Another of Vista’s features has been relegated to the side lines. The SideShow feature which was supposed to be made available on laptops is almost nowhere to be found. This feature was to allow users to view such information as unread emails, weather reports and a calendar. All of this could be viewed without actually booting the laptop.

But it’s a gimmick. The SideShow information is display in a small LCD display on the lid of the laptop and in order to have the most recent information displayed, the laptop has to be booted so SideShow can synch with the widget. Computer World knows why SideShow has more or less failed but no one really knows what to do about it.

Manufacturers supporting this feature are few and far between, Asus has all of one laptop available that supports the feature, and others are reportedly on the drawing board but are not yet available for purchase.

Many companies don’t want to develop widgets for this feature because there is no revenue in it and others want to start displaying ads in these types of widgets which will just kill any hope this technology has of making it to the mass market.

As for needing to view information every single second of the day, people that think they do, have a problem and they need to admit they have a problem before the healing can begin. If you want to know the latest news, weather or sports just boot your laptop, it’s what 30 seconds out of your life plus I don’t fancy the idea of viewing any information on such a tiny display in the first place.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 4:40 am under Microsoft, Vista.  Print This Post

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