. But there's a difference. At the right margin is a sheaf of plastic pages. They're not real pages, but when you pick up the book and flip through the pages with your thumb, the image on the screen changes, flipping through the virtual Web pages. Want to bookmark a specific site? Just slip a real bookmark between the right pages. The SurfBoard is still a concept, just sketches and a ream of plastic pages clamped together. Chin intends to have a full-scale plastic model by the end of the year. At that point, the whole thing will be junked. It's all for a project at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., where he's a senior majoring in product design. Teamed with graphic arts students, four groups are busy coming up with new ideas to address the future ''Internet Habitat.'' TALK TO THE ANIMALS. The ideas range from zany to profound. One team proposes wireless receivers to bring the Internet to primitive cultures. Powered by solar or mechanical energy, the rugged, disposable handheld units would use icons to warn of impending drought, say. Another group is focusing on travel scenarios, including a way to communicate with your pets while you're on the road. This is not idle daydreaming, however. The little-known Art Center has long been one of the country's premier design schools. Now, companies--partly motivated by the knowledge that in five years the students will be designing for their competitors--pay fees from $25,000 to $50,000 to sponsor the projects. For Internet Habitat, PC maker Acer Inc. picked up the tab. On Oct. 28, design executive Robert Hwang flew in from Acer's Taipei headquarters to critique the project at midterm. In December, the class will make formal presentations to Acer management. ''Acer has seen the writing on the wall,'' says Steven M. Montgomery, an Art Center instructor and a principal of BioDesign Inc., his own design firm in Pasadena. ''The computer as we know it is going away.'' It's unlikely that Chin's SurfBoard will be the eventual replacement for Web browsing. Indeed, sponsors are barred from commercializing the students' ideas. But as new technologies race toward obsolescence, companies are eager to hear ideas wherever they can get them. And where better than with the generation that will be implementing them? By Larry Armstrong in Pasadena, Calif. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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