Kudos to Bink for turning me on to the new development in the SideShow device family. If you’re as ignorant as I am, you’ve certainly viewed SideShow as another irrelevant laptop addon, such as marketed by NVidia Preface. The big selling point of Preface is that you can walk up to your laptop while its off and do a very limited set of functions such as playing mp3s or checking your calendar. Now, show of hands of people that have laptops that are off? Thats right, nobody.
But, this new-to-me development in the SideShow gadget land is certainly becoming very interesting. For about $80 to $150 you can get a separate SideShow device, such as this eChatter that can let you view messages, read blogs and utilize little Vista Gadgets which I’m slowly starting to fall in love with. Why is this cool? Because it brings an additional sense of mobility and connectivity, no matter where you are in your house.
Unlike queenie most of us don’t have palaces and castles spanning acres so the bluetooth connectivity just might be good enough. Interesting possibilities – the the ability to go into a meeting without that 15–17” monitor blocking the view of others, ability to read a quick blog post or check the calendar without holding the 5lb laptop in your lap in bed, etc. Could this be the final answer in the decade long search for the mythical home/office mobile communicator?
For the less coherent, more grammatically correct realtime insight, follow me on Twitter at