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Phantom Lapboard Seeks to Evade Vaporware Status by Shipping this Year

Paul Lilly — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:56:55 -0600

If the Phantom Lapboard sounds familiar, it's because we covered the promising product earlier this year. After spending some hands-on time with the peripheral, it was clear Phantom had a winning design on its hands, provided the company could address the dropout issues with the mouse and other annoyances associated with the rodent. Whether or not the final version represented an improvement over the unit we played with was supposed to have been answered back in June when it was scheduled to be available in limited quantities.

June has come and gone, but the Lapboard is nowhere to be seen. Has it dropped off the face of the earth to become vaporware just as the Phantom Console did over two years ago? Not yet, and maybe not ever. Unlike the Phantom Console, which left Phantom's website as if it never existed, the company is still talking about the Lapboard. In a recent blog post, Phantom Development Consultant John Landino says Phantom has come up with inventory funding and paid for its first shipment of Lapboards, which the company hopes to start shipping in its yet-to-be-opened game store before the end of the year.

It's hard to argue with anyone who might be skeptical about this latest update, but remember that the Optimus Maximus was once well on its way to becoming vaporware before it started shipping.

Holographic Storage Gets Delayed to Late 2009, Just One Step Closer to Vaporware

Paul Lilly — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:04:14 -0600

While InPhase Technologies and its holographic storage solution has a long ways to go before it reaches Duke Nukem status for a laughably late product, the promised technology is beginning to smell a lot like vaporware. The company has been promising a holographic drive since early 2005, and now nearly four years later, InPhase has pushed back it's first drive ship date until late 2009.

On paper, the technology looks tantalizing. By altering the angle of lasers, data stored as holograms can be read or written and can co-exist in the same physical space. This translates into huge amounts of data to the tune of 800GB and even 1.6TB discs, according to the company's 3-generation roadmap.

The technology requires highly sophisticated and precise optics, development of which has been at the heart of the delays. InPhase had intended to ship it's first $18,000 drive in December, but in sorting out a last minute development problem, the company instead ended up laying off part of its workforce. Rumors suggest that as many has half of InPhase's staff may have been given a pink slip earlier this year.

So here's the big question: Which will come first, Duke Nukem Forever or holographic storage? Hit the jump and give us your prediction.

Opitmus Maximus: Keyboardus Disappearibus

Paul "One4yu2c" Lilly — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:45:38 -0500

The much anticipated OLED keyboard is a no-show at this year's CeBIT, which brings to question if it will ever see the light of day.