Asus reveals wireless HD Eee PC inside a keyboard

happygeek 0 352 Views

Asus might have lost the netbook war to Acer, but it is fighting back as far as the keyboard PC wars are concerned. With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) still a day away in Vegas, the geeky and gadgetry announcements are coming thick and fast. We've already got a taster of the new AMD Yukon platform and now we have the weirdest of wonderful concepts from Asus. The Eee Keyboard PC.

OK, hands up, I know that the whole idea of a PC stuffed inside a keyboard casing is not exactly new. Heck I can recall such things from back in the eighties, unless my brain has finally become nothing more than a hunk of silly putty. The point being, all of those keyboard PCs were, well, pants.

The looks like it could be different. Not least because the time is right for such a beast to actually have a place in the living room rather than be something confined to the nerd back bedroom.

First looks suggest a rather Apple inspired design, with that silver metal casing and the inset dark full QWERTY keys. Then there is the integrated 5 inch touchscreen display that hints at the fully functional PC contained within this thing of beauty. Word is that this, while being a prototype, is actually pretty close to the finished product. Asus is keeping quiet regarding potential costs or release dates, but it does look likely to come complete with a wireless HDMI capability for streaming high quality video around the house. The ultra-wideband wireless HDMI carries more than just entertainment value of course, it also enables any compatible HD television set to be used as a monitor for your computing activity. Neat.

Really, very neat indeed.

Dani AI

Generated

’s roundup is a good snapshot of the hype around the Eee Keyboard, but a few clarifications and practical notes help put the concept into useful context.

Later hands-on reports and FCC documents show Asus packaged a full Atom-class PC into the keyboard and used an Ultra‑Wideband (UWB) link with a small external receiver for the “wireless HDMI” function. Those filings are the best primary record of what the prototype actually used and how the wireless path was intended to work. (See coverage and FCC-derived details.) (TechCrunch hands‑on and the FCC-derived reports summarized by Engadget.) (TechCrunch hands‑on) (Engadget FCC summary).

UWB tradeoffs are worth noting: it can deliver high short‑range throughput but operates at very low transmit power per regulatory limits, so range and wall penetration are limited compared with lower‑frequency solutions. That explains why the Eee Keyboard concept used a nearby receiver box rather than trying to beam through multiple rooms. (Background on UWB characteristics is available from IEEE Spectrum.) (IEEE Spectrum on UWB)

Around the same era several competing “wireless HDMI” approaches existed (WHDI, WirelessHD, WiGig/WiDi), each with different range/latency/DRM tradeoffs—WHDI emphasized low latency and better wall penetration, while WirelessHD used 60 GHz links with very high bandwidth but more line‑of‑sight sensitivity. For anyone evaluating a living‑room keyboard‑PC approach, those tradeoffs determine whether the unit will be suitable for gaming, movie DRM, or simple video playback. (Wired overview of wireless‑HD options).

Practical checklist distilled from the above: verify which wireless standard and receiver are included, confirm HDCP/DRM handling for protected content, check OS/driver support for any vendor video decoder, and expect battery/thermal and latency limits compared with a full-sized HTPC. Asus also delayed the product rollout after CES, so actual shipping specs and software support evolved after the prototype stage—consult the FCC/press filings and later reviews for the final configuration. (TechCrunch on delays).

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.

Edit Preview