15 Future-Laptop Concepts: The Fascinating and the Far-Fetched

This oddball concept is fascinating, though wildly impractical. It consists of a series of pens with shortwave radio frequency, a computer base station (probably in the napkin holder), and several "napkins" that are in fact multitouch, color e-paper surfaces. Users in a workgroup setting could use a fresh napkin to scribble down every new idea. Great, but how do you wipe your mouth?

This lightweight portable would work as a standard laptop or a tablet. Lying flat, it becomes a touchscreen slate that also works with a stylus. Other Asus Waveface projects include the Ultra, a smartphone that you wear on your wrist, and the Casa, a home entertainment and information center.

We wonder if designer Eno Setiawan actually got Sony's attention with this concept incorporating "holographic technology" for a design that’s truly magical and revolutionary (with apologies to Apple’s iPad). Turned off, the glass display would be transparent; the keyboard, opaque. Power it up, and--voilà!--the Zoom's screen and keyboard appear. This concept features a wireless charging system, too.

Here's another two-screen wonder: Asus's innovative prototype does double duty as a laptop with a virtual keyboard or as an iPad-style tablet for media consumption. The inclusion of handwriting recognition makes this dual-screener a good choice for business apps, as well.

This futuristic concept is surprisingly retro. Designer Yang Yongchang's petite iWeb 2.0 portable has a folding keyboard that expands to desktoplike dimensions. Given the netbook's tiny, 6.5-inch screen size, an expandable keyboard makes sense. So what makes it retro? The iWeb is a variation of the "butterfly keyboard" concept that IBM tried briefly back in the 1990s.