Notion Ink Demos Adam Leaves System and Desktop
Tonight comes the newest installment in the EDEN system of demos, this one VII and the first one to be done direct from the screen via the HDMI out to a computer at Notion Ink. This means a much better looking quality video, but still without sound. Improving ever so steadily! This video features a look at the Leaves system of working with the tablet and a tiny glance at the desktop. Leaves take each of your apps (apps that are ready to work with Leaves, of course) and turns them into sort of big widgets. They say that since things like feeds, Tweeting, Facebooking, and changing a song aren't full-fledged apps in themselves, they shouldn't need a full app open! Enter Leaves – or panels, if that's what you'd like to call them. Check it out!
Each Leaf is an app instance (or widget, if you will,) that does basic tasks. Each of these Leaves sits aside the rest in a big row. You can cycle through these leaves with a swipe of your finger. They stop with three leaves to a screen each time you let go, the closest combination to be sticking. Browser in Leaf mode is considered a mini app running "mobile optimized" sites for quick access to the web. This whole situation keeps a close eye on your bandwidth and Data.
All the way on your left is your Alpha Leaf or Home Leaf. Here you can see all of the leaves currently open, as well as offering you quick access to all of your current activities (basically showing you every app that's currently open, the same way your dock works on your desktop, to out understanding here.) They say they've retained Android's basic way of handling apps, but with more free RAM.
Each leaf can be launched into its full app mode. Once you're done with an app, your Home key of course brings you back to your row of Leaves. For things like calculator, the most basic functions are in the Leaf, while the expanded app shows more scientific functions.
Sniffer Leaf is a special Leaf that allows you to browse folders, preview, and open files. Funtions like delete, copy, and more are available in the expanded app. They note that while database functions tend to work slower, Sniffer runs fast!
They speak shortly about the keyboard showing secondary keys above each letter and characters, noting the lack of lines between keys as your brain doesn't need them to type. They say switching between Leaves is quick and fun, and that they've worked with Mentor Graphics to use Tegra's GPUs to the core.
Up in the left hand corner, very tiny, you'll note a button that turns red and blinks whenever you've got a notification. This button expands to your full notifications bar whenever you click it!
The Dual Cores are handled in the following way: Eden keeps the CPU hot plugged, meaning that whenever required, one of the Dual Cores can be shut down. The cores work to this rule: anything less than 250MHz of processing power needed you've got one core working, as soon as the requirement hits 500MHz, the second one switches on (what about in between? We guess that the 1 to 2 switchover actually happens around 250MHz.)
Finally, to access the desktop, all you've got to do is two-finger-swipe down, to get back to Leaves, just two-finger-swipe back up. The desktop is very similar to your home screen on Android devices now, holding a big bunch of icons with multiple screens for more available. Take a peek at the full video now!
[Via Android Community]