Futurustic Laptop Design

Now that the iPad has come out, many people have wondered where the future of clam-shell design laptops
will go. Thankfully, designers still have many ideas that will work
particularly well for laptops in coming years. Not everything is
possible in reality yet, but make no mistake: what designers come up
with today is what engineers will make reality in the future.

One idea is to make the clam-shell laptop design hold dual touch-screens, rather than a keyboard side
and a screen side. One of the touch screens could also have a tactile
feedback system; when used as a keyboard, it feels like a
real keyboard. Another idea is to use a display that isn't on a
screen, but relayed to a wall in the house. You could even use
flexible screens to allow your laptop to be rolled up when not used.
(Such screens are available with today's technology, though they are
not touch-sensitive.) A common feature of new designs is to reduce
the size of pretty much everything involved. With a heads-up
projected display, the hardware can get smaller in each iteration
while maintaining the same size display. All of these ideas are of
course just futuristic design ideas, and do not even have working
prototypes available.

The Canova design uses an innovative
way of combining the classic clamshell design with new dual-screen
abilities. Created by Milan design firm V12 Design in 2008, the dual
touch-screen displays can also be held as a book, or even laid flat
to have a single maximal touchscreen. Although many other futuristic
designs are possible (as seen in the previous paragraph), what makes
V12's Canova design special is that Estari, a laptop manufacturer in
the United States, was so impressed with their design that they decided to see
what they could make out of materials available today. Their result
is the second generation Canova, a dual screen laptop that hinges at
a different place than traditional clamshell designs.

The second generation Canova improves
on the first design by allowing the system to be maneuverable in was
the first design couldn't. Each of the 15.4-inch screens can be
locked into positions relative to the other. This makes the dual screen
laptop capable of acting as an easel, propping up as though it were a
backward clamshell design, or even as a dual laptop, allowing two
users to work simultaneously.

Estari claims that they will be able to
release the laptop at a $400 price point. Many experts doubt this claim, especially since it sports dual touch screens of
significant size. However, if they can afford to get it out at that price,
then it will likely be very successful with consumers from all budgets and walks of life.

The Notebook Estari Canova dual-head is
currently still under development, but it should be available
commercially sometime in the next year or two.