Dell are looking to change the workplace game, with these new concepts
Ahead of CES 2022, Dell have taken to showing off a new new concepts that might change the way folks work and play. You might think it is a little odd, that a website dedicated to gaming and fun, is talking about workplace enhancements, but the impacts that these three concepts could bring to streamers at home, gamers chatting friends and more, are just to interesting to pass on by.
Now again, these are currently concepts, which means they could become products, they could never go past this stage or parts of any of them, could end up in other devices or concepts, so with that said, here we go with Flow, Pari and Stanza.
Concept Flow is very interesting for two reasons, one it will keep your desk tidy of cables, something that many folks will appreciate, but the second and more intriguing is that, no longer would you have to plug things back in, if you take your laptop with you. Here is what Dell have said about this unique work flow solution, see the name in that.
Concept Flow is an adaptable concept solution that could eliminate many of these frustrations and productivity disruptors. Our teams have married devices, industry standard wireless charging technology, intelligent software applications and Wi-Fi 6E docking technology to create a singular, seamless experience. Imagine walking up to an intelligent workspace where your laptop automatically connects to the displays, mouse, keyboard and your trusted network before you’ve sat down. You are ready to pick up exactly where you last left off. Simultaneously, as you place your laptop down, it receives power wirelessly (no more fumbling for cords or awkwardly crawling under desks!). And when you’re ready to move to your next location, Concept Flow’s proximity detection feature disconnects you automatically when you leave. That transition between spaces becomes frictionless.
So imagine you have your laptop with you at work, when you get home all you need do is drop it down onto the desk and it not only connects to all the accessories on your desk, but also begins to charge and you don’t have to connect a single cord, consider me impressed.
The second and likely more useful for consumers, is that of Concept Pari, where the webcam is no longer required to be attached to a mount, having you look away from your screen, in order to look into it. This webcam can instead be removed from its dock and stuff to the center of your screen, or the side, the bottom or removed from it entirely and placed pointing down at your desk, or just about anywhere else you can imagine it.
Concept Pari is a simple, moveable wireless web camera with innovative features to help bring more natural, intuitive experiences to virtual collaboration. It can be placed directly – anywhere – on compatible displays, in a charging dock, on a stand, or even held in the hand. This allows users to make direct eye contact with the people they are speaking with and allows for easy sharing of additional offscreen content and viewpoints. Small and light (30g) yet mighty, this iteration features a microphone and can deliver 1080p video over Wi-Fi. It has useful built-in features like a power indicator, vertical indicator light to help with perfect alignment and great angles every time, plus an integrated USB-C dock for wireless charging. The dock can even cradle and charge a reversed camera for extra peace of mind when it comes to privacy.
If this comes to market, will it replace all other cameras around the place? No, not by a long shot, but just being able to host a conversation and not feel like you are staring above the screen, could really be a way to make those video calls feel like you are speaking with someone, rather than at the wall behind your display.
The third concept is the weakest of the three and not because its bad, but because there are already solutions around that do the same thing, Concept Stanza is a way for you to take notes, in any situation and then have them accessible on your PC, without you needing to share them, email them or otherwise transmit them.
What you see in the video at the top and the screens below, is not an iPad or any other existing tablet, but is instead something all new and while it may look like other devices, there are a few key differences. The first is that there are no cameras or speakers on it, though using the pen that comes with it as a microphone, you can still dictate to it and have your words appear on the screen.
Yes, we deliberately chose not to include cameras or speakers, for a distraction-free experience. Every element has been thoughtfully crafted so when you use Concept Stanza, there is no learning curve required; it almost feels like you are taking notes with a pen and paper, except you could double tap to convert your handwriting to text instantly.
Will this replace existing solutions, not really, but the concept of a device, that you can write upon and purely make use of, as a notepad could find a market, though I suspect the pen from it will be the thing that survives going foward.
So that is what Dell think the future of the work related devices, which again has the potential to make the home office/gaming setup even more productive and efficient. But what do you think, are you on board with wireless docking for a laptop, or a portable webcam?
