Free laptop? No thanks.

An IT exec at  Northeastern university is giving away Lenovo laptops. There's just one problem: The students don't want them - and no, they don't want Apple laptops either.

Their complaint: laptops are way too big and sooo yesterday, says the exec. What they want, he says, is something small, like an iPhone, that they can carry around with them.

The problem is that the technology isn't ready yet: You can't type a term paper on an iPhone - or even on a Blackberry. But if vendors get it right, the next generation is ready to bid adeiu to the laptop.

Students, he says, are much more comfortable relying on hosted services in which their data and application services live in the Internet cloud. What they need is a way to jack into a bigger screen and keyboard to get the work done - and then slide the soap-bar-sized device back into their pocket when done.

This could happen in one of two ways, he predicts. 1. The handheld smart phone could connect wirelessly to a full size keyboard and monitor that sits on a desk, or 2. The device could be accessorized to project a virtual full sized keyboard and display. The full-size keyboard could be projected onto a desktop surface with sensors that read virtual keystrokes as the user types on the image. A magnified display image would then be projected onto a wall or other surface for wide-screen viewing as needed.