Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 303
Here's what I want a high quality, fast and truly usable tablet for: medical care. It should be possible to walk into a patient's room carrying a clipboard sized device that resembled a giant iphone.
As a psychologist working in medical settings I want a similar thing. I want an integrated system with a touchscreen that allows me to take notes while talking to my patients and generate a readable, final report from that information. I'd probably have to get the devkit and write the app myself. Using a laptop creates too much separation from the patient- they feel you're paying more attention to the computer than to them. As a jazz guitarist, I want an 8.5 x 11" or A4 form factor that will allow me to use digitized lead sheets instead of having to lug 500 pages of sheet music with me.
The biggest technical problems I foresee are back end problems, problems with the EMR software, and battery life.(hospital IT departments tend to fuck things up. If they bought a bunch of apple tablets, they probably wouldn't build and maintain the back end servers and wireless AP correctly)
Hospital IT departments and EMR programmers can't even manage sane password and username requirements ("passwords must have twelve characters with at least one and no more than two capitals and three digits, and must not match any of your ten previous passwords." Meaning everyone has to write down their username and passwords to keep track of them, creating a security risk. Duh.). They are a particular subtype of paranoid electron jockey who fail to understand that their job is to make information *available* to providers, not hide it from them.
Remember, YOU (the typical slashdotter running Linux with a windows box for games on desktop machines) are not the intended users for this tablet. YOU probably sit at a desk all day. You have enough technical expertise that tinkering is fun for you, and you don't mind the idea of a tablet on kludgey, cheap hardware that is running open source software.
There's always an inherent culture clash between computer enthusiasts and information appliance users. The majority of users fall into the latter category while the majority of Slashdotters are in the former group. If you understand regexps, you're probably out of touch with most users.