Entertainment-productivity mashups, lockdown tablets and 5G on the desktop: Tech show shakes stylus at post-COVID world

This year’s instalment of Berlin's Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) conference was… different. In normal times, the trade show is an opportunity for tech businesses to press the flesh with buyers, for start-ups to burn through some pennies by taking some floor space to spread their name and for almost 250,000 attendees to …

[Anonymous Coward]

Touch screen monitor

That TCL tablet is entry level, similar to the Samsung S6 Lite, it won't set the world alight. There are already plenty in that price bracket with that spec.

Look, if you're not prepared to delivery a killer business tablet, how about instead you deliver an Android Box that supports touch screen monitors? i.e. it supports the USB drivers typically needed for a 4K touch screen monitor to get the touch info, and it drives 4K screens, and has the biggest/fastest ARM processor possible.

That way, we can simply assemble a desktop machine with a 4K touch screen of decent size and actually get a productive Android machine, not these tiny-screen'd tablets with letter box displays that Samsung and others churns out.

That is easily within the capabilities of TCL, and the rest of the Chinese makers. Buy out Huawei's Kirin processors, since they'll be looking to sell that.

You already support mice, keyboards, 4K, its the display holding the Android device back and those large touchscreens are usually a simple USB interface so the missing part is the software. The processors are already available.

So that is totally doable.

[Anonymous Coward]

MHL3

Looks like I simply need to find a touch 4K monitor that supports MHL3 and if Samsung has done their job correctly, the monitor's will send touch data over the MHL3 connection back to the Galaxy tablet S7+ so I can make a big screen 'desk' tablet by adding the correct touch-screen without switching to the Dex *mouse* WIMP mode and touch will work.

Scratch that Galaxy Tab S7+ spec "MHL No ", it doesn't support MHL, so it doesn't support touch data over MHL3.

So close and yet so far.

There are plenty of TV boxes for less than $20 a unit, I know you can drop in a Logitech Keyboard and Wireless mouse dongle and you get an Android PC with a mouse interface. But I don't want a mouse interface style on Android! Not all apps support it.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=tv+box+android+s912

Also they don't support 4K. They're "Allwinner H6" chips and "Amlogic S912s" and these chips drive a display at 1080p, they support 4K but only for video playback on a 4K display surface. Play games on those devices and the games run at 1080p, even Open GL games. Android apps work at 1080p.

So Chinese makers.

1) Add support for touch from the monitor. Both via USB and via MHL3. So that I can plug in a touch monitor and get a touch interface on Android.

2) Pump up the processor, Kirin 990, latest Qualcomm or Samsung processors.

3) Support 4K for the Android interface and OpenGL surfaces.

And you've built yourself an Android PC.

No need to wait for leadership from Google (and don't expect it either, they're rudderless), you can own your own PC marketplace.

Dear TCL, you make monitors, you make Android tablets, you make Android TV built into TVs. So what you're missing is *touch* interface and a decent processor to create an all-in-one Android PC.

[Giles C]

€900 for a hob

I bought a 4 ring induction hob for £225 what on Earth does this thing to to make it worth almost 4 times as much?

And what is the point of a smart hob, if you are heating anything up you need to be near in case it boils over, burns catches light etc. Not sitting playing on a phone.

[ThatOne]

Re: €900 for a hob

> what is the point of a smart hob

Hey, hey, you're questioning the very utility of IoT here! Stop, you're about to destroy human civilization!