I bought an electronic devices this morning. It is more like a PDA, has touch screen with its light pen, cellphone support with any type of card, 12 megapixels cameras on the front and on the back added with a cool flash light.

I saw the hardware specification on the box, it also has 2GB memory, dual 64 bit processor 3 GHz, 2TB mini harddrive, 1GB graphic memory, 32bit sound, complete network support (wireless, mini RJ-45, bluetooth, infra red).

On the left, there's a mini RJ-45, IRDA receiver, and 2 mini USB. On the right there are sound connector (speaker, mic, line in), and 1 mini video output (complete with additional converter jack accessories). The box says that I can watch tv and listen to radio, with special bundled software I will be able to record them too !

Bundled software : Operating System, Office, Multimedia Player and Recording, Phone Manager and Answering Machine, Internet Browser, Instant Messenger, Network Manager, Anti Virus, etc. If I want more applications, I can install them later.

It is only $450, very cheap isn't it ?

Now it's time to try it ! I turn it on, in less then a second, the screen appears and ready to use. I read the step by step guide on the manual book.

First chapter is about how to function the devices to be a desktop computer. Get a USB hub, plug usb keyboard and mouse. The usb and mouse icons appear on the top of screen. Plug video converter jack and connect a monitor, monitor icon appears. Click Start - Settings - Mode - Desktop Mode. A common desktop view appears on the monitor and I can use it as a desktop computer.

But there's a warning not to shutdown the computer. I try it anyway by pushing the on/off button, the screen goes blank and it says : Sorry, this is just a dream. Wake Up !

Poor you. Though, I am glad that I have never had such a nerdtastic dream.

What makes me laugh slightly is that, given a few years or perhaps a little more, devices similar to that one might be pretty commonplace. Miniaturisation is going at such a ridiculous rate that the idea above is by no means impossible, nor unlikely. Now the slightly scary thought: if we can make computers that small that powerful, what are the desktop ones going to be like...?

I'll leave that thought hanging for you to ponder...

That would be a pretty awesome PDA, I thought it was real for a second when I was reading it lol. Regarding the 12MP camera, they have a lot of "12 MP" cameras in Asia on cell phones and PMPs, but the stupid thing is that they are interpolated, so the camera would actually have a 5MP censor, but the pictures would come out as 12MP, the quality would be so terrible, even though the picture would be huge. Maybe in a few years, such a computer would exist...

Actually, before I forget to talk about cameras, the idea of a "modulated" design - so that you can quite literally build your own system from a large number of seperate chunks of hardware (ranging from, say, RAM to a built-in camera) strikes me as a damned awesome idea.

Imagine being able to replace parts of your phone / PDA / whatever with a few simple flicks of a switch. Compatibility could be an interesting problem, but if all of the parts identify what they are and the component is in the "knowledge-base" of the rest of the system then it would know what to do with it. Think of it as the next level of plug-and-play.