Ken Hinckley from Microsoft Research has unofficially put together a prototype Tablet PC note-taking application designed and built from ground up around the pen. InkSeine (rhymes with 'insane'), which gives you the ability to easily search the web or your local computer directly from your ink. Although it's scheduled for a public release on February 15, 2008, Microsoft insists that it is not intended for public consumption: "InkSeine is a research demonstration only, and is not a Microsoft product, nor is it intended to become a product. It is just something we built as a pure research project to explore novel pen and ink functionality."
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The most interesting bit (not the FIRST bit, but) is the 'directional marking menu.' That's a really logical extension of the tablet platform, and while it's been done before (in games), it seems like it'd be a practical way for storing lots of commands.
Besides the directional marking menus, command line enthusiasts can take joy in that this could conceivably be used to make any part of the screen where you can write a "command line:" write, circle, execute.
Here's to the tool ring one day replacing the Start button!
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2005-07-06
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Of-course if Microsoft had not killed off Go Computers years ago with it's blitz about Pen-Windows doing it all in the first place. There would be a good chance that all these features would already be available in a commercial product today!
Most of what Microsoft claims it invented was really developed be Go over 15 years ago.
Check out http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0REL/is_n1_v91/ai_9379872/pg... for an example.
PS. Notice how fast Microsoft dropped extending Pen Windows once Go went out of business.
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It's a well worn tactic. Promise features that you know you're never going to produce in order to make your competitor's customers wait for what you have. Wait until your competitor leaves the market or goes out of business and then drop all mention of what you were going to do.
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"InkSeine is a research demonstration only, and is not a Microsoft product, nor is it intended to become a product. It is just something we built as a pure research project to explore novel pen and ink functionality."
Yeah, that sounds like a feature they're 'promising'!
They explicitly mention that they have no plans for a product. Didn't even bother reading the summary, did you?!
Edited 2008-02-11 15:52 UTC
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Well it's not like Microsoft invented the "tabletPC" itself either...
http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bits/stpad.html
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Is it just my imagination or did i just saw parts of BeOS GUI there? 
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Anyway, i don't like idea of pen-only based device. It would be great if it was multi-touch screen AND pen. There's nothing better for operating GUI than fingers 
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But pen is better for writing text (maybe it's just because when we learn to write in early childhood, we use pen?).
Circle-based pop-up menus, and icons are already in use in games and some applications (there was even add-on for Firefox IIRC) so not much "new" there.
If nothing else, maybe this project will let them find out how to make really (or just a bit more than today) user-friendly interface.
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Ok, so how about open sourcing it on codeplex under the MS-RL, MS-PL, or one of the limited equivalents? Probably wishful thinking, but wouldn't this kind of thing, and maybe the powertoys, be the kind of image enhancing thing they are looking for? Aren't they talking about creating a open source software ecosystem around Windows?
Anyway, this is just some random questions. I guess we'll find out more when the thing is released in a couple of days.
Also, here is the actual homepage with more information.
http://research.microsoft.com/users/kenh/InkSeine/
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MS Research is very different from their open source stuff. Research is to come up with ideas to use in other products. Open source is used to help strengthen existing developer communities around their platform products. MS doesn't open source anything for reasons other then that.